How to Market and Publish, Shakespeare Style Part 5 of 10

Welcome to all the new writers, feel free to join us and add a comment. This is by far the most fun of all the series I’ve done. Marketing anything requires a few main ingredients. A sense of humor and passion, and the ability to make connections. These days there are hundreds, if not thousands of ways to do this.

Marketing Books… well head over to any local bookstore and walk down the rows and you could find more ideas. They all say the same basic thing that is to be passionate. Sometimes they will add a small chapter, or three, on how to make money. Yes money is a good thing, but like everything you can’t take it with you. So, why market and publish?

I think it’s because we all want to share, and fill something about our lives to people whom we feel we can connect to. There are so many ways to do this. I was off with a friend of mine going to a dinner theater, so this is where the next bit comes from. How does an actor connect with the audience? Why do we believe something like that?

Connections. A good actor connects, a great actor realizes the connection is the very thing that makes the performance. Same with writers, I want a connection with my readers, and until that happens, you are simply a… writer. Write a blog, and make a small connection, write in journals or other things that people can find, there is another small connection. Publish your book, these connections will help sell that book. As long as you maintain one small ingredient. Integrity.

Tolkien and Lewis had this ingredient, and so did Shakespeare, Byron, Dante, Brooks, Turtledove. Often the only time one could argue that integrity was in their lives were in the books they wrote. But that is why readers read their stories.

My question for today is this: what is the most important thing a writer needs to make his book better?