Holiday Marketing: A Stress-Free Way To Make Better Content

One of the questions I’m frequently asked by clients is what they should post on social media and send in emails. And, at first, it seems like a no-brainer, right? Cause-focused organizations have plenty to talk about! Awesome work, touching stories, saving the world….

But I get it. Sometimes you just need something different to talk about. Or maybe you want something a little more light-hearted. Or maybe you want to show off the personality of the brand rather than the mission.

In these cases, I always turn to holiday marketing. Not just “THE holidays” like Thanksgiving and Christmas, though they are relevant, too. But holidays in general. The mission-driven ones like Giving Tuesday, the formally-observed ones like Memorial Day, the fun-to-observe ones like Valentine’s Day, and even the wacky ones like National Hug Day.

They can all serve a purpose—and provide some content for your email and social channels. Intern Jessica Brannigan will explain just how easy it can be, AND give you a holiday marketing calendar and guide to get you started!

Holidays are a time for friends, family or a population to come together. Your online viewers, your customers, and even your employees are talking about holidays. Holidays are meant for exploration, explanation, and feeling. They’re also a wonderful source of inspiration and ready-made content.

Conversations surround events such as Christmas, Small Business Saturday, and Strawberry Ice Cream Day. But even when the dialogue is already started, nonprofits and social enterprises may still find it hard to create posts online. Holiday marketing, however, can be the solution that allows you to be more active online, as well as engage current and promising fans. 

Start trending, go viral

The truth is, you should be using holidays in your marketing. Holidays can be an excuse to celebrate, or a time to explore tough issues. As a nonprofit or social enterprise, seize the opportunity to expand your consumers’ sentiment... they could one day become customers or donors. Use it as an excuse to let them to know you are concerned with history and current events. For example, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is a prime time to bring up concerns on equality. The same is true for International Women’s Day. 

When something is trending online, it is almost impossible not to see it. Why go to your calendar to check the date when you can go on Instagram! You will know it’s the Fourth of July by the number of firework pictures posted, and all of those pastel dresses and ties will tell you that it’s Easter.

On National Donut Day it seems the whole world is taking advantage of every donut shop’s special offers. (Because who doesn’t love a sale on donuts?) But what would happen if one donut shop chose not to post on Nation Donut Day? Did you just shudder at that thought?

Explore and express your brand

Insert your organization into the online holiday chat. Take this opportunity to show off your creative or compassionate side. People want to know there are human beings behind those logos and websites.

Find holidays that fit with your brand and voice. Post about those first, and then find a few more abstract holidays that you believe will allow you to shine! 

Major holidays are a chance for an organization to let the world know that they see what is going on in the world and care enough to have a say in the matter. November is not just the time to start those year-end campaigns. It is a chance to let your customers know you’re thankful for them. Acknowledging the world around you can go a long way in the minds and hearts of your customer and donor base.

Holidays can also be a time to take a stand on an issue. The “Me Too” and End It movements are two great examples. Though you may not be directly involved with either of these, show your audience you care by choosing a corresponding holiday to express your thoughts about them. Perhaps chose International Women’s Day on March 8th, or Social Justice Day on February 20th. 

Not all holidays are joyous, unfortunately. Tragedies, whether related to your mission or not, are a time to show you can stay strong for those around you. Show them you are always there to lend a hand to the broken. There are plenty of ways to do this. For example, after the Las Vegas shooting, Signify retweeted and posted ways to give blood on our social media. After a natural disaster, one can post links credible donation organizations. It can be that simple.

Do you need to participate in all holidays? Certainly not! Who has the time? But you don’t want to miss the important ones, and if relevant, you definitely do not want to throw away the chance to be funny during National Humor Month (April)!

Identify what content to create

Now that you understand the importance of holiday marketing, you’re probably thinking, “Okay… now where do I start?”

Let’s talk about tips and tricks to doing this holiday thing right. Create a solid foundation and start building!

How to represent your organization.

Your nonprofit or social enterprise has a voice in this world. It has a look and a feel that your customers recognize. When it comes to posting online, you must be able to connect back to your brand. When starting something new, like holiday marketing, it can be easy to stray. You want your customers to see your content and not be confused about where its coming from or who wrote it.

