By Cecilia Caballero
Dear Beginner Writer,
It’s never too early to think about creating a marketing plan, but how to begin? Although learning about marketing can initially feel overwhelming, this blog will empower you to set your literary career up for success by creating a simple marketing plan in three easy steps using no and low-cost strategies and tools. In light of the historical and ongoing racial and gender disparities in publishing, it is more important than ever to create your own system of success.
- Identify your writer goals and values.
What are your short and long-term writer goals? Which genre(s) do you write? Which literary venues do you want to publish your work in? Are you planning on writing a book or multiple books? Do you want to self-publish or go with an indie or traditional press? What are your dream fellowships, grants, and residencies? Also, consider how your values (such as community-building, social justice, feminism, anti-racism, etc) inform your writer goals.
Identifying your writer goals and values is an empowering process because you will gain clarity on how YOU define success for yourself versus basing your worth as a writer solely on external forms of validation. And, knowing your writer goals and values will also determine your specific marketing strategy.
- Create SMART marketing goals and track your progress.
SMART goals are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time bound. If this is your first time creating SMART marketing goals, I recommend setting very small goals. In fact, the smaller, the better!
An example of a SMART marketing goal can be posting about your writing twice per week on social media. Additional examples of SMART marketing goals can include creating or updating your author website by a certain deadline or aiming to do writer podcasts/interviews once per month.
Tracking your progress also helps you to determine whether or not you are achieving your goals. And if you find that you’re not meeting your goals, there is no need to shame or criticize yourself. Instead, you can give yourself credit for learning a new skill. ANd then, whenever you are ready, you can take action by modifying your SMART goals. For example, instead of posting about your writing twice per week, perhaps posting once a week works better for you.
- Start an author newsletter.
I encourage every writer to start an author newsletter. Although social media can be a wonderful tool to build relationships in the literary community, we do not own our social media accounts. This means that social media accounts can suddenly be deactivated without notice.
Alternatively, an author newsletter gives you 100% ownership of your email list and it is the most direct way to communicate with your supporters outside of social media. There are both free and paid newsletter providers to choose from, such as Mailchimp, Substack, ConvertKit, and more. And, with consistent action over time, more and more folks will naturally join your newsletter.
Beginner writer, remember, it’s courageous to show yourself and your art to the world. Take risks, don’t be afraid to fail, and try again. I strongly believe that writers should be celebrated for their art, and marketing is just another tool that can help us achieve that goal. I’m rooting for you!
With love,
Cecilia
Based in LA, Cecilia Caballero, PhD, is a poet, creative nonfiction writer, teaching artist, and co-editor of The Chicana Motherwork Anthology. She is an alum of Tin House, Macondo, and Roots. Wounds. Words. Cecilia is a 2023 Aspen Words Emerging Writer Fellow and she is finishing a memoir. Twitter: @la_sangre_llama.