Selling What You Write: Tips from Indy Marketers

The other week I attended a workshop on marketing independent films. I don’t have any films to market, but I thought there might be some ideas that could be useful to us writers as well. Here are a few of the key points that came up:

• If you want to set up a website, consider using Wordpress blogging software instead. You have two ways to go: one is having your site hosted by Wordpress (free), the other is using the Wordpress software but hosting it on your site. The latter offers more options in terms of what you can do on the site, but both work well. For an example of the former, check out my site, www.Focusquick.com. I’ll probably do a bit of a revamp when the US edition of the book is published next year, but I think this one works well already (thanks, Gavin!).

• If you have a presence on more than one online site (e.g., Facebook, Myspace, Flicker, your own site, a blog, etc.) make sure they’re all linked to each other and let people on each site know what they can find on the others.

• Having a blog or website is one thing, getting people to come to them is another. Try to get mentioned on blogs that are already successful, and be consistent in how often you add new material—once a week is the minimum if you want attention, but generally the more often, the better. However, you need to balance this with the other things you need to do--which is why I now post only 3 times a week instead of 5 or 7 as previously. 

• Be interesting! Create material that is entertaining, or useful, or (ideally) both.

• If you produce print materials that promotes your work, such as posters or brochures, be sure you can get them to the target audience. It’s a great ego boost to see lots of lovely flyers promoting your book, for instance, but unless you can distribute them usefully, it’s a waste of money.   
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• Use every opportunity to plug your work. Like this: You can get inspiration for unconventional (and cheap) marketing methods by getting my book, Do Something Different, published by Virgin Books and available at the usual online outlets.