So, before you start writing posts, make sure you have a solid understanding about how you want to present your company, what your consumers are interested in seeing, and how they want to see it.  

Will you only choose holidays that specifically align with your company’s mission? Will you choose more light-hearted or thought-provoking holidays? What is your most popular medium to reach people? Is it through email, Instagram, blog post, or podcast? Make it a point to better understand why people are visiting you.

After trying the holiday marketing tactic, evaluate your success. You want to know if your customers actually enjoy the increase in holiday-themed posts, emails or discounts. You can look to find if your sales were boosted by this method, if you can add more emails to your list, if more people engaged with your content or followed you, or if you simply find it easier to post on a regular basis. However you view success, go ahead and measure your results! 

This is an opportunity for creation… but don’t overdo it. 

This is your chance to get creative! Keep to your brand’s colors, fonts, and imagery, so that people know it’s still you, but don’t be afraid to experiment a little either. Make people want to keep following you in hopes of seeing more stimulating content.

Keep your message simple, though. You will lose your audience if it takes you 10 minutes on your Instagram story just to tell your audience Happy New Year. Keep it short, sweet, and to the point. Have good visuals and know how to match your tone to what your followers want to see. 

Once you finally grab their attention, use it to your advantage. Be mindful of any calls to action that should be included. Is it a good opportunity to ask for a donation, make a purchase, collect an email or read a blog post? From time-to-time you may want to create a message that goes beyond a one-and-done statement.

Plan your marketing strategy ahead of time. 

Keep that creative momentum going and prepare posts in advance. If you write multiple pieces around the same time, your tone will flow, your campaigns will coincide, and you will be ready to post when the time comes. Stress free!

Make a list of the holidays you want your nonprofit or social enterprise to be involved in. Useful holidays are just a Google search away. Several resources for holidays and conversations include Days of the Year, this Signify blog post and TimeandDate.com.

After you have your list, create an easy system for managing it. Add holidays with alerts or reminders onto your organization’s calendar or use a note-taking system such as Evernote to systematize thoughts and ideas.

Want some more inspiration, or example holidays to get you started? We’ve created a Holiday Marketing Calendar and Guide for you below!

The holiday has passed… now what?

If it’s a holiday you’ve built a campaign around, be sure to send a thanks or update your list with wins or results. Make them part of the process, not just part of the ask. This will keep them wanting even more of you, and leave them on a positive note.

If you miss a holiday, stay on top of things! Immediately add it to your calendar and tackle it next year. That’s the great thing about a holiday—it always comes back around!

---

---

I’m Jessica Brannigan. I’m an upcoming senior at the University of Georgia majoring in public relations and minoring in studio art. I am working towards a career in content creation or graphic design!

I am a fan of the mantra “act confident and no one will question you,” and I strive to use this to make a difference in the world.

LinkedIn | Portfolio

---

---

PIN THIS POST FOR LATER

---

I’m Kristi Porter, and I help cause-focused organizations understand and execute effective marketing campaigns so they can move from stressed to strategic. Your resources may be limited, but your potential isn’t. Whether you’re a nonprofit, social enterprise, or small business who wants to give back, I’ll show you how to have a bigger impact.

How to Use Empathy to Make a Social Impact

For a lot of us, when we think of selling, the word “empathy” doesn’t come to mind. In fact, for many in the cause-focused space, particularly nonprofits, selling (just like marketing) is a bit of a bad word. However, it shouldn’t be.

If you have something that someone else needs or wants, isn’t that a good thing? That’s where it all begins.

Today, one of my spring interns, Rima Patel, is going to share how empathy intersects with the sales process, particularly the selling of products. I think this will not only be insightful, but good news for many of you.

You’re already leading a nonprofit, social enterprise, or other for-profit doing good, which means that empathy is at the core of what you do. This post will take it one step further, allowing you to see how empathy can be the glue that holds your triple bottom line together.

No one will deny that the key to creating a successful product is by thinking like the consumer. Putting yourself into their shoes and figuring out what they want can help make your great idea even more desirable. This concept is not unfamiliar to us; in fact, it’s something we aim to practice in our day-to-day lives. Whether it’s individuals trying to build strong relationships or cause-focused organizations trying to connect with consumers, empathy is essential.

Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of others. Empathy is the difference between feeling for someone and feeling with them. Acknowledging feelings from shared experiences connects us as humans, beyond all the ways in which we separate ourselves—and that’s special. So special that it has the power to change lives and make an impact.

Maybe you’re an entrepreneur and you want your consumers to have an emotional connection to your product. Maybe you’re a nonprofit and you are trying to fix a social issue by inspiring others. Or maybe you’re a social enterprise and you just want to do more good. How can you use empathy to make a social impact?

Empathy can push you to create solutions that help others, but it can also push others to help you and your cause.

Empathy in the design process

A human-centered approach to innovation

Design thinking is a popular process that many social enterprises use today to creatively solve problems and make social impacts. This process takes a human-centered approach and involves five steps: empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test.

This semester, my Intro to Entrepreneurship professor decided to focus her class around the design thinking process, giving us the task of creating a product that would help solve the issue of climate change on campus. After the project was over, in a class with almost 300 students, we all came to the same general consensus: the empathize stage was the most important.

At first, many of us had a lot of great ideas, but the empathize stage made us quickly realize that our ideas could be better.

We all knew the problems associated with climate change and we all knew the different methods to prevent it, but what we didn’t know was how much people were actually willing to do. We found that college students want to help the environment, but don’t want to go out of their way to do it. You’ve probably seen something similar with your audience.

We realized that methods requiring the consumer to take some action like using water refill stations or compost bins don’t go as far as methods that don’t require the consumer to take an action, like putting motion detector lights in dorms. Creating the most value for our consumer requires using empathy to understand the best way to solve the problem.

The empathize stage not only helped us understand the consumer and how they felt about the issue to make the most efficient product, but helped us understand what steps they might actually take. Without empathy, our product might have ended up useless, unrealistic, and ultimately unsuccessful.

So, how do you use empathy in the design process? The first step is to ask questions.

Ask yourself:

• What do you know about the problem?

• What do you not know?

• What are your assumptions?

Then ask others:

• How do they feel about the problem?

• How does it impact their life?

• What are they willing to do about it?

These insights will help you understand the problem, who is involved, and how you might go about solving it in a way that brings others into the process for a more successful solution.

We all have great ideas that we want to see come to life, but if we want to be as successful as we can, it’s necessary that we open our ideas to other perspectives. Using empathy, you can see what would work and what would not, how people react to and feel about your ideas, and how to make them better.

There are many solutions to a problem, but the best solution is the one that begins with empathy.

Consumer empathy

Stop marketing products, start marketing feelings

Today, consumer empathy has become quite popular because companies are starting to realize its impact. If people have an emotional connection to a product, they are far more likely to buy it. If people share the same feelings as an organization, they are far more likely to support it.

Consumer empathy makes people feel less like consumers and more like humans, and that appeal is strong enough to make a positive impact on businesses and on the world.

Consumer empathy involves not only understanding the desires and struggles of the consumer, but also sharing those feelings with them. A great example of consumer empathy is a commercial for Cardstore by American Greetings in 2014. In order to promote their website, American Greetings sparked a common, shared feeling—the love we have for our mothers—and used it to help the audience create an emotional attachment with the brand. With this commercial, American Greetings was marketing a feeling, not a product.

Another great example is TOMS, a shoe company that built its brand on the concept that for every pair of shoes sold, there was also a pair given to a child with no shoes. Growing up, I remember seeing so many TOMS flags hanging up in bedrooms. Why were people so inclined to hang a shoe brand up on their wall?

The flag represented a feeling, an emotional attachment to the product, and a sense of pride for doing something good. TOMS recognized the power of making every person who purchased their shoes feel like they made a significant impact, and were part of a solution to a big problem. Today, TOMS continues to use consumer empathy to discuss other important social issues, like gun violence.

Now, it might seem like empathy is an obvious tool for marketing products. Of course thinking like the consumer is necessary for creating something that is valuable and relevant to them. Unfortunately, many companies still lack this skill.

