Friday Fun – Anxiety and Comfort Levels with Promotion

Friday Fun is a group post from the writers of the NHWN blog. Each week, we’ll pose and answer a different, get-to-know-us question. We hope you’ll join in by providing your answer in the comments.

QUESTION: When it comes to publishing, PR, and promotion (including “platform building” and “marketing”), what causes you the most anxiety and what are you most comfortable handling?

Lisa J. Jackson: What causes the most anxiety is doing in-person events. I’m getting better at it as I do more events, but being face-to-face with folks pushes me out of my comfort zone a lot. I like the uncomfortable feeling because it means I’m growing and pushing myself, but I get anxious when I feel the words don’t come right to mind when I need them. I can be quite comfortable with silence, just not when it’s an awkward pause as I formulate a sentence. I’m most comfortable with scheduling the time to do the tasks associated with PR and promotion. I can be inspired by an online or in-person activity and get it on my calendar with ease. I’m great with time management.

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Jamie Wallace: Though marketing is what I do for a living, I have yet to come at it from the perspective of a writer promoting her services or body of work. In fact, truth be told, I’ve done precious little self-marketing for my marketing business which runs primarily on word-of-mouth referrals and repeat business from happy customers. The types of marketing I’m most comfortable with are, unsurprisingly, content-related: blog posts, articles, ebooks, etc. I’ve also started experimenting with audio and may integrate some video later this year. Like Lisa, public speaking has always made me anxious. Though I’ve gotten much better thanks to work I did in my friend Cheryl’s Platinum Presence workshop, it’s something I still have to psych myself up for. At the end of the day, I believe that finding your marketing groove is more about mindset than about mastering any particular skill or technique. It’s about knowing that you have a right to be here. Once you get past that hurdle, the rest tends to come a lot easier.

Diane MacKinnon: Most of my time in the past twenty years has been spent one-on-one with people, whether life-coaching clients or patients, and I’m most comfortable speaking with people (even groups) face-to-face, even when the topic is myself and what I have to offer. I find the whole social media thing very intimidating. I don’t want to waste people’s time with unnecessary content in their in-box or on their Facebook wall. I agree with Jamie, though. The most important thing is knowing you have a place at the table, whatever table you choose to sit at. That mindset took me a long time to develop, especially with regard to marketing, mostly because I trained as a physician at a time when it was considered really tacky to promote yourself in any way (before the advent of Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz.) I’m inspired by my colleagues skills at social media and plan to continue to learn from them. (Lisa helped me update my LinkedIn page just recently!)

Julie Hennrikus: As always, love reading what my blog mates have to say on this. Here’s my $.02–I am much better at promoting a friend than myself. So (and this is going to sound nuts, but here we go) J.A. Hennrikus author is a friend who I feel more comfortable promoting. I am getting much better at public speaking, and have a few other things I can talk about, so I can make it less about me me me, and more about engagement.

 

photo: M. Shafer

Deborah Lee Luskin: I love speaking in public! I love meeting my readers! But I don’t love asking for readings or sending out press releases or organizing all the details; this is when I wish I had a publicist. (Someday . . . ). But mostly, I like to write. I love being a contributor to this blog, and one of these days, I’ll start one of my own. But updating my website is one of those tasks that’s been on my “to do” list for going on two years. So much to do, so little time.

 

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It’s about them, dummy

This post is in reply to a request for more marketing writing information.

My sister is in a Social Media class and she pointed me to this little gem of a video that brilliantly shows the relationship between the “Advertiser” and the “Customer.”

Advertiser vs. Customer

It’s a point that I need to state time and time again when I’m working with businesses.

It’s not about you, it’s about your audience.

Yeah, sure, you think your business is great (and maybe it is), but if you can’t sell your need or products to a customer, you’re going to be nothing.

So many people still don’t get this. They write about all the good things their business has done. They start marketing material off with “We are.” We are doing this. We are doing that. We’ve won this award. We are great.

But what they really need to do is write about how the good things they are doing can create a benefit to their audience’s lives. Will it make things go bigger, faster, or more efficiently? Will it amuse them? Why should they care about what you are doing?

