Marketing For Writers
© Cheryl Wright
It's a cold hard fact that most writers don't want to market themselves, they want to write.
But what if you don't market, what then?
I can tell you from experience that's it not nice. No one knows who you are, and if nobody knows you, why would they buy your stuff?
Simple. They wouldn't.
It took me a long time to realise that fact, and even longer to do something about it. But almost as soon as I did, people began to notice me.
Many people don't realise this, but February 2003 I was a total unknown. Except for a six year stint as editor of a large staff newsletter for a large corporation, I had only been published in either incidental newsletters or non-paying markets. And very few of those.
So what changed for me? I decided to write full-time due to health reasons; to do that, people (read as editors) needed to know who I was, to give them a reason to take a chance on me.
This first thing I did was create a website. That was a huge effort for me, since back then I was the biggest Internet Dummy you would ever come across. These days – only a few years down the track – I have created, and maintain six or more websites. It's all true, I swear!
I began to hang out on forums and in egroups. If an opportunity arose where I would be highlighted, I took it. And I made sure that every chance I had, I stuck my head up and answered a question.
Be warned though, never, ever, join a group and blatantly promote yourself. By this I mean don't join then continuously advertise your books.
Over time I've found that the best promo is the one where it's not a blatant promo. For example, instead of placing a promo ad on an egroup, just mention the item in question in passing. Perhaps mix it in with the topic at hand – but only if it's relevant.
Instead of constantly mentioning your book etc in your messages (which is a no- no on most egroups), make sure you have a signature line with your book's name, and the website address where further information can be obtained.
In the past few years, I have done loads of marketing, but have paid out less than US$100 in advertising. So how did I do it?
Here's a list of methods I've used to get free or near-free advertising:
- Give away something that is relevant to either your book or website.
- Offer to be a guest writer (at no charge)
- Offer yourself as an interviewee
- Give away a copy of your book or product for a contest. Choose carefully though – the aim is to find a new audience, so make sure that audience is part of your targeted market.
- And speaking of targeted markets, do you know what that is? Say for instance, you have written a book about gardening; then your targeted audience will be gardeners. If you've written a book of romance fiction, then romance readers are your targeted audience. If your book is about writing, then writers are your target audience. Basically understand your niche, and you will know who your targeted audience will be.
- Start a free ezine (electronic magazine or newsletter). Make it applicable to your target audience. Make sure you issue it on a regular basis.
- Mention an ezine that is owned by a writing friend; more often than not they'll return the favour. (Remember what I said earlier about non- blatant promos? Doing this will work equally well.)
- Write articles and ensure your bio points to your product. Offer the articles for free to websites and ezines that will reach your targeted audience.
- Give away free gifts to your subscribers now and then. Don't give away rubbish – make the gifts worthwhile. There are a lot of good books available with resale rights, but you do need to check you can give them away. Some books come with certain conditions – often these will state no give aways.
- Ad swaps: do any of your friends write about the same things as you? Ask them to do an ad swap. You will both most likely end up with new subscribers, and it costs you nothing.
- To gain additional subscribers, offer a relevant or useful freebie on joining - if at all possible. Or run a subscriber-only contest.
- For extra exposure for your published book, seek book reviews. The reviews themselves are free (if they want payment – run as quick as possible!), but some review sites are now requesting hard copies of books. This adds to your costs, but ebooks are much more difficult to read while reviewing.
- Never send a book for review without querying first. Why? Firstly, it's pushy and overbearing. Secondly, many sites don't have the woman-power available to review all the books that need reviewing, and thirdly, it's downright rude and presumptuous.
- If your book is reviewed, the site will often offer to interview you as well. This provides additional exposure.
- Even if you're not 100% happy with the resulting review, always send a note of thanks to either the website owner, or the person who did the review. I generally do both.
- For your published book, put together a pdf of the first chapter, or first few pages. Make sure you include details such as the name of the publisher, and don't forget the purchase details! (Always make it easy for potential buyers to purchase your product/s.) Click here to view mine.
- Run a free contest. Don't give away YOUR book or product as a prize if possible. In my experience, people won't buy the product in the hope they'll win it instead.
- Take out advertising in ezines that will reach your targeted audience. For instance, I advertise my ebooks for writers in other ezines for writers. (This works equally well for websites.)
- Update your website regularly. The mo
