If There’s Anything We Can Do…

More people than I can count have uttered these words in the past three weeks:

If there’s anything we can do to help, please let us know.

There is something. In fact, there are two somethings.

The first is what many of you are already doing: Praying for me and my family. God’s pure white light has touched us to our very cores here in the Neilson household and we have been surrounded by daily miracles (I’ll be sharing these in an upcoming post). For that, there are no words. We are deeply humbled and very grateful.

The second request is this: Please subscribe to my blog.

Hang in there; there’s a method to my madness.

I had a lengthy discussion with my literary agent, Jessica Faust of Bookends, LLC, last Monday. She and I have been working together on a memoir for several months, one that would tell the story of the BRCA genes as well as of the four generations of women in my family who have been identified as carriers.

Three weeks ago, this story took a sudden, jerky turn in the road. And I am more compelled and driven to complete it than ever before. It seems that there was a final piece that I had been waiting for — I just didn’t know it.

Jessica is an extremely talented, successful, well-respected and highly-sought agent and I am indeed blessed to have her on my team. She believes so strongly in my writing abilities and this story that she told me last Monday that she will go into the trenches to sell it to a publisher.

In order to do that, though, I have to supply a final missing piece from my end: blog subscribers. Publishers in the year 2011 are not only looking for talented writers, but also for proof that a writer has a “platform” — defined in many ways, but in this case, they’d be looking at my existing social network, including a facebook page, twitter account, blog — and at least 5,000 blog subscribers.

That’s where you come in. The number of daily hits on my blog has skyrocketed in the past three weeks. But publishers want more than just hits — they want subscribers. It’s free, involves hitting the Email Subscription button on my blog, and entering your email addy. Baadaaboom — baadaabing — you are a subscriber. You will receive an email alert each time I post something new. That’s it.

But this small act on your part will make all the difference. It’ll give me the best shot of grabbing a publisher’s attention. Which would lead to the publication of my book — a story of hope and also of life-saving scientific advancements. I want to spread the word far and wide. I know it won’t just touch lives — it will save them.

My goal is to reach 5,000 subscriptions to my blog by March 3, 2011 — the day that would have marked five years cancer-free for me. Though I won’t be celebrating that mark on that day — not this year, anyway — help me to make it a day of celebration. Subscribe to my blog and ask everyone you know to do the same.

I’ve added an Email Subscription option to my blog. Scroll down and you’ll see it appear along the right side. Enter your email addy. Pass the word on to others to do the same.

Meanwhile, I’ll keep posting updates to my blog’s subscription numbers — until we are up and over the 5,000 mark.