Words and Coffee

Jeff Vandemeer’s post on author platform got me to thinking. Really thinking. If you haven’t watched, do yourself a favor and take the 4 minutes to do so. Sure he’s pimping his book Booklife, but he’s doing it because he sees a need. He’s experienced enough of the insanity of the writing life to know a thing or two about a thing or two. At the :40 mark he gets into the hazards of using social media without a plan and the importance of educating yourself and setting boundaries. This resonated with me.

If you’ve spent any time on the web and you are an unpublished writer, it’s easy to feel like you’re falling behind, like all the other writers of the world are getting a leg up by being on various social media all the time (Twitter, I’m looking at you). Maybe you are and maybe they are. But if, by sacrificing your Twitter/Facebook/blogging time, you are better able to focus on writing the best work you can.

A great platform is nice, but writing without distraction and falling into the world of my creation – well, that’s the goods. I think that’s what makes me a better writer. I would rather have my writing speak for me than my 140 character snippets. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve said before that social media is a powerful tool, but when it eats away at the quality of the words and the story, web 2.0 needs to take a back seat.

Dive into the writing community on the web. If you start to sink, look at all the help waiting nearby!

I read this post at The Magic District blog and thought it captured the essence of marketing, whether done by the Big Boys on Madison Ave. or Bob C. Author on his Mac. I touched on this topic here, looking at the efficacy of book trailers. Really, that’s the tip of the iceberg.

I worked for about 5 years as the person in charge of sales and marketing for a small whitewater rafting company in WV. When we were bought in 2008 I got to sit in on marketing meetings with our sister company, which was much larger. The saying that came up frequently was that 20 percent (or 25 or 50, the number’s not important) of marketing doesn’t work, but no one knows what 20 percent that is, which means we were dumping 80% of our marketing down the toilet.

Sure, this is oversimplified, but there is a kernel of truth in there somewhere. Unfortunately, the guidance is not clear because there is not one answer. Throw in the fact that we are trying to predict how people will respond to things and it gets even harder. Other times, we convince ourselves to use marketing methods because either that’s the way it has always been done, or it’s new and shiny and cool (which is more than I can say for me).

So where do you even begin?

Having a web presence is a great start. Getting involved with the writing community in forums, commenting on blogs, posting your own comments, posting links on social media — it all helps. I would argue that these are probably the most effective ways we can market our work. We have a built in community (facebook friends, blog subscribers, twitter followers) that we have demonstrated that they are willing to hear what we have to say. Is it perfect? No. Is it easier for an author to have some control over publicity than 20 years ago? Yes.

Of course, you can tweet and update statuses and blog until your fingers bleed, but at the end of all things, you’ll still need that polished manuscript and a dynamite query. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to mine.

The Tip of the Iceberg

Yesterday I took a brief look at book trailers. Uninvoked stopped by and relayed her experience with trying to get the word out and how if a trailer looping endlessly in cyberspace is all well and good, but worthless if no one sees it. Here is her comment:

I don’t think many people know to look for the trailer. I’m finding my biggest problem with Uninvoked isn’t keeping my readers, but finding them. The idea of placing a book online is almost unheard of in itself, even though there is a rather large community of blogging novelists—if you know where to look.

Anything that draws attention to a book can be useful in the right circumstances, but a book trailer isn’t going to do you any good if no one ever sees it. To see it they have to find it. -.- See what I mean?

I would agree, but I think there is hope. It involves the harnessing of social media. I’m sure everyone has been bombarded with blogging, Facebook, Twitter and all the rest. HOWEVER, they can work for you with minimal effort. If you already blog, you are ahead of the game. If you respond to comments in a timely manner, all the better. You can have your blog post directly to your Facebook page using the notes application (This works for any blog, not just wordpress blogs). You can use Twitterfeed to have your blog feed right to your Twitter account (make sure you read the help section for putting the right URL in the feed).

Have a trailer? Look to the usual suspects for posting it (You Tube, Viddler, Google Video), then pimp it all over your blog and Facebook and Twitter and anything else in which you are active. If you don’t take an interest in your own work, why should anyone else. It’ll take a little while for your efforts to gain momentum, but once they do, you’ll be grinning a whole lot more when you check your blog and web stats.

It’s all about casting a wide net and being involved. While this is a form of marketing, it has the element of engagement–of dialogue–that traditional wait and see stuff can never hope to have.