The Business of Writing: The Importance of Marketing

Besides all the work I’m doing to revise and edit my memoir manuscript I’ve been laying the groundwork for a marketing campaign once the book is published. In fact, I’m drumming up interest already – several months in advance.

In addition to posting regularly on my blogs Choices and Red Room, I have created a Facebook page devoted exclusively to book news, writing tips, and writing-related  quotes. (In just two weeks I’ve amassed a fan base of 125.) I am also posting regularly on Twitter. In addition, I’ve amassed many friends in the business of writing and publishing on my personal Facebook page.  

After contacting several of my poetry publishers about my book, I’m excited to report that they too are ready to help in the marketing campaign. One publisher plans to post a profile about me on its blog. Another has offered a free add in its magazine.

And it doesn’t stop there. One of my writing teachers plans to write about the book in her newsletter, and I’ve laid the groundwork for a blog tour through the Women On Writing (WOW) website.

All of this is in sharp comparison with the lack of any pre-marketing campaign at all when the book I co-wrote with Trudi Ferguson, Blue Collar Women, was published in 1994. No social networks existed then, and all we did were simple radio interviews after the book came out. We weren’t tasked to create our own platform – so necessary to getting the word out about a book now.

I’ve been told that the writer’s work really starts after the book is published. Well, I think the writer’s work starts as soon as a publishing contract is signed and perhaps even sooner. A writer doesn't need a marketing degree, but they do need a viable marketing plan and the beginnings of a platform at the time he/she begins the query process. It’s all a part of the business of writing. It must go hand-in-hand with the actual writing work.