You offer a superior writing/editing service. You've written an awesome book. Your newsletter is arguably one of
best of its kind.But if no one knows about it...if no one knows about *you*...
Let's face it. Marketing your book(s), your products and/or your services is as essential to being a successful writer as, well, writing. Even more so, if your goal is to freelance full-time.
But perhaps even word "marketing" makes you cringe. It brings visions of placing sweaty-palmed telephone calls to strangers, handing out business cards at cocktail parties that you didn't even want to attend in first place, and having a booth at local Chamber of Commerce business fair. Marketing means keeping you away from what you most want to do--writing.
I know feeling. Every time I'd get to chapter on placing cold calls in Peter Bowman's _The Well-Fed Writer_, I'd screech to a halt. Bowerman states that placing calls to let people know of your availability as a freelance writer is crucial to success of your business. It seems I'd rather starve.
I know why many of us feel that way. Early on, we discovered that we were far more comfortable and articulate with written, as opposed to spoken, word. With a pen in our hands, or at our keyboards, we don't flush or stammer. And during those times when right words escape us, no one else has to know about it; only thing others see is our finished product. This certainly isn't true when we speak.
So yes, I understand our fear of "m" word. But we need to be honest with ourselves--how much do we *really* want to achieve full- time freelance writing success? Do we want it enough to accept fact that emailing our resumes in response to a few job offers we see online will never bring in enough work to support us? Do we want it enough to realize that we should spend at least 75 percent of our time (at least in beginning) on either online or offline marketing, whether its telephone cold calling, placing ads and articles in ezines, sending press releases, or joining our local Chambers of Commerce?
