Golden Rule Marketing for Writers

Editor’s Note: This is a guest article by Emily Akin. Read on and find out how you can enter to win a copy of Emily’s e-book, A Business Approach to Marketing Your Work .

The Golden Rule

 ”So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets” Matthew 7:12 (TNIV).

Would you like to sell more of your writing? To get your work published, you must give your customers, the editors, what they need. Editors know what their readers (customers) want, and they only accept work that addresses their readers’ needs. Writers and editors apply the Golden Rule every day, not pursuing their own interests but the interests of their readers. 

Marketing, a Required Activity

Yes, keeping abreast of customers’ needs is time consuming. You’ve probably heard that writers spend as much as eighty percent of their time on marketing activities and only twenty percent on writing. Most successful freelancers will tell you that, if you aren’t willing to devote serious time to marketing, you will not likely get your work published.

 At a marketing workshop, I asked participants to fill in the blank: “Marketing is ______.” I thought I would get a variety of definitions, but the first answer surprised me. “Marketing is a PAIN,” she said. Perhaps, if you think of marketing as a service you provide for your readers, you can have a better attitude about it. By discovering your potential readers’ needs, you are serving them as Jesus commanded in the Golden Rule.

Get a Plan

Once you’ve adjusted your attitude about marketing, you need a plan. Having taken several marketing courses for business, I apply the concept of the Marketing Mix, commonly called the “Four P’s” of marketing (product, promotion, place, and price). See a complete discussion of the concept on NetMBA. I also offer an E-book entitled A Business Approach to Marketing Your Work which applies the marketing mix to freelance writing in detail.

A business manager “mixes” the Four P’s to create a marketing plan that works for her market. As a writer, you must determine what your product is, how you will promote it, how and where you will place it for customer access, and how you will price it. Here’s the marketing mix I developed for myself as a beginning writer. It works for articles, devotionals, or books.

 Product

• Be sure the target publication has a need for your subject matter, article type, or book.
• Be sure the piece conforms to guidelines specific to this publication.
• Check and double-check for typographical and usage errors.

Promotion

• Spend quality time on your query letters, cover letters, and/or e-mail communications.
• Assemble your best clips, both print and online, to send with your queries.
• Set up a Web site and post your resume and writing samples for all to see.

Place

• Go to conferences so that you can get to know editors personally.
• Use market guides to get your work to the right place at the right time.
• Turn your work in a couple of days before the deadline.

Price

• Your product may be free at first. Use non-paying markets to get published.
• Set up a blog and establish your expertise in a subject area.
• When you have published clips and online writing samples, it will be easier to attract attention in paying markets.

Start now by setting up four sheets of blank paper marked Product, Promotion, Place and Price. Use my guidelines above to create your own plan, adapting the outline to your specific genre and subject matter.

Work the Plan

Begin working your plan as soon as you have your general outline. You can make adjustments as you work it through. Don’t worry if you don’t completely understand everything about the individual components of the Four P’s. Keep in mind that you’re using this tool to help you identify markets that cater to readers who need the message you offer.

You’ll need access to a market guide either print or online. Writersmarket.com, is a great substitute for the print version. If you write exclusively for the Christian Market, you need Sally Stuart’s Christian Writers’ Market Guide.

In my E-book, I add a fifth component to the marketing mix to adapt it for Christian writers.

The Fifth P is Prayer

As you work your plan, pray for God’s guidance every step of the way so that your plan and God’s plan can work in sync.

Learn to Love Marketing

As you spend more time on marketing, you’ll learn what works for you. Your plan can be adjusted as needed, but don’t be tempted to tinker with it constantly. Whether you write for the sheer joy of disseminating the message of Jesus Christ or to make a living, your testimony will be heard only if it is published. That means you must spend as much as 80% of your time on marketing activities and apply the Golden Rule in your research. You may write less, but successful marketing will mean that you can realize your publishing dream.

Has marketing your writing been challenging for you?  We would love to hear your thoughts.  Leave us a note below for a chance to win a copy of Emily’s e-book A Business Approach to Marketing Your Work.  The winner will be announced in June here and via email.

Emily M. Akin is a freelance writer-editor-blogger, living in Union City, Tennessee. She is a regular contributor to Hometown , a local lifestyle magazine. Her work has appeared in Christian Communicator, The Upper Room, The Lookout, Vista, PedalPoint, Home Life, Mature Years, The Secret Place, Vista, and Country. She has two e-books for sale on her Web site, www.emilyakin.com A Business Approach to Marketing Your Work expands on the discussion of the marketing mix described in this article. Her other e-book, Write What You Know: Finding Stories in Everyday Life, is a collection of stories originally published in Hometown with commentary on story development.