Happy National Poetry Month!


April is National Poetry Month!
Stop by my website to see some of my poetry performances and to get your copy of Straight from a Diva's Heart.

Thanks for stopping by!
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Diva Love: LaShaunda Hoffman

Today I would like to welcome Shades of Romance Magazine Founder and Promotion Queen, LaShaunda Hoffman. I have learned so much from her and encourage all writers to check out her Don't Rock Fear Tour below.





       Thanks for following the Don’t ROCK Fear Blog Tour. 
Welcome to day eight of the tour. I would like to thank Michelle for letting me share with you today.


Today’s Promotion Fear – I Can’t Toot My Own Horn
A lot of writers have a hard time tooting their own horn. I will be honest and say I fall into this category.  I can promote other people’s book with no problem. I love raving about other books, I’ve been doing it for years. You would think when it came to my own book, I wouldn’t have a problem.



I can only speak for myself, but it feels like bragging when I rave about my own book. That little monster name fear, pops in and whispers in my ear. Who are you to be talking about your book? I don’t know why I listen but I do and instead of shouting to the world about my book, I keep quiet.
This happened to me when I published my book. I had this huge promotion plan and I was ready to work it and the fear knocked on my door and I let him in. He said, you don’t have to say anything, everybody you know will buy your book.
I found out the hard way, that’s not how it works. Most times you friends and family members aren’t your audience so they aren’t going to buy your book. My book was for writers and business owners so I had to get out there and find my audience.
Instead of letting fear win, I sat down and had a virtual tea session with myself. If I wanted to sell books and meet readers, I had to work my plan. It was not going to work for myself and the readers would not come just because I wrote a book.
I looked over my plan and picked out the things that were comfortable and then I picked one or two things that scared me to death and did those first. Each month I was promoting and each month it was getting a little easier to toot my own horn.
If one of your fears is tooting your own horn, here are few suggestions.
     1. Remember readers can’t buy your book if they don’t know it exists.
     2. You are your best book seller. You know what your book is about and what makes it great.
     3. Create a team. Sometimes help will bring you out your comfort zone.  
     4. Word of mouth still works. You tell someone and they tell someone and they tell someone.
          It starts with YOU.
     5. Always have a plan for your promotion. Then you know what to toot.
Now you don’t have to ROCK this fear anymore. You have these tips to help start tooting your own horn. Go out there and TOOT.
I would like to invite you to register for the Don’t ROCK Fear – Promotion Mindset 7 Day challenge and kick fear in the butt.
This challenge is for writers, business owners and anyone who is dealing with fear. Don’t let fear ROCK You.

You are also welcome to join the See Ya On The Promotion Training Group, where we teach you how to be a social butterfly.

Leave a comment for a chance to win...

Are you dealing with promotion fears? Leave one of your fears in the comments for a chance to win registration to the Don’t ROCK Fear – Promotion Mindset 7 Day challenge.




About the Author

LaShaunda C. Hoffman took her love for books and turned it into an award winning online magazine, Shades of Romance Magazine.  Her mission in life is to introduce as many books as she can to readers. She’s happily married mother of three who believes in dreams and working hard to achieve them.  She has a promotion strategy program – Virtual Tea With LaShaunda where writers and business owners learn how to create promotion strategies for their online promotions.
In 2015, she published her first book, Building Online Relationships – One Reader At A Time, a book to help writers stay consistent with their promotion by building relationships with their readers.
Don’t ROCK Fear Blog Stops
Learn more about Promotion Fears on the blog tour.  
The person who visits all the stops and leaves a comment will be entered for a chance to win registration for the Don’t ROCK Fear – Promotion Mindset 7 Day Challenge
March 20-Nothing But Books- http://pauletteharper.blogspot.com/
March 21- The Literary Entrepreneur- http://theliteraryentrepreneur.com/
March 22- Tracee Garner- https://teegarner.com/
March 23- Sylvia Hubbard- https://sylviahubbard.com/
March 24- Rose Jackson-Beavers- http://www.rosejacksonbeavers.com/
March 28- SORMAG’s Blog- http://sormag.blogspot.com
March 29- Michelle Stephens- http://www.michellelynnstephens.com/
March 31- Patricia Saunders- http://www.blessedpoetpat.blogspot.com



A Diva's Heart is the blog of National Bestselling Author and Poet, Michelle Lynn Stephens.
Michelle writes to inspire and uplift people after troubled times.Visit her website at www.michellelynnstephens.com                            

                         
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March Madness: Mad Diva Finale

My favorite team has survived March Madness! The University of North Carolina will be among the teams playing on April 1st in its record-setting 20th NCAA Men's Basketball Final Four appearance. Before I cheer them on, I will be closing out my March Madness on that day by giving away a Kindle copy of my debut novel from 2012, as it approaches the 5th anniversary of publication. Be sure to check it out!


