This post updated 6-1-2010.

The first step in developing your marketing plan is to define your product. Once you’ve identified your specialty, you’ll need to compare your product to competitors’ products. When you try to sell your articles, books, or editing services, you will be competing with others for customers. A piece of writing has product features that publishers (and the agents who serve them) expect to see in work they buy. While there are many sub-categories, the publishers look for content relevant to their target market, writing that needs little editing (style), and writers who adhere to their stated guidelines (professionalism).

Content

Look to Writers Market or Sally Stuart’s Christian market guide to be sure you are submitting your work to a publisher that wants your subject matter and genre. If you don’t have the market guides, sometimes you can find writers’ guidelines by searching for a publisher online. Of course, you have to know the name of the publisher. In the Christian market, you must consider theology also. The various denominations have very different views of doctrinal issues, especially if your work is nonfiction.

Style

Different markets use different style guides. If you write or edit for magazines, you need to know Associated Press style. Book writers and editors should be thoroughly familiar with the Chicago Manual of Style. There are preferred dictionaries for the different markets, too. The recommended manuals for the secular or Christian markets are listed in Kathy Ide’s editing course.

Book publishers (or authors of books or short stories that will be included in books, fiction or nonfiction):

Magazine publishers:

Some Christian publishers (books or articles):

Academic writing may require the use of one of the following guides:

If this list is not familiar to you, now’s the time to check out these resources. Choose the ones that are used for the genre you have chosen as your product. Writers who want to be published cannot rely on their knowledge of English from high school or college. You stand a better chance of selling your work if you know and conform to the style guides the publishers use.

Professionalism

Every publisher has established guidelines instructing you how to submit your work. Some publishers only take submissions through agents. Agents often have their own guidelines for submissions from prospective clients. Here’s an example. Regardless of whether you’re selling direct or through an agent, nothing screams “amateur” like a submission that does not adhere to guidelines. If you won’t take the time and effort to submit your work in the requested format, you’re telling the publisher or agent that you might have a problem following directions. You are selling your writing, but you are also selling yourself as a professional. Always, always, always…adhere to the guidelines.

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