When I’m reading marketing material, and it starts with “we” I sigh. It’s the pompous Uncle at the Thanksgiving table who’s going to dominate the conversation for the next 15 minutes, isn’t it? Pass the potatoes and it’s time for a little daydream, I know where this is going and I’m checking out.

Here, in a nutshell, is the ultimate challenge for the marketing writer – to always, always present the business’s accomplishments in the context of the audience’s needs and to not fall victim to the bloated, playground bragging style that far too many companies feel is the better way to go.

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Wendy Thomas is an award winning journalist, columnist, and blogger who believes that taking challenges in life will always lead to goodness. She is the mother of 6 funny and creative kids and it is her goal to teach them through stories and lessons.

Wendy’s current project involves writing about her family’s experiences with chickens (yes, chickens). (www.simplethrift.wordpress.com)

It’s not as easy as it looks, which is why a good copywriter is something that a business will hold onto.

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Friday Fun – (How) are you building your author platform?

Friday Fun is a group post from the writers of the NHWN blog. Each week, we’ll pose and answer a different, get-to-know-us question. We hope you’ll join in by providing your answer in the comments.

QUESTION: Part 1: Are you building your author platform? Part 2: IF you are, how are you doing it?

Lisa J. Jackson: I’ve been building my author platform for a while now. I use the pseudonym Lisa Haselton for all my fiction. I started on MySpace with an author page, but that has since gone by way of the dinosaur. Right now I have a Facebook author page and a blog that get my name out there. Also, I use my pseudonym in my role as chat moderator at The Writer’s Chatroom to also build name recognition. I currently have short stories published; no novels yet, but it’s never too early to start building the platform!

Deborah Lee Luskin: My author platform is secondary to my first love, which is writing. I publish about five essays a month: two are broadcast on Vermont Public Radio, two appear on this blog, and one appears in our local, independent, newspaper. These are a great way to reach and build an audience between novels, which I complete with much lesser frequency! I’m also on Facebook, with a page for myself and for my published novel, Into the Wilderness, and I have a wonderful webpage, which averages 50+ hits/day – which adds up to more people than I know. I have plans to update the website, to consolidate my Facebook pages, to learn how to tweet – and when it becomes imperative, I will. For now, it’s more important I just keep writing.

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Julie Hennrikus: I have a Facebook page, and I use Twitter. A lot. I also have a blog (which I am terrible about keeping up with, but I try). And, of course, I am here. This year I am the President of Sisters in Crime New England, and I just joined Mystery Writers of America. All of these add to my platform, as does the rest of my life. I use social media for my StageSource life, and for Sisters in Crime, so it is all part of the practice. My social media mix is that you should tweet, share/like 80% for and about other people. 20% for yourself. So a lot of building a platform is being part of a community, and paying it forward for the day when I am (please please please) releasing a novel.

Wendy Thomas: It’s so important to build your platform. It’s one of the first things any agent is going to ask you about when you submit a manuscript. Basically your platform should answer the question of why you are qualified to write what you write. It also answers the secondary question of “how many people could potentially buy your work?”

To be qualified in writing means that you have to get your name out there in your field and it has to be out there often. To accomplish this I’m on Twitter, Facebook, and write for several blogs. I write for newspapers, magazines, have been featured on TV and on radio.  I teach classes and give presentations. I try to comment on others blogs in the same genre as mine (quite honestly, that’s my weakest link simply due to time constraints.) I also send out press releases to local publications when I have something that is newsworthy.

At one point I was spending about 2 hours a day just on building my platform, I don’t have to allocate that much time anymore, but that’s only because I spent the time building up a solid foundation. Like it or not, part of writing is selling your expertise to the world and the only way to do that is to market your work.

Jamie Wallace: I have not yet begun to build a platform as a fiction author, but I have put a lot of time and effort into building my platform as a marketing writer. Like Wendy, I write regularly for multiple blogs (mine as well as collaborative sites) and have guest posted on others. I have been interviewed on podcasts, presented and co-presented webinars, given in-person trainings and talks, and spoken on industry panels. I am also very engaged in social media, primarily Twitter. (Facebook, for me, is all about being social (not about business), and although it’s making some strides, LinkedIn is still a bit too stodgy for me.) In the world of my “day job,” I can trace almost all of my current work back to social media interactions. For instance, I met a woman several years ago while taking an online course about white paper writing. A year or so later, she referred me to an agency who then hired me for a project and has since hired me for about a dozen more. In another case, a friend who I originally met in that same online class gave me the heads up on an alert from a writing mentor who was going to be in town and was inviting people to join him for brunch. Both my friend and I showed up (and had a wonderful time). During the event, I connected with the woman sitting to my right. She and I have become great friends and she constantly refers work to me.

