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thewriteblrlibrary · 4 months

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A Step-by-Step Marketing Guide so we can spite traditional publishers (and make people cry).

~ This is a guide specific for fiction/writeblr. All of this is for free and there is little social media posting/ads involved (unless you want to venture into that). ~

Within the writeblr spheres, there's this underlying hope that our stories will find their audience. Perhaps we'll have a fandom full of fanart and video essays, or maybe we'll be an instant classic and sit on collectors' beloved bookshelves. Our stories could sit within the deepest corners of someone's heart and maybe they never tell a soul about what's so special to them. Maybe our stories become those 'underrated masterpieces'.

Or we just want to see people ugly cry over our writing.

Whatever your hope may be, marketing is an important path to venture on (especially because traditional publishers are rejecting diverse books in favor of ones that are already famous + the whole sub-par machine thing they seem obsessed with.)

And thus, my childhood marketing obsession will hopefully be of use to you. This is all for free (unless you want to spend money) and you don't need to figure out social media platforms (unless you want to, and this guide works if you decide to take that route too.)

Step One: Characters

Marketing spheres will define these fictious people as 'avatars' or 'the target audience'. You could also call them characters. Because that's what they are: fictional people.

For this step, you shall create characters that would love your story.

And here's some great news: You've already done this.

Perhaps you wrote your story to comfort a prior version of yourself. Perhaps each character in your story holds an aspect of your personality. Perhaps you were ridiculously self-indulgent and made the story you would've loved to read. These are all possible characters you can reuse for marketing.

Write down 2-4 quick archetypes for these characters. You'll chose an aspect of your story (characters, themes, or the younger-self that you wrote it for) and write a thumbnail sketch. (Main issue, fears, wants, personality traits if they relate to the main issue.)

I'll do it for my story (the Land of the Fallen Fairies) down below:

Anuli-like (my MC): Overthinking and aloof. Wants a happy ending but thinks their current personality/character isn't good enough for one. The present stales in comparison to the past/the childhood they lost. The 'gifted theater kids'. Kamari-like (side character): Postpones happiness in favor of creating a perfect schedule/getting accomplishments. Heavy masking. Creative but doesn't create anymore. Promises themself they'll enjoy themselves later, when they've earned it. Workaholics. My younger self: Wanting a fantasy escapism to embody the traits they wish they had in real life. Dissatisfied and worried about reality. Perfectionists. Self-indulgent: People who love plants and forests and fantasy worlds far away from reality/humanity.

Great! Now it's time to find these characters.

Step Two: Setting.

(Let's assume you're using the internet for your marketing. But a similar method works for real life too.)

Where do the characters live?

In order to figure that out, we need to discover the characters' interests, what they watch to solve their problems, and who they find #relatable.

(You can do this for each character or for all the characters at once.)

For example:

Anuli-like -

interests: Stories. Analysis videos. Fantasy escapism. Things that remind them of their childhood. (so nature, warmth, comfort, play, imagination and the times they would actually enjoy learning.)

Places to look: Nature quotes, ambience videos, children's shows and fairytales (comfort shows). Fandom culture - fanfic video essays, fan art.

Solving problems (the problem being wanting a 'happy ending' but feeling that their personality/lifestyle/characteristics aren't right for one): Mindfulness things. Self-healing. Quotes and meditations and candles galore. Slow living. Nature vlogs. Self care. All that 'live in the moment' culture.

Places to look: Slow living. Nature vlogs. The 'softer self-help' (spirituality stuff. Magic/ overnight answers). Witchcraft. 'aesthetic nature' places. Guided meditations.

#relatable: Burnt out gifted kids. People who think so much that their life passes them by. Storytellers and creative who create to make sense of the world. People who like dark, gory things in spite of who they want to be. People who don't like reality.

Places to look: Those 'learn better and remember everything' places. (The 'burnt-out gifted kid' recovery places.) Stop overthinking spots. Those quotes on Pinterest from poetic people who think too much /aff. Storyteller places. Dark academia. Classical music. One off quotes/ poetry.

Okie dokie. Once you have this, find channels, social media accounts, blogs, songs, books, etc. that fit with the categories you wrote down. (They should appeal to the characters) You can search up some of the terms you listed into searches and see who pops up. Bonus points if you find people that overlap with multiple sections.

