Marketing for Introverts: An OpenBook blog post

 

Welcome to Open Book Blog Hop. You can find us every Monday talking about the writing life. I hope you'll check out all the posts: you'll find the links at the bottom of this post.

Today's question:   Most of us (or maybe all of us) struggle with marketing. What are your top 3 marketing tips?

Hi! I'm Samantha, and I'm an introvert. In fact, I'm really happy that we're having this little talk here on the Internet, where I don't have to actually talk to you.

It's not that I'm not friendly. I bet I'd even like you. It's that I'm still recuperating after participating in a fan convention this weekend for my writing life.

Being a writer might seem like a natural job choice for an introvert. In some ways, it's an excellent fit.

Doing the work requires spending copious amounts of time alone.

The work itself is usually pretty quiet (just some keyboard clicking or pen scritching noises).

You can do the work wherever you are most comfortable.

On the other hand, if you want to make a career of writing, you can't *just* write. You have to put your work out there for others to read.

Then, there's the marketing, that second job of garnering attention for your work and being discoverable. That can be pretty painful for a introverted person, but I'm here to tell you that it can be done. You can make a career as a writer without undergoing some kind of alchemy and becoming an extrovert, and in some ways, introverts might be especially well suited to it.

So, here are a few things to consider if you're an introvert and trying to promote yourself and your work.

1. Take it slow: A lot of people seem to think that building a writing career and support network is a sudden quick movement, like sweeping the legs in a kickboxing match.

It's not.

Not even for extroverts.

Building contacts and relationships is the work of years, and luckily, it's the kind of work introverts are good at! We may not be comfortable standing behind the megaphone and calling for the attention of everyone in the room, but we're great one-on-one and when we get to know someone, we usually get to know them well. Our relationships are deep and strong and lasting.

When you are meeting new people, be reasonable in your expectations for yourself. I'm happy if I make one or two new initial contacts at any given event. I'm not trying to go home with my pockets bursting with business cards. I'm trying to make a few meaningful connections.

2. Pick your poison:  There are a lot of ways to put yourself out there as a writer. You can give readings, participate in discussion panels, teach workshops or classes, hand sell books from a table or booth at an event, make videos about your work, tweet cleverly, blog, etc.

Some of these things will scare the heck out of you, and some may only make you nervous. Pick something you feel like you can do and try it. You can push yourself a little at a time, and you don't have to put yourself out there on every possible platform.

Look at events carefully, think about your comfort levels, and plan accordingly. I enjoy doing fan conventions, for example, but I tend to stick to small and medium sized ones relatively near my home base.

I take my sister with me whenever I can because it's good to have someone more outgoing with you and someone who will help you take care of yourself when you need it. Even better if that someone loves you and understands your needs and limits.

I like panel discussions because they have a clear structure and don't require me to "make the first move" like approaching someone at a booth or table does. Someone will call on me when it's my turn to talk.

I ask convention organizers not to schedule me for late night programming because it's harder for me to be entertaining and clever and "on" when I get tired.

Over time, this has gotten more comfortable for me because I've gotten to know more and more people, so often attending an event means I'll be among as many friends as strangers. I find that VERY comforting.

Though Dragon Con is the BIG con near me, I have yet to apply, because I know how stressful I would find it to navigate the halls of such a large free-for-all event. Maybe I'll get there someday, or maybe I won't. We'll see.

For now, I'm feeling good about how much more comfortable I feel with what I'm doing now.

3. Self-Care! Everyone needs self care, but introverts may need to tend to themselves a little sooner and more specifically than other folks (I wouldn't know; I've never been one of those other folks).

For me, that means being as careful as I can be with my schedule: making sure there are adequate meal breaks and quiet time, packing some good snacks.

That might mean that I skip some networking opportunities and don't go to the bar with the other writers after an event, or decide to spend time alone in my hotel room instead of sitting at my table or booth for two more hours (even if I miss a chance to sell a book that way).