If you’d like to read more about my thoughts on this topic, you can check out my four-part series on building the writer’s platform. You may also like Building Your Social Network from Scratch. Good luck!

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Where Do You Find New To You Books To Read?

I was a voracious reader as a child. In those days, book recommendations came in the form of school assignments or the Scholastic Book club flyers. Fast forward more years than I’d care to count, I am once again a voracious reader. I have a Kindle people and I am NOT afraid to use it! I have a bunch of samples in a folder labeled TBR (To Be Read), but I don’t think you can EVER have enough books in the wings. I am always looking for book recommendations.

So, in a reversal of the old “You show me yours and I’ll show you mine”, I’ll tell you where I get my book recommendations, hoping, you’ll tell me where you get yours. Who knows, maybe we’ll both end up with new suppliers of good book crack.

• Twitter – Although I’ve heard it said otherwise, I get many of my book recommendations from Twitter. I follow a number of my favorite authors and a few editors. I always know when my fav’s next release is due, but they are also excellent sources for new authors. They tweet “Happy Release Day to XYZ” and I head to Amazon to check it out.
• Amazon – Speaking of the behemoth, I frequently get book recommendations for new Authors from the “Customers Who Bought This Also Bought” section.
• Yahoo! Groups – I’m subscribed to several Yahoo! Groups associated with different writing groups. Some of them are made up of local writers that I know IRL, but several are large groups made up of writers from around the country and around the world. I’ll skim the table of contents at the top of the summary post looking for new release announcements and again head off to Amazon to grab a sample.
• Publisher E-mails – I’ve consented to allow a few romance publishers to market directly too me. Carina Press is the one that jumps to mind, but there are a handful of others. It’s nice to get the cover, a description and an excerpt right in my in box

Those are my biggies. I have yet to sign on to Good Reads because I’m not one to check out reviews prior to buying a book. I prefer to make my own judgement based on the sample I’ve read.

What is your best source for book recommendations?

Lee Laughlin is a writer, wife, and mom, frequently all of those things at once. She blogs at Livefearlesslee.com. Her words have appeared in a broad range of publications from community newspapers to the Boston Globe.

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Pause Before You Tweet

Last week, KitchenAid had a twitter catastrophe. On Friday, StubHub had a moment of their own. In both cases someone sent out a personal tweet under the company account.

Now, this is very easy to do. I tweet for myself, Sisters in Crime New England, and StageSource. I use Hootsuite to maintain some semblance of control over my Twitter universe. But once in a while, I will tweet something as StageSource that should have been from SinCNE, or vice versa. But, while a tweet about Tace Baker’s new book coming from StageSource doesn’t make sense, it isn’t destructive to our brand per se. Because I save the snark for real life.

I talk to my students about this all the time, but now is a good moment to have this conversation again. Never, ever write something you wouldn’t say over a loud speaker. In a packed football stadium. Don’t put it in an email. And definitely don’t put it out on social media. There is no privacy. Don’t assume that there is, no matter what your security settings say.

Additionally, be the person you want to be on social media. If you follow me on Twitter, you know that I love theater, I teach, I write, I read. I occasionally run. You may be able to tell what my political leanings are, but only by seeing who I am RTing during debates. You don’t know if I am single or in a relationship. You don’t know the name of my nieces and nephews. You know a lot, but not everything. You know what I want you to know.

Now, Twitter is a great tool for conversation. I have made some great connections through these conversations. But it is very public. So is email for that matter. So if I want a conversation to be private, I make a phone call. If I need to rant, I ask for a coffee date. But on social media? I try to keep it positive. These days I have so many balls in the air, I am constantly asking myself “do I care if the wrong person sees this?” If the answer is yes, I edit.

It is a crazy, exciting social media highway out there. Just drive safely.

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Overwhelmed by marketing? Start marketing.

