Writer Advice, Office Savvy Tips

-- Quote of the Day --

“When we try to pick out anything by itself we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.”
~ John Muir (famous naturalist & founder of the Sierra Club)

-- Conscious Celebration --

Oct 5-9 happens to be Customer Service Week. This is a time when businesses can reflect on how they are communicating with current and potential clients. In honor of this conscious celebration, I have decided to post an article I wrote for a publication earlier this year:

Common Courtesy & Strong Organization Skills Accelerate Publicity Efforts

The best advice any writer could receive is: Do your research. Whatever stage you are at, whatever you are facing – research it. Find out the details from other authors and research the person or business you hope to work with. Find out what their guidelines and policies are, make a note of the person you will be dealing with. Provide them with exact and complete information.

We always follow one big rule in marketing - Common Courtesy. Never make anyone work for anything. Make every option clear and easily accessible. Always follow up with your contacts with brief outlines of previous discussions so they don’t have to go looking for information.

Always query in a professional manner and never send attachments with the introduction letter. Doing it right is essential - there is but little chance to make an impression with a reviewer, editor, reader, organization or publication.

Keep records of your endeavors using color-codes so that at a glance you can see who needs to have a follow-up letter, whether you’ve had successes or failures with that source and if you need to provide anything to them in the future. Having short, yet detailed notes about each market (publication, radio program, journalist, reviewer, etc) will help immensely. Some very important details to keep track of are the theme or focus of the market, the audience/readers of that market and contact information.

When it comes to reaching out and making contact with anyone who might be supportive of your work, I believe that it really all boils down to is putting yourself in the contact’s shoes for a moment – what would appeal to you, if you were in that person’s shoes? If you focus on that, you’ll have more positive, longer lasting results.

*Thank you to all entrants for last week's prize contest. I'll have contest news posted on the blog later today.

Find Dave & Lillian Brummet, excerpts from their books, information about their radio shows & free resources & articles at www.brummet.ca