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Managing Your Business Wisely
If you are a writer, especially one who charges for your services, having a business plan in place is essential. Never mind that a business plan can help you run your business more effectively, but a plan should be one that passes IRS scrutiny as well as meets all state and local government requirements.
Sometimes it is nearly impossible to figure out what steps you should take in order to even meet the myriad requirements. You are an excellent writer; that doesn't mean you are an expert at business administration!
My local technical/community college is offering on Tuesday nights this year to help business owners. Some of the topics they are offering include:
Establishing Your Mission and Vision for a Small Business
Protection Copyrights, Patents, Trademarks, Intellectual Property
Show Me the Money: Prosperity Principles for Your Small Business
I plan on taking several courses this year as I want to make certain my business passes muster. Naturally, I want to concentrate on the writing aspect of the business, but the remaining "stuff" is necessary too. Check with your local continuing education office for a list of upcoming seminars. Many courses are free or require a nominal fee. In any case, you have nothing to lose, but a business to gain!
BONUS : Marketing In A Web 2.0 World
When it comes to marketing the choices are clear: market to your reader. But the where to find your reader has changed as more and more of our lives migrate online. A recent article on how offline media is succumbing to the Net talked about a flurry of newspapers diving into online content, online ad placement, and online forums to push more of their feature pieces, reviews and editorials into a virtual medium.
Even industry standards like the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times are moving more and more of their content to the website. So what does this mean for you? Well, it means that the lines between on and offline are becoming even more blurred. It used to be that if you had a few select publications that you were pitching you could contact their on and offline departments and possibly be considered for interviews or feature pieces in both of them; thats not the case anymore. Sometime an online feature means that you can kiss your offline exposure goodbye, so its good to ask before you start pitching. Much of the online content is now pulled from the offline source, so while this could work in your favor, better to be certain if you have your eye on print coverage. That said, you might be better off being on their website, where youll get lasting exposure.
But media promotion isnt the only factor in marketing, in fact, theres a lot you can do without even heading into the media realm. Consider these ideas:
* Craigs List: have you been on this site recently? If you havent, take a few minutes and run through the listings for your city. Its a great place to promote yourself but be careful, the Craigs list people dont like a salesy type of pitch but prefer something more folksy and casual. If you surf the site for a while youll see what I mean. You can use Craigs list to promote your event, your product, even your service, but they key is, dont look like youre promoting. Also, keep in mind that often regional media will surf this site looking for events they can cover, so get yours listed there now!
* Virtual networking: its not just for trading business cards anymore. If youre trying to gain platform or gain media exposure, heading on over to sites like http://Linkedin.com can be a good way to start your network and gain additional exposure. Also, sites like MySpace have gotten a bad rap as predator sites, but only a marginal portion of people on this site are there for nefarious reasons. While the MySpace age does tend to skew younger, theres virtually a place for everyone and every message on this site. Not a MySpace person? Try http://eons.com instead, this site targets the over 50 crowd and offers another great place to market your book and message.
* YouTube: this site isnt just for singing pancakes; in fact, more and more authors are moving snippets of signings, speaking gigs or other visual promotion tools to this hot new resource. Its a great link back to your site.
* Social bookmarking: have you been doing your social duty lately? Posting to sites like http://del.i.cious.com could really help to spread your message like wildfire. Sometimes a few sites is all it takes to start the buzz going in your market.
* Consider the overlooked media: As the bigger papers are moving their content online and vying to keep readership interested, the smaller overlooked papers like The Bastrop Daily Enterprise in Louisiana and Arkadelphia Daily Siftings Herald in Arkansas are booming. Their readership is loyal and their papers always hungry for content. Have you poked around in the smaller regional newspapers yet? If you havent, you might want to. You might find that while its great to have an online presence, the further we get into Web 2.0, the more these publications are overlooked by pr people.
The Net has opened up a bunch of opportunities both online and off, take your focus off the norm and start exploring some new territory, you might be surprised what it can do for your campaign!
When it comes to marketing the choices are clear: market to your reader. But the where to find your reader has changed as more and more of our lives migrate online. A recent article on how offline media is succumbing to the Net talked about a flurry of newspapers diving into online content, online ad placement, and online forums to push more of their feature pieces, reviews and editorials into a virtual medium.
Even industry standards like the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times are moving more and more of their content to the website. So what does this mean for you? Well, it means that the lines between on and offline are becoming even more blurred. It used to be that if you had a few select publications that you were pitching you could contact their on and offline departments and possibly be considered for interviews or feature pieces in both of them; thats not the case anymore. Sometime an online feature means that you can kiss your offline exposure goodbye, so its good to ask before you start pitching. Much of the online content is now pulled from the offline source, so while this could work in your favor, better to be certain if you have your eye on print coverage. That said, you might be better off being on their website, where youll get lasting exposure.
But media promotion isnt the only factor in marketing, in fact, theres a lot you can do without even heading into the media realm. Consider these ideas:
* Craigs List: have you been on this site recently? If you havent, take a few minutes and run through the listings for your city. Its a great place to promote yourself but be careful, the Craigs list people dont like a salesy type of pitch but prefer something more folksy and casual. If you surf the site for a while youll see what I mean. You can use Craigs list to promote your event, your product, even your service, but they key is, dont look like youre promoting. Also, keep in mind that often regional media will surf this site looking for events they can cover, so get yours listed there now!
* Virtual networking: its not just for trading business cards anymore. If youre trying to gain platform or gain media exposure, heading on over to sites like http://Linkedin.com can be a good way to start your network and gain additional exposure. Also, sites like MySpace have gotten a bad rap as predator sites, but only a marginal portion of people on this site are there for nefarious reasons. While the MySpace age does tend to skew younger, theres virtually a place for everyone and every message on this site. Not a MySpace person? Try http://eons.com instead, this site targets the over 50 crowd and offers another great place to market your book and message.
* YouTube: this site isnt just for singing pancakes; in fact, more and more authors are moving snippets of signings, speaking gigs or other visual promotion tools to this hot new resource. Its a great link back to your site.
* Social bookmarking: have you been doing your social duty lately? Posting to sites like http://del.i.cious.com could really help to spread your message like wildfire. Sometimes a few sites is all it takes to start the buzz going in your market.
* Consider the overlooked media: As the bigger papers are moving their content online and vying to keep readership interested, the smaller overlooked papers like The Bastrop Daily Enterprise in Louisiana and Arkadelphia Daily Siftings Herald in Arkansas are booming. Their readership is loyal and their papers always hungry for content. Have you poked around in the smaller regional newspapers yet? If you havent, you might want to. You might find that while its great to have an online presence, the further we get into Web 2.0, the more these publications are overlooked by pr people.
The Net has opened up a bunch of opportunities both online and off, take your focus off the norm and start exploring some new territory, you might be surprised what it can do for your campaign!