I originally published this post at my Suddenly Marketing blog, but I think it has a lot of relevance for writers and authors as well as for entrepreneurs. In today’s publishing world, authors are brands – like it or not. Whether you’re hoping to sell a lot of books through indie channels, or attract the attention of a traditional publisher, you will need to do some marketing – branding, platform development, social media engagement, and digital PR. It can be overwhelming. Most of us hardly have time to do our creative work, never mind being responsible for hawking it via a marketing plan. This post delivers a little reality check. Marketing is just like writing – you reach your goals one step, one day, one task at a time. There’s no magic – just getting it done – little-by-little, however you can. 

Are you feeling so overwhelmed by the marketing you think you should be doing that you don’t do any marketing at all?

Do you start to gear up to tackle one marketing task and then realize that it’s connected to something else that’s connected to something else that’s connected to something else, and then you give up?

Does the very word “marketing” give you a case of vertigo?

You’re not alone.

I hear these kinds of things all the time from people who want to take charge of their marketing, but just don’t know where to start. I don’t blame them. I’ve been at this gig for a decade now, and even I feel overwhelmed now and again. There is just so much to take in – new strategies, new technology, new tactics. I subscribe to over a hundred marketing blogs just to try and keep up with what’s happening in this crazy marketing landscape.

So, how do you get unstuck?

I am a big believer in strategy. When you put together a strong, sensible strategy, all that gooey stuff that was confusing the heck out of you suddenly becomes clear. When you have a plan that’s built on goals, resources, and ability, you can stop stressing about what to do and just get on with doing it. Yep – I really like a good strategy. In fact I’m very excited that I’ll soon be unveiling a whole new Suddenly Marketing that delivers a unique way to think about and approach your marketing strategy, BUT…

I totally understand that for some people (especially solopreneurs who are wearing six different hats and working eighteen hours a day), it’s not feasible to carve out the time (or budget) to dedicate to brand development and marketing strategy. Believe me – I get that. The “new” Suddenly Marketing has been in the works for THREE YEARS. (No, I’m not kidding.)

SO … I’d like to offer you a get out of jail free card:

Just. Start. Marketing.

I know, I know – sounds like empty advice, right? It’s not.

In a perfect world, each of us would have the luxury of time and money to spend developing a seriously well thought out and buttoned up plan. However, the world I live in is anything but perfect. I’m guessing your address isn’t in Perfectsville either.

Here’s what you do:

1. Stop beating yourself up.
2. Step back and take a deep breath.
3. Know that a plan is a good thing.
4. Start to cultivate a geeky love for a good plan.
5. But, while you’re waiting for time to sit down and craft that plan, pick a marketing task and do it.

Don’t overthink. Don’t overanalyze. For the sake of all that’s holy to you, don’t compare your marketing to anyone else’s marketing. There will be plenty of time for that later. For now, you just want to get your “marketing legs” under you, so to speak.

Your goal is not marketing brilliance, it’s marketing momentum.

You know that if you want to read a book, you have to read one page at a time.

You know that if you want to have six-pack abs, you have to do one crunch at a time.

You know that if you want to amass million dollars, you have save one dollar at a time.

Marketing is no different.

Start somewhere. Start anywhere. Just start.

The best thing about this non-strategy strategy is that it gets you doing something. It gets you experimenting. You’ll be learning a lot: what works, what doesn’t, what you’re good at, what you never want to do again. The more you talk about your business, the more you’ll understand how to talk about your business. The more you talk to your customers, the more you’ll understand your customers and their needs.

Pick one thing.

Start today. What one thing can you do to kick start your marketing momentum?

• Join a LinkedIn (or Quora or Focus or …) group and answer a question
• Write one blog post
• Write one guest blog post
• Unleash your blogging honey badger
• Update your “About” page
• Update your LinkedIn profile
• Brainstorm topics for your next three months of blog posts
• Brainstorm the stories behind your brand
• Retweet some posts to your Twitter followers
• Make a list of your favorite brands
• Make a list of your least favorite brands
• Make a mindmap of your brand’s purpose
• Make a mindmap of what your customers say about you
• Go on vacation
• Offer to speak to a local group or class
• Have coffee with a colleague
• Install sharing tools on your blog
• Sign up for an email service (like Mailchimp)
• Read a few blog posts – on marketing or your competitors
• Face your marketing fears
• Set up a new social media account – Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc.
• Take yourself for a walk and rediscover your enthusiasm

Each of these is a valid and valuable marketing task. Don’t worry about whether you’re picking the “right” thing or the “smartest” thing or the “most important” thing. Just pick something and do it. Read that first page. Do that first crunch. Save that first dollar. Before you know it, you’ll be building up your marketing momentum and then the sky’s the limit.

