Day 616: A new ambitious marketing project
Marketing is a necessary aspect of writing, whether you’re published traditionally or self-published. Unfortunately since I’ve published in two genres, I have two newsletters for marketing. While I can usually find something to write about in my Regency newsletter, recently I’ve had difficulty figuring out what to do about my contemporary romantic suspense newsletter when I’m not writing a contemporary novel at the moment, and I don’t have plans to release one until after I finish the Regency series.
I’ve been trying to adhere to the “one a month” marketing strategy. It’s hard sometimes to have something of value to include in my contemporary newsletter. Actually, sometimes it’s hard to have something of value to include in my Regency newsletter too, but at least I can write about the book I’m working on.
Mostly I’ve been blogging about “extra” tidbits that relate to my books. That includes recipes of food mentioned in the books, knitting patterns of knitted items mentioned in the books, any additional character or setting information. I have a handful of things I can blog about for my Regency series, but lately I’ve been hurting for what to blog about for my contemporary books.
The problem is that the best kind of value for readers is usually free fiction reads, such as short stories. I’ve also blogged a couple of my books in their entirety, posted in 1000-word segments. The problem is that free reads take time to write and of course they have to promote some other of my books so that I haven’t wasted my time.
I have one or two contemporary novellas that I could possibly post in their entirety on my blog, but the problem is that most of my newsletter readers already have those books by now, since they’ve been available for sale or free at a few points this past year. So if I did post free fiction on my blog, it needs to be new stuff.
But I barely have time to write my Regency series. How am I going to have time to write new contemporary romantic suspense stories???
Then I started thinking about this writing streak I’ve been doing. On days my health is feeling okay, I’m doing 500 words of prose on my Regency novel and then an hour or two of blocking, but on bare minimum days, I’m still doing only 100 words. It’s easy to do even when I’m in pain or don’t have much energy.
I was thinking that after I finish my Regency writing, 100 words a day on a contemporary novel is totally doable. It’s usually about 5 or 10 minutes of work. And at the end of a month, I’d have 2000-3000 words I could post on my blog.
So now I’m thinking about writing another prequel to my Hawaii contemporary series, and posting it in segments of about 2000 words once a month on my blog and linking to it in my newsletter.
I wouldn’t have even considered it if I hadn’t already had a completed contemporary romance manuscript that my editor had rejected several years ago. The story still needs significant revision because it doesn’t have suspense and if I use this free read to promote my Hawaii series, then it has to be the same genre as that series, which is contemporary romantic suspense. Also, in that old manuscript, there are some aspects of the way I wrote the heroine’s occupation that I’m not totally satisfied with and I wouldn’t want to publish it exactly as is even if I didn’t have to revise it for suspense elements.
I will need to spend a few weeks doing the Snowflake method of plotting on the storyline and doing some blocking before I can start writing/revising the prose. And in the interest of starting this free read as soon as possible, I might only do the blocking for the next scene just before I write it, rather than blocking all the scenes for the book in advance, like I’m doing for my Regency series. For this contemporary book, since it’s a stand-alone novel, I won’t need to worry about continuity issues like I do with the Regency books (which is why I’m trying to finish the blocking for all the volumes in the Regency series). But for this new contemporary novel, I'd essentially be posting chapters of the book on my blog as soon as I write them, which is kind of scary for me.
This is an extremely ambitious project for me, and I’m not sure if I’ll be able to do this. But I was thinking about my strengths and how I can use those for marketing, and ultimately, writing fiction is my greatest marketing strength. If I have to do marketing anyway, why not do something I enjoy and that I’m confident in?
Also, most marketing pushes are temporary things—blog tours, Facebook parties, ad campaigns, even multi-author anthologies. I always have to put in a lot of effort to prepare for those things, and once it’s done, the marketing effect is over.
But a piece of fiction posted on my blog is evergreen. For one thing, I can keep my contemporary romance readers interested as I’m writing it, which will take at least until I finish writing this Regency series, so the interim marketing effect will be a long time, a couple years.
Then after the free read is completed, I can put in effort to make an ad graphic and use that to point people to the free read on my blog. If they like my writing, they’ll buy the series that the free read is promoting.
Anyway, that was my thought process as I was trying to decide if I wanted to try to do this new marketing venture or not. And the pros ended up outweighing the cons, at least in terms of the things that I value and that I enjoy doing. Someone else might have different priorities or strengths, but for me, putting in significantly more effort for the reward of an evergreen marketing tool is worth it.
Or at least, mentally it’s easier for me to consider doing evergreen marketing tools that appeal to my interests and strengths rather than marketing events that are more difficult for me to do.
***
I’m a bit disappointed that I got a late start to work today, but it was partly due to a bunch of house chores I had to get done. I also admit I wasted a bit of time planning my cooking—I’ve had to take more time to think about that kind of thing because of my IBS. Luckily I’m still slowly getting better, so what I’m doing must be working.
Anyway, since I got a late start, I didn’t have a lot of time to spend on blocking today. However, I’m definitely working more hours than I did before when I was feeling poorly, so I can tell I have increased energy.
