Category Archives: Marketing

A business plan for writers – what an absurd idea! That may be your first reaction, but chances are that you already know how you want to your writing career to evolve. A business plan is the road map to launching and growing your career in a strategic, efficient manner. Everything you’re doing now – networking, writing, learning craft, blogging – it’s all part of a plan but let’s face it, we’re writers first and the less time we spend floundering or making mistakes with the business part of our career, the more time we’ll have for writing.

Here are the key elements for a writer’s business plan:

1. Company Description
Yup, you’re a company with accompanying tax write offs but let’s be more specific than that. Does your business include writing, editing, holding workshops, attending trade fairs, or other activities related to writing and promotion? As a writer, do you write short stories, novellas, novels, magazine articles, or some combination? What is your genre? Who is the target audience?

2. Operations Plan
This is a one person company, right? Wrong. For tax purposes you may be a sole proprietor or an incorporated entity but your company is bigger than one person. For example, who are your support groups – writers’ groups, critique groups, book clubs, blog group? Do you belong to interest groups locally or on-line such as science, knitting, bird watching, Sherlock Holmes fan club? These are important to note because they not only inspire you and provide valuable input they may also be part of your readership. Who are your mentors, critiquers and editors?

Bestselling authors have an organization. Take a look at the Acknowledgements page of their books. Most Acknowledgement pages list editors, research contacts, readers – anyone who helped them. For ease of organization, you can divide your support network into four categories: craft, business (contracts, taxes, editors, finances, etc), networking (conferences, on-line, writers groups, readers groups), and market access. Note any deficiencies you have in these areas and develop a strategic plan to deal with that aspect. For example, I need to know more about marketing strategies and so I’ve chosen to attend a seminar on marketing rather than a critique workshop to fill this gap. Finding the experts I need fills a gap in my organization and allows me to use my use my limited budget wisely.

Remember – it takes one person to have the idea and write the story, but it takes a community to support a writer and make the work available to the reader. Who is in your community?

3. Products and Services
We touched briefly on this in the Company Description, but now we need to get specific. You may be writing in one genre or several writing poetry, short stories or novels and writing for the children’s, young adult or adult markets. In the market you’re writing for, who exactly is the audience? For example, not all people who read mysteries love the same type of mystery or the same degree of graphic language. Those loving cozy mysteries (think Stephanie Plum series) may not like Ian Rankin’s gritty detective or James Patterson’s thrillers. What type of mystery/fantasy/romance do you write? Who will it appeal to? What are the sensibilities of the genre and does your writing reflect that? Where will your work be placed on the bookshelf?

If you’re editing or involved in some other aspect of writing (volunteer or paid), note that too. Depending on the level of your involvement, you may need to create separate business plans. However, having them listed in one spot will help you manage your time better when setting goals.

4. Marketing
It’s so easy to want to stay at home and only write or at most, to go to a writing meeting where we chat with like minded people. Marketing means getting out of our comfort zone and reaching out. The easiest way to do this is to have a plan and to follow it. A haphazard approach erodes confidence and the ability to present things in a comfortable confident manner.

For every product you need to have your elevator pitch, synopsis, chapter by chapter plot line, a great manuscript before you promote. Having these will help you understand your product so you can differentiate it and create a unique selling proposition. In other words, what distinguishes your story from others it the market? Why will your target market (children, young adults, mystery/romance/horror fans) like it?

Describe how your stories will be sold – book stores (which ones?), on-line, book clubs, and how you intend to get the books there. Even if you have a traditional publisher, you still have to market and sell, so be prepared to do that.

What are your promotional tactics? In other words, how will you reach your audience? Some examples are: tradeshows, school appearances, readings, book tour, social media marketing (Twitter, Facebook, etc,), reading clubs (local, Goodreads, etc), on-line advertising, conventions, local advertising and book trailers. Your website should appeal to the book buyer. One writer I know designed her site for teachers because they’re the ones who will be buying her books and will be allowing her to make school presentations. Who is your website designed for – readers, teachers, technical users (how to books), other writers?

There have been many good posts on marketing at Fictorians so just click on the Marketing category and you’ll receive a ton of information. Just remember to choose a few things to do (for example you can’t belong to every book club and effectively utilize all social media) and do them well.

5. Finances
Having a budget will focus your marketing strategy and allow you to develop and manage your business more effectively by allowing you to prioritize. Which convention/workshop can I afford to go to? Do I purchase business cards or have a professional design my website? What can I do for free?

After all the work we do to write our wonderful books, we can’t afford to fail now because we failed to plan the business part of our passion.

The Choosing of Names

November 15, 2013

Nathan Barra

Business Marketing Nathan Barra Publishing 1 Comment

Let me tell you a secret. My name isn’t actually Nathan Barra. I chose to write under a pen name for two reasons. First, I work in a very conservative industry, and have written several internal and external publications under my real name. I’m worried that publishing fiction under my true name would damage my credibility in my day job. Second, I consider my name to be unGooglable. Pretty much everyone I have ever had read my name has mispronounced it, and anyone I have tried to dictated to has misspelled it. In this day of search bars in social media, that is unacceptable.