What keeps you from tackling your marketing monsters? Which tasks do you fear most? Which do you kinda-sorta-almost enjoy? What are your marketing goals between now and the end of the year? 

Jamie Lee Wallace is a writer who also happens to be a marketer. She helps her Suddenly Marketing clients discover their voice, connect with their audience, and find their marketing groove. She is also a mom, a prolific blogger, and a student of voice and trapeze (not at the same time). Introduce yourself on facebook or twitter. She doesn’t bite … usually.

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Image Credit: Angela Cirrone Smith

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LinkedIn for Journalists

Back in January, I talked about how LinkedIn is a networking resource for writers.

Today, I’m going to talk specifically about one group for journalists that has a lot to offer if you’re in the journalism field.

The group is aptly called LinkedIn for Journalists. You request to be added, and will only be accepted if the staff can confirm, by reading your profile, that you are a journalist. So, it’s not only critical that you’re already on LinkedIn, but that also you have a comprehensive profile, and some connections.

The 40-minute training is valuable in that it shows you the additional features you’ll have with a premium LinkedIn membership and how those additional features can benefit your writing career. It isn’t a sales pitch, there’s nothing to purchase. By participating in the training, you receive a 1-year free upgrade to premium LinkedIn.

If you want people who view your profile to know you have a premium account, you can have the ‘in’ badge appear on your profile.

For the training, you use your phone for the audio and you sign in to your profile so you can see what the instructor is explaining. You’ll gain deeper search abilities with an upgraded account meaning you can search all LinkedIn members as a whole, or just in a few groups you belong to, you can search on relationship level to you, seniority level within a company, and so much more.

Think of the power you have to find the resources you need for an article you are researching if you’re able to search on any key word(s) you want and to any drilled down level you need. Here’s a sampling of the type of drilling down you can do to find resources (the categories with the ‘in’ badge are only available to premium members).

The next LinkedIn for Journalists training is October 3 at 1PM EST. You sign up by commenting on the discussion within the group with the headline “the next LinkedIn for Journalists training”.  You’ll receive an email from the LinkedIn staff member who is running the training with all the details you need (and with an offer to share it with your editorial team members). The training is offered at least monthly, so don’t feel like you will miss out if you aren’t ready by Oct 3.

I’m still getting used to the new features, but my favorite is being able to see who has viewed my profile. I get to peek behind the curtain when I see these numbers now, and it’s fun!

 

So, it’s not as though you have to be a journalist to get the premium features, but if you are a journalist, you can be upgraded for free. There may be other opportunities for other categories of LinkedIn members to receive a similar opportunity, but I haven’t come across it yet.

Are you on LinkedIn yet?

 

Lisa J. Jackson is a New England-region journalist and a year-round chocolate and iced coffee lover. She is now enjoying the benefits of a premium LinkedIn membership. She writes fiction as Lisa Haselton, has an award-winning blog for book reviews and author interviews, and is on the staff of The Writer’s Chatroom. Connect with her on LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter. 

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Dear self-publishing writer …

Me – preparing to climb up on my soapbox at NHCC’s self-publishing event.

Self-publishing is big. Really big. Everyone is talking about it – writers, publishers, retailers, the press, industry analysts … everyone. It’s no surprise. Today’s technology gives anyone anywhere the ability to bypass traditional publishing and take her work to the street, so to speak. Three cheers for the emancipation of the artist!

Or not.

I recently had the absolute pleasure of speaking, along with two others, to a group of writers and artists at the New Hampshire Creative Club (NHCC). (Note to any creatives looking for a great professional organization – these people are super nice and super talented. Worth checking out.) The topic at hand was self-publishing. The other speakers covered things from the perspective of the writer and the publisher. Lee Richmond, a published author, told the story of his adventures in old school publishing as compared to his new adventure with self-publishing. Peter Randall, an indie publisher since 1970, provided an inside look at what goes into making a book – from printing to distribution. Me? I talked about marketing.

