I cannot say it often
enough, you can write or you can BE a writer. Creating that great story is a
terrific accomplishment and satisfactory if you just want something to pass
down in your family. But if you want to experience the thrill of being
published and having people other than family and close friends read your work,
if you want to earn any money for your craft, then you have to turn from
creative artist into savvy businessman.
By the way, don’t
expect to earn enough money from your craft to be self-supporting, only the top
thousand or so novelists get by from their writing alone. If you are serious about
writing as a career, you must be willing to market and promote yourself,
maintain an online presence, make appearances (or at least lots of virtual
appearances), keep records and keep writing.
Before your book is
sold start building your author platform. Many publishers want to see your
online presence before they consider producing your work. Several will also ask
you for your plan to market your book before offering a contract. Don’t be
fooled by Hollywood’s version of the semi-successful novelist. It will vary by
publishing house, but generally unless you have a name that sells by itself
(ie: one of the Kennedy family), the bulk of promoting your novel is up to you.
Even if you are one of the few lucky ones where the publisher handles press
releases, setting tours, getting promotional swag and such, your contribution
is a very necessary part of the package. Your readers don’t want to feel close
to your assistant or the publishing house PR office, they want to know YOU, the
author.
Every writer needs a
website. Websites are different from blogs, blogs are rolling samples of
writing and announcements, websites are caches of information about you and
your books. Your website should also include buy links and links to video book
trailers and other extras. Include a page that acts as your online media kit,
include downloadable .jpgs of your author photo, book covers, a short and a
long bio, and a listing of accolades. Having downloadable readymade book
discussion packets in your media kit will also serves as incentive for book
clubs to purchase your book. Make sure you use tags/labels on the individual
posts and put content specific meta-tags (keywords) on each page; there are
online tutorials to help you do this.
Schedule a virtual blog
tour starting just before your book is made available (or during the time of
pre-orders). Use a web-search to find blogs with a similar subject as your book
– look for all related topics – and inquire politely if the blog owner would
host you; include the topic of your book, a short bio, and ask what the blog
owner would like from you regarding type of post, length and graphics. Make
sure you advertise the date(s) of your appearance and visit the site yourself
to respond to reader comments and thank the blog owner for hosting you. Start a
FAN PAGE on FaceBook, this is different from a regular timeline although you
will need one of those in order to create the page – keep your fan page
professional and consider keeping your regular timeline private.
While you can pay a
professional service to arrange a lot of these things for you, you will never
be totally out of it, your input will always be required. And always remember
that writing the next book is the best form of promotion.
Writing exercise: Describe
a meeting between your antagonist/villain and your favorite comic-book hero
(ie: Batman, Wonder Woman…) Make sure they are doing an activity together
(going to lunch, playing golf, etc)
Writing prompt: Make
a list of 20 (single) keywords about your life
