Hi to all! There has been a lot posted about marketing yourself. I try to set aside a certain amount of time each day for marketing, but Im sure that Im not doing it very effectively. I seem to be getting more and more bogged down with admin & marketing which means that Im not writing - which is the reason I went freelance for in the first place :-( Can anyone recommend any books or websites that deal with this? Christine
"Marketing" is such a broad term. And there's a lot to it. I'm not aware of any one specific book that deals with marketing for writers. Also, what's good for me won't necessarily be good for you. Here are some general tips: 1. Set up a Web site on your own domain (you.com). 2. Put samples on the site and an easy way for someone to contact you for a quote. 3. Put the site's link in your signature on any forums. 4. Post your offerings here and any other forum you can find that's appropriate. 5. Write one article and submit it to article sites. 6. If appropriate, think about sites like eLance. Extra ideas A. If you're a web article writer, write a set of articles (say 5) on a topic and post them for sale here and other places. B. Again, if you're a web writer, think about roping in Web site owners. Start a mailing list and work on getting signups. You could offer free PLR content, Web site and so forth. The list will help you build a relationship and it will give you people to email deals to. C. Focus on one industry or sector and do the above for it. For example, dentistry. You could become "the" dentistry writer. D. Advertise. Set up an AdWords account and start trying to land new clients. Bonus Learn how to manage existing clients. Your existing base is a gold mine. You already have a relationship with them and they are primed for repeat business. Don't wait for them to come to you. Constantly check in and offer special deals when possible. Does it work? Yes. And here's yet another bonus. Always treat your clients the same. The smaller $100 order can easily become a ticket to tens of thousands.
I covered this topic in a blog entry back on August 1st in response to a question someone asked me about rates. I gave this person two examples of rate information, but the second source is something you might be interested in reading. That second source was Lynn Wasnak's, "How Much Should I Charge?," booklet which covers setting rates based on a number of factors including hours worked. Lynn calculated that a freelancer should have 1000 billable hours per year which translates into 21 billable hours per week. This suggests that the majority of the remaining time would be used for administrative tasks including marketing. Sure, if you are new to the world of writing you may not have the billable hours yet. You may have to step up your marketing campaign and probably work some long hours before you have a satisfactory number of projects on hand to make a go of it.
Before you decide that you're spending too much time on marketing and admin, make sure you're being realistic about it. It's not uncommon at all for freelancers to spend nearly half of their time in those areas. Being a writer is as much about the business side of things as the actual writing. If you're serious about writing as a career, you need to accept that early on, and learn to work around it, instead of having a hobby writer mentality of "I just want to write." I'm not saying you're exactly at that point, but your complaint is extremely common in that group. Just keep telling yourself that you're in business, and you need to treat your writing as one. As for books, the only writer-targeted one that comes to mind is Guerrilla Marketing for Writers. You can also look for book publicity books. Most of the tactics can be manipulated to benefit other types of writing as well.
Thanks for the replies & ideas all. Im away on holiday next week, so its given me something to think about while I lie by the pool Ive been writing full time for just over ten years - quite a few of those have been as a staff writer. Until now Ive been geared more towards writing for magazines (commissioned not on spec). With the marketing - I think its a case of I just *know* that it can be done more efficiently, but also knowing that Im sort of running blind. But will take all the ideas on board, and thanks again, the comments have been helpful (Wish I'd found this forum before!) Christine
I have been writing for over twenty years. In the last two years I have been writing specifically for Internet Marketers. However, seeing the money they make and having people try and sell me back my own work often for more money than I was paid to do it, I decided I was on the wrong side of the stick. My first step in personal marketing is too get my name out, probably among sites like this. I do not know what type of writing you do mainly but it seems social networking sites, blogs and forums have become the new-age marketing technique. I do not know if that helps you or not, but it seems to be at least generating traffic for me on my site. Now I just have to start converting that to sales. Ward Tipton
Christine, all the best for you. Enjoy your holiday too. Most writers are very good at their craft, but lacking in the administrative and marketing areas. This can be learned and it is something we can get a handle on over time.