I got up on my soapbox a bit, too.

As an aspiring novelist (I can say that even though I haven’t written a word of fiction in three years), it pains me to see how frequently marketing is tacked on as an afterthought. I get that the creative piece is The Thing. Crafting the story is the soul of our efforts. It is driven by our deepest, most heartfelt “why.” There is a reason so many people compare writing a book with giving birth to a child. We put so much of ourselves and our lives into the process; it’s easy to be blind to anything outside our cocoon or ideas and words.

But, if our intention is to make the project profitable, we have to balance our inner work with the realities of the outside world. We have to tear our bleary eyes away from the screen, pry our fingers from around our lucky fountain pens. We must think beyond the creation of the book and consider the audience for the book. Who will read this story of ours? How we will get it into their hands?

That’s where marketing comes in.

In my presentation to the folks of the NHCC, I explained that marketing is not – as many people assume – about selling. Sales is about selling. Marketing is about connecting. If you do a good job with your marketing, if you create a strong enough connection with your audience, sales will take care of themselves. Nice, right?

So, how do you do that?

The answer is certainly longer than I can cram into this modest blog post, but I pulled together a few relevant posts and other information and created a resources page for the NHCC gang. (Oops! Their site clearly states that they are not a gang … just a club). I don’t think they’d mind if I shared it with you. (They really are that nice.) So, dear self-publishing writers and self-publishing writers-to-be, I hope that you will take a few minutes to peruse this selection of posts (many from my archives here on Live to Write-Write to Live) and think about how you can start getting into a marketing mindset for your book project. It’s never too early to start thinking about how to brand yourself and your work, how to build your platform and your network, how to get yourself and your book “out there.”

If you have any additional resources you’d like to share on the topic, please feel free to add them to the comments on this page or the resources page. Writers helping writers is what it’s all about – I’d love to hear your insights and suggestions. 

P.S. New England area artists and writers – don’t forget to check out the NHCC!

P.S.S. If any of you are writing books that need illustrations – there’s a serious pool of talent at the NHCC. You can cruise the NHCC business directory for more details.

 

Jamie Lee Wallace is a writer who also happens to be a marketer. She helps her Suddenly Marketing clients discover their voice, connect with their audience, and find their marketing groove. She is also a mom, a prolific blogger, and a student of voice and trapeze (not at the same time). Introduce yourself on facebook or twitter. She doesn’t bite … usually.

Photo Credit: Kevin Harkins (Thanks, Kevin!)

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Expand your platform with Twylah and Scoop.It

In my innocent travels through, across, and within the Internet over the past week, I discovered 2 new social media outlets. Twylah and Scoop.it.

One is Twitter-related. Twylah looks like a website, and in fact, you’re told to promote it like a website by sharing the URL. It also seems to be a bit like Google+ in that you have to request an invite in order to even start creating a Twylah page. (I do not have, nor do I plan to have, a Twylah page.)

If you’re an author or use Twitter to promote your writing (screen shot is from the top of author AS_King’s Twylah page) , it might be interesting to play with. Twylah is connected to your Twitter feed and it selects the top 20 topics you tweet about the most. The top 8 keywords end up as tabs across the top of your Twylah page, the most recent and most frequently tweeted items show up on the page.

Like any social media platform, it’ll take a while to see results, but you’ll discover what is most attractive and engaging to your audience. It’ll help you narrow in on what matters most to your readers. I think it looks good for those who are Twitter-holics!

If you create a scoop.it page, the home page looks similar to a Twylah main page. Scoop.it helps you ‘curate’ an online magazine based on an interest you have. If you want to use scoop.it for a business, there’s a fee.

Basically, you submit keywords when you create your page and scoop.it will crawl the Web and deliver relevant content to you. Then you decide what you want to accept and have added to your page. You can also create your own content, grab/share content you find while traveling the Internet on your own, or accept content suggested by other users.

The screen shot I’m including here, is my friend and NH ambassador extraordinaire, Judi Window’s scoop.it page. It is focused on Manchester, NH.

