[Writer Post] Marketing on A Budget

I know I’ve talked about marketing on a budget before — but, I’m a bit brain mushed from content editing the new Redheads project for our meeting on Saturday, and it’s the beginning of the busy part of my convention season (which means Marketing on My Mind). It happens every time there’s something “new” out — a new project to promote, new year, new anything.

So what can the Budget Conscious Writer do? A lot actually with very little money. Why is this important? Well, most of us don’t have a lot of money and need to do what we can with what we have. The big question has been in the past: “How much should you spend on marketing?” The simple answer to the complex problem is: “As much as you can comfortably afford”.

In the past for ME – it’s been doing a lot of things on my own with “Back to School” sales. This meant finding generic ballpoint and rollerball pens on dirt cheap sale and putting my information on them with clear return address labels and clear packing tape (to keep the labels in place). I printed my own business cards and bookmarks from the Avery/office supply store brand templates/perforated sheets. I STILL make my own notebooks with memo books on sale and labels – with the graphic design help of my husband.

However, now that we’re making a little money off the writing, we’re spending a little more money – not a lot, but some. How? VISTAPRINT IS YOUR FRIEND. Not kidding. Vistaprint will inundate you with emails after your first order, but DUDE, they have some Fantastic deals. Many times you can get most of your promotional items for shipping – like more noticeable and/or professional business cards. If you want a banner for book signings or artist alley/dealer’s room tables, you can get those basically for shipping. They also do the occasional GroupOn or Living Social coupons – spend $10-$20 for $50 in merchandise.

By doing a deal like this not only do I have a banner for me (coordinated with my business cards), I have one for the Four Redheads. We were able to make 250 high quality postcards with the new chapbook cover on the front and black and white covers of my other major titles on the back. And if you can wait to get them in, “slow boat” shipping is inexpensive. The cards can be signed if people have ebooks, and/or the artist – but mostly they’re just pretty and maybe get people to buy the book.

If you read other blogs, sometimes the ads that may be embedded can be your friend. I found one for Amsterdam Printing one day. 80% off pretty good quality promotional ballpoint ink pens with honest-to-goodness printing on them. So instead of a couple hundred dollars for 500 pens in two different colors, my order was about $75. That CAN be a lot of money, but I have pens for a couple of years before I have to reorder (and I do them NOT project specific so I can use them over time).

It’s possible to do quite a bit with very little. It just takes some ingenuity, shopping around, and creativity. And if I can do it…so can you!

Tags: Amsterdam Printing, budget, ink pens, marketing, pens, postcards, promotions, VistaPrint