How to be Both Writer and Marketer
Published Writers Know That After They Create, They Must Sell
May 5, 2009
Writers must be both artist and marketer, and there are specific organizational, creative, and business techniques to help them successfully walk the tightrope.
Organizing Writing
- Keep organized copies of everything. Create electronic folders for each genre, and then a separate file for each piece, so that each draft of the piece can be saved and referred back to, if needed.
- Storage boxes can be a writer’s best friend for early drafts, if that writer likes to work in longhand for the early drafts. There is a certain feel for beginning a piece of writing with pencil to paper that somehow eclipses typing it on a keyboard. But each writer is different. If everything is electronic, then storage boxes will not be needed, making for happier moving days.
- Back everything up. Then back it up again. Inexpensive flash drives make this process easier.
- Do not keep all work in the same place. Fill a flash drive with work, then give it to a relative or friend for safekeeping.
Creating
- Look for local writing organizations that offer regular meetings or workshops that can help with motivation. If a writer is expected to have a page of writing ready for the next meeting, that can be a definite help with motivation.
- Set aside, as much as possible, a regular block of time to write. Get up one hour earlier before work, or turn off the television for an hour each evening, and write. If no ideas come, then stare at the blank page for an hour. Just ensure that regular, steady writing time is set aside.
Marketing Writing
- Like many things in life, showing work to other writers and getting to know them will, more often than blind submissions, yield good results for writers looking to get published. Knowing someone may not guarantee that they will publish or recommend work, but if they do not know a writer or that writer’s work, it is a certainty they will not.
- Get involved in local writing groups and literary organizations.
- Ask those writers who have agents how to contact them, and if they will offer a recommendation to that agent.
- Going against general opinion, it is not necessary to have a mentor. Many writers do not have anyone in particular whom they admired and who helped them. Writing is a lonely art, and one which is, by necessity, done alone. Jack London wrote about it in his book No Mentor But Myself.
- Remember that writing is about the journey; work must be polished and professional before polished professionals will look at it. Focus on writing and creating, rather than fame, and that will be a big head start over many creatives or would-be creatives.
- Present a polished, even if Bohemian, demeanour. The idea of the absurdly kooky artist is tired and most people at writer’s gatherings, if presented with such, will first glaze over and then turn to someone else.
Writers can manage the tricky balance of business and creation with a few specific techniques and an understanding that with creation eventually comes the responsibility of marketing it.
The copyright of the article How to be Both Writer and Marketer in Literary Culture is owned by Pamela Mooman. Permission to republish How to be Both Writer and Marketer in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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