I know I didn't include booktube or booktok in here. You can if you want too. But those can be a bit... 'consume these 500 books'. You also want to find other places where people who would like you story live, even if they don't follow booktube or booktok.

Congrats! Now you know where your characters live!

Step Three: the scary part

Take everyone you found on your search for the settings and write them down a list. Make sure you get an email/contact info. (they usually list them somewhere under 'for business inquires') Also feel free to watch their content and get to know what attributes these settings have.

And now... we talk to them. about our stories. You can do it. I believe in you.

This called 'pitching your product' in marketing spheres. But you can be informal about it.

I know it can be difficult to talk about your work, so here's a tone to have:

'I made this thing I like and I think you'll like it too'.

What you'll do is send an email (or dm) that goes like this (inspired by Creative Hive on youtube):

Hi [name],

[Genuine compliment]

[Quick sentence or two about your story. Include the themes and who it appeals to. If you have a logline/sentence summary, include that. But I find that the underlying themes and 'who's it's for' is more engaging.

For my story, I might say something like.

I've written a story you might enjoy, since you like [interest]. It's called the Land of the Fallen Fairies. It's a nature-themed commentary on the pursuit of happiness and fixing yourself to deserve that happiness, told by an overthinking, unreliable, houseplant narrator. It was supposed to comfort me when I got frustrated with myself and my happiness chasing, and I hope it can comfort others too.

(That's probably a bit long and I can trim it down a bit.)

You can phrase it like a gift if you want too.]

[Call to action.

'If you like it, I'd appreciate a mention on your [platform].

I know this part may be difficult to mention (imposter syndrome is not fun.) But I promise that if they do like it, they'll be happy to mention it.]

If they don't respond within... four-ish days? (A week at most). then you can include a follow up. For this you can include a template with info about your story. This way it's easy for them to talk about your story.

The template:

title

genre

blurb

Author

where to find the book

Bonus points if you have an additional, physical thing to send them.

Congrats! Now do this pitching process a few times until you've covered most of your bases. (Pitch to as many people as you can. It will get more comfortable as you do it. Play your favorite song and don't let yourself think too hard about it.)

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The benefits of this process are that you find people that are already interested in the themes and vibes of your story (in comparison to to ads, which get shoved in everyone's faces.). Someone your audience already trusts will talk about it, which means you don't need to do all this trial and error to find your audience and make content for them.

It's basically a bunch of people talking about something they like!

AND you diversify your audience across niches, but with an underlying theme/interests. Booktok/booktube must appeal to everyone, so it's a hit or miss for recommendations. (Unless there is someone that specifically does one genre/type of story.)

From here you can do fun little things to build up hype and make the book launch feel like this fun event. (I love it when that happens so here's my thoughts about trying to create an event with your story... although that may require another post entirely.)

preorder goals

charity goals

Arg's and puzzles

fund with side plushies and trinkets

Book blog tour

book boxes

as many memes as you can make

rewards (like bookmarks or posters or smth) that people can get for supporting

Talk about the process of creating your story. I know this one channel called 'Dead Sound' that creates 'making of' videos for his short films and they are some of the best videos on youtube.

Okay dear storyteller! Now go forth and share your story with the world!

Additional resources:

Creative Hive <-- a youtube channel that goes through the pitching process.

This video is also very good <-- Haven't watched the rest of the channel but I assume it's also good.

One of the best marketing channels on the internet (the videos are actually entertianing to watch.

Seth Goldin <-- I read his book and took the parts I liked and modified for storytelling marketing.

Dead Sound <-- propaganda to watch the short film series he has (he did the whole 2-d 3-d style wayyyy before spiderverse did... and he's one person making these. One person. It's amazing.

Glitch <--- If someone can figure out how The Amazing Digital Circus was marketed then I will pay you money. It seems to be a lot of memes and funny things.

