Email, Domains, Campaigns, oh my!
Well, it turns out, writing is as much a business as selling art. Last year, I attempted to start a small business making things in my studio–from pot holders to paintings–but I found it entirely too much work to maintain. Then, in my infinite wisdom, I decided to publish a book.
Over the last month I have:
- Learned Email Campaigning with MailChimp
- Found cover art with UpWork
- Found a logo maker and editor with Fiverr (thankfully I knew her before, so this isn’t a complete shot in the dark)
- Developed an intimate understanding of email list legalities (Somebody go explain this to the 5,654,432 emails in my inbox I never signed up for)
- Purchased a PO box from the USPS (when I really didn’t want one)
- Learned what to expect from beta readers
- Figured out Google Phone
- Learned about email services vs. free email services and privacy law
- Discovered domain names, registering them, preventing anyone from stealing them, and why they matter
- Written Blogs (which no one is reading yet)
- Messed around with Adobe InDesign and studied how not to panic when formatting my own book for the first time.
- Fiddled with Website design (I’d rather dig my eyes out with a spoon)
- Discovered Self promotion on Instagram (I’m trying to like it), Facebook (I now hate it), Goodreads (where has this been my whole life??), Pinterest (it’s all about me)
- Learned how to waste money on social media ads
- Learned how to replace the ribbon in a typewriter
Overwhelmed yet? Good. I’m glad we have that in common.
It isn’t about how well I can write, it’s about how hard I’m willing to work on all the things that have nothing to do with writing. As an example, I have over 100 instagram followers now. I have worked my tail off for each one. I have taken classes on how to best the Instagram algorithm and I have a class pending on how to master Facebook. I enjoy writing, I despise self-promotion, but I guess to acquire readers for the former… you need the latter.
Publishing a book–and succeeding–seems to be a matter of grit rather than desire.
I wish it were all magic systems and character bibles, but my real focus over the last few weeks has been all the work it will take for anyone to read the final product. To purchase it, they will need to know it exists and for that to happen? I need to push on getting one instagram follower at a time.
The thing I’m the most excited about is actually my newsletter–but after WordPress took 170 contacts in a scam, I have no one reading it. So, I will preserve my interesting content for these blog posts in the hopes that someday someone will read them. I mean, it may be a post-humous fame sort of thing at the rate this popularity game is going, but you have to start somewhere, right?
Love and gratitude (to all 4 of my readers),
