BY TERRI WAGNER
Usually in most publications, the Mdepartment and the Editorial Departments exist as separate entities, each tasked with a different job. At the trade publication where I worked, Marketing more or less ignored Editorial; and we generally more or less ignored them. The standing joke was their job was to make money, and our job was to spend it. They brought in the advertisers, and we spent the money traveling to shows that advertisers attended.
Sometimes, though, we crossed lines or blurred the lines a bit. We had a few ‘departments’ that enabled an advertiser (or anyone in the business) to announce a new or improved product. Sometimes we published a technical paper on a new product. Sometimes we showcased a new product as a feature story. In all those instances we carefully proofed our layout to make sure their ads were nowhere near their stories. It was dicey, because we were an international publication. Those same rules are almost never used overseas. So explaining why we were so anal about it was at times difficult. Often the Marketing Department would forward a call or email from a new advertiser wanting editorial coverage for a product. Again, we followed our simple rules.
You might think this only applies to say magazines, journals, newspapers or other published works of the same variety, but not so. Marketing is part and parcel of a novel as well as an anthology, both of which Xchyler publishes. And I am not talking about the obvious marketing that comes after the Editorial Department has given the green light on publishing. It starts in the novel/story itself. What? Horrors! This can not be. We must always keep the art separate from the commercial. Blah blah blah!
You want your novel/story to sell, and make money? Then start with that beginning in mind. Are zombies now over? Will people really want to read one more story about teenage vampires or wizards? Is the world going to race to the mousetrap of yet another spy who has been betrayed by his own government and now must be a rogue agent saving the world again? These are important and serious issues to consider as you write.
Another marketing issue up front: will your product be polished or raw? Will your international character speak perfect English since that’s your target audience, or will you have him/her speak a broken English? Would that be important? Actually, yes.
In the game of Dungeons and Dragons (a personal favorite from years gone by), you chose your character’s background (and looks) and then you decided if they were good, bad, neutral, neutral good or neutral bad. What has that to do with marketing? Well, again, consider your genre and what people will be expecting. A neutral bad rogue agent is probably not going to be accepted as a hero in an action novel.
Most writers unconsciously keep this in mind as they write. But many believe that, for the sake of their art, they should remain true to their vision. It’s okay to fight for that, but don’t reject things out of hand. Give serious consideration to their concerns. Otherwise, you hamper your publishing company’s ability to market your final product.
The Marketing Department looks at a novel from an external perspective, so they often times think of issues that will trip up the story that writers overlook while in the throe of their creativity. For instance: will parents want their teenagers reading about a sixteen-year-old in a romantic relationship with a thirty-year-old? Or, it is really a good idea to have a shoot-out with semi-automatic rifles set in a high school cafeteria?
Don’t be fooled. Marketing starts the minute you type “It was a dark and stormy night.” Authors often look at the Marketing Department as the enemy, but they want the same thing you do: success for your work. They might even help you achieve it.
Terri Wagner lives, writes, and edits from her home in Alabama. Her most recent project, Terra Mechanica: A Steampunk Anthology, was released in May 2014. Other works to Ms. Wagner’s credit include Shades and Shadows: A Paranormal Anthology, Mr. Gunn and Dr. Bohemia by Pete Ford, and Conjectrix (Vivatera Book 2) by Candace J. Thomas.