WritingSpirit Blog

Be a FearLess Promoter: New Teleclass Series, February 2010

Julie Isaac, founder of the WritingSpirit Book Writers Community at WritingSpirit.com, will be teaching a teleseminar series on platform building and book promotion.

From Shy Writer to FearLess Promoter!
February 23-March 9, 2010

The 5 calls will cover:

• What it takes to be a fearless promoter
• The 7 keys to promoting with ease
• Online and offline promotional opportunities
• How to create a promotion plan

The price will be going up on 2/2/10

How to Write a Book: Offer Something New by Being Absolutely You

Is Your Platform Building or Book Promotion Providing All 4 of These Benefits?

With the avalanche of promotional opportunities that we have, today, you need to be able to identify and compare the potential benefits of each promotional activity so that you can choose to focus on the ones that will benefit you the most.

 
Thinking about my own promotional efforts, I realized that there are four primary benefits I receive from them, one or more of which are present in each promotion. They are:
 
1. Publicity
 
Name recognition is such a valuable asset that it can be helpful to do promotional activities solely for the purpose of getting your name out in front of people. Whether you attempt to get yourself,or your book, mentioned in a magazine or newspaper article, or you create a humorous or inspiring video that you hope will go viral, publicity give you either credibility, or recognizability, or both.

One way to get your name and writing circulating on the web is to give it away with no strings (or opt-in) attached. Article marketing is a good example of this. Of course, free content usually contains a short bio, contact information, some basics about your book or business, and an opt-in offer to entice the
reader to come to your website and learn more. Freebies definitely earn their keep.
 

In general, most promotion has a publicity element to it, as whatever you do has at least your name, book title, or product information on it.

 
2. Relationship Building
 
While you want to constantly be promoting yourself and your book, you don't want every tweet, or blog post, or video to be selling, selling, selling. You would quickly lose most of your potential readers that way.
 
Relationship building is a time honored form of promotion, and blogging is its leader online. The beauty of relationship building promotional activities is that what you're writing or talking about can be focused directly on your book, or its subject, so there can be a direct relationship between your book and the promotional activity, without there being any direct selling.   

Yet relationship building goes beyond talking about your book, and touches on the personal. It's a chance for people to get to "know, like and trust" you, not only as an author, and expert in your field, but as a person. Twitter is exceptional at blending the personal and professional, while allowing you to connect personally with your readers in real time.

 
3. Product Creation
 
With today's emphasis on content marketing, on creating and giving away valuable content in order to entice your audience to want more and buy your book, service or product, your promotional efforts can actually be the basis of new information products. Promotional activities such as creating a content rich teleseminar, blogging, article marketing, and creating an informational video series, can all be repurposed into products of their own.

You may want to wait awhile after your current promotion ends before reusing your content, but how long you wait is up to you. If you're continually generating new traffic, there's no need to wait long, at all.

While not all promotion can or should be turned into its own product, as you want to continue freely distributing promotional material that supports your book and other income generating activities, the potential for future product creation is certainly worth considering when you're mapping out your promotion plan, and deciding which promotional activities to invest your time in.
 
4. Sales
 
Last, and nowhere near least, is promotion directly tied to generating book sales, or other income. It's perfectly okay to say, "Buy my book!" But you don't want to be saying that all day every day, tweet after tweet, email after email. It will get old fast. Yet you also don't want that to scare you away from keeping your readers informed about the many stages of a particular offer. It's a balancing act, and like any other skill the more you practice it the better you'll get.

That's why it's important to mix-up your marketing, and do some things that are only about getting your name out there, or are only about building relationships, while doing some promotion that includes two, three, or all four of these  primary benefits.

 

The sales part of your promotion is where you're most likely to stir up any emotional issues you may have around asking for money, making money, or feeling worthy of receiving Be aware that difficult feelings may arise, and be willing to address them if they do. I've found that content marketing (such as doing preview calls) really helps to soften these issues, because you know you've already given something of value before asking for the sale, and the person who's buying your book, service or product has already had a taste of what you have to offer and is purchasing because they want more. 

Putting it all together

Like writing, marketing is creative and very personal. So, experiment and play. Find out through experience what works for you. When you've got your promoting hat on, what feels like a struggle? What comes easily? What do you feel good about? What created the most income?

When you know the answers to these questions, and have evaluated the different promotional activities you're considering using the four primary benefits I've listed above, you'll make better choices, and be a more confident and fearLess promoter of your own gifts and talents, which is what you books, products, and services really are.

