There is a conventional image of the writing life. If you’re a man, no doubt, you envision yourself bespectacled in horn-rimmed glasses,smoking a pipe, wearing a cozy oversized cardigan sweater and turning out brilliant prose on your portable Smith Corona. And if you actually live in the reality of the 21st century, you’ve updated the myth to include a laptop computer.Many women tend to go more for the Jessica Fletcher version of the dream - living in your charming 19th-century house and cranking out your next bestseller, only to emerge like a moth from its cocoon come Spring to be wined and dined as the world sings praise to your work. But as Murray Slaughter, the news writer on the old Mary Tyler Moore Show, once said (in character) when asked if he liked writing: I love seeing my work published, but I don’t like the effort of writing. Well that’s the gist of what he said. To me it captures the reality of the writing life. Like anything worth doing and doing well, writing is hard work.
One of the harder parts of writing is getting your work read. I’m talking about the marketing and publicity that goes into getting your book noticed. My co-author and business partner, Matilda Butler, and I regularly interview published memoirists. We post audio recordings of these interviews on our site Women’s Memoirs, which we invite you to enjoy. They’re free. Most recently Matilda and I spoke with Jerramy Fine, a young woman who has written a perfectly delightful memoir about her lifelong dream to marry into royalty. Her book is called Someday My Prince Will Come: True Adventures of a Wannabe Princess. Link directly to Jerramy’s interview here Jerramy wasn’t at all prepared for the marketing effort required for her success. As she explains in this interview, the turnover of marketing and publicity people within the publishing company opened her eyes to the reality: No one in the publishing house had a vision for her book’s promotion. Today Jerramy is fully engaged in the promotion of her book. She hired a publicist of her own and actively manages her Twitter account and Facebook Fan Page.
Here’s the reality: In the modern world of publishing, you, the author, are not only responsible for writing the book, you have to be marketer and often publicist as well. Furthermore, if you want a chance at success, you shouldn’t wait to change into your marketing hat after you’ve hung up your writing cap. As Matilda and I tell our writing students, start marketing the same day you begin writing your book. Most specifically, we recommend they start a blog and begin building an Internet presence. I should mention here that even the era of the book signing and physical book tour is waning - giving way to blog virtual book tours. Much of your exposure will come via blogs just like this one. So the earlier you begin to cultivate an online audience of readers and a network of book-loving bloggers, the better. You haven’t a moment to lose.
The good news about turning to social networking sites and blogging to build awareness for yourself and your book is that virtually all the resources are free: Twitter, WordPress, Ning, Facebook, YouTube, etc. The bad news is that it’s time-intensive. It’s probably going to take you a good year to build much of a following, which is why we encourage writers to start blogging at the same time they start writing. When the manuscript is done, you should have a solid foundation for your promotional platform. And should you decide to sell your book to a major publisher, having a fan base of prospective readers is going to make a huge difference.
For you see, there is a romantic image of publishers too. We like to think of them as bibliophiles…wealthy dilettantes who just love books so much that it’s their greatest pleasure to work with authors (their heroes) and help them get their books into the hands of eager readers. The 21st-century reality is that major publishing houses are big business and many of them aren’t doing well right now. The current economy has exacerbated the problems of an already plagued business model, the triple threat of an increasingly expensive production model, a huge debt load, and growing competition for readers’ spare time (television, DVDs, videogames, Internet, etc.).
If you’re truly a writer, none of what I’ve written will deter you from writing. Thank goodness because that is not my intent. I just want you to have the best possible chance for success. And that best chance comes with a commitment and a totally 21st-century approach to marketing. I’ll leave you with one more bit of reality, which will probably surprise you. According to a Nielsen Bookscan survey a few years ago, more than 70 percent of books published will sell fewer than 99 copies.
That ought to sweep your eyes back in your head. But let me end with some encouragement. If you have a good book and can write effectively and if you start promoting and building your presence online early enough, you actually have a greater shot at success than ever before. And that’s because you have a wide range of free and/or affordable tools you can use to effectively promote yourself. You can bring all your creative energy to bear on the challenge and create a successful future for yourself as a writer. You need a plan (a strategy) and techniques (tactics). Armed with these, you can succeed as a writer.
Writing is a wonderful life. It provides satisfaction and great control over one’s own life. Personally, I wouldn’t do anything else.
Kendra Bonnett is an award-winning author who has written more than 150 magazine articles, written,
edited or ghostwritten seven books, and started three magazines, including the award-winning Profit Magazine for IBM.Using her marketing experience, writing talent and Internet know-how, Kendra guides authors in search of book sales or new business. Kendra is co-author of Rosie's Daughters: The "First Woman To" Generation Tells Its Story, a collective memoir of women born during WWII and a 2008 IPPY Book Award winner.
You can leave comments and questions for Kendra in the comment section below or reach her at kendra@twowomenbusiness.com.
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