Pepsi, for example, aired a commercial in 2017 amidst the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement. The commercial involved Kendall Jenner joining an ambiguous protest and sharing a Pepsi with a police officer, sparking unity and excitement among everyone. Pepsi received severe backlash, taking down the ad several days later, and responses to the commercial gave a clear understanding as to why. A former organizer for BLM said, “No one is finding joy from Pepsi at a protest.” Bernice King, daughter of MLK Jr., tweeted, “If only daddy knew the power of #Pepsi.” To make things worse, the face of the ad was a rich, white supermodel who has no history of being an advocate for BLM, or any other social issue for that matter. Pepsi failed to understand their consumers and how they feel about the issue, which is what made the ad unsuccessful.

So, what did Pepsi do wrong? Pepsi’s commercial was trying to ignore the problem. Its message does not fall far from, “Why can’t we all just get along?” It provides a “solution” without actually acknowledging the existing problem of police brutality that some black people face everyday in America.

Empathy goes beyond just understanding someone's feelings; it requires learning to share them, too. Pepsi attempted to use a current, popular trend in social justice to promote their brand and make more money. Their mistake was leaving out empathy, and it was a mistake they could have avoided had they taken more time to know their consumer.

Using empathy in marketing involves understanding how your consumer feels, but it also involves understanding how your consumer will react. How do they want to feel, and can you make them feel that?

Using empathy to create social change

How feelings can change the world

The beauty of empathy is that it affects all of us.

Whether we are selling or buying the idea, it makes us all feel something. Empathy reminds us that we are all human and that we share experiences and feelings. It has been a tool used around the world to make individual problems feel universal.

Empathy allows consumers to feel like they are being heard and understood, that they are not alone, and that there are people out there trying to solve their problems. It sparks inspiration and motivation for people to work towards the things they care about.

As entrepreneurs and innovators, it is essential that we practice empathy in all aspects and phases of our projects—from idea to design to marketing. So, ask questions and open your ears. Understand who you’re working with and what they’re feeling.

Remember that empathy involves shared experiences, so remind yourself of your feelings and why you got involved with your cause to begin with. Keep in mind that the product or the profit isn’t special, but the feeling it invokes and how those feelings might eventually change the world is.

Developing Your Empathy Muscle

Empathy 101

One question that may have come up in reading this post might be something like, “Is it necessary to have empathy if others around me already do?”

In other words, is access to others with empathic skills just as valuable as learning those skills for yourself? In my opinion, no. Empathy is a skill we want to individually develop because it is a skill we can use in all aspects of our lives, not just work.

Having access to others with empathy is a great way to learn empathy; however, relying on others for empathy to make your ideas better only limits yourself.

Empathy isn’t just meant to benefit your business. It can be the very thing that motivates and inspires you when approached with a challenge or failure. Learning and practicing empathy puts things into perspectives you might never see otherwise, and that’s an important skill everyone should try to have.

If you want to develop more empathy, here are four recommendations:

• As mentioned, hang out with people who have empathy. Surround yourself with people who challenge you to improve.

• When you are around people who are more empathetic than you, ask questions that will help you understand their perspective and how they identify with the emotions of others.

• Read more literature. According to research, fiction can make you more empathic and improve your EQ, or emotional intelligence.

• Travel to new places. Putting yourself in unfamiliar environments and around different cultures is a great way to get out of your comfort zone and develop an appreciation for others.
  

---

I’m Rima Patel, an upcoming senior at North Carolina State University, majoring in Sociology with minors in Business Administration and Nonprofit Studies. My ultimate goal in life is to do good and help people, and right now I’m doing that through marketing for nonprofits.

I hope to make significant impacts on social issues through innovation and social entrepreneurship.

LinkedIn

---

---

PIN THIS POST FOR LATER

---

I’m Kristi Porter, and I help cause-focused organizations understand and execute effective marketing campaigns so they can move from stressed to strategic. Your resources may be limited, but your potential isn’t. Whether you’re a nonprofit, social enterprise, or small business who wants to give back, I’ll show you how to have a bigger impact.

---

Want To Do More Speaking? This Is A Must.

Even with all the newfangled technology at our disposal, public speaking is still one of the best ways to get the word out about your cause. It’s an oldie, but a goodie. Plus, with the aid of technology, you now have more options than ever to speak publicly. It could be on a stage, radio, television, podcast, or video interview.

I repeatedly hear from clients and friends how their donations and sales were boosted after a speaking gig. That reason alone makes it a high priority for a lot of social impact organizations. And, if that’s the case for you, I’d like to give you one tip for making every speaking opportunity easier for both you and your host.