If I don't give myself space to recoup my energies, I'm not going to make a good impression or make good use of those opportunities anyway.

It also means that I try to give myself decompress time after an event.

I'm writing this on Monday and I got home from a convention on Sunday night. I had three different social invitations today, but I turned them all down in favor of sitting here quietly at my laptop. It was the right choice, especially since I'll have to be "on" again next weekend for another event.

So there are my thoughts on how to make a go of this if you're an introvert. I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments! 

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Pizza, Anyone? An Open Book blog post

Welcome to Open Book Blog Hop. You can find us every Monday talking about the writing life. I hope you'll check out all the posts: you'll find the links at the bottom of this post.

Today's question: What toppings do you put on your pizza? Is pineapple a real pizza topping?

So at first this might not seem like an important question for an author to ponder, but writing takes fuel! And pizza has some serious advantages on this front--it's possible to get or make at low effort and cost, and it's flexible, letting you add whatever you want to your lovely round piece of bread and call it a meal.

Honestly, at this stage of my life, I'm not so much a pizza fan. I probably ate too much of it in my youth, as part of band, chorus, and tennis trips. 

Most of the pizza that comes into my house now is purchased for my teenager and the gaggle of other teenagers that come with them.  Teenagers have a reputation for being risk-takers, but in my experience, this doesn't apply when we're talking about food. They're practically still toddlers (as a group). 

So that means, in my opinion, pretty boring pizza: Domino's, plain cheese or with pepperoni. The fanciest they go is ham and pineapple. (And, yes, I do like pineapple on a pizza, especially contrasted with ham). 

image from the recipe site

My personal favorite, on the other hand, is a chicken tikka masala pizza (recipe here). 

By Indian cooking standards, it's a simple recipe, and really flavorful. Instead of using traditional pizza crust, I made mine using a store-bought piece of naan for the crust. It's aromatic and satisfying, and not boring. 

I've also enjoyed getting fancier pizza with some other unusual toppings. 

There's a Napoli place near us that offers interesting things like duck and bison on your pizza. 

And even chain restaurants like Blaze will at least let you have some interesting cheese and a vegetable or two. 

The truth is, I like pizza that is as little like traditional pizza as possible. 

So, that's my take on what I want on my pizza: something interesting, aromatic, and tasty! How about you? Are you a pizza fan? What do you like on yours? I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments below. 

And be sure to check out the rest of the blog hop at this link!

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Writing Style: An OpenBook blog post

Welcome to Open Book Blog Hop. You can find us every Monday talking about the writing life. I hope you'll check out all the posts: you'll find the links at the bottom of this post.

Today's question: Does your writing style change depending upon what you are writing?

Since I largely write through a specific point of view, either first person (I) or third person close (s/he/they, with insight into their thinking), the writing style definitely shifts to accommodate those different points of view. 

The Menopausal Superheroes as rendered by Charles C. Dowd

Leonel "Fuerte" Alvarez, a crowd favorite among the Menopausal Superheroes, for example is a heart-on-the-sleeve person, always ready to talk about emotions and noticing how other people react. He's bilingual as well, so you'll find Spanish words and Mexican-American cultural references in his chapters.

The series changes point of view from chapter to chapter, and when I've done it well, my reader should be able to tell that I've changed point of view even if they skip over the chapter title. Patricia "Lizard Woman" O'Neill is much more practical and action-oriented, for example, and far less concerned with possible ramifications of her actions. 

In other work, especially when I'm writing in first person, word choice can become huge. In my Gothic romance (back burnered while I work on Menopausal Superhero #5, but still on my mind!), the main character is a late Victorian-era woman, and there is huge difference in her language and her perceptions of what is right and proper. 

image source

This is also a new genre for me: part historical, part romance, part ghost story. There are genre expectations for this sort of work. Readers will expect a different kind of detail in description, focused on clothing and setting, as well as more lyrical prose. 