Regardless of your reason, picking the right name is an art. These days, authors sell themselves as much as they sell their books. So, if you’re going to take the time to choose a pen name, what does it take to choose a good one?

5. A good pen name is multilingual.
With the Internet and the global economy, an author’s words are no longer limited to a local geo-market. Something written on one continent can and likely will be sold on the others. Therefore, it behooves the author to pick a name that is easily pronounceable in most major linguistic families. Go to translate.google.com, type “His name is…” and listen to how the name is pronounced in a bunch of different languages. Is it still comprehendible, or even better, similar?

4. A good pen name matches the brand.
Authorial brands are built on names, so the name must fit within the brand the author is trying to establish. For example, in urban fantasy, where I like to read and write, many authors have two part names. Examples include Jim Butcher, Richelle Mead, Patricia Briggs, Larry Correia, and Jennifer Estep. I too chose a two part name to help me fit in and make it easier to design a cover that is clearly urban fantasy.

3. A good pen name is memorable.
John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt would make a lousy pen name for many reasons. Without the tune, I can’t remember it, and in fact had to Google the end of the name and the spelling’s. Though most publishers try to avoid it, there are still a number of books with the same or similar titles, only distinguishable by who wrote them. When someone recommends a book, they often will be recommending the author simultaneously. How can they do that if they don’t remember the name?

2. A good pen name is easy to spell.
The biggest problem with my real name is that even after shortening it, I’ve had it misspelled and mispronounced countless times. In this day of online retailers, search engines and social media, a name that is easy to spell is essential. I need someone to be able to search me, friend me, tweet me, and find me on Amazon. I chose Nathan because there aren’t variations on that name. Barra is a bit riskier, as it can be spelled with one r or two, but in the end, the name is still simple enough that I don’t think it’ll be much of a problem.

1. A good pen name does not already have an online presence.
When I was choosing my pen name, I did a search to ensure two things. First, I made sure that NathanBarra.com was available, which it was. Then, I searched to ensure that there weren’t too many Nathan Barras on Facebook, Twitter and Amazon. Facebook had the most, but none of them seem to be particularly active in writing circles. The last thing I would want is for someone to search for me, and then find some other Nathan Barra talking trash and making me look bad. These days, a strong online presence is essential. This doesn’t look like it’s going to change.

Blogs and Your Cash: Thoughts on Starting a Blog and Where Your Money Should Go

November 7, 2013

fictorians

Guest Posts Marketing The Writing Life Writing Tools 1 Comment

A guest post by Stephan McLeroy.

Hello Fictorian loyalists!

Blogging, the soapbox of our generation. And just like finding a soapbox down some random alley, it’s actually really easy to snag a blog these days. So easy, that, according to blogging.org, in 2012, there were 42 million blogs in the U.S. alone. With about 315 million people in the U.S. by the end of 2012, that means there was one blog for about every 7.5 people.

Then, on top of that, I’m sure there’s a cacophony of questions singing through your brain as you consider your own blog: “What will I post? How is this going to supplement my writing career? How many cats should I have on the site?”

These are all important questions. However, I would propose that the most important question you should be asking right now is, “How much money am I willing to spend?”

What I want to do is help you navigate a couple of the financial decisions that go into making a respectable blog. I hope that, after this, you’ll have your blog up and running, and be well on your way to creating a site that will blow the blogosphere away without breaking your wallet.

Number one: Getting your website hosted

To own any website on the internet, you need to get a domain URL (for writers, usually our name). Once you’ve thought of the URL you want, write it down on your best stationery along with two or three alternatives and go to the next step: finding a hosting site. There are tons of hosting sites out there, all vying for your business. If you ask around, you’ll find out people have vastly different preferences for what they want/require from hosting sites. However, being an active writer, you probably don’t have time for that, so I did you a solid by running a basic search for “best hosting site” on Google and got this sweet LifeHacker article. You can thank me later. Once on a hosting site, do a search for the URL of your choice by following the site’s instructions and sign up for hosting. You are well on your way to becoming a bonafide blogger.

Number two: Pumping money into your blog

Deciding how much money to spend on your new website falls along a spectrum. At one end we have the penny pincher who declares, “I will do everything myself!” To them, I say, play on! You have a lot of research to do. There are plenty of How-To books, YouTube videos, and, funny enough, blogs about what you need to learn in order to set up and maintain a blog successfully.

But if you’re like me, your dollar-per-hour rate is probably a lot higher than the gentleman or lady I was speaking to in the last paragraph. I have a day job and a very limited amount of free time. I need professional help. Oh, and a small team to help me with my blog (Hey-Yo!). I currently have a webmaster, a web designer, and a publicist friend who manages my posts, all for reasonable sums. The main thing I do is generate content for my blog (my editor, btw, reviews the content I make).