Editing: Time spent: 19 minutes
Writing: Time spent: 43 minutes
Writing: Total number of words: 599 words
Writing streak: 95 days
Blocking: time spent: 1 hour, 47 minutes
Blocking streak: 89 days
Time spent doing other writing-related business: 1 hour, 16 minutes
My takeaway for today: Put in the effort for an evergreen marketing tool that takes advantage of my strengths, which is fiction writing.
I’ve been trying to adhere to the “one a month” marketing strategy. It’s hard sometimes to have something of value to include in my contemporary newsletter. Actually, sometimes it’s hard to have something of value to include in my Regency newsletter too, but at least I can write about the book I’m working on.
Mostly I’ve been blogging about “extra” tidbits that relate to my books. That includes recipes of food mentioned in the books, knitting patterns of knitted items mentioned in the books, any additional character or setting information. I have a handful of things I can blog about for my Regency series, but lately I’ve been hurting for what to blog about for my contemporary books.
The problem is that the best kind of value for readers is usually free fiction reads, such as short stories. I’ve also blogged a couple of my books in their entirety, posted in 1000-word segments. The problem is that free reads take time to write and of course they have to promote some other of my books so that I haven’t wasted my time.
I have one or two contemporary novellas that I could possibly post in their entirety on my blog, but the problem is that most of my newsletter readers already have those books by now, since they’ve been available for sale or free at a few points this past year. So if I did post free fiction on my blog, it needs to be new stuff.
But I barely have time to write my Regency series. How am I going to have time to write new contemporary romantic suspense stories???
Then I started thinking about this writing streak I’ve been doing. On days my health is feeling okay, I’m doing 500 words of prose on my Regency novel and then an hour or two of blocking, but on bare minimum days, I’m still doing only 100 words. It’s easy to do even when I’m in pain or don’t have much energy.
I was thinking that after I finish my Regency writing, 100 words a day on a contemporary novel is totally doable. It’s usually about 5 or 10 minutes of work. And at the end of a month, I’d have 2000-3000 words I could post on my blog.
So now I’m thinking about writing another prequel to my Hawaii contemporary series, and posting it in segments of about 2000 words once a month on my blog and linking to it in my newsletter.
I wouldn’t have even considered it if I hadn’t already had a completed contemporary romance manuscript that my editor had rejected several years ago. The story still needs significant revision because it doesn’t have suspense and if I use this free read to promote my Hawaii series, then it has to be the same genre as that series, which is contemporary romantic suspense. Also, in that old manuscript, there are some aspects of the way I wrote the heroine’s occupation that I’m not totally satisfied with and I wouldn’t want to publish it exactly as is even if I didn’t have to revise it for suspense elements.
I will need to spend a few weeks doing the Snowflake method of plotting on the storyline and doing some blocking before I can start writing/revising the prose. And in the interest of starting this free read as soon as possible, I might only do the blocking for the next scene just before I write it, rather than blocking all the scenes for the book in advance, like I’m doing for my Regency series. For this contemporary book, since it’s a stand-alone novel, I won’t need to worry about continuity issues like I do with the Regency books (which is why I’m trying to finish the blocking for all the volumes in the Regency series). But for this new contemporary novel, I'd essentially be posting chapters of the book on my blog as soon as I write them, which is kind of scary for me.
This is an extremely ambitious project for me, and I’m not sure if I’ll be able to do this. But I was thinking about my strengths and how I can use those for marketing, and ultimately, writing fiction is my greatest marketing strength. If I have to do marketing anyway, why not do something I enjoy and that I’m confident in?
Also, most marketing pushes are temporary things—blog tours, Facebook parties, ad campaigns, even multi-author anthologies. I always have to put in a lot of effort to prepare for those things, and once it’s done, the marketing effect is over.
But a piece of fiction posted on my blog is evergreen. For one thing, I can keep my contemporary romance readers interested as I’m writing it, which will take at least until I finish writing this Regency series, so the interim marketing effect will be a long time, a couple years.
Then after the free read is completed, I can put in effort to make an ad graphic and use that to point people to the free read on my blog. If they like my writing, they’ll buy the series that the free read is promoting.
Anyway, that was my thought process as I was trying to decide if I wanted to try to do this new marketing venture or not. And the pros ended up outweighing the cons, at least in terms of the things that I value and that I enjoy doing. Someone else might have different priorities or strengths, but for me, putting in significantly more effort for the reward of an evergreen marketing tool is worth it.
Or at least, mentally it’s easier for me to consider doing evergreen marketing tools that appeal to my interests and strengths rather than marketing events that are more difficult for me to do.
***
I’m a bit disappointed that I got a late start to work today, but it was partly due to a bunch of house chores I had to get done. I also admit I wasted a bit of time planning my cooking—I’ve had to take more time to think about that kind of thing because of my IBS. Luckily I’m still slowly getting better, so what I’m doing must be working.
Anyway, since I got a late start, I didn’t have a lot of time to spend on blocking today. However, I’m definitely working more hours than I did before when I was feeling poorly, so I can tell I have increased energy.
Editing: Time spent: 19 minutes
Writing: Time spent: 43 minutes
Writing: Total number of words: 599 words
Writing streak: 95 days
Blocking: time spent: 1 hour, 47 minutes
Blocking streak: 89 days
Time spent doing other writing-related business: 1 hour, 16 minutes
My takeaway for today: Put in the effort for an evergreen marketing tool that takes advantage of my strengths, which is fiction writing.
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