So character, genre, and point of view will definitely cause changes in tone and style in my work. I'm always try to do well by the story, and make choices based on what the story demands or needs. And that's what makes it fun! 

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I'm Not Saying it's Aliens: Open Book Blog Hop

 

Welcome to Open Book Blog Hop. You can find us every Monday talking about the writing life. I hope you'll check out all the posts: you'll find the links at the bottom of this post.

Today's question: Do you want science to find aliens or find that we are alone in the universe? Does it scare you to think there are likely other beings out there?

I very much like the idea of aliens. I've enjoyed the utopian version of things like Star Trek, where we all work together. I've enjoyed the monster-movie version of things like Aliens where it becomes survival. 

Authors have used "aliens" as an inroad into a lot of difficult topics: racism, colonialism, culture clash, etc. It's an opportunity to use an "outsider" lens to look back at ourselves, imagining how aliens might do things differently and what they might think of how we do things here. 

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I kind of doubt that a real life encounter with aliens would prove as cinematic and dramatic as the stories I've enjoyed though. 

It might look a lot more like immigration, with a new kind of people meeting with the usual xenophobia followed by slow integration and acceptance. I don't see any particular reason to expect that aliens, if they show up on Earth, will want to eat, enslave, or conquer us. 

But it's fun to imagine the possibilities, life forms that are really physically different than humans or animals that we know. Beings that communicate, eat, and breathe differently. If you're looking for some positive alien-human interaction stories, I'll recommend Becky Chambers's Wayfarer series of books and novellas. I LOVE her work. 

I've got a couple of alien stories in the works myself and hope to be able to tell you where you can read them soon! In the meantime, what do you think of aliens? How do imagine an extraterrestrial encounter would fall out? I'd love to hear about it in the comments. 

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World Building: An Open Book Blog Hop Post

 

Welcome to Open Book Blog Hop. You can find us every Monday talking about the writing life. This week, we're talking about world-building.  I hope you'll check out all the posts: you'll find the links at the bottom of this post.

When I think about worldbuilding, I drop straight into fantasy: made up peoples, places, governments, and systems. Something like Dune, where Frank Herbert literally built a world. Arrakis, home of sandworms, spice, and political intrigue. 

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But the truth is that worldbuilding is part of the work for any writer--even if your work is set in "the real world."  There are still things the reader needs to understand about the limits and constraints of the characters' lives. 

Details of character like age, socio-economic status, upbringing, geography, workplace, relationship status, race, gender, and so much more make all the difference in a story. A simple scene like a confrontation with the boss takes on entirely different hues, depending on all the subtext. Who is older? What's the power dynamic between these characters? What's the "culture" in the workplace? Saying "no" has completely different resonance fully in the setting. 

I've written stories set in worlds very different from my own--on other planets, in the far future, or in the distant past, but I'm always world-building, even when the story is set yesterday at 2:00 in the town I live in. 

The Menopausal Superhero novels are in a gray area--set in a world very much like the one I actually inhabit, but where superpowers are a reality. So, Flygirl still has to worry about her children's schooling, but also literally flies into action in her work with the Unusual Cases Unit. 

It's always tricky, balancing world building with the other needs of the story, moving forward the plot, characters, themes, etc. The best world building is integrated and natural, introducing information as it matters, rather than burying the reader in pages of backstory, or making them "study first" by slogging through an info-dump of a prologue.  The key is making it easy for the reader, and when it's done very well, those world-building details are a spark of interest and delight. 

What kinds of details of worldbuilding make or break a story for you? 

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Fame and Fortune Await: An Open Book Blog Hop Post

 

Welcome to Open Book Blog Hop. You can find us every Monday talking about the writing life. This week, we're talking about what would happen if our books took off tomorrow, with enormous worldwide interest and sales.  I hope you'll check out all the posts: you'll find the links at the bottom of this post. 

