Marketing Your Artwork

Marketing, advertising, promoting, publicising… it’s all basically the same thing, ie getting the word out there that you have something fantastic to sell. So, where do you begin?

This may sound odd, but you should begin before you have anything to sell.

Let’s say you’re a writer, like I am. You could set up a website in the name of your book, with an eye to it becoming a series, and talk about books you like; review books and post articles on events going on in the literary world – the Pulitzer Prize, that sort of thing. Then, when your book is ready, you already have an audience to present it to. So, it is never too early to start building what is called your author’s platform.

If you are that kind of person, you could make weekly or even daily posts about the progress of your novel. Some authors like this approach to marketing; others feel that it detracts from the suspense of the launch. I personally would not give away any spoilers, but I would talk about how I feel the writing is going and about cover designs. It’s up to you through, isn’t it?

About six weeks before you’re ready to publish, you could offer your potential readership the chance to pre-order at a discount. The effect of this is that you have six weeks to sell something that isn’t yet sellable (as it is unfinished) and all the pre-orders that you do make will go through on the one day, causing your book to jump in popularity. This is great because many people buy, and many firms recommend books on the strength of where they are in book lists.

However, as an unknown, you will find it very difficult to sell pre-orders.

Once you get to that stage, you could join a few of the online joint promotion schemes which combine the strengths of Twitter and Facebook. Try Bridgette’s T4US on Facebook. She and her group are innovative and hard-working.

Maybe I’ll see you there 🙂

All the best,

Owen

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Podcast: Marketing You Artwork