Marketing - the Bane of Writing

I decided to write about marketing this week. It's been on my mind quite a bit lately, and I'll tell you why.

A few days ago, I stumbled upon a blog about how authors could market themselves and their work globally. Nothing they suggested in their blog seemed too far out there or difficult to do. So I took their 10 suggestions, broke them into small chunks, and scattered them throughout my infamous To Do List to be tackled over the next couple of months.

Four days ago, I was cleaning out my email box when I found I had been sent Lesson 1 in a 7-part series of lessons on how an author can best and most easily market their goods. I was familiar with the teacher, so I went through that first lesson and took copious notes. Turns out those are DAILY lessons for a full week, so I have been going through each lesson every day, taking detailed notes. I have to take notes, because the lessons take up so much of my time, I can't actually act on what he wants me to do.

And I'm not very tech-savvy. When I set up my last website, following his instructions, it took me 3-4 months to get it ready to publish. He had at least twice as many books to include as I did, and got his done in an afternoon.

And unfortunately, I don't get a lot of support for my marketing efforts. Granted, they haven't done much good so far, but if you want to get anywhere, you have to persevere, right?

I have a good friend (who also writes books), who tells me to forget about marketing. "Just write your books, get 10 or 12 printed, hand them out to friends and family and be done with it." He has a different philosophy about writing than I do. I want to entertain people by telling them stories. And yeah, I'd like to make some money doing it, if I can.

This friend has no concept of what I'm telling him. Every time this subject comes up between us, he gets mad because I won't give in and live life the way he thinks I should. "But you hate marketing! Life is too short to make yourself miserable. Just do the writing, which you enjoy."

It's true, I haven't found any 'fun' in marketing. So far. Maybe because I haven't yet managed to find anything that works. But now I am gathering new steps to take, things to research, tweaks to make... I have a goal to reach for.

It's hard to make progress when you don't know where you're going.