It’s a great way to share your interests and expertise – and like other social media platforms, you’re able to ‘share’ your posts on Facebook and Twitter, and so on.

Both of these social media tools can help you build your brand/platform, are each is just another way to get your name out there in the search engines.

What do you think of these?

If you already use Twylah, scoop.it, or both, please share your links so we can visit. Also tell us what you think of the tool(s).

Lisa J. Jackson is an independent editor, writer, New England region journalist, and a year-round chocolate and ice coffee lover. She writes fiction as Lisa Haselton, has an award-winning blog for book reviews and author interviews, and is on the staff of The Writer’s Chatroom. 

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It’s all about the goodie-bags when it comes to marketing books

Self-marketing.

When most of us say the word, we say it with a certain amount of contempt. Why should I have to self-market, people should just know good writing when they see it. They should come seek me out.

Me market to the masses? Fooey.

Well here’s the real deal. If you are a writer and if you want any chance of having your name heard among the many millions being screamed out there, you need to start doing some shouting yourself (Lord knows, your publisher won’t have the time or money to do it.)

Times have changed. Book stores are fewer, and the internet is now how people find out information (just look at the viral success of the book 50 Shades of Grey!) It means you’re going to have to create Twitter, Facebook, and Linkedin accounts and you’re going to have to use them not just create them and then wipe your hands and say you are done. (check out some of our earlier posts on using Social Media.)

It also means you need to think about swag, especially if you are published or are going to be published. Swag is those little items intended to be given away either at independent book stores, book signings, or sent to bloggers who can use them in blog contests (you know, those events where you leave a comment and a randomly picked person gets the prize?) If you can get in with the all-powerful bloggers, you have a foot in that oh-so-important internet door.

You have a chance of being heard. More importantly you have a chance at creating some BUZZ!

A friend of mine, Gina Rosati, who has a book coming out on August 7th (Auracle) tells me that between getting a website built, buying a new computer, buying books from those in her support group, and buying swag, she has spent most of her book’s advance. She sees it, however, as money well spent. If her name gets out there, she’s got a chance at getting another book deal. And more books deals are what it’s all about.

For the swag, she has bookmarks (on which she ties charms and crystals – quartz crystal and rainbow moonstone for positive energy), stickers, postcards, magnets, and silicone wristbands. Most of the items incorporate her book’s cover (that lovely dark blue waterfall with the ethereal girl) That image is becoming her brand image for this book. She wants people to see that picture and think of Auracle.

Gina Rosati Auracle Swag

Her plan is to, as her release date gets closer,  send the swag out to bloggers to be used in contests.

It’s a smart plan. Nothing draws attention like getting something for free (hey I won my Kindle Fire at an online book release party and because of it, I’ll forever buy Jonathan Fields’ books.) It’s a way to generate excitement and get people talking about your product.

And if you can create a product related to your publication that you can sell (t-shirts, coffee mugs, bags – see cafepress.com) – that will bring  in money, keeps the devoted fan base going, and (best of all) serve as free advertising (just take a look at the Twilight brand – someone is getting rich off of all those promotional items.)

When my book gets published, you can bet I’ll be having chicken-related products to both sell and give-away. I’d be a fool not to.

For now, even if you aren’t published, imagine you are or will be soon. What is it about your book that can be marketed? Is it a food book? Could you create measuring spoons with your book’s image? Is it about a trip to London? Could you use a crown in your promotions?

Take some time to think about what the image is you want people to see in their mind when they think about your book.

And then think of ways you can get that image out on the internet and into people’s hands and minds.

***

Wendy Thomas is an award winning journalist, columnist, and blogger who believes that taking challenges in life will always lead to goodness. She is the mother of 6 funny and creative kids and it is her goal to teach them through stories and lessons.

Wendy’s current project involves writing about her family’s experiences with chickens (yes, chickens).

I got your swag right here. Gina has given me some swag to hand out (yeah, I know, whose da  blogger?) I have 4 sets of bracelets (one pink, one blue), 4 signed bookmarks, 4 signed postcards, 4 signed stickers, and 4 magnets. Leave a comment on this post and Friday afternoon, 20 random commenters (pretty good odds here) will be chosen to receive some of this great Auracle stuff. Ready? Go. 

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