However, it can take a lot of time, effort, and even some of your own income to effectively market yourself. That being said, merchandising is a great marketing method. It can build your brand, generate revenue, and help you get noticed across the globe.

1. Optimize Your Book Covers

Talk to a successful chef, and they’ll tell you that people eat with their eyes first. While you can’t judge a book by its cover, you can certainly decide whether it catches your eye or not. 

Your book cover can be the central component of your marketing endeavors once it’s published. It can be used to create marketing merchandise like posters, shirts, buttons, and so much more. 

Luckily, you don’t have to be a graphic designer or artist to optimize your cover. However, you may want to outsource someone with that same gift. Some of the essential elements of an effective book cover design include:

• An intriguing title
• Unique typography
• A coherent design
• Captivating colors
• A well-placed biography

Don’t forget about the spine! If your book is on the shelf somewhere, the average reader will likely only see the spine first. Make sure it stands out and clearly states your name and the title of your book.

2. Create Accompanying Merchandise

While you likely didn’t get into writing to sell anything but your books, other merchandise can help you in that endeavor. It gives readers more avenues to connect with your book, and ultimately with you. 

When books become popular, fans often create their own merchandise and cosplay equipment. While this can be flattering, it also represents lost revenue and promotion and even a lack of control over your artistic image.

A couple of ideas for book merchandise might include:

• Mugs
• Glasses and shot glasses
• Keychains
• T-shirts & apparel
• Clothing and Cosplay accessories
• Posters, maps, and wall hangings

If you do end up creating extra merchandise to increase visibility, you can utilize these other steps in tandem to maximize your reach, such as utilizing social media.

3. Utilize Social Media

If you know you need to market your book (and yourself) but you’re on a tight budget, use social media to your advantage. You can not only use it to boost your book and its associated merchandise, but you can build more of a connection with your reader base.

If you use social platforms to boost your sales and visibility, post high-quality photographs and videos that make sense for your brand. Thanks to today’s technology, it’s easier than you might think to take high-quality photos. Use a clean background, understand the importance of composition, and make sure your photos look consistent so people will associate them with your brand.

You can take your creativity a step further by orchestrating a book trailer—yes, like a movie trailer for your book. It’s a unique way to capture more attention and further engage with your followers. Think of your book as an award-winning film, and make sure your trailer has a hook, an overall theme and feel, and a call to action for people to purchase and read it.

4. Manage Your Inventory

One of the hats you have to wear as an author is keeping track of your merchandise, including books and any marketing materials you choose to sell. On top of everything else you’re trying to take care of, this can sometimes feel a little overwhelming!

Thankfully, technology comes to the rescue once again. Nowadays, you can set up an online shop easily, and some platforms will effectively take care of inventory management for you. If you plan to sell your books in person or at different shops, however, it’s helpful to have a barcode system in place. Setting up your own barcode system and bringing a handheld scanner makes inventory management easier to track.

There are also barcode systems that connect with cloud-based software—you’ll be able to look at your sales and inventory at any given point. This will also make your inventory all the more accurate, and you’ll be able to determine how much you’ve sold and how much profit you’ve made each month.

5. Get Involved With Events

It can be tempting to be a “behind the screen” author. Today, anyone can write a book, self-publish it online, and build a digital following. While that can be an effective marketing strategy, nothing will ever beat connecting with people in person and holding a signing event. Some of the advantages of holding an in-person event include:

• Added value for your fans
• Signed books can’t be returned
• Better engagement and stronger relationships
• More opportunities to pull in new readers
• Shared publicity with signing locations

When you host or go to in-person events, bring more than just your books with you. Invest in marketing materials like flyers, banners, and even business cards you can hand out to fans with contact and social media information. 

When people see you in-person and get to know you on a more personal level, you’ll create more lifelong fans. You can also build network connections with word-of-mouth advertisers who will tell friends and family about your books.

Being an independent writer takes consistent work that goes well beyond telling great stories. Keep these tips in mind to boost your visibility and revenue, and to build a fanbase that will stick with you from book to book.

Indiana Lee is a writer and journalist from the Pacific Northwest with a passion for covering workplace issues, social justice, environmental protection, and more. In her off time, she enjoys hiking with her two dogs. You can follow her on Twitter @indianalee3, or reach her at indianaleewrites@gmail.com.

