Based on a Passive Marketing lesson presented by Denise Miller Holmes, Director, WFTJ

You can’t wait to finish your book, right? You don’t know much about marketing, but you assume you’ll figure something out once the book is published.

Unfortunately, the assumption here is wrong. First, you need to start marketing NOW before your book is published, and secondly, you need to market YOU first, not your book.

But writers are shy and have a terrible time getting out there and letting people see them. What they want is to push their book in front and say, “Don’t look at me. See this fabulous book and buy it. It wrote itself.”

But, the biggest authors get their names out there FIRST, before they ever have a book.

Passive Marketing is about doing things that get your name (and later, your products) out there in the public eye without overtly asking for the sale. It includes things such as distributing business cards (yes, a writer should have a business card); speaking to organizations; filling out profiles for Yahoo, Google, Blogger, and any place that asks; a professional head shot to put on your blog, business cards, and your profiles; writing a blog; and actively presenting yourself on Facebook and Twitter, and, if you ghostwrite or speak–LinkedIn.

Please don’t think these things are a waste of time. They are very powerful. But, they are only the first step. You HAVE to get your name and presence out there in the public eye, or any active marketing you do later will fall flat. Of all the things listed above, I think speaking is the most powerful.

Overcoming your resistance to being SEEN is probably the hardest obstacle for you the writer to conquer. You may go through tough denial. You may think that you will be the one who writes the book that becomes the bestseller the minute it hits the shelves. It won’t happen!

But, you can choose to conquer your fear of being out there. When you do, the world will open to you.

________________________

For a related article, see Is Self Promotions Sin? You’ve Gotta Be Kidding!
This article is similar to an article on http://denisemillerholmes.blogspot.com/ called Writing Adventures: Passive Marketing Lesson for January 17th Writers’ Guild.