Beginning Some Marketing

This week's posts have all been for that new member of my writers' group. He had so many questions about things that I thought we all knew. But of course we don't all know it all. We can all learn so much from each other.

In the discussion we did touch on marketing. And while there is no completed novel yet, it's never too early to start networking with the writing community.

As you're starting out on your journey to publication, you do want to connect--to the writing community, to readers, to the publishing community...

Think of it as research. Learn the industry. And if you make some helpful friends along the way...

Where should you focus your efforts? The more important question is: where do you most enjoy spending your time? A writers' group in your community? Blogging? Goodreads? Twitter? Start there.

If you're not sure, try any and all avenues that open up to you. Go to a writers' conference. Start a blog. Get on Twitter. Find the one you like and stick with it. Get involved in that community. Learn what you can from them. Give back when you can. Then when you're ready to launch your book, you already have a presence to build on.

But most importantly, do what feels right to you.

Any other advice? What marketing efforts have worked for you? Is it ever too early to start?

Where to Go

One thing I promised to do (a while ago...) was to provide links to help that new writer figure out this crazy thing we do--writing things with the hope of someday publishing them. You all have been so helpful in this. That's what's great about the writing community. You are there to help us newbies out.

For writing your novel, there are so many books out there. Just go to Amazon and search "writing" and you'll get a huge list. This is not an exhaustive list, but only some of the ones that more people seem to rave about (thanks, Carol, for your recommendations):

• On Writing by Stephen King 
• Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott 
• The Elements of Style by Strunk and White 
• The Emotion Thesaurus by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi 
• How to Write a Novel by Nathan Bransford 
• Hooked by Les Edgerton 
• Save the Cat! by Blake Snyder 
• Writing the Breakout Novel by Donald Maass

While you're writing, you may have some grammar questions. And of course, we all swear by the Grammar Girl.  

When I started out, one of the first blogs I followed was Nathan Bransford's. He used to be a literary agent, and his blog had all sorts of great tips for those of us starting out. He's since gone from agent to author, and I haven't been back to his blog in a while, but it looks like he still might be a good resource for those just learning about all of this. 

If you're planning on submitting your novel to publishers, you're going to need a query (whether you plan on getting an agent or querying smaller publishing houses yourself). A couple good places to start: 

• Query Shark
• The Quintessentially Questionable Query Experiment

As for marketing your novel, I've found a couple good successful self-published writers who offer their advice about how they got where they are and how one can follow in their footsteps:

• Lindsay Buroker
• Bree Bridges

And, of course, if you want to wade into the blogging community (which is a great place to network as well as learn from other writers on this journey of ours), you need to start with Alex J. Cavanaugh and/or join in (or just visit) the blogs doing the A to Z starting next week.  

I haven't even scratched the surface. But this is a start. What are some other good sites? Any other books to recommend to a newbie? 

Some Publishing Basics

This week I'm giving advice to the new member of my writers' group. Feel free to chime in with anything I miss.

Most of the discussion we had on his first meeting had to do with publication. Sure, he knew the novel wasn't quite finished, but he's anxious to get it out into the world. He found a "publisher" that would put together his book... for a fee. And now he's been getting emails from them urging him to submit his novel.

We directed him to step away from the vanity publisher...

The first thing to do is to finish the novel. And by finish, I mean it should have been read by critique partners and/or beta readers. It would be a good idea to have an editor take a look at it (this is one thing to definitely pay for).

Then, once you're sure you're ready... (Are we ever truly ready? There's always more tinkering to do. But at some point we must dive in.)

You must decide what route you want to take. You can submit to traditional publishers or do it yourself. (Last week we had a great post on the differences in publishers. Thanks, Carol. Perfect timing.)

Which is the right way to go? Well, that's a very individual decision. There are pros and cons on both sides, so I'm going to open this question up to you.

Did you (are are you planning to) publish with a publishing house (large or small), or did you go it on your own? Why? If you could go back and do it differently, would you?

Beth Fred on How To Write & Eat At the Same Time

Before we get started, I'm teaching a blurb writing class in August. This is the method I used to query with a 50% full request rate and snag an agent and editor. You can sign up here.
I hear it all the time. Writers frustrated they work so hard and never make any money. I did a happy dance because I broke even last year. I even had a profit--four digits if you count what comes after the decimals. So how do you write and eat at the same time?
Believe it or not, there are a few ways.
Consider a day job that involves a lot of writing. Since writing comes naturally to you, it probably won't be as taxing as other days jobs and you may actually enjoy it. A couple of good contenders are technical writing/technical communications and marketing writing. Technical writers usually write procedural manuals for companies, though they are often responsible for other office communications as well. This field pays really well,but can be hard to break into. If you have an English degree you're trying to put to use, this may be the way to go. You'll need a degree and a writing portfolio. Since it is so hard to break into, some recommend rewriting a current manual to have a writing sample. Marketing writing allows more room for creativity, but doesn't always pay as much, though it often involves something everyone here knows well--blogging. And the writing samples you need to get this kind of gig you may already have.
But nonfiction might be where it's at! Why? Because nonfiction usually works a little differently than fiction. You approach a publication with an idea and they tell you if they want you to write it or not. You don't write 60,000 words and then not sell it. You write a pitch and move forward from there, and these publications often pay fairly well, at least in comparison to fiction. They also have quicker response times probably because they are dealing only with a proposal. So think about what you do at your day job, or what you did before you started writing and look for publications in that area of expertise. Then come up with something that might be interesting for you because it will probably be interesting for others in that field as well.(Stay at home moms, you can do this too. Parenting magazines!)
Short Fiction Pays More. Yeah. That doesn't make sense, does it? You have to think about the genre you're writing in and what publications are available in that genre, but this is sometimes true. I write romance and the only print venue I know of paying for short fiction is Woman's World but for 800 words which is barely a cute meet they often pay out like $800. I have not got an advance on a novel that amounted to that. And if you're churning out 2000 words/day for a novel how long will it really take you to write 800 words? (Longer than you think, because cramming a beginning, middle and some kind of end into that is not easy, but still). No where near as long as a novel.
Come back Wednesday! I'm going to be talking about how to write a nonfiction query.