Marketing Your Writing: How to Sell Your Work in Conversations
With over two million books published each year, as writers, we do not simply need to add another book from us to the pool on the market. What we need is a book sold.
We’ve all been in that situation where someone we don’t know comes up to us and asks, “What do you do?” I must admit, I hate that question because the answer will then lead to a dozen questions, always finding themselves at some point: “What have you written that I’ve read?” to which the only answer to that one is “I have no clue what you have read.” It’s all off-putting at the beginning for the poor writer and then at the end for the poor inquisitor. But there is a better way to handle this by understanding when someone asks you, “What do you do?” that it is a self-interested question on their part (no matter what you do), and the follow-up questions can become more conversational (rather than courtroom-like for the unfortunate author) if we know that the person speaking to us is once again asking in their self-interested way “Can I trust you?” or “Knowing your services, would your services be helpful to me.” Seriously, this is why people ask you, “What do you do?”
All of it comes down to you and how you approach your work. Writing (should) come from who you are and what you know through experience or learning. Selling comes from the same thing. (And meeting someone new at a party who is asking questions is indeed selling; take the opportunity to sell a book…or two.) So, if you really want to sell, think of your writing and your marketing as one task. They both feed each other. I can remember when I did not follow this advice, and the result was dissatisfaction both for the askers and for me. If you are at a group gathering where it is you and someone asking you “What do you do?” whether you have a publicist or not, at that moment, you must live your career as if you do not. You are it. You are onstage. You are the publicist. You must reply. And you must be nice about it. Marketing, at its most organic, is when you are talking to people (or rather, when they are more likely asking you questions). You are no longer the writer even though you say, “I am a writer.” What you really are at that moment is a subtle, soft-sell promoter.
As with all creatures, people are innately self-serving. Why would your book be of value to the person learning about it? Fiction or nonfiction, the potential reader is asking, “What’s in it for me?” When you answer the question (make the pitch), be sure you include the answer to that question. What’s in it for them? “What’s your book about?” or “What do you write?” really means “Why should I care?” It’s not about you or your book. It is one hundred percent about the self-interest of the person asking you the questions.
People wanting to know about you need to know that you’re sincere. A publicist once took me aside and asked me not to say, “I make up lies,” when asked, “What do you do?” Though it is true (as fiction writers, we do make up lies), it doesn’t build well on the trust meter.
Like the pilot of an airplane, potential readers like to know that if they “fly” with you, they will have a pleasant experience. They want to know that you know what you are doing. There is a degree of credibility that comes from our backgrounds, and if we don’t have that credibility, we need to get it before we start writing and certainly before we start trying to sell to an agent or anyone. I’ll use myself as an example, but I want you to think about yourself.
I write Southern Gothic, dark, noir-type stories that, many times, have criminal elements. I tend to pick interesting and unusual locations. I also write nonfiction that tends to come across as, at times, academic. What, then, as they say in the Old South, is my pedigree? Well, I am Southern. I’ve seen the South from a Southerner’s eyes, and I know its past, its pains, its identity, its darkness, but also its light. Because I have been producing Killer Nashville International Writers’ Conference for two decades, some of my best friends are in law enforcement or forensics. I’ve picked up quite a bit of information from them that leaks into my writing. I love to travel and meet interesting people of different cultures (and if you don’t think the South is composed of multiple cultures even unto itself, you don’t know one of the most fascinating things about the South). Lastly, I have an M.F.A. in filmmaking and creative writing, I’ve taught at several colleges and schools and even designed a curriculum for one university’s college. I’ve been a reviewer and literary critic, and theorist. So, add all my background together (from the last part of this paragraph) and compare it with what I write (listed in the first part of the paragraph), you can see that I can be “trusted” to write the things that I write. I have qualified myself either simply by living or by seeking out information. Now, to you.
To set up the trust factor that makes a person who is questioning you about “What do you do?” want to read your books, you simply let them know in a conversational sort of way that you have walked the walk when it comes to the types of books you write. And when you write, stick with what you’re qualified to write. That doesn’t mean “Write what you know” because, with some study, we can know anything. It means that if you’re going to write something, make sure you’re either qualified to write it either by experience or by deliberate study. Readers like to know that they are in good hands.
The point of all this is to say that you want the potential reader you meet at a cocktail party to know they are in able hands should they wish to take the journey with you. Mix these two together (understand all questions they ask are about their own self-interest, and you can help assure them that their interests will be satisfied because of your credibility), and you will find yourself going a long way towards selling more books and making more new friends. Rehearse this a bit in your mind, and then, at your next opportunity, use this. I think you’ll be amazed at how well this technique works to make others curious about you.
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