So before my life got super busy crazy, I had started writing blog posts meant to help authors market their books. I’ve written two segments so far, you can check them out here and here. Since then, I got so caught up writing reviews of the books I’ve read that I’d forgotten to write these specific advice posts (even though people have been requesting them) so here’s my third one! This post is going to deal with some of the day-to-day things you should ’embody’ as an author. And before you ask-no, I’m not an author myself, but you can review my bio as to why I’m capable of giving out marketing advice. Plus, I’m dang sure these are do-able, so stop whining and just start doing them.
So, if you’re: a writer /want to write a book/envision yourself writing a book in the near future/consider yourself an ‘undiscovered authorial talent’/write lots of stuff, you should be trying to do the following ON A DAILY BASIS to push yourself further to success:
- Write every day. Doesn’t matter if it’s a sentence or a few pages, you need to get in the habit of doing this every day. And I don’t mean writing a text to your buddy, I mean writing as part of your ongoing projects or goals.
- Read every day. Many people do this already, but it’s so important to read regularly and widely if you want to become a writer yourself. I’ve been to a ton of book events, and by far, this is the most common advice successful authors will give: the best writer is always an avid reader.
- Refer to yourself as an author or writer, even if you don’t have anything published. This is a piece of advice I find difficult to follow myself, but I’ve got a super duper marketing guru friend who insists I refer to myself as a book reviewer. When someone asks me what I do, I usually say ‘stay-at-home-mom’ because that’s what I spend the majority of my time doing, but really, I should be saying book reviewer, because this is what I get paid to do by other organizations (not by the authors themselves! See post #2 for an explanation of why I will never accept payment from an author to review their book). I don’t care if you sell shoes, scrub floors or flip burgers for your day-job, tell people what your passion is!
- Make friends with other authors. A lovely blogger buddy of mine, Melanie at GTL makes an effort to write with other people, and not only does it introduce her to other people in the writing community (i.e. networking), it keeps her accountable and forces her to write regularly. These people can read your work and give advice, introduce you to other writers in your genre, yadda yadda yadda the benefits are truly endless.
There, I think that’s enough ranting for today. Think my advice is dumb? Tell me why in the comments and I’ll pretend to consider your points thoughtfully.
I’m not a writer (although I write pretty much every day) and I don’t consider myself a book reviewer (because nobody pays me to do it) so I don’t know what to call myself! “Hi! I’m FF! I eat chocolate!” just doesn’t have that professional ring to it, does it? And now I think of it, nobody pays me to do that either. All these skills, wasted! 😉
ok but these skills are highly revered in the blog world no? I think you can definitely call yourself a book reviewer, considering all the publishers that you send you free stuff. At the very least, you are a ‘literary influencer’ 🙂
Haha – I’m more likely to be influenced by all those other pesky bloggers as my TBR will attest… 😉
It’s great advice though I also find it hard to call myself a writer. But hey it’s what I love and what I spend vast amounts of time doing!
we just need to feel more comfortable marketing ourselves in general-it’s never easy but we will reap the rewards!
This is sound advice! Great post, Anne.
thank you!
Thank for the shout out! I just got to this post because lately I’ve been a stage manager (there, I said the title). I still write with my friend Charles. He moved to a new state, so now we use Google Hangouts to talk on Saturdays. I haven’t written about our writing time because of the play, but it’s still happening! Talking to another writer helps you confirm to yourself that you are a writer, and you get excited about writing. Don’t let writing become like flossing.
haha that’s a great quote-don’t let writing become like flossing!!!! Genius.
I had a friend in college who said the two hardest things a person can do for him/herself is quitting smoking and starting flossing.
I think the hardest thing I would ever attempt would be quitting chocolate…but obviously I would never do that! I mean, I don’t smoke, so I have to have a vice right?
Are you doing the Christmas chocolate videos again? 😍
gosh I sure hope so!