That's a favorite daydream of mine. Somehow someone with a huge following stumbles across my work, falls in love with it, and uses that big megaphone of theirs to proclaim to the universe how witty, inspiring, entertaining, and life-changing my Menopausal Superhero novels are and boom! I'm there! 

image source

Now the question today asks if I'm prepared for that dream to come true. And honestly, probably not. I've spent my life somewhere between poverty and middle class with dips back and forth. I've never had "big bucks" in my life and have known very few people who do in any kind of personal way. 

But you know what? I can learn. 

I've managed being a "Greaser" among "Socs" before--I was that one public school scion among private school graduates in grad school. I stuck it out in the Chapel Hill Mom's club for nearly a year, even though they didn't know what to do with a mom with a day job and no nanny. 

The key is pretending that it's not that you can't afford better, it's that you choose what you have. No, I don't have a beach house, but it's because I like visiting different beaches every time I go. No, I don't wear designer brands, but it's because I'm socially conscious and won't wear brands that use exploitative labor practices. 

See? I can fake it! 

Could I handle the "fame"? I think, yes! Being a famous author isn't like being an actress or politician. Very few people know what their favorite authors look like or where they live. There are only a handful of living writers I would recognize if we passed one another on the street.  

Unless I start behaving badly and tweeting obnoxious things to get myself cancelled, I could quietly enjoy the bigger royalty checks, slip away from my day job, spoil my children a little, and travel more. 

So, yeah. I think I can take it. So feel free, people of the Internet, to spread the word and make me a social media darling. I promise to do more good than evil with the money, and keep on writing books!

Want to see how other writers feel about fame and fortune on the horizon? Check out the other posts in this blog hop at this link: 

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Not the Genre for Me: An Insecure Writers Support Group Post

 

Welcome to the first Wednesday of the month. You know what that means! It's time to let our insecurities hang out. Yep, it's the Insecure Writer's Support Group blog hop. If you're a writer at any stage of career, I highly recommend this blog hop as a way to connect with other writers for support, sympathy, ideas, and networking. If you're a reader, it's a great way to peek behind the curtain of a writing life.

Our Twitter handle is @TheIWSG and hashtag is #IWSG. The awesome co-hosts for the September 7 posting of the IWSG are Kim Lajevardi, Cathrina Constantine, Natalie Aguirre, Olga Godim, Michelle Wallace, and Louise - Fundy Blue! Be sure to stop by and see what they have to say when you finish here.

September 7 question - What genre would be the worst one for you to tackle and why?

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I like trying on new genres. Trying something I've never done before is part of the joy of writing for me. It's part of why I love writing for anthologies: it's like being invited to play a new game.

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Mostly, I like to stay under the speculative fiction umbrella, writing something with unrealistic elements--creatures, magic, made-up technologies, superpowers, wild settings, etc. 

I guess I don't like limiting my imagination to just what is actually possible. Part of the joy of playing with my imaginary friends is asking: "What if?" And I like to leave a broad range of answers open. 

I've tried a lot of the subgenres that more broadly are known as science fiction and fantasy. 

In fact, when I look at this list of subgenres, there are only a few I haven't at least dabbled in. And the others are things I am likely still to try in the future. 

Maybe not military or space opera? I don't read much of it or watch much of it, but you never know. I didn't expect to write horror, but now I have more horror stories out there than superhero ones. 

I haven't written a mystery yet, but I had an idea for one recently. 

I think the genre I am least likely to take on at this point is literary fiction. 

Although…

I do have a realistic historical novel on the back burner, just waiting for me to make research time so I can finish it, so maybe even that isn't a solid no. 

Hmmm. Maybe the truth is that there isn't anything out there under the writing sky that is a hard no for me. I'm open to the stories that come to me, whatever they turn out to be. Some would require some more learning than others, but I'm open to growth to building new skill sets to be able to do justice to a new concept that inspires me.

How about you? As a writer, and as a reader, are there genres that you're not drawn to? I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments!