How to Market Yourself

This has nothing to do with marketing, but it came up when I typed in "Self marketing."

Before you get too excited, I absolutely do not have the answer to this.  But I am collecting my thoughts on what I learned about this during the NE SCBWI conference and in the first five months of being post-contract on the road to publishing my own little marketing baby, SCARLET.

Remember the simple stuff.

There's a lot of stuff I've learned about branding, writing, the internet, and various other things through my years as a blogger, a writer, a corporate employee and a general big time dreamer.  There are some obvious simple things you hear over and over.

Pick five words. This is a major tenet of branding.  What five words can define your brand?  I mean this comes up in every store, hotel, or company I've ever worked with.  And it's true with books too.  It doesn't have to be five; it can be three.  It can be one.  But it reminds you what's at the core of what you are trying to market.

Develop tension. Okay, this one I learned from writing.  Anticipation heightens tension.  A lack of something heightens tension.  A teaser–a quick mention before it's gone–heightens tension.  And when there's tension, people get really excited.  For a book release, you want people excited. So whether it's by giveaways, teaser trailers, or developing scheduled releases of content that give people something to look forward to.  I think people want to get excited about things, but you have to give them the chance to.

Get creative. Okay, here's the shocker–creative people sometimes balk at the idea of getting really creative.  Whhhaaaa?  I know.  But some people do it INCREDIBLY well–take, for example, Eric Luper as the king of Awesome in terms of creative promotion.  The guy has a cupcake truck coming to one of his book signings.  And I think that kind of promotion not only makes him noticeable and memorable, but also makes him incredibly FUN!  And just like people want tension, people want fun.

So there are the basics, but lets get a little more concrete.

Take the five words thing.  Say, for instance, SCARLET's words would probably be "historical" "YA" "Robin hood" (I guess we'll call these terms, then) and, I like to think, "Girl power".  Scarlet's a rockin' girl and I think that's part of what makes the book fun and awesome.

So what does that mean?  It means when I'm talking about, blogging about, or connecting to Scarlet, one of these four terms should be involved.  When I'm promoting SCARLET, it should be in relation to one of these aspects.  This means when I'm thinking of places for marketing opportunities, castles, renaissance fairs, archery contests and maybe some sort of cool teen-girl summit should come to mind.  When I'm looking for publications to advertise in, or things to be associated with, the same things apply.

When it comes to developing tension, I need to create a plan–not unlike writing a book–to release information in a way that keeps me from revealing all my secrets at once, and also keeps the reader (or, I guess in this case, the potential buyer) along with me for the ride.  It's all about pacing.  I unders

tand this concept; I can't say whether or not I'll succeed, but I definitely understand this concept.

What about the creativity?  Well…I guess you'll just have to come along and see.