Wednesday, October 1, 2014

IWSG for October 2014

The Insecure Writer's Support Group (IWSG) is the brilliant idea of Alex J. Cavanaugh. The purpose of the group is to share doubts and insecurities and to encourage one another. Please visit the other participants and share your support. A kind word goes a long way.

The co-hosts for this month's group are: Kristin Smith, Elsie, Suzanne Furness, and Fundy Blue.

Congratulations to the IWSG website on its one year anniversary! It's an awesome site with a great bunch of writers. It has a lot of advice, tips, and encouragement. Cheers to all of you!

In celebration of the anniversary, IWSG is putting together an anthology - The IWSG Guide to Publishing and Beyond. Everyone can contribute. Entries must be between 200 and 1000 words. If it's less than 300, post it on your blog or FB, and then submit your link to the site HERE. If it's over 300 words, email it directly to the team at TheIWSG@gmail.com. 

The topics can include writing, publishing, and marketing. Give them your best and fresh tips. No recycled posts. The ebook will be out in December.

Here's my contribution about marketing. (250 words)

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3 Marketing Tips For Those Who Would Rather Be Writing

I am a writer. I never wanted to be anything else. But as a self-published author, I also have to be my own agent, accountant, and promoter.

Marketing savvy is not something I possess. What's even worse is what works for one author doesn't necessarily work for another. So how do you foster interest in your books and boost sales when you have no clue what you're doing?

Here are three tips that have worked for me and can be done from your writing cave.

1) Know your genre and find your audience. Be honest with yourself and get the opinions of your critique group. Once you have it, you'll be able to brand yourself and promote your books on sites to readers that will love you.

2) Start a blog. This has been one of my most effective tools in reaching fans. Match it to your genre and don't be afraid to show a little of your personal life.

3) Giveaways. People love free stuff. Use big sites like Goodreads to get a lot of exposure. If you create your own giveaway, add something a little different along with your books. Silly trinkets or a cool item from your story. Giving away gift cards also attracts a lot of attention.

Marketing may never get easier, but once you become adept in a few key things, you can spend your time doing what you really want to do: writing.

(IWSG has my permission to use this post in the anthology.)

32 comments:

  1. Marketing seems to be one of the things we find hardest to do, so thanks so much for sharing your tips, Christine.

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  2. Hi Christine - congratulations to IWSG on its year ... and then this anthology will be a great resource for members or non-members like me ...

    It's interesting that you advise starting a blog and then let us know how much its helped you .. cheers Hilary

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  3. Knowing your audience - especially within the blogs - is good marketing advice.

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  4. Yes - all of these things are important! I found running just one Goodreads giveaway resulted in lots of people adding my book. :)

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  5. These are all great tips. You're so right about the giveaways. When you are a guest on other blogs, especially book review blogs, they are a great way to get more exposure for your book.

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  6. Awesome advice, Christine! Thank you!

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  7. I'm not sure I'll ever be good at the promotion side of writing... I have to work on that.

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  8. Love your tips! Writing (or editing, actually) is scary enough for me right now. I don't even want to think about how scary marketing will be!

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  9. I've been trying to look at marketing with the same creative "what if" mindset as writing . . . still haven't quite gotten there yet, but it's helping make it less painful. I think giveaways really help. :)

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  10. Excellent ideas! And my goodness, I've been absent from the blogosphere long enough that I missed your latest blog makeover. Love it.

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  11. Blogging and giveaways have been the two things that have helped the most so far. And the first seems like a no-brainer but it's harder than one thinks it is. Great tips!

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  12. Great tips! I agree with giving a little something 'extra' away. It helps to personalize the giveaway!

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  13. Great tips. Marketing and writing require two different skill sets, so it's definitely finding what works best for you.

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  14. Starting a blog is the best marketing strategy I've ever done! :D

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  15. Thank you all. It seems like having a blog is the top tool for most writers. I also love the community that you can nurture with it. :)

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  16. Fantastic tips! I know having a blog has been key for me selling any of my books.

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  17. Smart advice! Starting a blog was the best thing I did.
    Thanks for contributing to the book.

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  18. I agree with all three of your tips, they've worked well for me too :-)

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  19. Solid marketing tips, Christine. Thanks for being so generous by sharing them!

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  21. Marketing doesn't come easily for most of us. Fun giveaways that tie in with the book are good. I have been giving away little Eiffel Tower charms since there is a charm on the cover of my book. I met an author that gave away little notebooks with a tartan cover to go with her Highlands themed romance series. Very clever.
    Elizabeth Hein - Scribbling in the Storage Room

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  22. Three easy to follow suggestions. I need to do more contests.

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  23. Excellent tips, Christine. And you are right. Most writers don't want or dread the marketing part. These are really easy things to do. Dragon Hugs. :)

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  24. Whoa! As you know I haven't been by here in awhile. Love the new look of your site. something that I'm sure helps in the marketing department.

    some really good tips there. Knowing your genre and catering to it is a really good one. I think that often we think we're doing just that but in actually missing the mark.

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  25. You made them all sound doable. I'm interested in various genres so might have my work cut out with number one, but you can look at it as having several sets of readers, therefore increasing your fanbase. And some might cross over from their usual genre. Great contribution!

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  26. Well I already have the blog, but we'll see how good I am at the other marketing stuff. Still too soon to tell.

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  27. From my experience, Goodreads seems to be the best place to do giveaways. I wish they would figure out how to do eBook giveaways.

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  28. Well, I've got the starting a blog down! Too bad it doesn't match my genre. :( I do know my genre, but I'm still looking for my audience. Do you think they're hiding under the bed with the monsters?

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  29. Great pointers, especially for those of us who aren't comfortable selling ourselves.

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  30. Marketing is the hardest part to me. Great advice.

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  31. I like the idea of giving away something cool connected to your story. Something to think about for next time. Thanks for sharing these tips!

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