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A guest post by Desiree Wolfe

Unless you wrote your book just for a copy on your own shelf, you’re going to need to do some marketing. Yes, marketing. That scary word most writers think they understand but really have absolutely no clue about. It doesn’t have to be scary if you’re prepared. I’ve compiled five truths about marketing your book so you can start getting your crap together now. Because once you publish, you’re already late to the game.

5. Your Book Means Nothing.

Here’s the brutal truth. No one gives a shit about your book. But they do give a shit about YOU. People aren’t going to buy your book because it looks good on the shelf. People WILL buy your book because they like you. They heard about what a great writer you are. Someone read your bio or recommended you to a friend. They read a sample of your writing in your blog and connected with your style. So start connecting with people NOW. Make sure your social media is active and that you’re talking about your projects and you’re getting people interested in you, by being interested in them. The longer you’re online the greater your connections will be and more people will be compelled to purchase your book.

4. You’re Not Ready for Success.

Before you send your book off to the printers, think like a rock star. Be prepared for people to ask for more information. Be prepared for media interviews and interest. Make sure you have a media kit ready to go. Media moves quickly. Journalists and producers don’t have the time to wait for you to “write something up” to describe you and your book. Get that shit together ahead of time and you’ll be a media superstar.

3. No One Is Going To Do It for You.

Ever heard the phrase, “If you want something done, just do it yourself”? That goes for selling your book. If you want your book to sell (of course you do), you’re going to have to be your own best marketer. Unless you hit a batch of amazingly good luck, your book isn’t going to sell itself. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t hire help or marketing services. That means you know your book better than anyone, so you should be talking about it everywhere you go. Carry promotional items, like bookmarks and flyers, so you can pass them out quickly when you’re running errands or speaking to people. You are your best salesperson.

2. It Takes Work.

Just when you thought the hard work of writing your book was coming to an end, you have a whole really hard-ass task ahead of you. Marketing. Now is not the time to sit back and hope Oprah reads your book. Chances are she won’t. Be proactive about getting attention for your book. Start contacting your local media. Research submission calls for experts. Ask for help.

1. You’re not just an author. You’re now a resource.

Let’s face it. A billion authors are out there. Did I say a billion? I meant a whole shitload. If you want to get media attention, you can no longer think like a book writer. You’re now an expert on your topic and a resource for TV, radio and publications. You have knowledge others want. When you’re looking for media opportunities, look beyond the call for book authors. You’re rarely going to find them. You want to look for ways you can offer your expertise.

“But Desiree, I didn’t write an educational or self-help book. I write fiction. How can I be an expert?” You wrote a book about SOMETHING didn’t you? Even if you’re writing a romance novel, you’re experienced in the writing process. You had to learn about how the characters communicated. Or how love felt, if it’s a romance novel. You had to learn about defeat or challenges. People are always looking for content experts for their outlets. Become a resource and your book will be the tool your audience gets more of your knowledge.

Here’s a bonus truth: if you wait until your book is printed to start marketing, you’re already late. Look at your marketing plan at least three months before your book is done. Start planning NOW. Map out how you’re going to be that rock star. Have goals written and the steps you’re going to take to get there. And if you don’t know where to start, ask for help.

I’ve been helping authors and entrepreneurs market for several years. Don’t get caught in the scramble for attention. You’ll look desperate and you’ll be wondering what the hell happened.

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Desiree Wolfe is the CEO and Founder of Desiree Marketing, a boutique PR and Marketing Coaching and Service Company. Her mission is to help authors, speakers and solo-preneurs create kickass marketing. Her undying love for swear words makes her the foul-mouth marketer who gives you real-life, no fluff advice. For more information visit www.desireemarketing.com.

In case you haven’t heard, Desiree is also giving my clients exclusive sessions when they signup for No More Fuckery, our 3-month coaching package that teaches you how to be a marketing machine.

by Guy Bergstrom

So, you’re a creative type – a writer of epic literary novels, an actor schlepping tables in Hollywood or a great artist in a black turtleneck who paints canvasses black because that’s HOW YOU FEEL about global hegemony.

