Marketing and Selling Tips for Sci-Fi & Fantasy Writers

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Marketing and Selling Tips for Sci-Fi & Fantasy Writers – How To Write the Future podcast, episode 193

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“Marketing and selling, especially learning how to do it in written form, is also a form of magic. It’s just using words in a different way.” — Beth Barany

Are you ready to learn the skills needed to market your novel? In this episode of How To Write the Future podcast, titled “Marketing and Selling Tips for Sci-Fi & Fantasy Writers” Beth takes listeners on an encouraging journey to guide you over the fear of marketing your novel. From crafting effective marketing hooks to using emotional tropes to how your own writing can market itself. Own your fear and get marketing ready with the supportive guidance from host and award-winning science fiction and fantasy author Beth Barany.

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About the How To Write the Future podcast 

The How To Write The Future podcast is for science fiction and fantasy writers who want to write positive futures and successfully bring those stories out into the marketplace. Hosted by Beth Barany, science fiction novelist and creativity coach for writers. We cover tips for fiction writers. This podcast is for readers, too, if you’re at all curious about the future of humanity.

This podcast is for you if you have questions like:

– How do I create a believable world for my science fiction story?

– How do I figure out what’s not working if my story feels flat?

– How do I make my story more interesting and alive?

This podcast is for readers, too, if you’re at all curious about the future of humanity.

Transcript for episode 193 – Marketing and Selling Tips for Sci-Fi & Fantasy Writers 

Introduction and Overview 

BETH BARANY: Hey everyone. Beth Barany here with How to Write the Future Podcast. 

[00:03] The Stigma Around Marketing for Writers 

There’s a camp of writers that looks down their nose at anything to do with marketing and selling, as if marketing and selling are totally separate from their dreams.

That is to say, if you wanna be a published writer, you need to learn how to market and sell your work. There’s no way around that. But it can be very, very scary because over the ages, the last, um, multiple hundred years, people have separated marketing and selling from being creative. As if they happen to, um, be two different people. As if they can’t talk to each other. As if these two skill sets have nothing to do with each other.

But actually when we sit down to write our stories, we are already selling. We are selling our readers on this illusion that they could be another person, that they could walk around in this other world and, and go on adventures and, and have dramatic ups and downs. That’s amazing. What we do as fiction writers is amazing. To me it’s magical. 

[01:08] The Magic of Marketing and Selling 

So marketing and selling, especially learning how to do it in written form is also a form of magic. It’s just using words in a different way.

If you can learn how to be a fiction writer, then you can learn the skills of marketing your own work. 

Now it is a completely different hat. 

[01:27] Learning the Skills of Marketing 

The hat and the tools that we use to write fiction feel like totally different than the tools and the hat that we wear from marketing, but they can be learned.

Most writers I know had to learn how to be a fiction writer, didn’t just flow out of them, they had to work hard to become fiction writers. I know I did, and same with marketing and selling. I had to learn those skill sets.

So here’s a plug that you can learn marketing and selling. If you learn how to write fiction and are learning to write fiction, you can learn how to do marketing and sales.

[02:00]  What’s the big difference here? 

What’s the big difference here?

In writing fiction we are creating a deep emotional experience for our readers with all the twenty six letters of the alphabet and words and punctuation and all kinds of things, right? Deep point of view and great word choice, and rhythm, story, pacing and structure, all these things, right?

So many things.

[02:23] Crafting Effective Marketing Hooks 

With marketing, we may have to learn how to write really short, right? 

Instead of writing a eighty thousand word novel, a hundred thousand word novel, now we’re learning how to write in ten words, twenty words, thirty words, how to describe what our book is about.

And this is more like how to craft an appetizer.

It’s a hook.

I heard Taylor Swift, in an interview, when she was asked, well, what would you do if you weren’t writing songs? 

And she said, oh, I’d be in advertising ‘ cause it’s all about hooks. So she’s very focused on the hooks. And when you write pop songs, you have to be all about the hook. When we write our back cover blurb or our query, our marketing pitches, our memes, our things that we send out through social media, or email, those all are hooks.

So how do you give someone a little taste, a little taste of your book, uh, and you do it? 

[03:19] Emotional Core and Tropes in Marketing 

With practice obviously, and experimentation and feedback and all the things that we do when we’re writing fiction and we think about what is that one thing that my reader is reaching for?

If you had to look at your huge novel, eighty thousand words, oh my God, a hundred thousand words and what is the main emotion in that novel that readers are reaching for? Then, oh, how do I write about that in one sentence? 

So I think of my Henrietta The Dragon Slayer material, and also the short film I’m working on and I think, oh, adventure. Okay. That’s all right. I think bravery. I think courage. 

So what I’m trying to do is find like that emotional core that gets people to sit up.

If you’re watching this on video, you may have seen me like, sit up. 

You sit up and pay attention.

If you’re writing romance and you’re writing fantasy romance, paranormal romance, you might think of sweetness.

I write sweet paranormal romances. I called them like little bite sized, sweet romances, like having a little piece of chocolate. So I’m associating the book with an emotion. 

Maybe you write dark fantasy or dark romance or something heavier or darker or more dramatic. Then, uh, what is the emotion associated with that? The deliciousness of the, of the drama? How do you encapsulate that? 

Now we can talk about our tropes when we mark it, we could talk about the emotion, we could talk about our main character. Those are predominantly the things that draw readers in. We could also mention our setting. Setting is a huge draw, so these are the things that will evoke emotion in our reader. 

[04:57] Similarities Between Writing and Marketing 

So what’s similar between writing fiction and marketing is that you are still evoking emotion.

What’s different is obviously a novel’s much longer and marketing is much, much shorter. 

But you’re gonna use the same skillset that you use to pick the best word in a sentence, in in, in your writing with marketing. So it’s still about wordsmithing and it’s still about how does this idea, concept, trope, image land for my reader.

So that’s my spin on marketing today. 

[05:29] Conclusion and Encouragement 

I teach writers on how to market, and I have some fun things coming in that direction later in this year. Stay tuned.

But that’s what I’m gonna say today about marketing for fiction writers, and especially for science fiction and fantasy writers, we have a lot of things going for us. 

So our job is to bring those out in our marketing and learn how to make them very short, and I encourage you to experiment. And if you have any questions on the topic, let me know. 

That’s it for this week, everyone. Write long and prosper. Oh, and Happy marketing. 

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ABOUT BETH BARANY 

Beth Barany

Beth Barany teaches science fiction and fantasy novelists how to write, edit, and publish their books as a coach, teacher, consultant, and developmental editor. She’s an award-winning fantasy and science fiction novelist and runs the podcast, “How To Write The Future.”

 

Learn more about Beth Barany at these sites: 

 

Author site /  Coaching site / School of Fiction / Writer’s Fun Zone blog

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