This is part 2 of 2 with award-winning poet, author, blogger, and entrepreneur Lillian Brummet. She joins us to discuss how she’s rewritten the narrative of her own career, from the healing power of poetry to evolving her books for lasting success. Lillian also reflects on Poetic Wanderings, a collection of her father-in-law's poetry, which she and her husband published as a tribute to his life. Learn more about Lillian’s creative journey, explore her blogs, and discover her books via this link, or visit her Amazon page.
BookHookup: With so many projects in the pipeline, including Poetic Wanderings and the upcoming memoir collection, how do you manage your time and prioritize tasks?
We do so with a plan–an organized but flexible action plan that will walk us through each step, eventually leading to our goals. We allowed for 1 year of promotional activities after releasing Poetic Wanderings. During that timeframe, promotional activities were balanced with getting the memoir (Down The Road) readied for publication. When it is published, our attention will be redirected to promotional activities for 6 months, before we are ready to release the next book... or take on the next major project.
I like to space out the project or product release dates to allow for appropriate promotions to take place. Creating space in the action plan also allows us to maintain other business services and activities, like managing the blogs and channel.
BookHookup: How do you maintain consistency in your writing voice and quality when working on multiple projects simultaneously?
Scheduling is the solution. We get anywhere from 20,000 to 240,000 visits per month on Brummet's Conscious Blog, so I will prioritize 80% of my time to create content for a short period. When I have generated enough content to last several months ahead, I can relax and focus on creating content for the other blog.
The Drum It With Brummet blog does not take as long to schedule content for several months in advance. So we will focus on that project for just a couple of weeks. At that point, I am ready to create 7-10 videos for the Brummet Media Channel, which I can accomplish in just a couple of days. Once I have all the content scheduled for publication on those 3 platforms I can relax; I can go back to focusing on either writing the next book, querying new markets, or creating promotional opportunities depending on the action plan.
BookHookup : What challenges have you faced during the update and republishing process?
I felt the logistics and data analysis tasks were wearying and draining. However, now that I have learned the formula I feel the process will be easier in the future. I mean, we really had to plan what CTA's and which tools to use for improved read through and reader engagement. That took a lot of time, a lot of research, a lot of mentors helping us out before we got the hang of it and decided which ones to use for each audience. It got easier with each book we updated and we have learned how to improve upcoming publications giving them a better chance at success from the get-go.
BookHookup:
Can you tell us more about the upcoming memoir collection, Down The Road?
This is a passion project honoring Dave's family ancestors (the Brummet clan). It shares 3 generations of memoirs. It starts with Dave's grandmother who writes in broken English, as an elderly woman looking back on her life beginning with her childhood memories of a rural Romanian village to her journey to Canada where she met her new husband and his children. She tells about witnessing a suicide, a neighbor who was murdered on the farm nearby, and raising her children. Her intense religious upbringing intensifies as she ages and becomes her main focus before her passing.
Her eldest son, Dave's Uncle (Tony Brummet), started his career as a high school principal and later became an Education Minister and then Environment Minister within the Canadian government. His biography is included, sharing the impact of his father's death on his childhood.
Dave's father, (Frank Brummet), also shares his life experiences growing up during the depression, sharing how various spots around the Okanagan (BC, Canada) got their names, stories of early settler families from that area, and his personal experiences re: being a father, grieving a wife and facing the end of his own life–he shares it all.
To complete the story... Dave and I are publishing all of this in one book: Down The Road (November 2024).
BookHookup: What are you most excited about in the release of the backyard garden guidebook and the short story collection?
Well the garden guidebook is a personal bucket list project. It captures 3 generations of education and experience–master gardeners who really know their stuff... or "knew" their stuff, since everyone but us are passed on now. We felt it was important to share this now that they have passed, especially now that Dave and I have downsized and are not gardening like we once were. Gardening is coming back again and people are struggling with finding ways to reduce the workload, conserve water, increase variety, get better nutrition and learn what to do with those harvests too. So we put a plan together for them. From One Small Yard is in rough draft manuscript stage, but will act like a "sister" or companion to the FromOne Small Garden cookbook.
Fiction is where we really want to head next... and so the short story collection is a way to introduce readers to our fiction. I'm super excited about releasing this one too!
BookHookup: How has the relocation transition period affected your work, and what strategies have you used to get back on track?
As we aged it became too heavy to bear the financial and physical burden of running a 1,900 sq. ft. home, the large yard, edible landscaping and 10 raised garden beds. The business was gaining speed and our upcoming projects were weighing us down. We decided to pursue a semi-retirement lifestyle, slowly transitioning Dave from his former "day job" to working the business from home full time.
Downsizing to a smaller home in a retirement community meant we had to shut down the office for a few months in order to accommodate the transition. Once we started up the office again I felt totally overwhelmed and depressed, actually exhausted, by all that needed to be done. I felt so far behind–that there was so much to do, that I didn't even want to face it. Instead of letting myself feel defeated before I even started–we decided to create a simple list of things that we felt were a priority. We started with clearing the clutter by catching up on emails and reorganizing the filing cabinet. Then we focused on the follow-up activities (reconnecting with the previous year's contacts) and creating content for the main blog.
Now that these things are done, I can schedule time for creating content for the channel. Doing things in this order will allow us to get back to the publication schedule with less pressure, less weight on our shoulders.
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