Marketing

Note:

I realize this isn't specific to a book or the writing process, but it is a real part of the publishing process, which I (somewhat reluctantly) consider to be an extension of the writing process.

I want to keep track of the effort, so I'll keep these entries in the "general" category to keep them out of the way of book-specific topics...

The Scourge Word

"Marketing"

To any person of artistic or engineering bent, the word brings a shudder of revulsion to their inner being. We are, after all, creators, and don't appreciate having to deal with the mundane aspects of business, like—getting our work in front of other people. (Or taxes, subject of another post in the future...)

In the tech companies that I worked, marketers were often dismissed by we engineers as "glad-handing-know-nothings"—hand-shakers, partiers, winers-and-diners, and, almost always, promisers of products and capabilities that did not yet or might never exist.

The reality, of course, is that someone has to expose your work, somehow", to a paying audience. And that endeavor requires a skill that is simply not present in the average techno-nerd. Or artist.

Changing Hats

In a large company, of necessity, personell are compartmentalized by function—creators don't have to market and marketers don't have to create.

When you are a one-man/-woman band, though, that tune changes. Dramatically.

For those of us who have chosen the path of the self-publisher, at some point, we have to change hats and focus on the more 'distasteful' aspects of running a business.

And so, having published The Log of the Desert Lake and looking at the bleak statistics on the resultant Amazon Kindle page, with a positional ranking of somwhere south of two million, I realize I'm going to have to do some pro-active marketing.

The marketing budget is a bit tight, but I need to do something. I already have invested $1500 in editing services, now I'm looking at dumping more into something I'm not sure will ever generate a return.

But, one has to try. I'll chronicle the progress and the challenges encountered, here.