On marketing and tip jars

[jeriendhal]

There's an interesting discussion on haikujaguar's LJ on the subject of marketing, self-promotion, and how a freelancer might go about it without annoying potential customers or making themselves feel like a pushy sleaze. Which I can relate to quite strongly. Even though I've self-published a couple of books, I generally don't promote them beyond putting a link in to my storefront on my user page for LJ and DeviantArt. My nightmare job is be involved in Sales in any form. I don't like targeted ads, I don't like junk mail, I don't like spam and I don't like people calling my house to offer me something I have no interest in. [1]

Which leaves me the problem of how to make people aware of my work without demanding they pay attention to it. Insoluable from my POV, unless I want to start paying for banner ads.

As for making money, haikujagaur seems to do very well with PayPal donations, funding her serialized work chapter by chapter. I'm just wondering whether I should try that myself, funding further work on The Ship or Assassinating the Dead, since from a realistic viewpoint I'll probably never be able to professionally publish them.

But it's a scary possibility. Because for the first time since I'd started seriously writing I'd have a deadline, and an audience that would damned well expect me to meet it, because they paid for the privilege of reading what I'd been previously posting for free. And bluntly, I'm not even sure it would be worth it in the end, given that what I write is basically pulp (yummy pulp I'd like to think, but pulp nonetheless). I'm not a dedicated prose stylist like haikujaguar (and I'm certainly not an artist like she is!). My stuff is workmanlike at best.

OTOH I've got 175 seperate people following my blog. Odds are at least a few would be willing to pay no matter what I wrote. And I can't deny that we could certainly use the money right now.


[1] One of moonshadowed's biggest beefs with me is the rather abrupt way I deal with phone solicitors. Which usually goes along this line:

Caller: Hello, Mr. Day? This is NAME from IRRITATING COMPANY. May I speak to you for a moment?

Me: No. (clicks OFF button)

Comments

[ankewehner.livejournal.com]

You know what I'd consider tasteful marketing in your case? A link with something on the lines of "[an edited version of] this story is included in a collection available in print or PDF from Lulu" at the end of the description of each story posted on DA.

Also, good call on the phone solicitors.
When I or my mother do that, it's true, too. Unsolicitised phone ads ARE illegal here.

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

Oh, I like that idea for my DA stories.

And in theory my house is on the national Do Not Call list for phone solicitors, but it doesn't happen to me often enough to bother to report them (and charities and political organizations are exempt).

[ankewehner.livejournal.com]

It's the same method I use for the stuff I offer [prints of] on Etsy, or somesuch. ;)

As to getting more exposure in general, I don't know... posting to communities on DA?
FridayFlash gets me some comments, but you seem to write more serials than Flash Fiction.

[allah-sulu.livejournal.com]

I've gotten two tips, for a total of $15, for my Massive Tool. Not bad for seven years.

As for phone solicitors (which we haven't had to deal with in a while), I told them that if they can't pronounce my last name, I don't know them or want to talk to them. Some of them would try, none of them ever got it. And there are two correct answers.

[mmegaera.livejournal.com]

I agree with you wholeheartedly. One of the most depressing things I ever read was a biography of Mark Twain. Even in the 19th century, if you wanted to be a successful novelist, you had to flog your work. The man spent more of his later life on the lecture circuit than he did writing, I think.

It's one reason I've sort of quit pursuing publication. I want to be read, oh, how I want to be read, but trying to sell makes me miserable.

I deal with phone solicitors (not that I get more than one a month or so these days) about the same way you do [g].