 

 

 

 

THE CALL:
Saturday's platform and promotion call had a lot of great content.
Some of the topics covered:

• A literary agent's definition of author's platform
• The promotional "snowball" effect
• Repurposing: How to turn one article into 7 promotional pieces
• The 4 primary benefits of your promotional efforts
• Platform building for novelists
• and so much more...

Here is a link to Saturday's call on Platform & Promotion. 

From Shy Writer to Fearless Promoter: Taking Imperfect Action

I just posted a video I made based on a question I often get asked, "am I enough of an expert to write a book?" I did several takes of this video, and after one that seemed "good enough," I took a break and realized I was done filming for the day.

When I watched the video, I noticed several things I wasn't thrilled about. I said "you know" quite a few times (along with severl "ums"). One of my laughs sounded strange. And while my thoughts seemed pretty clear, they jumped from here to there, and back again, more than I felt comforatable with. In other words, I was judging (and criticizing) myself right and left.

The video was by no means "perfect," which left me with a choice. Do I post it as is? Or do I wait and try to get a better take tomorrow?

I chose to take imperfect action. To get a video up, rather than try to create a perfect video.

After posting a link to my video on twitter, I got this response from Sunni Seckinger:

Brokenlyfe  Great video, I loved it! It gives me real hope that I CAN finish my book and share it with others :)

Because I chose imperfect action over perfectionism, I had the opportunity to touch another person's heart with my words. That's powerful. Sunni wasn't judging my "performance," she was listening to what I had to say, searching for ideas that would calm her fears and inspire her to move forward on her own book writing journey. 

That's what we're all looking for when we read a blog post or watch a video. Information that will help, inform, or inspire us.

Having made and posted this imperfect video, tonight, I had the chance to connect with people who need what I have to give, and the video I make tomorrow will be better for it.

What imperfect action can you take?

Book Writing FAQ: How much of an expert do I have to be to write a book?

Here's a post about the making of this video:
Taking Imperfect Action

Kiss Shy Goodbye, Tip #4: Start where you are, and you're already halfway there.

Attitude Adjustment #4
Start where you are, and you’re already half-way there

Change isn’t a race, but it is a journey. To travel from shy writer to fearless promoter begins with a simple step. It begins by saying, “Hi, my name is… and I write about…”  

Start where you are, with what’s comfortable. As writing is your comfort zone, start with promotional arenas that are writing based. Get more active on twitter and Facebook to connect with people, and send them to your blog. If you haven’t got a blog, create one. Or if you’re blogging occasionally, start blogging regularly. And don’t forget to put an opt-in offer on your blog, of either the first chapter of your book or a 7 tips ebook, to get people to sign up for your newsletter or ezine list. An opt-in offer will get more people to sign-up for your list, than just having a place where people can sign up for your newsletter (I know this from experience, because it took me two years of wanting an opt-in offer, before I actually had the courage to create one).  

Start promoting yourself with what’s most comfortable for you. There’s no need to jump straight into making videos or giving live interviews, but you do have to make a conscious effort to get your promotional wheels rolling by taking small steps, one after another. The more you get used to putting yourself out in front of people, even in the smallest of ways, the easier it will be to gently nudge yourself into taking a step, here and there, beyond your comfort zone.

It doesn’t take more than a slight reaching past your comfort zone to get some momentum going towards becoming more fearless, and you never know how it’s going to help or where it’s going to lead. In early 2008, I was looking for a way to start promoting myself, and I chose twitter. When I joined, I thought I needed to give people a reason to follow me, so I offered a daily creativity tip for writers. It made me nervous to make a daily commitment, and put myself out there rather than offering quotes from famous writers, but I did it. My tips were only a sentence or two each, but they changed my life.

Those tips came straight from my heart, and every day I would hear from different people about how much that day’s tip helped them, or how it was exactly what they needed to hear to move forward with their writing. My twitter followers started recommending me (this was long before #followfriday), and even wrote blog posts about my tips, recommending that their blog readers follow me. Someone dubbed me “the creativity maven.” My twitter followers grew from hundreds to thousands.

I joined twitter because Facebook intimated me, and its 140 character tweet limit made it seem easy and safe. Yet, tweet by tweet those 200 writing tips, and the response they received, catapulted my confidence and visibility to a whole new level.

You never know where the next step outside your comfort zone is going to take you, but in order to find out you have to take that step.

******************

• What promotion are you already doing?
• Of your current promotional efforts, what can you do more often?
• What new promotional steps can you take, that are within your comfort zone?
• What new promotional steps can you take that will stretch you a little?

