Today's guest blog was written by, Stirling Morris, Owner and Marketing Executive for Market Integrations | Marketing Development & Marketing Management based out of Albuquerque, New Mexico. The original blog post can be found on his marketing & business development blog, Across the Social Media Universe, at blog.marketintegrations.com.
It seems everyone threatens to write a book at one point or another, and self-publishing a book seems to be the talk of the town lately. From newcomers with a story they're itching to get off of their chests, to more suggestive non-fiction pieces like Guy Kawasaki's, APE: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur - How to Publish a Book, the writing world is changing. To quote Mark Coker, Founder of Smashwords: "We're in the early stages of a full scale publishing renaissance."
My wife, Dannie M Olguin, has been writing her whole life and within the last year, started publishing short story ebooks under a pen name. Dannie is also almost done with one of her life-long ambitions of writing at least one novel and having it published. She's still trying to decide whether to pursue traditional publishing or follow the route of self-publishing.
This whole experience with Dannie has taught me a lot about self-publishing. Even more importantly, as a marketer, the experience has taught me about the writing process. There are many lessons I picked up from the writing process, but two that stand out in comparing and contrasting Writing & Marketing are:
Building a Plan
The best marketing lesson I gleaned was from the outlining process. Outlining a story and outlining a Marketing Plan hold similar concepts. Both help get the ideas flowing and the balls rolling. And, eventually, the story's outline & the Marketing Plan outline develop a life of their own.
All About the Numbers
One of the more interesting writing habits revolved around accounting. I'm not referring to the revenue generation, although, let's face it, even writers love to get checks. I'm referring to the daily word counting and total word count that writers use to gauge productivity. It is uncanny how this compares to budget planning versus profits from actual revenue.
In two industries where content is king, it is amazing just how similar a path marketing and writing follow. Both morph through a process of continuous improvement, and the result of the final product must be masterfully creative enough to engage an audience.
What marketing strategies have you improved by comparing your business to other industries?
For more information about Stirling or his Marketing firm, Market Integrations, visit his website at www.marketintegrations.com.
It seems everyone threatens to write a book at one point or another, and self-publishing a book seems to be the talk of the town lately. From newcomers with a story they're itching to get off of their chests, to more suggestive non-fiction pieces like Guy Kawasaki's, APE: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur - How to Publish a Book, the writing world is changing. To quote Mark Coker, Founder of Smashwords: "We're in the early stages of a full scale publishing renaissance."
My wife, Dannie M Olguin, has been writing her whole life and within the last year, started publishing short story ebooks under a pen name. Dannie is also almost done with one of her life-long ambitions of writing at least one novel and having it published. She's still trying to decide whether to pursue traditional publishing or follow the route of self-publishing.
This whole experience with Dannie has taught me a lot about self-publishing. Even more importantly, as a marketer, the experience has taught me about the writing process. There are many lessons I picked up from the writing process, but two that stand out in comparing and contrasting Writing & Marketing are:
Building a Plan
The best marketing lesson I gleaned was from the outlining process. Outlining a story and outlining a Marketing Plan hold similar concepts. Both help get the ideas flowing and the balls rolling. And, eventually, the story's outline & the Marketing Plan outline develop a life of their own.
All About the Numbers
One of the more interesting writing habits revolved around accounting. I'm not referring to the revenue generation, although, let's face it, even writers love to get checks. I'm referring to the daily word counting and total word count that writers use to gauge productivity. It is uncanny how this compares to budget planning versus profits from actual revenue.
In two industries where content is king, it is amazing just how similar a path marketing and writing follow. Both morph through a process of continuous improvement, and the result of the final product must be masterfully creative enough to engage an audience.
What marketing strategies have you improved by comparing your business to other industries?