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Happy National Single Parents' Day!

As a child of divorce, I was raised by a single mother. I was blessed that my dad was around as much as possible, but the one who does the daily grind always faces challenging times. As a former social worker, I know all too well the struggle and problems that some single parents encounter. It can be physically, mentally and financially draining, yet very rewarding.

Congratulations to all who are hanging in there on the crazy, wonderful journey that single parenting is!

This week's March Madness Mad Diva Giveaway will have up to three winners and is dedicated to you!

March Madness Mad Diva Giveaway: Single Parents Day Edition


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March Madness:Mad Diva Monday




It's that time of year! Time for the NCAA Men's Basketball tournament and March Madness is in full effect. I am super excited that all of my teams are represented. My favorite team of all, University of North Carolina, is a #1 seed. My alma mater, UNC-Greensboro is playing and my parents' school, North Carolina Central University, is doing big things and is also scheduled to play. I am celebrating them and you by holding giveaways all this month.This week you can visit my author page on Facebook through the link below for a chance to win a iBook copy of my bestselling anthology, Single Mama Dating Drama. Good luck and I hope you enjoy!

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THE FIFTEENTH SEPTEMBER


September is a bittersweet month for me. It is filled with celebrations of life as there are multiple Virgos in my immediate family, including myself and my mom, but it has also become a time of remembering death. Fifteen years ago, on September 11, 2001, I was staring out of the window at University of North Carolina Hospitals. My birthday was the next day, but it was overshadowed with wondering how I would survive the 12 hours days with my full-time internship in the psychiatric ward and my part-time job in admissions at night. Not physically, but mentally. It was the first time I'd been back there since my dad’s sudden cardiac death four years earlier in September of 1997, just a few days before he would have some time off and could celebrate a belated birthday lunch he had promised me. Ironically, I saw him in passing traffic as I sped to work just hours before his death and we waved and smiled. He pointed his finger like I was busted for driving too fast and I couldn’t wait to meet up again and laugh about it, but that was not to be. I was called out of work and told to rush to home that afternoon. Mom was waiting there to drive me to the hospital and would only say that my dad had been admitted. When we arrived, the staff who knew him had looks of pity on the path to the room where the doctor tried to explain to me that Dad was gone. He not only died there, but had worked there for over 20 years. It was a hard day for many of his colleagues and I cannot fathom how they felt being there over the weeks that followed. Since he worked the night shift, I often had to drop by there to be able to see him at all, so that place had always been a big part of my life.

Being back there again was hard. His memory was in every nook and cranny, as I used to walk around with him on his safety checks of the building at times and I had avoided dealing with the reality of him being gone, but here it haunted me and it was all I could think about. On this particular day, those thoughts were shook by death of a different kind. The television hanging on the wall was blaring with.reports of death of an unimaginable magnitude. America was under attack and my day had just become even harder, but then I realized it was no longer just about me. September had forever become a time of grief for my entire country. Even in times of political and racial division, September still brings our hearts and minds together, if just for one moment of silence when the bell tolls. As the fifteenth September 11th since 2001 comes to a close, I pray that closure will come in more ways than one and that it will transition from a time of mourning to a time of dancing. Celebrating that we were once privileged to know those souls that we lost. Remembering the lives once abundant and asking "O Death, where is your sting...?".

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IT TAKES A VILLAGE




Most of the people who have been with me on my artistic journey are not biological family or even friends who I grew up with. For the most part, they were strangers, until a common interest brought us in a room together, somewhere in time. Then, something beautiful happened. Some of us kept tabs on each other and we became a village. One such stranger was @kismuth. We both attended an open mic at the library one day and we shared stories and poems, we laughed, we cried, we hugged. We exchanged social media information and somewhere in cyberspace, I discovered that we had a lot more in common. Our hometown, our first books in 2012 and even the YMCA where I saw her again. Our lives have remained on eerily similar paths. We have both been exploring. While I was traveling the U.S. East Coast, she was on a voyage to the Eastern hemisphere of the world. Now, we both have new works being published in September of this year. Mine is an anthology of short stories with my Brown Girls Books family and hers is a book appropriately titled, The Village Report. Join us tonight as we chat about it on Twitter, along with some other friends she has met along the way. Perhaps you, too, will become a part of the village. Hope to see you there!








#villagereport
Twitter 9 p.m.
August 17, 2016
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