Welcome to the second Writers Reveal of the year! Starting this month, we’re making a significant change to our format. Since Emily Morgan recently had to step down as our host, we’ve decided to continue with Writers Reveal by taking turns setting a single topic for everyone each month. So for our first universal prompt, Emily Hawker has chosen to have us write about advertising. Thanks for the topic, Emily!

Advertising for Novices

Written by The Best Author Ever

OK, so when Emily sent this topic to us, I really didn’t know what I was going to write about. Selling novels? Ads for blogs? How could I write an entire blog post about a subject I know so little about? And then I realized exactly what it could be about: marketing from an amateur writer’s point of view. If I can’t write from the perspective of an expert in advertising, I can write from the perspective of a beginner.

So what little do I understand about advertising? For starters, I know it plays a key role in helping anyone gain exposure. I also know that artists have to be especially involved in marketing their work, at least in the beginning. Because our chosen line of work is so subjective, we have to take the first steps to prove that our stories are worth reading, our music is worth listening to, and our visual pieces of art are worth seeing. Only from our hard initial efforts can the ball begin to roll toward our success, and even so, nothing is for certain.

Experienced Writer, Inexperienced Marketer

Maybe “experienced writer” is a bit of an exaggeration here, since there’s still much of the world of creative writing I haven’t ventured through yet, but that’s beside the point. What matters is that I have much more experience writing my work than I do marketing it, though I’m starting to understand more about the business side of art. Even before I started my blog, I was already learning how to get my writing noticed. While working on the first posts for my site, I also created some new social media accounts to share my content, and since then, they’ve proven quite effective in drawing new readers, as well as helping me meet new writers.

What I have no experience in yet, however, is marketing a novel. Even though I’ve been reading up on the subject, I still haven’t finished writing my first book, so I can’t say I know the experience of selling it firsthand. I know I’ll have to advertise it extensively on social media networks like Twitter and Facebook. I know I should try to reach out to other bloggers and have them help me share my stories (just as I’d love to help them share theirs). And I know that I should never give up on getting my work out to as many readers as possible.

So if I want to be a successful novelist, I’ll have to improve my marketing skills. I’ll have to advertise my stories as much as I can, and I’ll have to be patient as I do so, remembering that if I want my artistic voice to stand out among the countless others in the world, I have to keep making it heard. After all, in this day and age, the experience of being a writer extends far beyond the actual writing.

How experienced are you with advertising? Are you good about marketing your stories, or do you struggle with getting your work out there?

This has been a special topic post for Writers Reveal, a monthly blog swap among several talented writers. Be sure to check out the other blogs participating in the event. Thanks for reading!

Other bloggers in Writers Reveal
Melissa Khalinsky: Melissa Writes
Becky Fyfe: Imagine! Create! Write!
Rhianna: A Parenting Life
Ashley Howland: Ghostnapped
Emily Hawker: You Learn Something New Every Day
Emily Toxward: Have A Laugh On Me