Tuesdays with Tiffany
by Tiffany Colter, Writing Career Coach
Okay, so you can see I've made a selection. I really had a hard time deciding because I liked the idea of being clear what it was I was teaching....but then again I like the whole alliteration thing. :-) So Tuesdays with Tiffany won out. It had the "feel" I was going for. This is just a chat. You and me.
Today I want to talk about "What if I don't want to market".
There is really no simple answer to this question. To be honest my biggest rant is when people in the body of Christ sit on their rump and expect God to do all the work. Even Jesus said, when calling his disciples, COME FOLLOW me and I WILL MAKE YOU fishers of men. For me there is great comfort in that verse. I'm called to follow him and as I obey he will transform me in to what I was created to be.
But there is an action...follow.
We cannot simply sit in our home and expect books to fly off the shelf. There is work that must go in to them. There is marketing that must be done.
Yes, I know each of you have a story to share with me about how a friend of a friend did nothing and their book took off. Well, I'm not willing to wait on that. God gave me a story in my spirit and he wants to minister to people through that book. If I'm at home trying to pray it off the shelf how will my hurting neighbor find it? If I don't open my mouth how will a lonely woman in another state hear?
For me it isn't always about the money [but sometimes it is. The Bible says a worker is worth his wages.] I just know how fiction has helped me overcome some real battles. I also know how marketing has helped me find help. If I hadn't seen a commercial on TV I would never have found my current church. That is a place that loved us and embraced us as no other church EVER did before. These people have held us up during some of our roughest years. But it was because I kept seeing a commercial that I decided to check it out. That was when God met me in that place and I grew as a christian.
Do you truly believe that God wants to work through you? Then you have to WORK. God can't work through an inanimate person full of free will.
We must prayerfully ask each day how God wants us to reach out. Then we must obey.
Marketing isn't about becoming famous. It is about getting stories of hope and healing to a wounded person.
Your Coach for the Journey, Tiffany Colter
5 comments:
Interesting. I agree we must not just expect things to fall in our lap. If we did, we'd all be in heaven already, right? LOL.
Thanks for the inspiring words, and I'm glad you picked Tuesdays with Tiffany!
You are spot on! You reap what you sow. If you do not sow into your writing, what fruit will you have? I can't understand writers who refuse to do any marketing or promotion. It's par for the course, and whether you are published or pre-published, it is work that must be done.
Thanks for posting this.
Cath, glad you like the name.
Inspire, good point with pre-published. I think what most people forget is they need to work on marketing [called platform development] BEFORE they get published so they are able to sell themselves to the publisher.
I'd never advocate ignoring craft but assuming craft is great, we need a way to get the word out!
I'm glad it helped. If anyone has specific questions let me know. I'll be glad to help.
Since I'm shy and tend not to want to promote me or anything I do, I like to look at self-promoting as carrying my little cross for Him. Since I write for God, trying to relay His messages through earthly stories He's blessed me with, I believe it's my duty to help spread the word--I'm talking when that day comes of course.
For now, I just promote what I offer to other beginner writers because I believe God can use my blogging posts to help others along this journey. Putting those 'come to my blog' e-mails out is cross-baring job for me because it's really self-promoting and that doesn't come naturally to me, but I know God expects me to put effort into all I do and desires that I grow in the doing and promoting of it as well.
Great post, Tiff! Thanks!
Just out of interest, the relying on God factor caught my attention. Yesterday Rachelle posted on her blog about how she hates to get queries from people who tell her 'God told me to write this.'
It's interesting to hear this from an agent's perspective and worth the read. We all have our own thoughts on this one, but the message is, be very careful in how you query. I say the same applies to marketing.
If you don't do it, who will?
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