Hey everyone. I hope you’ve had a good weekend. My weekend went by really fast. To kick off this Monday, I have Amanda N. Butler with us for a guest post. Amanda participated not once, but twice last year. She’s an over-achiever. ❤️ You can find her interview here and the guest post on submitting poetry here. I hope you enjoy this lovely post on marketing your poetry by her.
Poetic Justice is a month long event, beginning April 1st to April 30th in honor of National Poetry Month. Throughout April there will be interviews, guest posts, excerpts and other poetic posts. I hope you will follow along. To read the introductory post, you can find out more here
Marketing Your Poetry
Amanda N. Butler
Writing a collection of poetry is akin to spilling pieces of your heart onto the paper. Your writing becomes of part of you, a representation of your unique perspective. So when you decide to get your work out there in the world, you may decide that self-publishing is the best option for your work. In this case, there will not be an entity marketing your work for you. In self-publishing, writing is half the work; marketing is the other half – and you are the businesspoet who will show the world what your work is made of. I want to share with you tactics that I have learned and observed in my own marketing and self-publishing journeys.
A little bit of background context: I currently work in the marketing industry, I hold an MBA in Marketing, and I self-published my first verse novel last year. I want to help you and your poetry get noticed. It is my hope that you get ideas or inspiration on ways to promote your work from this blog.
Your Marketing Plan
Develop a marketing plan at least a month before your press the Publish button. List the dates and times of when you will publish blogs or social media posts in the dates leading up to your book’s release date. Include any press releases or events you may have as well. Your marketing plan should list your tactics pre- and post-release, as the two are quite different.
Pre-release, your marketing should be focused on creating suspense and urgency. Will your book have a lower cost for readers who pre-order your work? The time frame for pre-ordering a book is limited, so you can use this to your advantage by lowering the cost, and increasing the cost upon its release. The post-release is more about getting your work seen by the people most likely to be interested in the topics of your collection.
Physical Materials
After I published my verse novel about mermaids, one of the first things I did was create physical promotional materials that people could hold in their hands. I made a crossword puzzle and a word search related to the scenes and characters in my book. Before printing them, I made a QR code that lead directly to my book’s Amazon page and put it on the word games. I like to bring those with me to events – it gets potential readers engaged, and they can find the answers or context in my book, which is right at their fingertips with the QR code that they can scan with their smartphone’s camera.
I then made my own business cards, and I included a QR code to my Amazon author page on the card. This gives potential readers another opportunity to easily find my work.
Digital Materials
Digital materials include graphics that you make for social media and your online presence in general. Your Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook pages are your digital domains, where you can post and promote your work on your own schedule. Interact with your fellow readers and writers so relationships can happen organically.
I used the app Canva when making my social media ads. With a simple background, a small version of my book’s cover, and some pretty font, my banners were social media-ready! Canva has different templates for different social media avenues.
Another great digital material is the quiz. People love taking quizzes, as seen by the popularity of Buzzfeed quizzes. I remember when way back in the day I would take quiz upon quiz to embed the coded results on my Myspace page! My point is, make a quiz about your poetry collection and the world within it. Going back to the example of the poetry collection about flowers, such a quiz could be “Which Poetic Flower Are You?” Don’t forget to make some kind of statement at the end of your quiz that directs quiz-takers to where they can find your book!
Social Media
There are two ways to advertise on social media: organically, or with paid advertising (or a combination of both!). Organic content is the blog posts, the Facebook posts, the tweets, or the photos that you post yourself that your audience naturally interacts with – liking, sharing, or even following the link to buy your book. Paid advertising is promoting a Facebook, tweet, Instagram post (or the like) by paying for an advertisement to be shown to a specific target market designated in the ad’s settings. If you choose organic advertising, schedule your posts so they appear on a regular basis. If you choose paid advertising, set a budget and a time frame that works best for you and what you estimate your return on investment (ROI) will be.
For example, if you are selling your poetry collection for 99 cents, it may not be in your best interest to pay to promote your ads, because you would be paying for every time someone clicks on your ad, and if they do not purchase your book, then that is not a high ROI. However, if you are selling your book for over $5, you would profit due to the low cost-per-click ratio.
No matter where you post, always make sure to include a link to your work. I can’t believe how many times I see a fellow poet promoting their work with a beautiful picture, but no link! A potential reader scrolling through Twitter would most likely rather click on a link already in front of them than go on a scavenger hunt through Amazon.
Don’t forget to promote your work during related seasons! If your poetry collection is about flowers, post about your work during springtime or during related events, such as National Flower Day every October 7th. (Idea: Brainstorm the “national holidays” that are related to the topics of your collection!)
More Poetry
At the end of the day, the more work you put out there in the world, the more likely your work is to be noticed. That’s not to say you need to release something new a few times a year – that’s a good path to burnout – but a good rule of thumb is to market your last work while writing your next work. By the time the next work is out there and ready to market, it’s time to start writing the work after that. With this in mind, write and market at a pace that is best for you. Marketing can be tiring, though rewarding.
Oh, and one other thing – don’t lose hope. Some people have doubts or insecurities about marketing because they do not feel like their work is worthy of attention, or they may feel embarrassed for pushing their work. As long as the marketing is done in a respective manner, your hard work deserves the attention. You put the work in, and it’s time you see the fruits of your labor.
About The Poet:
Amanda has loved writing ever since she learned that sentences could be split to form poems. She has been writing poetry for over 14 years.
Amanda holds a BA in Professional Writing and her MBA in Marketing. She is the author of chapbooks, microchapboooks, verse novels, and poetry. For a full list of Amanda’s publications, please visit the Publications tab.
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