Monday 9 January 2012

How to Succeed...

...without really trying is no longer an option. And to be truthful, success has a direct correlation with  achievable ambition. Deadlines met, articles written, books sold: all equate to success though they may not equate to fame. To succeed as a writer, have  the confidence to first of all write, and then to sell.

And there's the rub. The marketing and selling take time, often too much time out of the writing day. Very few writers have the luxury of treating their work as a full-time job. To add marketing into the tricky mix of life commitments can be one job too many.


Some writers are much better at marketing than others. For that reason banding and bonding in writers' groups makes total sense when it comes to spreading the word.

But choose carefully.


The Advantage of Writers' Groups

  •  Meet like-minded authors with the same goals and aspirations
  •  Ask for and receive advice and support about  writing and marketing
  •  Access to all the knowledge and accumulated resources of the group as a whole
  •  Support when it comes to promoting your materials. 

The Disadvantage of Writers' Groups

  •  Too many emails, promoting work you  know nothing about.
  •  Conflicting advice when it comes to problem solving. 
  •  Too much time spent reading and learning from others and too little doing any work of your own. 
  •   Too broad spectrum of interest.


January Marketing Ideas

The best promotion can often be invisible. Create a following for yourself by following others. Promoting to writers ia always good because all writers read, right? But not all readers write.

The January blog comment challenge at Mother Reader has already opened my eyes to new possibilities for writing, reading and promotion. Aimed mainly at children's and YA writers, it invites you to sign up and comment on five of the participating blogs per day. Not as arduous a task as it sounds. Comment on 100 blogs during 21 days. It has already started but you can easily catch up if you want to. I've been going for two days now and thoroughly enjoying it. Thanks Mary Jo for recommending this one.

Think about it. Your name linked to your website is heading every comment and you're hitting 100 new sites.

From participating, I found The European Reading Challenge  which again I shall most certainly take on. There are both European and American sections. (Apologies to my Australian friends. You'll have to check out the site for yourselves. LOL) For this we must read five books and review them before January 31 2013, each from a different European country and written by different European authors.

Several other challenges appear on the site and again it  seems to me a way of inculcating best practice  when it comes to enhancing
  • your writing speed
  • your literary knowlege
  • interest in your own genre and books.
Anybody interested in joining me? Or do you have other challenges and award promotion possibilities lined up for this month?

8 comments:

  1. This is such a good post as we each begin our new year of writing and working toward our goals. What to watch for in writing groups, both positive and negative -- thank you for showing both sides.

    I'm currently involved in the 12 x 12 in 2012 picture book draft-writing challenge (FAQ at this link: http://writeupmylife.com/2012/01/09/12-x-12-in-2012-frequently-asked-questions/

    I also participate in the Children's Book Hub, which is a fantastic resource and learning place online, as well as being a networking possibility. There's a link on the sidebar of my blog. (Don't want to fill your comment box with links!)

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  2. Very informative! mpflory.blogspot.com

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  3. I think challenges and groups can be very useful in getting you moving, but you need to be careful that they don't get in the way of doing the work.

    http://juliamaisen.com

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  4. Thanks Beth for dropping by and leaving us another challenge and more resource ideas. Shall certainly be exploring your sidebar too. Thanks for visiting MP and Julia. I do agree with the comment but we who write v-e-r-y slowly often need small challenge diversions or group therapy to keep us motivated and keep our ideas fresh. LOL

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  5. Thanks for visiting my blog Annie! I'm enjoying the comment challenge too. It's fun to see so many new blogs. Take care!

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  6. Thanks so much for talking up the Comment Challenge as a mini-step to marketing. It's a great way to find out about a lot of people doing some of the same things in writing or finding out what book reviewers are saying. So much wealth of information in the kidlit community online!

    For instance, you look like have some great info here yourself, so I'll be coming back to get some writing tips. Thanks!

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  7. Thanks so much Jill and MotherReader. The extra bonus I have from the Comment Challenge is the inspiration to try to produce as interesting and useful content as I am seeing on all the great blogs I visit. I shall certainly be keeping this up.

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  8. Ah, found you on the Comment Challenge myself! Yes, it's time-consuming to keep up the promotion machine- blog, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr. I'm limiting myself to one "challenge" at a time, I can barely keep up with this one. :)

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