Marketing For Introverts: Make it Fun - Lesson 3

I love Tim Gunn.  He's smart, classy, and kind.

Tim Gunn's signature line on Project Runway is "make it work."  Basically telling designers they have the skills, now make it work out.

As writers, poets, artists, and authors, we also have the skills.

There are certain things we are really good at and certain things that are harder for us.
We also have a certain comfort level with things.

We may like reading Facebook to see what others are doing, but not like posting too much there.

We may have a great sense of humor, but also a lot of anxiety.

We may have no problem sending someone a tweet, but not be comfortable with talking to that person in person.


The first thing you need to ask yourself is -- What do I like? What am I good at?

Remember, you don't have to be on EVERY social network site, in fact, I don't recommend being a part of everything at once.  Check out all the different ways to share your work, choose your favorite ways and showcase your work through that.



If you like Facebook, great!  Go onto Facebook, make an author page and add interesting content to it.

I love wordplay.  I like humor that surprises me and has something to do with the English language.
I have found I love to post things on Facebook that have to do with this.  (You do not always have to be talking about your book to make connections.)

For example I posted this on my Facebook author page because I thought it was hilarious:

Use your author page to post things that interesting to you and that people who like your work (um, usually readers and other writers) would find interesting.

If you're posting about your book every time you post, you'll annoy people.

However, with that said, most people do not promote their books or readings enough.  They think they're being annoying, but they're not.  The people who are being annoying actually have no idea.

So maybe don't worry about whether you're being annoying because no matter what you think, you'll be wrong. (My mum always said, "Never worry about what others think of you because you'll never figure it out... maybe this is what I'm saying.)

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Here are a few things to think about--

Do you like sharing info with people?

Start a blog.  Write about all the things that interest you.  Write about what's happening in the poetry world or in your writing life.

A blog is a nice thing because when someone comes to your webpage, they can see you're alive and talking.

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Not a lot of time, but you love reading the news in the morning?

Try Twitter!  Read a news story you like, you can immediately TWEET it with your own comments and thoughts.

You can connect with other writers, have online chats with hashtags (#poetparty is one - and the next #poetparty is Sunday, Nov 4th at 6 pm PST).

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You really love graphic design, photoshop, and art.

Great!  Go to Vistaprint.com, create some postcards about your book, your work, and send them out to your favorite people, your mailing list, journals, reviewers, etc.


I love writing letters, so creating postcards is one of my favorite ways to connect with folks.

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Marketing is not about shameless self-promotion, it's about sharing your art with the world. --I know, that sounds a little cheesy and I don't mean that to sound too precious or sugar-sweet, but letting people know about your work, about your art and passion should not be a bad thing.

If you look at marketing as connecting and not all the weird, creepy, author-nametaggy stuff that makes you (me)  uncomfortable, you'll be okay.

I also recommend having two role models-- a poet/writer you'd like to be compared to or like and one that will be your anti-role model, one who does things that make you feel uncomfortable.

Learn what to do from your role model, and learn not what to do from your anti-role model.  Each can help you find your place in the writing world.

Hope this helps you all as you share your work with a larger audience.





~ Kells
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