The post #5onFri: Five Merchandising Tips for Writers appeared first on DIY MFA.

But that doesn’t mean that it’s all hearts and flowers always. Every silver lining has a cloud, after all, and when it comes to freelancing, sometimes that gray cloud can be the struggle to maintain your productivity when distractions arise and work stressors feel overwhelming.

The good news, though, is that it is possible to keep your creative mojo flowing and your freelance productivity humming across weeks, months, and years. This article describes five ways you can juice your productivity for a long, happy, and successful freelance career.

1. Create a Routine

When you’re looking to boost your freelance productivity, one of the first and most important things you can do is set yourself up for optimal performance. This means creating a work schedule that both accommodates your lifestyle and promotes productivity. 

Establish specified hours of the day that will be dedicated to work and ensure that friends and family are aware of, and respect, your work routine. That means ensuring that, unless blood is being spilled, you accept no personal phone calls, no surprise guests, and no intrusion into your workspace by kids, spouses, pets, little green men, or the Publisher’s Clearing House folks during your business hours.

2. Set Yourself up for Success

True, you’ve got mad skills and natural talent, but that doesn’t mean you don’t need a helping hand to meet your productivity goals. It’s just not possible to do your best work unless you have the best tools and the ideal work environment.

In other words, you need a dedicated writing space — one where the distractions are minimal and the inspiration is maximal. A home office with lots of natural light and a great view can be the ideal way to keep your creative juices flowing on even the most difficult of days. 

But your workspace needs to be more than a place to which you can retreat and focus. It also needs to be outfitted with the essential freelance productivity tools that enable you to do your best work. At a minimum, this should include a suite of project management and task-tracking tools, such as Asana or Monday. 

This will ensure not only that you’re steadily progressing toward your project goals, but also that you’re maintaining healthy and robust contact with clients and colleagues. 

3. Enlist Outside Support

You may be a master of your craft, but that doesn’t mean you can do all and be all at all times. There are simply some tasks best left to the expert. And, if you want to be productive, then it’s critical to learn when to delegate. 

Your freelancing career, though it is certainly a labor of love, is also still a business, after all. And to ensure your business grows and thrives over the years, you need the help of experts. Outsourcing essential duties will help protect you and your business while freeing you up to focus on your work. So go ahead and recruit your team of professionals to support you in your full-time freelancing career. This should include, at a minimum, hiring an accountant and an attorney to ensure your business operations and your finances are on point. 

4. Take Your Social Media Skills to the Next Level

Now more than ever, the future of business lies in social media marketing — a reality that is just as relevant for creative professionals as it is for more traditional entrepreneurs. Building a robust social media presence is increasingly critical for connecting with prospective clients, raising brand awareness, and cultivating lucrative and long-standing business relationships.

Thus, if you want to be truly productive in your freelance writing career, then you need to engage deeply with social media. Concentrate on marketing and community-building across social media platforms, as well as linking your social media accounts to your writing websites, blogs, online portfolios, and other publications. This will ensure you’re building market interest and cultivating a steady flow of projects. 

5. Guard Against Burnout

Of all the challenges associated with freelance life, burnout may be the most significant. When you’re working on your own and all the burdens of making the career a go are resting on your shoulders, it can easily become too much to bear.

Learning to recognize and guard against burnout may well be the most important thing you can do to preserve your freelancing productivity in particular and your writing career in general. When you find yourself feeling mentally, emotionally, and physically drained, you may be on the cusp of burnout.

Maintaining a healthy work-life balance is a cornerstone of preventing burnout. The temptation to be always working and, in the process, isolating yourself from friends and family so that you can focus on work can be immense. However, by building healthy relationships and enjoying time for self-care and recreation outside of work, you can maintain your zest, your passion, and, yes, your productivity. 

The Takeaway

Maintaining your productivity as a freelancer isn’t easy. However, with a bit of effort, you can create the working conditions that will keep the inspiration and freelance productivity flowing.

Indiana Lee is a writer and journalist from the Pacific Northwest with a passion for covering workplace issues, social justice, environmental protection, and more. In her off time, she enjoys hiking with her two dogs. You can follow her on Twitter @indianalee3, or reach her at indianaleewrites@gmail.com.

The post #5onFri: 5 Ways Freelancers Can Improve Their Remote Work Productivity appeared first on DIY MFA.