What’s the tip? Create a media kit. And it’s so simple to do you’ll wonder why you didn’t create it earlier.

So, let’s discuss what a media kit is, what goes into it, where it lives, and some best practices.

What Is A Media Kit?

Think of a media kit like your organization in a nutshell. It’s the basics that anyone would need for getting an overview of your nonprofit, social enterprise, or small business. That’s what makes this such a great tool to have on hand. Yes, all of this info can be found on your website, but by building a media kit, you’re going to make it very easy for your host to find everything they need in one place. (And that’s why they’ll love you!)

It’ll also help you look more professional, and you know that’s one thing I love to help people with. By creating a media kit, you’re showing your host that you’re a pro who can be taken seriously. And, by the way, that will make you more appealing as a speaker.

What Goes Into a Media Kit?

Assuming that you’re speaking on behalf of your organization, here are a few essentials that you should include:

• Bio

• Short organization overview

• Headshot

• Logo

• Social media links

• Contact info

If you want to get a little more fancy, here are a few other things you can add:

• Bios of different lengths

• Photos and/or videos of your work

• Previous press mentions

• Speaker one sheet

• Statistics for your organization or your cause

• Annual report

• Awards

• Info for taking a tour, reviewing a product, or receiving a free copy of your book

• Think about things you regularly get asked by event hosts or podcasters and add it here for ease.

At some point in reading this, you may have wondered to yourself what the difference is between a media kit and press kit, so let me address that quickly. A media kit is the foundation. It has all those basic pieces we talked about. A press kit is generally used for launches and more timely information.

With a press kit, you’re going to give journalists and media outlets everything they need to write a story about you, possibly because it’s brand new and there’s not much info to be found online yet. So, a press kit might also include a press release, fact sheet, additional photos or videos, or story angles. Remember, anything included in a press kit is probably going to be more relevant for an upcoming timeframe, such as a launch.

Want an example? Here’s mine. I mostly use it for podcast interviews, so it’s fairly basic. No need to go overboard.

Where Should a Media Kit Live?

Back in ye, ol’ days of public relations, I created a lot of media and press kits when I worked at a boutique hospitality PR firm. And here’s the kicker—we mailed them! Yep, this was the early 2000s, and not everything was available online. I know, shocker. We were mailing paper packets with CDs. Then we got fancy and moved to USBs. But now, you can host everything on your website.

Where your media kit should live on your website depends on your goals. If speaking is a high priority for you, put it in a prominent place like your About page. You can add a blurb and link to an existing page or give it a tab in your website navigation. You may even need to add it in more than one place.

If speaking isn’t a high priority, and you just want to make your host’s job easier, then it can simply be a link sent via email. That’s the way my media kit is setup at the moment. I typically use it for podcast interviews, so you won’t find it in the navigation of my website. However, should things change, it’s a quick and easy fix.

Think about your goals and what makes sense when browsing through your website. Because you’re at a cause-focused organization, it may also make sense to add it to the ways people can support you.

Best Practices

As you can tell from what you’ve read so far, the goal of having a speaker media kit is to not only make your life easier, but your host’s life as well. It’s 2019, and no one wants to be emailed a bunch of attachments.

Plus, if you’re at a nonprofit or social enterprise that annually revises bios or head shots, then you only have one place to make updates. No wondering where the latest version is located.

Think about your media kit. Think about your goals. What should be included, and when should it be used? If it’s fairly basic, it can be used for many different situations.

But if you find yourself wanting to add a bunch of things, hold up a minute. You don’t want it to become a chore to look through. It should be a helpful tool that’s simple to navigate.

So, if your list has gotten a little out-of-control, then consider removing items or creating different kits for different purposes. For example, you may have one that’s tailored just for the book you wrote and another for the organization as a whole.

The beautiful thing about websites and media kits today is that they can be created and edited pretty quickly. In fact, you should be able to build a basic media kit in less than an hour. Finally, something you can add to, and take off, your To Do List in the same day!

Once you have your speaker media kit created, you’ll see how often it comes in handy, and then you’ll wonder why you didn’t do it sooner.

Have one that you love? Include it in the comments, or tell me how having one has helped you.