Previous Kiss Shy Goodbye Posts:

Kiss Shy Goodbye Intro & Tip 1
Kiss Shy Goodbye Tips 2 & 3

Kiss Shy Goodbye: Attitude Adjustments 2 & 3

Attitude Adjustment #2
Don’t kid yourself—there’s going to be pain involved (but a lot less than you think)

When a promotion doesn’t go as well as you’d hoped or desired, it’s disappointing. When you’re being interviewed and feel vulnerable, it can be scary and uncomfortable. When the opportunity to get some major publicity falls through, it hurts.

I wish I could tell you that transforming a shy and sensitive nature into a more outgoing, confident, and resilient personality is easy and painless, and will make your life rosy, but a writer’s life is full of ups and downs. What I can tell you is that change is possible, it’s not as painful or scary as you might think, and it makes even the biggest disappointments more bearable.

Knowing that there will be difficult and painful moments, at times, actually helps you to relax into them when they arise. It’s an odd quirk of human nature that the less we resist pain, the more quickly it passes.  

If you’re like most writers, you long to simply sit and write. Promotion is supposed to be your publisher’s job. But in the publishing world of today, promotion is primarily your job. And it can be a scary job, especially for shy writers, because it constantly challenges the boundaries of your comfort zone, is an entirely new set of skills to learn and master, and the 1,001 details involved can feel overwhelming.

One of my favorite fear-busting quotes is from the American spiritual teacher, Gangaji, who said, “When you run from your fears they chase you. When you face your fears they disappear.”

When you face what you fear, or dislike, about promotion it can be difficult, at first. But if you remain steady in your resolve to not only do whatever is necessary to promote yourself and your book, but to make peace with it, your fears will begin to dissolve.

It’s often hard to hold on to these two truisms in the face of something fearful, but I’m sure you’ve proved them in your life in many ways:

• When you actually do what you’re scared of or dreading, it’s not half as bad as you imagined
• Doing something that scares you, even when it’s hard, at first, gets easier the more you do it

Which leads me to…

Attitude Adjustment #3
Repeat after me: It gets easier over time

The more you put yourself out there, and promote yourself, the more you get used to feeling the fear, living through it, and discovering it wasn’t as bad as you thought it would be.

The first time I interviewed someone, after I asked the first question I prayed that the author would take the rest of the hour to answer. Unfortunately, after only a minute or two his words began to slow down, and I knew I had to get another question ready. As scared as I was at the beginning of that interview, by the end of it we were chatting away (it helped that the first person I interviewed was a friend, but that didn't stop me from being sick to my stomach at the beginning of the call).

Relaxing into my role as an interviewer didn’t lessen the horror I felt at the thought of being interviewed. What if my mind goes blank? What if I babble on like an idiot? What if I don’t know the answer? Then people began interviewing me about how authors can benefit from using twitter. I stumbled over my words, for awhile, but eventually relaxed into that, as well.

Once being interviewed had lost its fearful grip on me, I still shivered at the thought of giving my own presentations. That would be way too scary. Just me. Alone. Talking. Are you kidding? No way! But then I did my first solo call. Yes, I rambled on, laughed nervously at times, lost my place in a couple of spots, and yet people seemed to like what I had to say. Okay, so presentations aren’t that bad. But open coaching calls, without a topic, where anyone can ask me anything—terrifying!

You get my drift.

It’s not simply that you loosen up about a particular promotional task, once you’ve done it for awhile, at some point you begin to trust that you’ll be able to handle whatever comes your way. And the fear you do feel when pushing past your comfort zone and doing something scary or uncomfortable, is a mere fraction of what it once was.

******************************

• What scares you about promoting yourself or your book?
• What have you learned through the process of promoting yourself?
  

Kiss Shy Goodbye: 7 Attitude Adjustments Guaranteed to Turn Shy Writers Into Fearless Promoters (Intro & Tip #1--Then I'll be posting a tip a day for next 6 days)

I did my first live group coaching call, on Saturday, and it was fun. I was nervous before it began, but I knew the nervousness would pass, and I’d be okay.

I wasn’t always this confident. There was a time I was extremely shy.

That’s why I can identify with the people who came to the call, but were too shy to ask a question, or share their 2009 accomplishments and 2010 goals.

Been there. Done that.

And have happily left it far behind me.

Being a writer, I had to. Writers are required to balance the inward creative journey with outward promotional responsibilities. Before your book is even written you have to start promoting yourself and building your author’s platform. Then once your book is published, promoting your book in 1001 different ways begins. And keeps going… And going… And going…

If shyness is what prompted you to look within and become a writer, then it’s been a great gift in your life. But if it’s now getting in the way of your fulfilling your writing dreams, because it’s preventing you from stepping into the limelight of self-promotion and book promotion fully and joyfully, then it’s become a problem that you have to face and deal with.

