Promote yourself – and your writing
© Erik Pasco
Self-promotion is something that lots of writers just don’t do. In some cases they believe their publishers, or their agents, are doing the job for them. In some cases they believe their works will sell themselves or be found by the media, and the public, if they’re patient enough. In many cases writers do nothing about self-promotion and hope for the best.
This is a big mistake.
Self-promotion is a vital component of your work as a writer, especially if your goal is to make even a part-time income from your writing business.
Use the guidance below to help you to get started, or to review your promotional activities to date.
Accept that you need to promote yourself
Some writers like to hide behind their books and to remain a shadowy, anonymous presence, whose main contact with the world is through their literary output.
If this sounds attractive to you, then you need to remember you’re living in the twenty-first century.
You’ll have more success these days, if you step out of the shadows and become a real person to your readers. People buy books, but they also buy personalities. It’ll help you to stand out from the crowd if, as well as writing good books, you become just a little bit famous and just a little bit of a celebrity.
Get started now
There are two main avenues for promoting yourself: the online route and the off line route. You need to be active in both arenas.
However, you also need to be clear about what you’re trying to achieve with your promotional activities.
Everything you do must be done with a purpose in mind. There are so many opportunities to promote yourself these days that if you don’t have a purpose, you could spend a lot of time and effort on activities that don’t achieve very much.
Think carefully, then, about your objectives. Are you promoting yourself in order to gain more sales of a particular book? Are you looking for opportunities to speak at events which will be attended by your potential audience? Do you want to build your reputation as an expert source or interviewee? Are you looking to drive your website up the rankings? Are you hoping for more subscriptions to your newsletter?
First steps with online promotion
The obvious place to start is with a blog.
Don’t go in for too many personal musings. Think of your blog as a channel through which you are going to communicate with a defined audience. Think about that audience and its interests. Then think about ways of linking your expertise to your audience’s interests. You’re looking to build a readership with these people via your blog, first. You may wish to promote your work to them later.
Get a website, or three, and learn how to update it yourself
You might try to snap up your own name as your first domain purchase. Is www.yourownname.com or .co.uk available? Next, you might register sites with the names of your books. You might have sites named after key elements of your writing, possibly after the fantasy world you’ve created.
Then you will need to fill your sites with content that people will want to read. This means you will need to update your web pages regularly, and start building your links to other sites. If you’re looking for direct sales of books or services, you’ll also need to set up a means of receiving payment.
Don’t forget off line promotion
One of the most important elements of your off line promotion is making sure that your name is known by increasing numbers of people in the real world, because no one will buy your works, or any aspect of what you do, if they have never heard of you.
Try to get on local radio, not to promote your books, but to offer guidance on a topic you cover in your books or in your articles. This topic might be looking after cats, or work-life balance.
Think about the time of day when your target audience is likely to be listening to the radio. Be clear about which programmes they listen to, and then get in touch with the producers of the relevant shows. Make the contact at the time when something that is in the news is relevant to your expertise, and offer to be interviewed
Be imaginative
Find ways to open up more avenues through which you can promote your books and yourself. If your romantic novel is set in a particular part of the country, contact the local tourist board. Help them to bring in more visitors to that area. Write in their publications about why you chose your locations. Speak at their events. Be part of their promotional team.
If you’ve written a hospital tale, contribute to some of the trade journals for the medical world about how you did your research or how surprised you were about particular aspects of the world of medicine.
The guidance here will help you to get started, but keep looking for ways of promoting yourself every day. It’s important that you do this. If you succeed, you’ll be doing what every writer wants to do. You’ll be avoiding obscurity.
Margaret Adams runs the Adams Consultancy, a company that provides business advice to help writers boost their earning potential. For more on Margaret Adams please visit www.margaretadams.co.uk and http://achievingthetqs.blogspot.com and www.inbusinessasawriter.co.uk
DISCLAIMER
Neither the author nor EssentialWriters.com are responsible for any loss of business or profits arising from action followed due to this advice. This article is intended for general guidance only and professional assistance should be sought based on your particular circumstances.
