Marketing – Page 7 – Joseph Carrabis, Author Blog

Social Media Demands

In all things, only what brings you joy

Another author recently wrote me “I am struggling, not without hope, to get over being overwhelmed by social media demands. A great tool, but where do you find the time to work on your writing?”

The answer to this question has long intrigued me. Especially when several people comment on my social expertise.

My first thought is, Moi? Surely you jest.

Several authors tell me they put as much time into their social marketing as they do in their writing. I’ve read some of their work.

I totally agree they put as much if not more time into their social marketing as they do in their writing. It shows. I want to ask “Do you want to be liked or do you want people to like your work?”

I mean, you can drown in the crap that’s out there now. One fellow asked me to write a review of his book. I couldn’t get past the first paragraph. I declined and politely suggested he get an editor to go review it. He already had an editor. Two, in fact, and a story coach and a publisher.

Really? And your book still sucks this much? Amazing.

For myself, craft is everything. I want my writing to stop people in their tracks. I want their world to go away and my world to take precedence. Could be why reviews of my work include statements about missing bus stops, staying up through the night reading, things like that. One person, at a recent reading, commented that my subject matter was painful but the writing pulled them right into the story. Yes!

So social marketing comes second or third or forty-fifth to me. I don’t do it every day.

I also have another rule for social marketing; enjoy it. If you’re going to do it, enjoy it. Make it pleasurable. Do it to give yourself and others a smile.

Here’s what I suggested when asked:
I only go social when I need a break from my writing. To me, developing my craft and producing product (stories, et cetera) is everything. I believe that producing quality work causes everything else to happen, so developing my craft comes first.
Sometimes I need a break. Maybe I’m stuck on a plot point, maybe a character isn’t behaving, maybe I’m just tired of developing a storyline. Okay, go online and say hello to a few folks.
I also have a core belief that we’re here to help each other succeed, that a success for any one of us is a success for all of us, so I trumpet others’ successes as much if not more than my own.
So work on your craft first. Go social when you need a break, need to warm up, something like that.

Behavioral economists reading this will go all blathery about altruism, freeloaders, cheaters, et cetera.

Don’t waste your time. I wrote that I do it when I need a break and because I enjoy seeing people succeed; a rising tide kind of thing and maybe they’ll remember me when… So much for altruism. I’m not looking for reciprocity. So much for freeloaders and cheaters. Besides, I reward people who help me – I promote them through my mailing lists – so freeloaders and cheaters die off quickly.

May not be the best strategy. Works for me. Maybe it’ll work for you.

Rita Mae Brown’s “Starting from Scratch”

A Writer’s Mechanic’s Manual for Any Car on the Road

Okay, first thing and before anything else, Get This Book!

I don’t care where you are in your writing career, Rita Mae Brown’s Starting from Scratch will give you a chuckle (several hundred, probably) and clarify things that were not only muddy, but had been pushed aside because they were just too damn hard to figure out.

Worry no more, Rita’s got you covered.

I didn’t know who Rita Mae Brown was until a friend suggested I give her a read. This was back in the early-mid 1980s. He thought she was brilliant and hilarious.

That didn’t tempt me.

Then he told me she could benchpress 225#.

Yes, I was that much of an assh?le (may still be) that that caught my interest.

But I didn’t pick up one of her books (that I remember) until my first go-round as a writer. That book being Starting from Scratch.

Reading the book recently, it’s obvious I had read it at least once before; there were highlights in it. There were highlights of concepts I remember, if not exact phrasings. Truth be told, I was probably unprepared for the book when I first read it (my copy was published in Feb 1988). I’m glad I kept it around.

Starting from Scratch is a mechanic’s manual of the English language. Brown explains the purpose of first v third person POV with duh! level examples and lots of them. Ditto subjunctive case (trust me, you need to read this section). Ditto strong v weak verbs (another must read). Imagine someone showing you a crescent wrench and a 9/16″ box-end, showing you they can do the same thing, then demonstrating why one works better on these types of nuts, the other works better on those types of nuts.

Her Exercises chapter…remember what I wrote above about being impressed by her bench? Here’s your cardio and resistance training in one incredible package.

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Con Notes Part 3 – Swag

Not stolen, not poo, and make sure it delivers an ROI

The word swag has an interesting etymology; it’s a mafia term for stolen loot.

Do you offer swag at your author signings and such? Do you think of yourself as a fence for stolen goods?

I’m more familiar with the term tchotchkes than “swag”. Swag may be a neologism or an industryism, and it’s all the same thing; trinkets to get people to your table. If you’ve ever gone to an industry (not book industry) show and heard somebody say, “You have to go to X’s booth. They have great…” then you’ve heard a comment about trinkets, tchotchkes, swag. The word “tchotchkes” is Yiddish and can mean “an attractive, unconventional woman” or “an inexpensive showy trinket”.

So why not just call them “trinkets”? Perhaps because of tchotchkes’s other, slang usage, often by eastern European grandmothers and to describe those incredible newborn poos in diapers. Cute, maybe once, but really you just want to get rid of it.

There was a woman who called herself “The Queen of Swag”. She was on a panel about self-marketing. I’d previously seen her table.

Yes, swag she had. Flyers, notebooks, coffee cups, pens, pencils, stickynotes, bookmarks, candy, spinners, tops, dolls, keychains, flashlights, shopping bags, tshirts, necklaces and the list goes on.

I have no idea what her book was or what it was about because I didn’t see it on her table. Maybe it was a book on swag?

Con Notes Part 2 – Presentations, Talks, Lectures, and Help Sessions

When someone asks “Is there something I can help you with?” the correct response is “What are you willing to help me with? How much are you willing to do? What is the cost?”

I make it a habit to look up people who’ll be speaking before I attend their session. I may look at their bio and often don’t because I’ve had 20+ years in marketing, meaning I know that most bios are hype. They are written to get you into the room, not to let you know what will be covered or how useful it will be. The bios may read as if they’re telling you what will be covered and how useful it will be (to a certain extent it has to or the presenter will get a rep for not-delivering on their promise) and their real purpose is to get you into their presentation.

So if your goal is to learn from the experts, first make sure they’re experts in more than name only.

I made the mistake of responding to a question on Facebook

How not to sell your book

I know what you’re thinking; “That was stupid, Joseph.”

Yeah, well. Sometimes you just have to let the fool be slapped, you know?

I tend to not post on boards. I monitor them. I wouldn’t classify myself as a lurker. I don’t believe I have much worth sharing, don’t think of myself as interesting or noteworthy, don’t find the majority of comments worth a comment, so why get involved?

It’s tough being social when you self-define as “I’m boring and dull.”

But today someone asked “Would you read a novel about two boys forced to take psychiatric drugs and the battle to save them?”

That’s a marketing question. I spent twenty-five years developing tools to answer exactly such questions. One thing developing such tools taught me is there are more important questions to ask before asking that specific quotation.

But before I go further, how would you answer that question? I’d like to know. As a reality check. Perhaps my response is way off base and I’d really like to know.
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