Marketing Is Uncomfortable
First of all, long weekends make me lose track of time. I knew I had a four-day weekend because of the holiday, so while I fully intended to write this and post it on Sunday, Sunday felt like Friday, and then I wrote it Monday and forgot to post it. Time is weird. Anyway, here we are.
Last week I wrote about how writing is hard. Marketing is also hard, but more than that, it’s uncomfortable. At its root, any form of marketing boils down to me, (or someone on my behalf) saying, “Hey, you! Give me your money!” It’s not usually that ham-fisted (I love that expression) and I’m certainly not asking for money for free–you get what I consider to be a quality book, after all–but it still makes me a bit uncomfortable, particularly because I’m not used to it. I imagine the longer I do it, the easier it will become, but right now it’s new and it’s weird and it’s stressful.
I think a big part of that comes from the “spin-up” phase I’m in. I’ve been an active user on twitter for years and I’ve become part of several twitter communities and made friends there and contributed to groups, etc. I’ve gotten and given advice, and I’ve been able to celebrate the successes of other authors I’ve connected with as they got out of the query pits and into the publishing world. Twitter is even how I found my publisher, so I’m grateful for the platform. My commitment to the platform over time is why I don’t feel as bad throwing my book up out there for sale. I can say, “Hey, Twitter! You know me. We’ve been buddies for a while. You can trust me when I say you’ll like this book so check it out!” The relationship is there.
Meanwhile, I just started a Tiktok account (https://www.tiktok.com/@writes_jo) and an Instagram account (https://www.instagram.com/writes_jo/) a few weeks ago. The first posts on both are the cover reveal videos for my book. Those accounts exist solely to help me market my book. Again, I believe in my book. It’s a good book and I think that just about anyone who picks it up will really enjoy it. Those accounts exist only to promote the book though. I’m trying to do other stuff there, too. I posted a funny dad joke on TikTok. I made a video complaining about the Grimace Shake before it started horrifically murdering people. But, at the end of the day, those are marketing accounts. If I didn’t want to get my book out there, I wouldn’t have made them. I’d just have continued messing around with my buddies on Twitter. That knowledge makes posting on them weird. Like, “Yeah, here’s a funny picture of my dog. I hope you like it because the next two videos are going to ask you to buy Mattson Academy. Probably in a funny, silly, or approachable way, but that’s going to be the closing argument.”
I’ve never really had marketing as part of my job before. The closest would be when waiting tables, but I probably wasn’t even that great at it then. I didn’t work that hard to push booze or appetizers or whatever. The closest I’d ever come to “marketing” was asking if a table wanted dessert or just the check. Depending on your perspective that could make me a good waiter or a bad one, but I think the philosophy I had there has (unfortunately) carried over to marketing my book. I figured, people are going to buy what they’re going to buy, and if I get pushy I’m just going to annoy them and then they DEFINITELY won’t buy more (and probably tip me less besides. Do people tip authors? I guess I’ll find out soon).
At least I know I’m not alone. I’ve seen other authors voice the same complaints as recently as this morning. Am I being too pushy? Am I posting often enough? I nearly had a heart attack when someone told me I should be posting on TikTok one to FOUR times a day to reach the maximum audience. That’s like, a full-time job!
I’m going to keep at it, though. I know I’ll get more comfortable with the idea over time. The truth is, I put countless hours into Mattson Academy, between writing it, editing it, more writing, more editing, reading books ABOUT writing to improve the writing and editing, and now marketing it. It’s not wild to say that the end product is worth a couple bucks. I would also like to someday transition to writing full-time and drop the day job, but to do that, I actually have to make money off the writing that I do. That means I need to get better at marketing so that more people are even aware my book exists. Once enough people are aware that Mattson Academy exists, I can proudly and boldly say, “Hey, you! Give me your money!”