---

---

Pin This Post For Later:

---

I’m Kristi Porter, and I help cause-focused organizations understand and execute effective marketing campaigns so they can move from stressed to strategic. Your resources may be limited, but your potential isn’t. Whether you’re a nonprofit, social enterprise, or small business who wants to give back, I’ll show you how to have a bigger impact.

---

From Paralysis to Print: Write and Publish Your Book

I’ve heard different stats over the years, but it’s staggering that as many as 90% of Americans want to write a book! Now, I’m not entirely sure that I believe the number is that big, but I do think it’s pretty darn high. And with the rise of self-publishing to level the playing field, it’s now easier than ever.

The problem? It’s still really hard to do. Most of us, myself included, may feel like we have a book or two in us, but a much smaller percentage actually gets it done. And then, an even smaller number reaches the publishing process.

It also seems like a complicated industry, doesn’t it? From actually sitting down to write, to the editing process, to finding a publisher (if you want one), to seeing your little labor of love on a shelf—there’s a LOT to do. In fact, you probably have a lot of questions.

So, what’s a girl or guy to do? You can ask my friend, Sara Shelton, who has a few books under her belt as a ghostwriter, editor, and coach. If the process seems intriguing but daunting, Sara will take you from paralysis to print by answering five of your most asked questions about writing and publishing a book.

So, you want to write a book? That’s amazing!

As an avid reader myself, let me just go ahead and thank you in advance for sharing another story that I can read and recommend to my friends.

And as a fellow writer, let me stop here and encourage that you no matter how difficult, frustrating, and completely unglamorous the writing process actually is, you can do it. You do, in fact, have a story to share!

The truth is a lot of people do! But standing at the beginning of the writing process, so many writers feel paralyzed by the thought of actually trying to get their stories out on paper and into print.

That’s usually where I come in!

I’ve been working as a freelance writer and editor for five years now, and in that time, I’ve been fortunate enough to come alongside and work with several authors during the writing, editing, and eventual publishing of their books. No matter which hat I’m wearing in the writing process, I love helping my clients cross the finish line to see their words of wisdom, stories, and advice finally on the page in print.

But like I said, the process of moving beyond fear-induced paralysis at the thought of writing a book to actually holding your final printed copy in your hand isn’t an easy one. So to help you move from paralysis to print, here are answers to five of my most frequently asked questions about writing a book.

1)   Where do I start?

There’s no “right” answer to this question. My best advice? Just start! If you have an idea, a vision, a story you think is worth sharing in print, then decide right now that you’re going to share it.

Then, get organized. I can’t stress this enough! Spending time on the front end of the writing process thinking through and organizing your thoughts will save you a lot of time (and maybe even money!) on the back end.

Once you’ve got a clear idea for your book, sit down and create an outline. Think through each main point you hope to hit—the takeaways you want readers to leave with—and organize them into chapters.

Next, write down the details under each chapter that you’re going to use to support those main points or takeaways—the stories, research, anecdotes, history, and more that will reinforce your point. (Pro tip: Index cards spread out on the floor are a great way to see your outline come to life!)

You can dive as deep into the outline as you’d like, but at the very least, start with getting your thoughts into some kind of organized format. Trust me, you’ll be so thankful you did this when you finally sit down to write!

2)   What DOES the writing process like?

Everyone’s writing process is going to look different, but I can almost assure you it won’t be seamless and smooth. Sometimes your writing is done in the back of a crowded coffee shop. Sometimes it’s done in the early morning hours in your bedroom before the sun rises. Sometimes it’s done in the car pickup line, or the benches of basketball practice, or the middle of the night hours when you just can’t sleep.

My best advice for diving into the writing process is to do your best to give it a good mix of structure and grace. Wake up early or stay up late for some uninterrupted hours of writing. You know how much time you have to offer, so offer that to your process.

Don’t look at your phone, don’t answer your email, don’t scroll through social media. Just write.

Maybe even give yourself a word count goal to hit each day. And then, aim for it. Some days you’ll go above and beyond. Other days, you’ll barely get there (which is where the grace comes in). Whatever the writing process looks like for you, go into it with as much structure and dedication to it as you can and give yourself a break on the days it just doesn’t work.

3)   What do I do to get published?

For the most part, publishing still falls into one of two major groups: traditional publishing or self-publishing.