In my long journey from shy writer to (nearly) fearless promoter, I’ve learned some useful things about the emotional terrain in-between these two energetic opposites, and the mindset you need to have in order to make the journey.

Here are what I consider to be the seven attitude adjustments needed to turn shy writers into fearless promoters.

Attitude Adjustment #1
Don't force yourself to do something, when choosing to do it is more empowering

Many shy writers tell me that they have to force themselves to do promotional tasks. The only reason you would ever force yourself to do something is because you don’t want to do it. But forcing yourself automatically creates resistance and makes whatever you’re doing—in this case, promoting yourself and your book—that much harder.

If you focus, instead, on the benefits of promotion--on what you want to achieve through it, and why-- you’re more likely to feel that you’re choosing to promote yourself, rather than being forced to do it, even if you’re the only one putting the pressure on. Feeling forced to do something disempowers you, while making a choice to do it empowers you. This is especially important when what you’re doing stirs up fear or makes you uncomfortable.

This may feel like nitpicking to you, but mindset matters. Depending on your mindset, on what you believe and how you feel about whatever you’re doing, the task at hand can be easy or hard. Your mind can be open or closed.  Your creativity can be flowing or stuck. And all of these have an impact on whether your end result is failure or success.

Don’t be afraid to tell the truth. “I don’t like book promotion, and I don’t want to do it.” Just don’t get stuck there. “I'm not thrilled with the idea of being interviewed, but I'll do it because...

• I want my book to be a success
• I want to help people transform their lives
• I want to transform my own life, and...
• I want to make a living doing what I love

Telling the truth releases resistance. And when you follow that with focusing more on what you want than on what you don’t want, promoting yourself becomes an empowering experience that flows more easily and painlessly, and has a more successful outcome.

***********************************

• Why do you write? 
• How do you hope your writing will help others?
• What will promoting yourself help you accomplish?

Bestselling Buddhist Author Susan Piver on Home Shrines, Writing As Meditation, and Oprah Winfrey!

ON SHRINES

I was reading Susan Piver's blog, tonight, and one of her posts was on Shrines. She said that, "Different people create different shrines in their homes. A shrine can help anchor a contemplative practice." She then shared a picture of her shrine and asked others to do the same. So this is my response. 

When I moved, a few months ago, the first thing I did was contemplate where I was going to place some of my most precious objects--a Kwan Yin statue, my crystals, the stone heart with Namaste carved in it--because my new fireplace had no mantlepiece. What was I going to do?

I had no clue, until I had a sudden vision of my stacking tables, unstacked, lining the living room wall. Would it work? I wasn't sure, but I had to find out. I loved the idea of walking into my living room passing shrine, after shrine, after shrine, after shrine.

So, here they are: 

I love passing these every day. They give me a great sense of peace.

ON WRITING AS MEDITATION

I had the pleasure of interviewing Susan for the WritingSpirit Book Writers Community. I interviewed her about "Meditation, Mindfulness and Writing." She was genuine, generous, and wise. 

I asked her how meditation and mindfulness might help a writer go deeper, open up more, or write with greater authenticity? How could it help?

Her response:

 "I love thinking about this question. My answer to it is always evolving. And I learn more, the more I practice both. If you think about it, when you write, two things are required. Not much different than what’s required of a musician who is playing in a band, for example. 

When you’re writing or playing an instrument, you have to have complete absorption in what you’re doing. You’re writing is very precise. You want the right word. You want to capture the right feel or visual or piece of dialogue or whatever it might be. Very precise.

At the same time, for both writers and musicians, one requires a sense of panoramic awareness, a kind of letting go at the same time. If a musician doesn’t listen to the other people in the band, he or she will go in the wrong direction.  But if he or she takes his or her mind off the instrument for one second, then it's all a loss. So, it's the same for a writer. You have to pay attention to what you’re writing. You have to hold your mind to the page, which is not easy. At the same time, have a sense of spaciousness so that you can feel what is rising in your mind.

So that combination of precision and spaciousness is exactly what meditation is. You have the precision of focus on the breath and the spaciousness of awareness of what is going on in your mind and around you. There aren’t many activities that combine those two things, but meditation and writing."

ON THE OPRAH SHOW

Towards the end of our hour interview, I had to ask her the big question: What was it like to be on the Oprah Winfrey show? TWICE!

