Marketing Avoidance
University Bridge is taking a break and I know how it feels
Sometimes, you just want to write. Not well, not with much thought, but you want to write because you’re avoiding the marketing you told yourself you’d do.
Like me right now.
You try to think of marketing ideas that won’t work as a way to motivate yourself to actually research marketing books, read them, and follow their good advice. Beyond this futile exercise, there is an infinitesimal non-zero chance you might come up with an idea nobody’s every thought of before that is so powerful that you can completely skip the marketing grind. And this is what you come up with:
Get falsely accused of plagiarizing Stephen King and then prove that King plagiarized you
Include a real treasure map in your cover art (presumes you have actual treasure)
Deep research everyone on Twitter and then pretend you've known them forever and they just forgot, then subtly guilt them into buying your book
Get viral with a drone's-eye-view of dogs eating treats laid out in such a way that they spell out the name of your book
Actually work on your marketing instead of writing silly ideas to avoid work on your marketing
Okay, deep breaths. No breakthrough guerilla tactics emerge, no sparkling concepts arrive to save you from your cursed fate. Actual marketing is in your future.
Marketing. You can DO this, self, I know you can!
In an amazing coincidence, one of my beta readers sent me a link to a book on marketing books (How to Market a Book: The Hilariously Detailed Guide to Author Marketing and Book Promotion *) as I was writing this post. I think the universe is trying to tell me something.
* I do not make a commission on any sales associated with this link, consarn it!
