{"id":2745,"date":"2023-10-01T06:48:55","date_gmt":"2023-10-01T06:48:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.judithcranswick.co.uk\/?p=2745"},"modified":"2023-10-01T06:48:55","modified_gmt":"2023-10-01T06:48:55","slug":"marketing-and-promotion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.judithcranswick.co.uk\/?p=2745","title":{"rendered":"Marketing and Promotion"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>At a writers\u2019 conference about ten years ago, at the end of a talk by a well-known novelist, she was asked how much time she spent on marketing. I don\u2019t think I was the only one in the room who was left stunned and feeling totally inadequate by her answer.<\/p>\n

\u201cWriters need to spend 50% of their time writing and 50% on promotion and marketing.\u201d<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t say I made an instant decision to change my ways and if I\u2019m honest, most years I\u2019m lucky if I spend 5% of my time marketing. It\u2019s hard enough making the time to complete one novel let alone thinking about promoting myself and my books. There was a time when each January I would set out my writing goals for the year which included things like how many social media posts I would write each week, letters to local social groups offering to act as a speaker and so on. If I trawl back through my blogs, I\u2019ll probably discover a couple on the subject. I seem to remember recommending that my readers set themselves modest achievable targets. I may even have kept up with mine for the first month ticking off figures on an elaborate excel sheet but after that\u2026<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve yet to find a writer who admits to liking that aspect of a writer\u2019s life, but we all know it\u2019s a necessary evil. What is the point of spending a year putting your heart and soul into producing a brilliant novel that you are proud of if no one else is going to read it?<\/p>\n

For the first time ever, I produced this year\u2019s novel in six months. I was tempted to try to write another to make up for the fact that last year was completely unproductive – I was too busy producing cruise lectures. I decided instead to \u2018do\u2019 something about increasing my book sales.<\/p>\n

Back in March, I took part in a Book Fair for local authors (see my June blog) and I suggested that we local novelists should get together to form a marketing group. Meeting up once a month to discuss marketing ideas is proving a great way to keep focused on what I need to do.<\/p>\n

On the marketing front, September proved quite a productive month, even if I was indulging in a couple of the more interesting activities.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>First came the book launch. Our tiny local library (open only three half days a week and manned entirely by volunteers) was willing to host the launch so the next thing was to promote the event. In an effort to keep costs down, I designed the poster myself and distributed it as widely as possible. I pestered not just the two writing groups I belong to to support me, but I made sure that the yoga and Tai Chi groups that I teach plus the line dancing classes I attend all knew about the event. I even timed the event to start when my line dancing class at the community centre next door finished and bribed them all with free coffee and homemade cake! I posted on my own Facebook page encouraging friends to share and on the local community Facebook pages and did a live interview on local radio about the book.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>I promised to keep the event short \u2013 a twenty-minute PowerPoint presentation about how the book came to be written with lots of pictures showing the places mentioned in the book ending with reading a short extract.<\/p>\n

It rained solidly that morning and I was pleasantly surprised by the number of people who turned up and even more delighted with the sales. All the time and effort had been worthwhile.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The following weekend, I had a table at a craft and book fair in a neighbouring small town. Sadly, we didn\u2019t get many people through the doors, but I did sell a couple of books. The best part was meeting a couple more writers who are keen to join our marketing group.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m still hopeless at social media but all the time and effort I\u2019m putting into marketing is beginning to have an impact. Most of all, having a support group who understand the trials and tribulations involved has made an enormous difference to my approach. Marketing will always be a chore, but perhaps it\u2019s no longer quite as daunting and oppressive as it used to seem.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At a writers\u2019 conference about ten years ago, at the end of a talk by a well-known novelist, she was asked how much time she spent on marketing. I don\u2019t think I was the only one in the room who was left stunned and feeling totally inadequate by her answer. \u201cWriters need to spend 50% […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[197,45,196],"tags":[113,198],"class_list":{"0":"post-2745","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-book-fair","7":"category-book-launch","8":"category-marketing-and-promotion","9":"tag-social-media","10":"tag-support-group","11":"entry","12":"has-post-thumbnail"},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.judithcranswick.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2745"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.judithcranswick.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.judithcranswick.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.judithcranswick.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.judithcranswick.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2745"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.judithcranswick.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2745\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2754,"href":"https:\/\/www.judithcranswick.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2745\/revisions\/2754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.judithcranswick.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.judithcranswick.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.judithcranswick.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}