She described how she was picked, and what the experience was like, but what I found most interesting was this:

"I really learned from my experience that it's not just a matter of getting on Oprah, it's how I got on Oprah. Because I was on with four other authors both times and only my book went on The New York Times bestseller list.

It's not because I was great and they weren’t. It was because my book was really simple, Hard Questions to Ask Before You Get Married. And it wasn’t just me going 'blah blah blah blah, this is what I think.' It was that they got couples to do it and the focus was on those people. Then I was there saying 'Well, thus and such is important' or whatever it might be.

So, it's not just like, 'Oh let me get on television and tell people what I think about things.' It's more like 'Can my book's usefulness be demonstrated?' That’s really the key."

(The entire interview is available at the WritingSpirit Book Writers Community.)

As a writer, do you see yourself as an artist, an entrepreneur, or a bit of both? Writers on twitter speak out.

This morning I posted a question on twitter as I was getting ready to take a break for lunch. I got so many responses that lunch had to wait a while.

Here are some of the answers I got from my fellow writers on twitter:

PaintswithWords: A writer is an artist, an entrepreneur, a researcher, a student of life, a philosopher.

cswriter59:  Right now I'm an artist perfecting my craft.

AuthorofPatches: A dash of both is necessary nowadays, tho not especially compatible. Biz hustle can easily drain from creativity I think.

julichilliard: Both!

VariantVal: When I write it is strictly art... I've yet to write for money... well other than web copy at work, that doesn't count. lol

nestnestnest: Less about philosophy and more about how do I make money from this thing I like to do....?

marisabirns: Perhaps at one time a writer was solely an artist. Now a writer needs some entrepreneurial skills, too.

Sally_G: Great question! A bit of both, with Teacher, Philosopher, Dreamer and Historian thrown in for good measure. Oh, and poet too!

DetailsDivas: Definitely both! Creativity is the foundation, but being able to manage it all is the entrepreneurial side of the business.

ShadyMutton: Gonna have to say artist- cause I write to express and create. If it grows into something beyond that - icing on the cake.

TonyNoland: Both. Art is great, but it starves & dies w/out entrepreneurial hustling. And then you have to punch a clock. *shudder*

julichilliard: It also helps to have a very supportive spouse.

octoberrose: I'm willing to work to support my writing. If it sells, great! But I aim to serve my writing, rather than make it serve me.

JodiWhisenhunt: Artist, entrepreneur, or both? Artist who's passion forces her to be a reluctant entrepreneur ;)

AuthorWilliam: I'd say not just a bit of both a LOT of both. Being an entrepreneur is the gateway to giving more of your time to writing. :)

NorthPrince: Writer and entrepreneur. Without the second, nobody will ever hear of the first!

myafd: I think the days of a writer just being able to write are gone. Whether traditional or self published, must learn marketing.

AngelMenchan: I am both ~ an artistic entrepreneur.

If you want to write for a living, it seems that artist & entrepreneur must learn to co-exist. The challenge is in how to balance the two. Knowing when it's helpful to be solely one or the other, and when you need to wear both hats at once. It can be very confusing, as well as overwhelming.

One thing I've discovered is that being a "reluctant entrepreneur," as @JodiWhisenhunt described, doesn't serve my art. Only when you fling yourself fully into both, does the fullness of your gift come alive so that it can be shared with others. So I want to find a way to open up my entrepreneurial passion, that my art may flourish.

The happy medium I've found is adding a dash of entrepreneurial spirit to my art, and a large dose of creativity to my business.

Many use the term authorpreneur, to describe what it means to be a writer, today.

Are you an authorpreneur?

The Most Literate Cities in America for 2009

Yes, it's that time of year again. Literate Cities time!

The 2009 study was compiled by Dr. John W. Miller, president of Central Connecticut State University, in collaboration with the Center for Public Policy and Social Research at CCSU.

From the America's Most Literate Cities website:

"Drawing from a variety of available data resources, the America’s Most Literate Cities study ranks the largest cities (population 250,000 and above) in the United States. This study focuses on six key indicators of literacy: newspaper circulation, number of bookstores, library resources, periodical publishing resources, educational attainment, and Internet resources."

And the winners are...

1. Seattle, WA
2. Washington, DC
3. Minneapolis, MN
4. Pittsburgh, PA
5. Atlanta, GA
6. Portland, OR
7. St. Paul, MN
8. Boston, MA
9. Cincinnati, OH
10. Denver, CO

I live in Los Angeles, and (quite embarrassingly) we're #62. I'm going to have to do something about raising our rankings a bit before the 2010 list rolls around.