How can you bust through and make it?

Oh, I’ve written all sorts of silly posts about free ink and airtime. But all that free ink and airtime stuff is somewhat Serious, and requires Work – while you are in a Hurry.

Who has time for all that sweaty work nonsense?

Here are my Top 10 Evil Tips for Authors, Actors and Artists

10) Learn to love Top Ramen

As a creative type, you must properly suffer. True art does not come from being content. No.

The first step in suffering is living on a food budget of $25 a week. As a former reporter, I have done this. Unless you’re a Trustafarian, you also did this during college.

Nobody can eat on $25 a week without a heavy reliance on Top Ramen, which comes in the following flavors: beef, chicken, fishy shrimp something-something, salty, picante beef-whatever and extra-salty with a hint of I-don’t-know.

Also good and cheap: zucchini, which they damn near give away, and tofu.

9) Travel the world on the cheap and document your brilliance

Nobody will take you seriously as a writer, actor or artist if the only foreign country you’ve visited is Canada, which DOES NOT COUNT. Neither does Google Earth, wise guy.

But how can a person with a weekly food budget of $25 see the world?

First, you must hitchhike across the country.

Are you on the East Coast? Get to San Francisco. Those living on the West Coast must sneak onto freight trains and ride the rails to NYC.

All you folks living on the farm in Iowa, growing corn and having long conversations about Hemingway with Bessie the Cow, well, you can flip a coin: SF or NYC.

Once you get to a real metropolis, visit all the free museums you can to soak up some culture. Then get on a tramp steamer that’ll take you to Amsterdam / Africa / Australia or some other foreign land that starts with A.

Stuff your backpack with Top Ramen – you’re gonna need it. Learn to eat it dry, like popcorn. Also, your clothes are not “used” and “bought from Goodwill for $2 a pop.” They are “vintage” and “rare” and “unique.”

While you travel, fill a Moleskin notebook with deep, thoughtful scribbles. Do this all the time: in your apartment, during smoke breaks at your job waiting tables at Applebees, on the tramp steamer heading for Amsterdam – just scribble away.

Great artists can say pithy things about anything, whether it’s the social dynamics of cooks vs. wait staff at soulless suburban restaurant chains or sunset from the deck of a cargo ship carrying iPods to India.

8) Take photos of your life, and your journeys, with a cheap camera

Did your mom give you a fancy Nikon D3100 for your birthday? Sell it.

You’re a struggling artist, and nobody struggles when they’re using a camera that’s worth more than their car.

Find a camera that fits your lifestyle, something retro and vintage and cheap that uses this thing we call “film.” Will you have trouble finding places that still develop film? Yes. But a true artist will make their own darkroom and develop their own photos using Lysol and bleach or whatever as fixing agents.

Your photos are NOT blurry and out of focus. They are SAYING something about life that crisp, clear, corporate photos don’t have the courage to say.

7) Start out with a bang

Now that you’ve suffered, traveled the country and world and documented it all with words (“text”) and photos (“images”), you need to make your first real move.

Don’t do the usual thing of starting a blog, writing for a small magazine or acting in community theater.

You need to make a splash. To say something insanely bold, even if you don’t believe a word of it. To do what has never been done before.

Write a novel using only the letters on the left side of the keyboard. Putting a toilet on the wall of a gallery is boring – stick a Port-A-Potty with a real person inside up there. Do a one-act play reinventing Hamlet in a darkened theater where the actors are all wearing black ninja outfits while they speak German.

6) Find a patron and marry well

Now that you did something insane, find a bored, rich person who was entertained by it.

Write a memoir about their life – or paint their portrait using six different types of soil from the farm in Nebraska where they grew up. Whatever it takes to stop eating Top Ramen.

