Writing Tip #2: Title Mania

Titles are hooks in and of themselves.  They attract our attention, especially on e-readers like nook, where there is little else to go by.  So it pays to create a title that invites clicks and further looks.  How?  By practice.  Today, come up with 5-10 titles and choose one to place on your To-Write List.

Writing Tip #1: Your To-Write List

You have heard of To-Do lists, where the tasks pile up faster than you can cross them off, and it all feels like a chore and a bore?  Well, this is a list with a twist.  This is a To-Write list:  a list of story, article, and book ideas that you want to do, but don't have the time for yet.  On this list, let your manuscript ideas pile up, cross them off as you write them, and while the rest of your ideas wait for you, let them carry on like all items on To-Do lists do:  that is, breed like bunnies.  This way, you'll never run out of nor forget your writing ideas.

Cool Marketing Idea: Spray on Clothing

Check out this article and video on the latest in fashion science--clothing that can be sprayed on.  The material turns into a shirt.  It doesn't look like body paint in the end.  And the material can be re-used and sprayed again.

But the really cool thing from the article is this: 

The Guardian says [. . . ] the ultimate goal is a sanitary spray-on bandage system to instantly deliver medication, dress wounds or soothe burnt skin.

If the article and exhibit would have focused on that instead of clothes-in-a-can the only ones saying "Cool" would be the tech, medicine, and science aficionados, because they would have been the only ones to read it.  Instead, the developers of this product gave it a far broader appeal and reach in the form of a cool marketing idea.

The lesson writers should take from this?  Approachability.  How do you take your idea out from its original scope and reach the public?  I'm not advocating changing your ultimate goal any more than these scientists did; I'm talking about your marketing technique.  I'm talking about thinking outside the box.  What can you do to increase your appeal and reach by using what you've already got in a cool way?

That is an idea worth reflecting on.


Source:  Popsci (article) and Guardian (article). 

Law of Fandom

BookEnds wrote about how to make your readers work for you in a recent post. Using readers as a marketing device reminded me of something else I read in my studies of Sun Tzu and the Art of War for my Campaign for E-Literacy. That is the following "constant factor":

The MORAL LAW causes the people to be in complete accord with their ruler, so that they will follow him regardless of their lives, undismayed by any danger.

That is the first constant factor Sun Tzu mentions. So, if it is mentioned first, there must be for a reason. That is, this advice is of a great importance. And it can be of great import for freelance marketing as well. Try reading the Moral Law as follows:

The LAW of FANDOM causes the readers to be in complete accord with their writer, so that they will follow her regardless of their lack of free-time, undismayed by any change in genre or style or series.

Actually, there are quite a few ways to play with Sun Tzu's wording. But all oddball fun aside, fans are everything to a writer. To succeed as a writer, a writer must find success with her fans. The trick is to find and keep those fans happy, and that takes time, effort, and thought, but the victory is well worth it in the end.

A Day in the Life of a Happy Freelance Newcomer

BookEnds wrote about a day in the life of an agent. That made me think, what about a day in the life of a happy freelance newcomer?  Well, here it goes:

• Go over article and blog post notes. Easy, peasy.
• Compose next draft of articles and blog posts. Not bad, needs work.
• Post articles and blog posts. Formatting blahs.
• Develop some more ideas. Some promising, some so-so.
• Check email. Read little, delete less.
• Hound unemployment office to see if I can take a business workshop. Line busy. Surprise.
  
• Entrecard explorations and blog submissions. My old social network, revisited.
• Tidy up primary blog. Delet-o-rama.
• Check markets. Love the new birthday present, Writer's Market online. Not loving its organization.
• Compose draft of article for market. Pretty near done.
• Hand-fed chickens. A new form of stress relief.
• Hound unemployment office to see if I can take a business workshop. Line busy. Surprise, surprise.
  
• Check snail mail. No acceptances there, but dogs happy.
• Exercise brain through Wii game. Brain lost weight; sad.
• Hound unemployment office to see if I can take a business workshop. OMG, a twenty-five minute yes.
• Sent application for workshop. Crossing fingers and toes it's not too late. Getting hard to type.
  
• Headache relief. Exploding zombies' heads.
• Check email. Acceptance, yah!
• Walk dogs. Headache.
• Check writing forums. Headache.
• Check blog-o-sphere. Headache.
• Headache. Headache. Headache.
• Wrote this post. Headache.

Besides a recurring theme of mold allegy-induced headaches, today was a fairly frustrating day. I am beginning to sense I am blahville once I cross the magic line from AM to PM. That wouldn't be so bad if I'd wake up before mid-morn. Something else I sense I must work on.  Hmmm.........

Anyway, all you freelancers out there, how did your day go? Less moldering than mine, I hope.