Traditional publishing means your book goes to a professional publishing house and it is printed and distributed under their umbrella. The pros? You’ve got an entire group of people whose time, energy, and resources are devoted to your book. They take care of editing, design, promotion, and more. And depending on your deal, you typically get paid up front for your manuscript as well as in royalties from sales.

The cons? It’s very difficult to get in the door of a traditional publishing house. It requires a lot of work—the research to find the right potential publishing houses or agents for your book, the writing of a query letter to get the editor’s interest, the compiling of a book proposal to pitch your book, and more. Agents and publishers will want to know things like how big your social media following or potential audience is. They want to see how they might be able to sell your book to that audience. And they often get the final say in how your book takes shape and is edited. In a lot of ways, you lose control.

But in self-publishing, the control stays in your hands. You get to decide how you want to edit, promote, and even sell your book. You get the freedom to write the book you want to write! And with programs like Create Space, IngramSpark, and Kindle Direct Publishing, the process is easy for even the most beginner of writers.

The bad news? The expense is all your own. You have to front the money for things like edits, design, promotion, and more. If you want your book to sell, it’s typically up to you. While it is most definitely a great option, writers who choose to self-publish need to know the hustle is real!

KP note: Even with most traditional publishers now, you will still be expected to do a little or a lot of the marketing and promotion. It depends on your existing audience, the publisher, and more. So, don’t just expect to get out of it with a traditional publisher! If you have a particular publishing house in mind, see if one of their existing authors will answer a few questions for you.

4)   Where is it important to invest my money in the process?

A lot of this depends on the publishing route you end up taking with your book. If you’re in a traditional space, those publishing houses and agents will likely have agents, designers, marketing teams, and more already lined up to help you. But if you’re not (or if you just want to turn in the most well-rounded and polished copy of your manuscript), your first expense needs to be a good editor.

By the time you’ve finished your book, it’s become a real labor of love. And that makes seeing it through fresh and unattached eyes a difficult thing to do.

If you’re working with a rough draft and unsure of the direction of your book, a developmental editor is a great investment to help craft a better structure and clearer overall picture for your book. They may do everything from telling you to reorganize your chapters to suggesting you cut some of your content altogether—and that’s okay! They’re reading the book with eyes to make it better!

A copy editor is key for any writer because they’ll read your book with a fine-tooth comb, checking and correcting every single grammatical and mechanical error. Though both types of editors are going to be an investment to your project, it’s one you most definitely want to make so that you walk away with the best possible product ready to print.

Beyond editorial costs, many authors need to look specifically into designers to help them layout their book and even create a professional, eye-catching cover. Others choose to set aside funds to hire a team to help them market the book.

My advice to writers who will have to make any kind of financial investment to get their book published is to choose where you spend your money wisely. What matters most to you in the process? Start there and then see what funds you have left to go elsewhere.

5)   How will people know I wrote a book?

How do people know anything about what’s going on in your life? Because you talk about it!

If you’re going to do the incredibly hard and amazing work of writing a book (something most people only ever dream about doing), then you have officially earned the right to shout this accomplishment from the rooftops! Or at the very least, from your social media, email, blog, website, and any other form of connection you have to your people. You, your family, your friends, the people in your office or on your team—those are the best ways to promote your book from the get go.

If you have the funds, you can of course hire a marketing team or booking agent to help get the word out. But don’t be discouraged if you don’t. Instead, be proud of the work you’ve done and find ways to share that work with the people in your networks through promotion on channels like social media, email, podcasts, and more.

Interested in writing a book? Have a few more questions about how to make the publishing process happen for yourself? Find me online at www.saralshelton.com and let’s get connected!

---

Sara Shelton is a full-time writer and editor working with clients to bring their stories and words to life. When she’s not working on manuscripts, curriculum, website content, magazine articles, and more, you can find Sara sharing a bit of her own work at www.sara-laurence.com.

Connect with on Instagram and Twitter at @saralaurence.  

---

---

PIN THIS POST FOR LATER:

---

I’m Kristi Porter, and I help cause-focused organizations understand and execute effective marketing campaigns so they can move from stressed to strategic. Your resources may be limited, but your potential isn’t. Whether you’re a nonprofit, social enterprise, or small business who wants to give back, I’ll show you how to have a bigger impact.

---