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angstics · 1 year

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on my chemical romance's history of racism:

(edit: i wont rewrite anything since that will create discrepancies in reblogs. however, i will include these important additions: post 1 and post 2)

cultural appropriation is a neutral term that turns negative when people co-opt a culture without consideration to its people and history, or their prejudices and privileges. the rising sun japanese flag is an imperialist symbol used during japan's occupation of other countries from 1870 to 1945 (the guardian 2019). unlike other symbols of terror, the rising sun is normalized because of the japanese government's refusal to acknowledge its history. the symbol's meaning was popularized a few years ago when people from south korea protested its legality in the 2020 tokyo olympics (bbc 2020). aware or unaware of its history, americans have long appropriated the rising sun. in part because of their fascination with japanese art, in part because of orientalism -- a fixation on asian cultures that centers "exoticism".

my chemical romance has been associated with the rising sun symbol a couple of times. frank iero used to have a tattoo of it. gerard way designed frank's killjoys outfit to include it (seen in concept art and music videos). it is often used in mcr fanart.

tokenism is when something contains limited diversity to divert criticisms for the lack of it. my chemical romance has had a very white cast of characters in their music videos and stories. in the "i dont love you" music video, a main character is in black body paint. in the casting call, they specifically asked for a white man (there is 100% an online source -- please let me know if you have it). even casting a black person for this role would place him in a video that appropriated his skin color to mark his "difference" from the light-skin female character.

the female character points to the band's main problem with tokenism. if they arent casting a white woman, theyre casting a light-skin asian woman. the woman in the "i dont love you" mv is fetishized for physical traits stereotypically attributed to east asian women: big eyes, daintiness. east asian women feature most prominently aside from the band and main characters in the "welcome to the black parade" music video and photo shoot. the photoshoot is the only place where an ashy-faced black man and ambiguously tribal? brown man are seen (brought in by photographer chris anthony per the "making of the black parade" book). the director antagonist of the danger days music videos (shown in "sing") is a japanese woman. she is the only main character of color in the music videos and the killjoys: california comics. the focus of this post is on my chemical romance, but the comics are important to showcase that the reality is never "color-blind casting" or "limited roles". it's mostly white creatives (band members and directors and artists) who ignore non-white people when they cant use them, reflected as much by gerard way years later (nyt 2019).

"japan takes over the world" is a media trope that is built on the late 20th century fear of the return of imperial japan. this trope frames japanese people as unique aggressors, feeding into "yellow peril" fears of asian people "taking over" the white race. this trope is suggested all over the danger days universe, where the corporation BL/ind overthrows the US government. the appropriation of the japanese modern flag and lettering on the killjoys outfits, the primary BL/ind villain being a japanese person who only speaks japanese in videos, the official BL/ind website having a ".jp" domain and english-japanese translations. japanese people and culture only exist in this universe to decorate and threaten.

the point of this post is not to punish my chemical romance. in the decade+ since, they have made meaningful changes -- the sing it for japan project to aid japan during the 2011 earthquake-tsunami, developing diversity in gerard's comics / tv show, a mexican-american main character in the 2020 summoning video. people of color treated as real goddamn people.

however. all these faults exist in frozen time. there is no discussion attached to the work. so anyone, fan or casual, may come across it and not notice or care for these important issues. i know all this shit and i still fail to see instances of what i highlighted. it's difficult locating not only your own prejudices but those of others. those you look up to.

"my chemical romance" is the product of many people from 2001 to 2013. many of these people were male, white, american, and/or, most radically, liberal. clearly laying out what they did wrong is important. being careful with history and culture and personhood is important. prioritizing growth is important. constantly. forever.

#mcr #this has been weighing on me for a long time. i just didnt know how to say it. why i should say it if someone else already has #and well. thru writing this i figured everyone should say it to really understand it #qessay

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backfromtwitterforw · 2 months

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Just sharing a cool collaborative project that ghosties made on Twitter. They draw bbh fanarts with a local traditional food from their country. One person made a compilation in a recipe book, I'll share the link if anyone's feeling hungry ^^' It was really fun seeing how diverse his community is (and by extension the qsmp community) !!

#qsmp positivity #qsmp #<- i tag qsmp because ngl a lot of the ones who participated joined because of that #ghosties #badboyhalo

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marsupialmenace · 8 months

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I am incredibly tired and unwell, but I think I've finally cracked so this is very much a vent post, BUT:

I desperately want to take "Romani Dick Grayson" away from fans until they can learn to be nice. Specifically non-Romani fans.