To make this type of set up work, remember that your blog is only a component of your publicity efforts. It supplements writing by being a place to post updates and work. With that in mind, I, for instance, set a budget for myself and my blogging exploits. Under no circumstances do I allow myself to blow that budget. If I need more for my designer this month, I reduce the amount of work I send to my publicist. Is there a broken plug-in on the site that needs addressing? Then design gets suspended until the plug-in is fixed.

This brings us to the next piece of advice.

Number three: Communication

No matter what team you set up, you gotta communicate with them to get good results. For me, at the end of each month I take a few minutes to have a discussion with my team, letting them know what I see as a priority and then getting their input. Everyone wants money, yes, but usually the work of one person directly affects the productivity of another, so that, 99% of the time, everyone is in agreement on where the money should go. We then create an in/out list for the month and boom! The well-oiled machine continues to crank out a respectable blog.

Number four: Make sure you trust your team

Just starting out, you’ll probably end up working with people who are your friends, but they may not be; they may be people you’ve met at work, at a convention, or online. Make sure you trust them, because without trust, you will not be able to have open, frank conversations, which wastes precious time you don’t have.

Your team may look smaller than mine, or larger, depending on your own needs. I would suggest, if anything, that you at least have someone who can design the site, someone who can manage the non-design programming, and someone who can help you keep regular posts going. From the successful bloggers I’ve spoken to, these seem like the bare essentials for running a site when you can’t do it by yourself.

I hope this little post helped get you started on your blogging exploits. I can say that I am still a novice at this and my advice is not the end all be all, but it’s what I’ve learned in the time I have been blogging. Feel free to leave comments or questions.

Good day!

Stephan McLeroy Bio:

Stephan McLeroy is a historical urban fantasy writer based out of the San Francisco Bay area. His current work, The Adventures of Lockwood and Blackfox can be read for free on his blog at stephanmcleroy.com. He recommends “Death on the Pearl River Delta.” It’s his favorite.

The Business of Promotion: When the Hero Comes Home 2

November 6, 2013

mary

Marketing Mary Pletsch Publishing The Writing Life 4 Comments

Doing business requires a businessperson to give some attention to promotion. If you’re a store, yes, you’ll get a few customers by hanging an open sign on your door – but not as many as you’ll get if you make sure to have an attractive display window, some enticing sales, an active social media presence and involvement in your local community. If you’re a writer, yes, you may sell a few books by virtue of their presence on a bookstore shelf or convention table, but not as many as you’ll sell if you choose striking cover art, participate in convention panels, have an active social media presence, interact with your audience….

You’ve created something and brought it into the world. You’re passionate and enthusiastic. There are other people out there who are also passioniate and enthusiastic, about your subject. All you need to do is let them know that your story exists.

Last month was Marketing and Promotion month here at The Fictorians. The Fictorians and their guests contributed some excellent tips to let you know the best ways to spread the word and boost the signal: you have a book for sale!

I have a book for sale.

Hook your readers’ attention. Let them know, in a few short sentences, what your story (and, if applicable, the anthology it’s in) is about:

Everyone knows the archetype of the hero’s journey. But do you know what happens after that journey ends?

When the Hero Comes Home 2 is a collection of short stories that begin where most stories end. The hero who returns is different from the average guy who left–how does he readjust to his old life? What advice does she give to the next generation of heroes? What happens when the hero comes home in defeat?

Blood Runs Thicker is available in the ebook version of When the Hero Comes Home 2. It’s the story of a young man named Jim and his personal hero, his best friend Al. Against all odds, Al has been elevated to a decorated veteran of a galactic war, and Jim fears he barely recognizes his old friend. He’s yet to learn that winning her medals has cost Al everything that ever mattered to her, and that a similar sacrifice looms on his own horizon as their destinies entangle.

Sometimes it’s fun to throw in a few “behind the scenes” details about writing the story. Human interest bits are appealing and help whet readers’ curiosity:

The core idea for Blood Runs Thicker was inspired by a single line in a Blue Oyster Cult song: Jim says some destinies should not be delivered. I started thinking: what is destiny? Why should some of them not come to pass, and what happens when they do anyway? Who is judging what “should” and “should not” be delivered? From this line, I developed my main character–Jim, a shaman who works with tarot cards–and his best friend Al. Jim’s cards foretell Al’s destiny: to become a hero, at a terrible cost. What Jim doesn’t recognize is that those cards predict the same fate for him.

If your audience is hooked, make it easy for them! Make sure they know how and where to purchase:

You can get the ebook version of When the Hero Comes Home 2 here, on sale for a limited time, in either Kindle or Epub formats:

http://dragonmoonpress.com/when-the-hero-comes-home-2/

Or you can buy from Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/When-Hero-Comes-Home-2-ebook/dp/B00F5CFVKW

So don’t just put that book on the shelf and hang the open sign on your door. Make sure your product looks good, and most importantly, let people know it’s out there–and why they should care.