Soapbox: About the Industry

Promoting Yourself

by Sandy Antunes
Jul 09,2004

Promoting Yourself

by Sandy Antunes

Freelancers need to promote themselves if they want to get more work. And they should help promote their books, so they sell more copies and thus get hired again. You and the book are tied together in a twisted economic way, but ultimately, your goal is to build your own "brand" and sell you. Here's how.

As a cautionary, you want to make sure you don't cross or mess up your publisher's intent with a book. So, for some self-promotion, just do it and tell the publisher later, for others, get permission. My recommendations below.

1) Ask your publisher if they want you to do any signings at game shops, cons that you already plan to be at, etc. No publisher will say 'no' but this shows you're motivated and also means they don't feel like you're gone rogue.

Then, hit your local game shop, con, etc and do this.

2) Do an interview with a website or two on 'my experiences creating this new game'. It's posed as an "insider talks about the industry" but also works well to hype the product. Mention (in email) to your publisher that you have this upcoming interview but don't ask for permission (if the publisher has specific wants _or_ wants to push it by offering promos/prizes, they'll contact you.) Encourage the website to promote your column with a press release.

3) Write a guest column for a website on something related ('writing SF in a fantasy-dominated world', 'writing fantasy in a fantasy-saturated world', etc). Again, inform publisher after you're set it up as a courtesy. Encourage the website to promote your column with a press release.

4) Do #2 or #3 for a print magazine.

5) Hype yourself, moreso than just that project. Launch your own website or live journal--including a complete biography-- via press releases. But for goodness sake, come up with your angle first! Warren Ellis has "comics suck, and here's why". Pick what your angle is, come up with a one-line 'pull' for it, and then you can do a press release.

Think about why people would want to visit, really you're building your 'brand', the saleable parts of your public persona.

        'See Jane Doe's work'?      Nah. Instead:         'Jane Doe-- the rebel too talented to fire'

Give people an expectation that you're going to tell them secrets and insights they've never seen before.

6) Keep it moving. Once you commit to promoting _yourself_, you have to keep it going. At the very least, that means a new op ed each month, a new work each month (on a different week than the op-ed), and a new journal-type entry at least weekly (try to pick a specific day of the week and let people know, even if just casually with "Here's this week's regular Friday update on the insanity of our industry."

In short, something at least weekly, and on a specific day of the week, so you 'train' your small-but-growing core of readers to regularly visit you.

7) If you've ever written a long advice email or rant to any email list, save it and reuse it for your weekly op ed/journal. For example, this email (done off the cuff) will likely become an RPG.net Soapbox-- no point in wasting good words!

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I've actually done this, though not yet for myself-- in retrospect, I realize the above is a recapitulation of how I promoted RPG.net back in the late 90s. But currently I'm too cowardly (and time-short) to do the same process for myself. I'd say it's required if someone is full-timing, though, as it gives you longevity beyond a single publisher or two.

Until next month,
Sandy
freelance