Marketing Yourself Online

Repeat this – it is NEVER too early to start marketing yourself as a writer, even if you haven’t yet achieved publication.

Get involved in social networks like FaceBook or MySpace. Look for networks that attract members of your target audience and make yourself known. Remember that Social Networking is a two-way street; it is NOT all about self-promotion. Get involved in discussions, reply to buddies’ comments and respond to comments posted to your attention. Keep in mind that the reputation you build for yourself will stay with you. Don’t whine, don’t be nasty, don’t be conceited – do be approachable, friendly, helpful and cheerful.

It’s alright to post accomplishments and you are entitled to some bragging rights so long as that is not all you do – your “self-centered” posting should be no more than 20-to-30% of your total posts. Unless you are willing to take a public stand (political, etc) and deal with the consequences, don’t get involved in heated debates. No matter how strongly you feel about an issue, don’t earn a reputation for being argumentative and NEVER insult another person’s beliefs.

Social forums are similar to social networks in that they allow for interaction, but they are generally pure discussion based postings and often based on a common interest (ie: professions, alumni) Try the network or forum out for a while, be fair and give it a reasonable chance – if it doesn’t seem to be working for you, it’s okay to back off. Try not to simply drop out, you may decide to return one day.

Establish a blog. These are useful as forms of expression and to demonstrate your writing style. Try to post regularly and keep your content tightly themed – your readership will grow when they know they can count on you to have something new (at least every week) and something that is interesting to them. Use sidebars and widgets to post books, significant links and other widgets.

Make sure you look at your own blog site once in a while to see how it looks – check it out on several different computers and if possible using different browsers. If the print is too small, the colors too glaring, or the contrast between print and background too hard to read, no one will stay long enough to read your posts. Don’t post pure sales pitches, mix it up. Keep you paragraph lengths and language comfortable and readable.

Reply to the comments readers leave on your blog. Be sure to click on visitors’ names and visit (AND comment) on their blogs as well. If at all possible, be complimentary but not falsely sweet. When you post comments be sure to include your name and signature line. A signature line will often include a link back to your blog or website. Follow blogs you like publicly, you will find that folks will click through. Don’t wait for others to visit you, search out blogs of interest and begin introducing yourself to the internet community.

Don’t ignore micro-blogging sites like Twitter. Remember to mix up your posts, retweet and respond to other members. An advantage to micro-blogging is that they often allow automatic postings to status bars on other social network sites and widgets on blogs and web sites.

Finally, get yourself a web site. There are several out there that are user friendly so you can maintain them yourself and relatively inexpensive to get a personalized domain name. Investigate, ask friends what they recommend and what their personal experiences have been.

The web site should allow for multiple pages (parent pages and trees) and should grow with you. Include buy links for books as well as dedicated pages for each book. Include a “media room” (more on that in another post) with news items and links to virtual appearances. Make sure your web-site is personalized with your author pic and bio, easy to navigate, attractive and a one-stop cache of info about you.


Writing exercise: Write a SHORT bio (no more than one paragraph) about yourself. A bio does not need to list your complete credits or background. Make sure your bio includes BRIEF answers about WHO you are, WHAT is your expertise, WHY readers will be interested in you and your writing, HOW they can reach you and just a touch of something personal (such as married and living in New York). This brief bio should show some of your personality but still be short and to the point.

Writing prompt: List between 5-to-10 ACTIONS that would be specific (each) to 1) Anger, 2) Sorrow, 3) Joy and 4) Fear.