Posts tagged Marketing
Happy Birthday to Blog4Writers
0
Are you ready for a virtual birthday party? I can’t serve you a piece of cake, although I wish I could. However, I can pass out party favors, so stick around for the rest of the party. Blog4Writers is now one year old. Although some of the posts date back to 2008, those older posts were imported from three blogs that I combined to make Blog4Writers.
The “Parent” Blogs: Golden Rule Marketing was the outgrowth of an online marketing course I taught for The Christian PEN. The other two had their beginnings as handouts for conference sessions. I started Wired to Write as a resource for the people who attended my blogging session at Kentucky Christian Writers Conference 2008. The book review blog is no longer online, but I set it up so that I could post reviews for books on my resource list. Articles from each of the older blogs are filed chronologically in Blog4Writers.
The Mission Statement: Blog4Writers exists to provide online resources for the writer aspiring to publication as well as published writers. Subject matter will include the following categories: computers, websites and blogs, marketing, writing resources, and inspiration.
How to Find Stuff on Blog4Writers: Subscribers get new material regularly, but everything is archived for your use at any time. Check out my previous post on how to use my site.
Party Favors: To thank you for subscribing and for attending this party. I’ve formatted my print resources list for writers and my online resources list as PDFs. Just follow the links to download them: Party Favor #1 and Party Favor #2.
My birthday wish for Blog4Writers is that the number of e-mail subscribers will double between now and next birthday. If you find Blog4Writers helpful, please tell your writer friends so that they can subscribe.
What’s your wish for Blog4Writers? Your input is welcomed. Suggest topics or writing books for review, or just let me know what current topics are most helpful. Just link to the blog and comment on this post. E-mail me privately if you like: akinemily@gmail.com.
New Year, New Plan
1
Do you have a plan for the new year yet? It’s not too late to develop one. Blog4writers is almost a year old. I’ve spent this year learning how others handle their blogs, and I’ve looked back at all my old posts. That’s helped me develop the following “resolutions” for Blog4writers 2011.
- Shorter posts: I’m guilty of providing too much information (TMI) in some of my articles. When my articles get too long, I’ll find a way to make it a series instead of a single article.
- Periodic surveys: I’ve done one survey of my readers this year. I plan to put a permanent survey on content in the sidebar. However, I want to do surveys on other topics this year.
- Occasional giveaways: The last giveaway I sponsored got no response whatsoever. I’ll figure out a way to make my giveaway events more titillating for my readers.
- More “inspirational” articles: Although my survey indicated that most of you want information on marketing and social media, I think there’s room for inspirational articles now and then. See these articles from the past.
Next week, I’ll begin a series of posts on planning (marketing, research, social media). If you’re not already a subscriber, I invite you to sign up for e-mail updates in the sidebar on the right on any page on my site http://emilyakin.com.
Survey Results and Book Giveaway
0
Thanks to everyone who took the time to participate in my one-question survey over the past week. Check last week’s post in case you missed the survey.
Drum roll! The winner is—-Marketing. Asked what topics they prefer to see in future posts, 43% of Blog4writers readers chose Marketing. Websites and Blogs garnered 23% of the votes, while Writing Craft got 19%. Getting Organized was last-place with 14%. Since I’m leaving the survey out there, the results might change, but I got the direction I needed to plan future posts for my blog.
For blog newcomers and for old-timers wanting to review, I already have a number of posts on these subjects in the archives. Here’s a summary for your convenience.
- My article, “Golden Rule Marketing for Writers,” is on my site here.
- There are 47 previous posts dealing with marketing. Browse through them here.
- Previous posts relating to Websites and Blogs are here.
- Here’s a link to Writing Craft posts.
- The Get Organized series summary is here.
For the next three weeks, I had planned a series on Websites and Blogs. Next week’s post will be on free websites with MS Office Live Small Business.
Book Giveaway: Enter the drawing for a chance to win Max Lucado’s Cast of Characters: Common People in the Hands of and Uncommon God. Current e-mail subscribers are automatically entered. Others may enter by commenting on any post on Blog4writers or by becoming a new subscriber. Current subscribers may earn a second entry by commenting on any post. Deadline is Monday, October 18, 2010, 7:00 a.m. If you need help with the comment or subscription process, e-mail me at akinemily@gmail.com. Winner will be announced in the October 25th post. I will also e-mail the winner if I have an address. Book will be sent by USPS media mail to mailing address provided by the winner ASAP after close of contest.