I've seen so many terrible, invalidating, frankly stereotypical and racist takes from people who are 'claiming to be sensitive' to Romani people.

I don't particularly get upset about peoples headcanons, or the desire for diversity (because I have those desires/HCs too!). It's when I see the 'has to' or people arguing their headcanons about Dick's Romani heritage without the experience or the knowledge to do so beyond their five-minute google search that I get upset.

I saw a nice piece of fanart before that had Dick drawn tanned, and it had a reply on it to the effect of "thank you for drawing Dick brown, he's romani." It makes me sad to see people say things like that, that 'Dick has to be brown', because my pale white ass is also Romani. However, on the flipside, if someone draws him too pale, I see people attack the artists and calling them racist in vagueposts for drawing him 'wrong' (white-appearing) despite it being completely possible for a Romani person to be white.

In another place I saw someone refer to the Graysons as 'definitely travellers, so they couldn't be Romanichal'. Are you saying that Romanichal (English Romani people) are less Romani? I don't really understand the need to exclude other Romani people from the 'list Dick could be descended from' based on...whether on not you (royal) consider them 'travellers'.

Not to mention, the word 'Travellers'. Travellers is used in a derogatory way to the Romanichal in the UK, or at least in my area it is, there is a turn of phrase to avoid calling someone a slur in public, people say "Oh, that ones a travelling girl" or "They're travellers" and it has all of the implications with it.

Romani people are diverse, and we're not limited to a skin colour or religion, we all have different culture and traditions and languages, yet I see people insisting Dick has to fit into a box of a 'specific Romani'.

I don't really care for it in fic, I filter out the 'Dick Grayson is Romani' tag. I don't care for it in comics, because it has always been done poorly. I don't care about peoples HC's, 'cause even if I disagree, they can't affect me.

But to see real people talk about a comic book character using words, stereotypes, and phrases that hurts other real Romani people to attack or build up their own worlds/HCs is just so frustrating.

#dick grayson #romani dick grayson #rant post #marsupial rant #dare i say?#marsupial meta #(i dont)#tbh I could go on about this subject for hours and I have at select friends #but my issues with it will always be steeped in my own experiences as a Romani #I just want to stop being hurt when I look at Dick Grayson fan creations #and I don't want to see the word 'exotic' used #or people using phrases from languages they don't understand that they haven't properly got the translation or knowledge for #hence why I avoid fic/the romani dick grayson tag now #obligatory tim seeley my beloathed

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rosalbaishere · 1 month

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Riordanverse Characters Who Aren't White According to Book Canon

(So we should all stop pretending they are)

Leo Valdez: Mexican-American, intended to be POC

Piper McLean: Native American (Cherokee)

Reyna Avila Ramírez-Arellano: Puerto Rican, intended to be POC

Frank Zhang: Chinese-Canadian

Alex Fierro: Mexican-American, of Indigenous Ancestry

Sadie Kane: Mixed (half Black, half White)，intended to be white-passing

The list of BIPOC characters is actually longer, but I'm including only the ones who are most likely to be potrayed as white and/or have their identity as POC ignored in fan works, like fanarts and fanfiction.

So, please, everyone, keep them the way they are, because it's important to have diverse characters in YA fiction, so don't take away what they mean.

As a fanfiction writer, there are so many ways you can get informations and potray their culture, appearance and identity in a respectful way. Get educated.

Let POC kids be POC kids.

#percy jackson #riordanverse #leo valdez #piper mclean #reyna avila ramirez arellano #sadie kane #alex fierro #frank zhang #reading #poc characters #fanfic #fandom

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favichanwriter · 1 month

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Me: *likes a cute/nice/awesome fanart featuring any member of Team Green because I like the art/follow the artist*

My tumblr feed: *is inmediately filled with TG fans with 4ft long posts about how Rhaenyra is actually the bad guy*

Like, seriously, I have nothing against people who likes Team Green. I'm Team Black, but I acknowledge people have different opinions on diverse topics.

Yes, Rhaenyra was not a saint, but neither were Alicent, Aemond, Aegon and Otto.

