Free: Here, There . . . Everywhere?

How much free is good for your marketing?

I’ve written bunches about using “free” as a marketing tool. Generosity is your greatest marketing tool. Don’t use it sparingly; spread it around like manure and watch things grow.

Generosity and free aren’t the same thing. Generous can include over-delivering on what you were paid to do. I’ve had generous helpings of fish at our favorite chippy in St. Paul. Paid for, but still generous. When you hire me to help with your writing and publishing, generosity will be ladled over you like gravy. Good white gravy like we make in Texas for your sausage and biscuits; that kind of generous.

[image: mailboxes]

My newsletter is also an act of generosity, one which also happens to be free. Membership, though, is stalled out at 140 of you good folks. When we hit that magic number, a couple people unsubscribe, and then someone else finds me and we roll back up to one Tweet’s worth.

One thing I realized is that the signup form simply offers “more information.” Not the most enticing offer, perhaps. I considered giving away something more; a whole book, maybe?

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Write with Your Heart, Edit with Your Head

[image: fountain]Writing has to flow, like water. Writers thirst.

Imagine, though, if you were dying of thirst (you are, you’re a writer) and the person holding the hose kept shutting it off so they could adjust something. Spurt of water; shut it off, adjust. Spurt of water, shut it off, adjust.

You’d strangle ‘em, screaming “Just give me the water!”

That’s what your heart is doing when you write slowly, methodically, with your head. Because you don’t write with your head, you write with your heart. You edit with your head.

No one but you will see your unedited words, so don’t worry about whether they’re perfect.

Because if you worry that they’re perfect, nobody but you will ever see your words, period.

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Fifteen Thousand Words: Self-Publishing 101 Q&A

Fifteen thousand words about self-publishing. That’s the conversation I’ve had with Cheryl Campbell, answering her questions about self-publishing. Being a newbie, her questions were basic. Being a smarty, her questions were insightful and clear.

Fifteen thousand words. I’ve written books shorter than that. While most of this content will make it into Getting Your Book Our of the “Someday” Box, 2nd Edition you can read it all here absolutely free.

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