Marketing and Advertising

In today’s Journal

* Quotes of the Day
* Marketing and Advertising
* YouTube and Plots
* Of Interest
* The Numbers

Quotes of the Day

“Cormac McCarthy, maybe the greatest American novelist of my time, has passed away at 89. He was full of years and created a fine body of work, but I still mourn his passing.” Stephen King (Thanks, Gary V.)

“Marketing, y’gotta have a plan. Advertising, y’gotta have money.” Vincent Zandri

“Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately, it kills all its students.” Hector Berlioz

Marketing and Advertising

First, welcome to Ken and any others who have subscribed or dropped by to read my Substack or my Journal posts at https://hestanbrough.com. Be sure to visit the Archives, Gifts and DVDs page on that site for some nifty free stuff.

Apparently, most writers prefer to keep what works for them in marketing and advertising to themselves. Helping other writers, I guess, is anathema.

I don’t understand, but I am aware that my understanding is not a requirement for others’ actions or inactions. Of course the whole matter does cause me to question why I bother to write and post this Journal at all.

In “Time to Give Back” I asked you to share your marketing and adversiting intel with the rest of us here via the Journal in either a comment or via email.

Crickets. Nobody responded. For some reason, that actually surprised me. Anyway, please don’t respond now. It’s fine, and lesson learned.

I also specifically invited Vincent Zandri to share his personal experience re marketing and advertising. Even though his video channel is not a how-to for writers, he went above and beyond and created a new video just to address this question.

Like me, Vin seems to know that helping other writers doesn’t harm the writer doing the helping, even when it isn’t something he normally does. Thanks, Vin, for being willing to share your personal experience with all of us. I watched and listened to the video and got a couple of ideas that hadn’t occurred to me before.

I recommend you watch Vin’s video to get some good ideas on marketing. Go to https://www.youtube[dot]com/watch?v=-uv6qTgXG_Q. Then check out his books below.

I’ll be looking into some of the advertising platforms Vin mentioned in the video. If I have any thoughts on them that I think might be helpful, I will share them.

YouTube and Plots

Vin also has me thinking of maybe starting my own YouTube channel. If I do, it will be to discuss the more personal inside info of the plotlines and settings and characters of my books, etc. In other words, something pretty strictly for readers. With over 80 novels and novellas and well over 200 short stories, I could hit those three topics (plotlines, settings, and characters) for years.

Before anyone yells at me for mentioning plotlines, each of my stories and novels, like all stories and novels, has a plot (noun). I just don’t “plot” (verb) my books, meaning laying out everything in advance and forcing the story, situations and characters to adhere to it.

As Bradbury says, “Plot is no more than footprints left in the snow after your characters have run by on their way to incredible destinations.”

True dat. And I’m not so insecure that I have to know (or even wonder) what will happen next in a story or novel. My job is to observe and report, not to make stuff up.

Talk with you again soon.

Of Interest

See “Business Cards and Job Titles” at https://killzoneblog.com/2023/06/business-cards-and-job-titles.html.

See “The Red Queen Effect — For Writers” at https://killzoneblog.com/2023/06/the-red-queen-effect-for-writers.html.

See “Pundits Weigh in on Gilbert’s Decision…” at https://www.thepassivevoice.com/pundits-weigh-in-on-gilberts-decision-to-pull-russian-set-novel-over-ukrainian-backlash/. Worthless POS control-freak busybodies. They can’t create anything themselves, so they devote their lives to tearing down everyone around them.

The Numbers

The Journal…………………………………… 660

Writing of Rose Padilla (WCG10SF5)

Day 1…… 4283 words. Total words to date…… 4283
Day 2…… 3963 words. Total words to date…… 8246
Day 3…… 1463 words. Total words to date…… 9709
Day 4…… 2445 words. Total words to date……12154

Total fiction words for June……… 12154
Total fiction words for 2023………… 110022
Total nonfiction words for June… 9420
Total nonfiction words for the year…… 118840
Total words for the year (fiction and this blog)…… 228862

Calendar Year 2023 Novels to Date…………………… 2
Calendar Year 2023 Novellas to Date……………… 0
Calendar Year 2023 Short Stories to Date………… 4
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………………………………… 73
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)………………………………… 9
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)……………………… 221
Short story collections……………………………………………… 31

I.M. An angel, my angel, left this earth on April 11, 2023 just before 10 a.m. My life and my world will never be the same.

Disclaimer: I am a prolific professional fiction writer. On this blog I teach Writing Into the Dark, adherence to Heinlein’s Rules, and that following the myths of fiction writing will slow your progress as a writer or stop you cold. I will never teach the myths on this blog.