Reader Survey with PollDaddy
5Do you sometimes wonder what direction you should take with your blog content or your writing projects? I’m wondering that right now. For October, I’ve planned a series of posts for the Websites and Blogs category. Book reviews for the Writers Resources category are on tap for November. But, I’d really like to know what my subscribers would like to hear about.
In order to get your opinion, I’ve included a one-question survey in this post. Please take a minute to answer the question to help me plan future content for Blog4writers.
This site is designed with WordPress (see WordPress.org), so I searched for a survey tool that would work within WordPress. Of the available plugins, PollDaddy was the highest rated. I’ll post an evaluation after I’ve had a chance to run a few surveys. So, help me out and participate in this one.
Results will be reported in next week’s post which will consist of my evaluation of Microsoft Office Live Small Business website tools.
Guest Post Invitation: If you are a writer/blogger who has experience using another method of conducting surveys, consider submitting an article for a guest post on Blog4writers. Articles should be about 500 words and will be edited for grammar, style, and length. If accepted, your article will be posted at my discretion. Query akinemily@gmail.com.
Additional Resources: Other methods of conducting surveys are available. Here’s a fairly exhaustive list.
Marketing: Selling and Re-Selling
0
Writing for peanuts—that’s what you’ll be doing if you sell each article, story, or poem only once. You may be tempted to skip this article if you’re still trying to get your first piece published. Resist the temptation, because, once you do sell something, you can sell it again as long as you don’t sell all rights. Keep submitting according to publisher guidelines, and follow this plan.
Avoid all rights and work-for-hire. If you’ve never been published, and an editor wants to buy all rights, you may decide to agree just to get something in print. There’s no shame in that, but you won’t be able to re-sell that piece, ever. Work-for-hire pays pretty well, but, again, you give up any and all rights to your work.
Submit until you’re accepted. Sell first rights or non-exclusive rights only. Once the first-rights piece has appeared in print, you can sell any number of reprints to others. Some publications will accept simultaneous submissions, but you must inform them when you submit. If it’s a first-rights piece that’s being considered, you can sell first rights to the first editor who responds. Then you should notify the others that first rights are no longer available.
Sell reprints (as-is or piecemeal). Once the piece is eligible for reprint, submit it to other editors with no changes. I’ve found that this is not impossible but definitely difficult. Rarely will you find two publications whose guidelines are exactly alike, but you can find publications that are similar enough that you can submit with minimal changes. Most editors want to know when and where the reprint article has appeared, mainly to be sure a competitor has not used it. In the Sunday School papers market, for example, most readers will not see any paper other than the one published by their denomination.
A 1500-word article might be divided into three 500-word articles and sold separately or as a series. Each smaller article would qualify as a single reprint. Usually, you don’t get paid as much for reprints as for first rights, but this approach might soften the blow a bit. Again, you will have to tell the editor when and where the article(s) appeared.
Submit regularly, and always be on the lookout for markets for your reprint sales. You won’t get rich quick writing for publication, but you don’t have to write for peanuts.
This is the last of three posts on crafting your product for the marketplace. Previous posts were “Editing Your Work” and “Who Is Your Customer?”
Other Resources:
Details on the various types of rights
Marketing: Who Is Your Customer?
0
This is the first in a series of marketing posts dealing with crafting your product for the marketplace. Subscribe to the blog feed to get the updates as they are posted.
You are a writer. You’d like to get your work published. If you are a beginning writer, your best chance to get published quickly is to submit short pieces to magazines. You might produce articles, short stories, puzzles, and poems. If you’ve had your work published, but you’re not getting regular acceptances, perhaps you need a fresh approach.
Think of yourself as a manufacturer. Most writers think of themselves as artists. If you write for your own purposes, there’s no need to worry about what others think of your work. However, if you want someone to publish it, you enter a different realm, the world of business. Imagine yourself as a manufacturer of a physical product. As you plan and manufacture it, are you thinking about your customer? Are you building something you like, or are you creating a product that people need or want?
The publisher is the retailer. Because publishers can’t accept every piece of writing that is submitted to them, they only buy products that they know will interest their readers. You are the producer, and you have to sell your product to the retailer. Publishers have to know their customers—what they need and want. They will not buy your work if it does not fit the specifications for what their typical reader likes. As manufacturer, you have to craft your product to impress two customers, readers (end users) and the publisher’s representative, the editor.
