Musings on Marketing

[wyld_dandelyon]

I've been looking through Duotrope's Digest and a number of magazines' submission guidelines, thinking about where to send several of my stories next.  It feels like slogging through mud.

I joke about collecting rejections, and I'm resigned that it is an inevitable part of the process. 

However, watching myself  read these guidelines, I see myself imagining why this editor and that editor and the other editor are likely to may reject the story.  And that doesn't help my mood, or the process of actually getting the story out the door (or, more likely these days, through an online submission window). 

In the meantime, in the back of my head, I'm getting ready for that job interview tomorrow.  I think I have a new answer to the question, what skill would you like to improve.  I definitely need to get better at marketing myself! 

We spend so much time being told not to toot our own horn, to be modest, and so on.  And too much time being told to find our weaknesses and to stay aware of them so we can improve on them (or, sometimes, use other skills to compensate for them).  And identifying ways we can improve is important.  But it's not the only thing that's important.

Being able to be happily excited while figuring out how and where to share your work with the world is important too. 

So, I guess, now one of the goals I'm working on is getting better at selling myself and my skills, both mundane and fantastical.

Anyone have some tips to share?

Comments

[rhfay.livejournal.com]

Regarding your feelings about submissions, I've felt the same. Even though my poetry seems to do well at some markets, I still get in a pretty pessimistic mood when it comes to my chances at other venues. I start to think that certain editors just don't like my style, and I wonder if I will ever have anything in their publications. Sometimes some submissions are almost guaranteed rejections, and sooner or later I end up wondering if it's worth bashing my head against those particular brick walls.

And searching through Duotrope's, as useful as it is, can feel like slogging through mud. I especially find it difficult to find just the right (paying) market for my darker verse. Some places don't really take horror material, and my darker stuff might not be the right fit for those that do.

Collecting rejections, eh? Let's see, according to my spreadsheet, I've had 250 rejections, a very rough total because I sometimes lump multiple submissions of short-form poetry like haiku into one entry. It also contains a bit of art as well as poetry and a handful of non-fiction articles. Of course, a similar rough estimate of acceptances claims I've had 220 in all, but this is quite skewed because it includes art also, much of which has been created on request.

I've been told at least once that I don't act modest enough, but on the flip side writers are also supposed to promote their own work. I've been told that a "pro" doesn't go around claiming to be so creative, and yet I've been told I'm quite creative. And if I want my poetry and art to go anywhere, I have to prove it to the world. No one will ever read a story or poem (or see a piece of art, for that matter) languishing on a hard drive.

Of course, you have to have something to promote before you can promote it. Some alleged writers miss that point entirely, and claim to be writers without anything to show for it. However, if you've got something to show, show it! And it can take time to find the right showcase for your work (especially certain difficult-to-place pieces), but it can be done.

The problem with finding our weaknesses and setting out to correct them is that the negative can become too accentuated. I think a little bit of accentuating the positive can be just as helpful at times. You have to know your strengths as well as your weaknesses, and you certainly should play to those strengths.