Alicent literally usurped her step-daughter's throne aided by her father.

Jaehaerys (Aegon and Helaena's son) was an innocent and didn't deserved his death, but Lucerys did not deserved to die in the way he died either, specially when he went to Storm's End as his mother's emisary.

Yes, we can all agree that Viserys was a Bad Dad™ to all of his kids because he was a Pathological People Pleaser™ and had huge expectations to fill.

Otto preyed on his grief for Aemma and their stillborn child to put Alicent as queen (Alicent was EIGHTEEN in the books by the time she married Viserys, and Rhaenyra was like 12).

In short, everyone in that family is fucked up, and I support Rhaenyra because she IS the rightful queen of Westeros (if Viserys wanted to give the throne to his son, he could have done it any time in between his son's birth and his death) .

#a song of ice and fire #asoiaf #house of the dragon #hotd #house targaryen #dance of the dragons #team black #pro team black #rhaenyra targaryen #hotd rhaenyra

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jaykentfan · 2 years

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Loving the new She Hulk TV show more than I thought 💚

#comic books #fanart #art #marvel #she hulk #marvel comics #diversity

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jackoshadows · 7 months

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Just saw a couple of posts where someone was insisting that there is no way Jon Snow would remain friends with Tyrion or how it would be 'bizarre' if Jon is still friends with Tyrion on account of the marriage to Sansa.

It wouldn't be 'bizarre' if one actually read A Dance with Dragons and the many chapters GRRM devotes to Jon Snow agonizing over Arya Stark's marriage while not even writing one line where Jon is concerned over Sansa's own marriage.

Especially when Sansa's marriage is actually brought up in conversation as a reason for why Stannis does not want her getting Winterfell and Jon doesn't say or think anything about her marriage to Tyrion preventing her from getting Winterfell other than go

This is what happens when the Asoiaf material one consumes is all Tumblr metas and Jonsa 'theories' instead of actually reading the books. This is what happens when one homogenizes the canonically diverse Stark sibling dynamics into uniformity and apply what Jon Snow thinks of one sibling to all the siblings.

In canon, in the books, in ADwD, when Stannis mentions how Sansa Lannister is never getting Winterfell while he lives, Jon Snow's thoughts or concerns is not for Sansa being forced to marry the enemy. No, what he thinks about is the news of his friend Tyrion being a kinslayer and Jon having a hard time imagining the kind man he shook hands with killing his own father.

Tyrion Lannister looked beyond class barriers and even political barriers (Given the enmity between houses Stark and Lannister) to help and advice Jon Snow when even his father and uncle don't warn him about the NW's current status. Tyrion supports Jon against the likes of Alliser Thorne - he had no need to do so - simply because it was the right thing to do and carries home messages for Jon and helps Bran - simply because Jon asked him to do it. And Jon Snow is a character who values his friendships.

And for that matter, Jon Snow never ever turns up in Sansa's nostalgic memories of home and family - contradictory to popular fanon/fanart they probably hardly ever interacted - and she admits to forgetting about him until Myranda Royce mentions Jon and then wants to see him because now all her true brothers are dead and no one else is left.

In fact when Sansa considers her options of where to flee from the Vale she thinks of going to Tyrion if he was still alive while never even thinking of Jon at the Wall. Sansa is also imagining kisses with the Hound - a man who Sansa knows killed Stark men, including Vayon Poole, her friend Jeyne's father.

As the boy’s lips touched her own she found herself thinking of another kiss. She could still remember how it felt. - Sansa, AFFC And Littlefinger was no friend of hers. When Joff had her beaten, the Imp defended her, not Littlefinger. When the mob sought to rape her, the Hound carried her to safety, not Littlefinger. - Sansa, AFfC

Jon does not judge his relationships based on how they interacted with Sansa no more than Sansa judges her relationships based on how they interacted with Jon because these are two characters who have never interacted on page and have a distant familial relationship off page. Jon and Sansa don't consider each other important in the narrative as Stark siblings because GRRM does not consider their relationship/dynamic important enough to devote page time to it.

#Jon Snow #Tyrion Lannister #Sansa Stark #asoiaf

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