A rich patron is great and all, but their loyalty is not guaranteed. Who’s to say they won’t start giving scads of money to the next hot painter or writer? The money spigot could be shut down at any moment. You can’t count on them paying the rent every month. Marry them if you can. If you can’t, find a pediatrician, dentist, torts attorney or business executive who does something boring and needs a creative type to balance things out, to provide a little spark and adventure and culture in their life. Also, to pay all your bills.

As a great artist, you’re not worried about making sure this person is “the one.” It’s expected that you’ll have five or six marriages and an insanely complicated love life. What matters is that (a) the gossip rags print your name right and (b) the bills get paid.

5) Make sure your ways are mysterious

Other people write using Word, on a computer. Their successful habits include writing at least 500 words before breakfast and separating writing / creating from editing / polishing.

Those things put the B in Boring, and you are anything but boring.

Compose everything on an Underwood typewriter while (a) blindfolded, (b) drunk and (c) smoking unfiltered cigarettes from Morocco.

Paint your masterpieces while hanging from gravity boots and listening to Black Sabbath.

Your methods must be inscrutable.

4) Take up an appropriately impressive sport

Hang gliding is not quite epic enough. Ultimate Fighting would have been great 10 years ago, but it’s too mainstream now for you.

Fencing is interesting and harkens back to the good old days, you know, when men who felt insulted grabbed a rapier or a pistol and tried to kill the other man.

Knife fights against rival artists would be perfect. Make sure you win, which means you should probably cheat somehow. Ideally, you’ll win a fight against your nemesis but get a wicked facial scar and maybe even lose an eye, so you can spend the rest of your life wearing a black eye patch.

3) Lie like a rug

The truth is boring and bourgeoise, isn’t it? You’re above that.

If three different people ask you the same question, give three different answers. Bonus points for making each new answer more outrageous and epic than the last.

Did you once get lazy and not mow your lawn for a month? Well, that’s not what you TELL anybody. You tell a reporter that any moral person should have objections to wielding a gasoline-powered instrument of death on defenseless vegetation, that only a heartless fool would decimate the habitat of millions of insects and birds. Then the next time somebody asks about it, you say that plants and insects aren’t truly conscious and you burned your lawn with a flamethrower as a demonstration of the existentialist absurdity of life.

Have you been faithfully married to the same person for 21 years? Oh, don’t tell anybody that. It is so suburban. Say you live in a free-love commune with seven other authors, artists and actors, and that you all sleep on a trampoline covered in fleece blankets.

2) Be obscure, difficult and deep

Nothing says “loser” like being nice, direct and clear.

Give quotes and speeches so convoluted that you don’t even understand what you said. Abuse your underlings. Contradict yourself in the same sentence.

Wear sunglasses at all time while chain-smoking Gallouise Blondes in non-smoking areas, and don’t leave when asked. Don’t even leave when the police show up, because getting arrested is like having $100,000 in free press. You’re not a real celebrity until you’ve got a decent collection of mug shots on TMZ.

If you tell somebody you love them in the morning, you can’t say the same thing that night, now, can you? You hate them. Then the next morning, you love them again. Celebrate this new development by going on a five-day road trip where you sleep during the day at cheap motels and drive at night, taking photos only of different rest-stop signs.

1) Fake your death

Nothing boosts sales like dying. The tricky part will be coming BACK without ruining everything.

Maybe you were having a knife fight on a tramp steamer heading to Zanzibar when a rogue wave swept you overboard, and it took you six months to cross the Sahara and catch another boat back to the states.

Do this right and maybe you can finally afford to divorce Pediatrician No. 4.

Guy Bergstrom won awards as a journalist before working as a speechwriter and cashing checks from The New York Times as about.com’s expert on public relations. He wrote a thriller (FREEDOM, ALASKA) that won some award and he’s represented by Jill Marr of the Dijkstra Literary Agency. Follow him on his blog redpenofdoom.com, or Twitter at @speechwriterguy, or Google+