You are a writer. You want to write. You are not in sales. You despise marketing. Self promotion is embarrassing. When you think about selling yourself, you remember that past efforts led to being blanked by the business side or another delicately worded rejection. You hate it. So you go back to what you love best. Writing.
The bad news is that you won’t get anywhere if you don’t put a marketing strategy together. The good news is, I’ve run this gauntlet myself; I know the business side of publishing and production very well these days, and because I understand your pain, I’ve developed a method for you to sell yourself which plays to our strengths. It is a method that requires you to be a writer, to tell a story and to be yourself.
The internet means it’s never been easier to get your message out there. But it also means it’s never been harder to be heard. Most writers go to market with a begging bowl and an emotional pitch about their story. You’re not going to do that. You’re going to set yourself apart and gain respect from the industry by presenting yourself as a fellow professional with a commercial proposition that will work for them.
You need three things:
- A strategy for your journey across the bridge from ‘passionate artist’ to ‘fulfilled professional’. The secret here is to recognise that this journey is not about you. Or your manuscript. It’s about the agent/manager/ producer/publisher who can facilitate your journey. We’re going to write their story, and in your marketing, make them the star of your journey.
- You must write your marketing story and develop the documents you need to get there. We will use sensible business tactics to build a business-ready version of you. All we are doing here is cracking the door open. That’s all. A modest aim with a highly focused target… but a critical differentiator.
- Once we have that chink of daylight you’d better make sure the work you are going to submit, in all forms (‘blurb’, precis, title, cover design, images, treatment, look-book, pitch-deck…) up to and including the full manuscript is absolutely brilliant. It’s amazing how many writers get a glimmer of hope from, say, an agent, and then are not nearly as ready as they thought they were to turn it into a fruitful relationship.
So you can do this, right? We’re going to get the stars out of your eyes; sort your routine and discipline to make your writing week professional and productive; write the story of your agent taking you and your work over the bridge to welcome you into the world of the fulfilled professional writer – a story in which they are the star – and we’re going to put together all the resources you need to make it happen.
So the detail is under construction right now with a whole new amazing set of resources for storytellers – loads of videos and templates for your personal marketing strategy for success – all coming your way right here sooooooooon!