How does one decide to give away round trip tickets to Denver, accommodations, and two full days fishing, for reading and promoting the Advanced Reader Copy of Shadow Tier?
The seed for this idea was planted long ago by a father and his brother who were known as unconventional. I started to emulate my role models in a second generation Redwood forest in northern California and then in the suburbs of the San Francisco bay area.
Teachers, Boy Scout leaders, church leaders, the California Highway Patrol, and others watched, counseled, but mostly warned me about the path I was on. Looking back, I see what a pain in their backsides I was.
Steven is a handful was a common sentiment.
I was always questioning, why do we have to do it that way? That’s stupid….
That’s the way we always do it was like nails on a chalkboard. I’ll be honest, it still is.
Several times during my active-duty Army time and as Technical Security Specialist for the Secret Service, leadership put me back in my place, at least temporarily. Then I found the world of special operations and in particular US Army Special Forces.
Now you are thinking, what’s the big deal? It's still part of the Government and it’s the Army. How is that any different or less structured? Well, it’s one of those matters of degrees. It is the Army with all its structure, labels, guidelines, and policies. But regular Army as we call it, is structured days of physical training, formations, work in your career field (tanks, helicopters, infantry) get off duty at 5pm: rinse and repeat. Boring right? Chain of command. Rigid. Same, same, same…
To be fair there are many good reasons why regular Army is like it is. And while not perfect, ours is the best in the world.
Now let’s look at US Army Special Forces, aka Green Berets. Masters of many warfare and training disciplines. If you are not deployed, you are usually at a school learning a new skill in your job category, a language, or cross training in one of the jobs on the team. You are constantly challenged to think on your feet, adapt, and overcome whatever obstacles might be in your way. When deployed as training advisors, an advanced force, or in combat you are always working to get better and find new ways to accomplish your mission. Where regular Army moves at a measured pace, special operations forces innovate rapidly, outside the normal Defense Department channels. Simply stated, unconventional warfare requires unconventional thinking.
So that was a long-winded way to say questioning why, combined with unconventional thinking, and an innovative mindset is who I am.
I surveyed the book marketing business and saw a well understood and followed model for new authors. Build a website, join in the social media community, go to conferences, and build your pre-publication platform. Of course, there are authors that do it differently, and very well. Jack Carr is a great example of an author who has harnessed the US Navy SEAL platform and taken it multi-media while writing great books that thousands of loyal fans read.
So, acknowledging that I am an unknown new author who wants to get his name and debut book out to a wider audience I looked at my assets and thought, what can I offer? I hunt, fish, ride dirt bikes, skydive (in wind tunnels like iFly), mountain bike, and in general love being outdoors. Fishing was an easy winner, low risk, easy to teach, and I live in Colorado. My wife loves fishing too, if it's not too cold out.
Some of the other assets I have accumulated over the years include air miles, from visiting my cyber security customers in the Intelligence and Military communities, and a cabin in Colorado.
The final piece - I knew I needed help to formulate the giveaway and more importantly, help execute the plan, while I continue my day job. So, I turned to BTS Designs and here we are.
I hope you are as excited about the giveaway as I am. I look forward to interacting with everyone that joins Steve’s Squadron and having a fun time with the winner.
All the best.
Steve