What does the reader want? Find a one or more copies of your target publication. Use the table of contents to summarize the number and subject matter of articles. Read some articles to get a feel for the preferred style. Find the writer’s guidelines for the publication to get specifics on what the publication wants. Usually, you can find guidelines on the publisher’s Web site. If not, you’ll need to find the listing in the market guide and write or e-mail to request guidelines.
What does the editor want? First, be sure that you follow the guidelines to the letter. Some editors toss every piece that does not comply with guidelines. Don’t shoot yourself in the foot by ignoring guidelines. Next, make sure you offer a quality product. Editors do not exist to re-work your writing. Their job is to find pieces that fill their need with the least amount of editing. New writers, consider finding a freelance editor to critique or edit your work before you submit. You might have to pay for the service, but consider it part of your education as you learn to write for publication.
Yes, a writer who is in business to get published must consider his or her customers from beginning to end of the creative process.
Previous posts on on product quality here.
Next post: Editing Your Work
Marketing Link Roundup
0
Do you often run across an article or blog post that makes you wish you had been the one to write it? That’s how I felt when I came across these articles.
- Many Christian writers cringe at the thought of promoting themselves in order to sell their writing. Mary DeMuth did a masterful job of describing how it should work. Read the whole thing: The Prayer and Paradox Marketing Strategy by Mary DeMuth (more…)
Marketing Your Writing: The Chicken or the Egg?
0
What comes first? The writing or the marketing? Many writers, especially those new to publishing, think in terms of getting their books or articles written. Only when their projects are complete do they begin to wonder about marketing. Like a farmer with extra chickens, they start looking for a place to sell their work.
Selling your writing is not exactly like selling chickens, but there are some parallels. Bear with me! You may be trying to sell chickens when you should be cultivating the chickens so that you can sell the eggs instead.
Who needs your information?
Have you already written a book on home-schooling? Or maybe you have an idea for an article or series of articles on Internet safety. Get your market guide (see below for list) and look for publishers who cater to readers interested in your topic. Try not to be too general in identifying your reader. For example, don’t say, “Targeting all adults.” Be more specific. “Home-schooling mothers” would be a more specific target. If you have a group of devotions, you might need to tweak them for a specific age group like grandparents or teens. The approach would be entirely different depending on which group you choose.
How will you package it?
Most beginning writers think they must write a book. However, I’ve heard a number of editors say that most “first” books would be better presented as a series of articles. If you have never had any work published, you will be waging an uphill battle to get a book contract with a royalty publisher. You could publish your book yourself, but that is expensive, and you’ll have to handle the selling of your book.
If you are motivated to get your work published, the most effective way to do that is with articles and short pieces. More people will read your work if it is published in a magazine. For Christian writers, devotional magazines and Sunday School papers are good starting places. Look around your church. You might find a devotional magazine that is open to freelance submissions. Or, there might be a Sunday School paper that is used regularly in your church. Sally Stuart’s market guide contains information on such publications and where to find writers’ guidelines (see below). Your final decision on how to package your message will depend on the specifics in the publisher’s guidelines.
Who will publish it?
Make a list of potential publishers based on the guidelines you’ve collected. Most publications have Web sites where you can download the guidelines or find out how to get them. For example, the guidelines for The Secret Place devotional magazine are found online here. Some magazines require query letters. Book publishers usually want a written proposal rather than your book manuscript. Go to my Wired to Write blog for a post containing general information on how to write query letters and book proposals (and a wealth of other information on writing and publishing).
Send it in!
Whether you’ve decided to try to sell your chicken (book) or you’ve opted to re-work your material and sell the eggs (articles), the next step is: start submitting! Be prepared for rejection. A writer I met at conference said she had an acceptance rate of 40%. That means that, out of every 10 submissions, only four were accepted. If your work is rejected, send it to someone else. Send it to the same publication in a few months. It could be that your timing was the only reason it was rejected. If you persist in submitting, you will be published.
Market Guides:
- Sally Stuart’s Christian Writers’ Market Guide
- Writers’ Market Online: http://www.writersmarket.com/
Other Online Resources:
Marketing Your Writing: The Chicken or the Egg?
