Marketing and promotion BEFORE you sell. 

That sentence seems like a contradiction, I mean, what have you got to market and promote if you haven’t sold a book?  The answer is: YOU!

One of the truths about this publishing business is that publishers don’t just buy a book, they also buy the author.  This business is all about making money, and who makes publishers money?  An author who writes a fabulous book AND markets and promotes the heck out of themselves and that book.  If you wait to start this process until after you’ve sold the book, you’ve started waaaaaay too late.  You may only have as little as a few months between the moment you sell and the day that book comes out in print.  And there are a million other things to do in that time besides marketing and promotion.  It’s too easy to lose track of all those tasks and end up with lagging sales because you weren’t ready, you didn’t have your marketing base in place and no one knew who the heck you were.

So, what do you need to do right now, before you sell?

1. Get a website up – and make it look professional, because a shoddy looking website is worse than no website at all.  Many agents and editors check for an author’s website BEFORE they make an offer, but don’t take just my word for it…
   Agent Kristin Nelson’s take on websites for the pre-published: http://pubrants.blogspot.com/search/label/websites - there are 3 blog entries, scroll down to read them all.
   Agent Rachel Vater’s take:  http://raleva31.livejournal.com/52449.html
   
   
2. Set up a blog, face book page – To make these a success you need to ‘brand’ yourself, make yourself interesting by taking a unique slant on the publishing industry and/or joining or forming a group to blog with.
   
   
3. Write a newsletter and publish it regularly – people can opt-in at your website, and again, you need to find your personal slant on the information you’re going to include in the newsletter.  Make it interesting!
   
   
4. Write articles for your RWA chapter newsletters – this is a great way to get your name out there in the romance writing community.  As an added bonus, you’ll get lots of practice writing articles.
   
   
5. Pitch and write an article for the Romance Writer Report.  I just handed in my third article for the RWR.  Not only will writers be reading it August, but agents and editors will, too.  Even better, they pay!
   
   
6. Find what you’re passionate about, promote it and it will promote you – I’m a huge proponent of life long learning, it’s something I’m very passionate about.  About 2 years ago I found myself frustrated with the fact that I was missing out on really good online classes because there was no centralized place to find out about them before they started.  I decided I fix that and began a yahoo loop devoted to informing writers about classes.  I now have over 250 people signed upon my Announceonlinewritingclasses@yahoogroups.com loop, many of them are RWA chapter presidents.  All the information I post there is free to be passed along to any writer, and any writer, regardless of what they write, may join. Announceonlinewritingclasses-subscribe@yahoogroups.com I post an average of 30 classes every month, often more.
   
   
7. Go to conferences – network, learn, socialize. 
   
   
8. Teach – share what you know with other writers.
   
   
9. Join more than one RWA chapter, and if you write a specific genre of romance like Romantic Suspense, join a special interest chapter.  Meet other writers who write what you do, learn from them, help them and when the time comes to promote your first sale you’ll have a whole bunch of people who will happily back you up.
   
10. Donate – Events like Brenda Novak’s Diabetes Auction http://brendanovak.auctionanything.com/Home.taf are a wonderful way to do something good and promote yourself, even if you’re not published.  This year I donated a magazine writing mentoring package http://tinyurl.com/2kf79q .  I’ve already been approached by a couple of published, successful writers about setting up a time when I can help them get launched into writing for magazines.  Several friends of mine are donating everything from antiques, jewellery and gift baskets of writing related goodies.

A writing career is about more than just writing a book.  It’s about establishing yourself within the market place, the bookstore and the writing community.  Don’t wait to get started, start now!

A double Golden Heart finalist in 2006, Julie Rowe has been writing medically inclined romances for ten years.  She’s also a published freelancer with articles appearing in The Romance Writer’s Report, Canadian Living, Today’s Parent, Reader’s Digest (Canada) and other magazines.  Julie is an active member of RWA and its subchapters, Heartbeat RWA and Calgary RWA.  She serves on the RWA Membership Committee, coordinates Book In A Week programs for Heartbeat and Calgary RWA, and serves as president of Heartbeat RWA.  Julie enjoys teaching and volunteering, and is a passionate promoter of life-long learning.