What comes first? The writing or the marketing? Many writers, especially those new to publishing, think in terms of getting their books or articles written. Only when their projects are complete do they begin to wonder about marketing. Like a farmer with extra chickens, they start looking for a place to sell their work.
Selling your writing is not exactly like selling chickens, but there are some parallels Bear with me! You may be trying to sell chickens when you should be cultivating the chickens so that you can sell the eggs instead.
Who needs your information?
Have you already written a book on home-schooling? Or maybe you have an idea for an article or series of articles on Internet safety. Get your market guide (see below*) and look for publishers who cater to readers interested in your topic. Try not to be too general in identifying your reader. For example, don’t say, “Targeting all adults.” Be more specific. “Home-schooling mothers” would be a more specific target. If you have a group of devotions, you might need to tweak them for a specific age group like grandparents or teens. The approach would be entirely different depending on which group you choose.
How will you package it?
Most beginning writers think they must write a book. However, I’ve heard a number of editors say that most “first” books would be better presented as a series of articles. If you have never had any work published, you will be waging an uphill battle to get a book contract with a royalty publisher. You could publish your book yourself, but that is expensive, and you’ll have to handle the selling of your book.
If you are motivated to get your work published, the most effective way to do that is with articles and short pieces. More people will read your work if it is published in a magazine. For Christian writers, devotional magazines and Sunday School papers are good starting places. Look around your church. You might find a devotional magazine that is open to freelance submissions. Or, there might be a Sunday School paper that is used regularly in your church. Sally Stuart’s market guide contains information on such publications and where to find writers’ guidelines (see below). Your final decision on how to package your message will depend on the specifics in the publisher’s guidelines.
Who will publish it?
Make a list of potential publishers based on the guidelines you’ve collected. Most publications have Web sites where you can download the guidelines or find out how to get them. For example, the guidelines for The Secret Place devotional magazine are found online here. Some magazines require query letters. Book publishers usually want a written proposal rather than your book manuscript. Go to my Wired to Write blog for a post containing general information on how to write query letters and book proposals (and a wealth of other information on writing and publishing).
Whether you’ve decided to try to sell your chicken (book) or you’ve opted to re-work your material and sell the eggs (articles), the next step is: start submitting! Be prepared for rejection. A writer I met at conference said she had an acceptance rate of 40%. That means that, out of every 10 submissions, only four were accepted. If your work is rejected, send it to someone else. Send it to the same publication in a few months. It could be that your timing was the only reason it was rejected. If you persist in submitting, you will be published.
Resources:
*Market Guides:
·Sally Stuart’s Christian Writers’ Market Guide
·Writers’ Market Online: http://www.writersmarket.com/
(Print editions of both books may be available at your public library.)
*Other Online Resources:
·www.wired2write.wordpress.com
·http://www.right-writing.com/
EzineArticles.com: Marketing Tool, Information Source
0Writers need to get their work out on the Web, and you can do that with a Web site or a blog. However, if you don’t have any traffic, your work is not being seen. So, what other options do you have?
Take a look at EzineArticles.com. This site is just loaded with information. Anyone can submit articles for this service which matches Ezine publishers with writers. The first time you submit, you have to send ten articles. If those articles are approved, you will not be limited in the number of articles you can submit. There is no pay. See the Terms of Service here.
Now, you might think, “Why should I submit ten articles in order to get approved to submit more articles if I’m not paid for any of them?” Well, honestly I don’t think I would go too far with it, but, if your work has never been published, the fact that you are accepted for EzineArticles.com gives you some credibility. If your articles are used in one of their ezines, you get an enormous amount of exposure. You are allowed to include a link to your Web site, provided you own the domain name. This means, if I understand correctly, that a free site or blog would not qualify.
OK, so you don’t think you want to submit that many articles for no pay. Y
ou can use the EzineArticles.com site as an information source. I searched “marketing for writers” and got what looks to me like an infinite number of articles on that subject. I got similar results for a search on “writing fiction.” Check it out here.
Surf the site for a while, and see how it works. You can get new ideas for marketing, for improving your writing, or for information on a number of other subjects. Sign up for one of the ezines that they offer on site (http://ezinearticles.com/subscribe/). If you prefer RSS feeds, they offer that, too, here.
Writers are no longer limited to print publications. If you can get your work published online, you can build your credibility for paying markets, either print or online.
Disclaimer: I have not submitted the 10 articles myself. It’s one of those things I’ve been meaning to do…..
