By Steffanie Costigan

September 26, 2024

Last Saturday I had the opportunity of participating in Word on the Street. Word on the Street is a local book/literature festival held by the library. It was so amazing to see the community come out and support local authors. 

Marketing is great but starting in your community first you will find success and awareness. Gaining awareness of your published works within your community is important and can you gain more momentum. It also helps you build connections with others, sometimes it’s who you know or meet that can make an impact within your marketing. 

For example, I got to meet a literature professor at the University who gave me his contact information. He offered an opportunity to come to the University and share some of my writing experience with the students. Participating in community events can help you grow more awareness of your book and get you opportunities you wouldn’t have gotten if you didn’t put yourself out there.

My advice to any author who is trying to market their book is to also put themselves out there within their own community as well as digital marketing. My most sales I have made in one day have been at community events. And I have been able to come into contact with so many people and more opportunities. You want to build your contacts as a published author. 

Also adventuring out into other communities is fantastic. Participating in community writing clubs is super important as well, also exploring different writing groups is good too. The group you find the most comfortable in visit consistently the authors and writers in the groups can help you further your writing skills and share information with you that you weren’t aware of.

It can be intimidating putting yourself out there especially as an author but continuing to try will grow your fruits. And when you do put yourself out there make sure you are presenting yourself professionally and enticingly that is very important. People are not going to take your seriously as an author if you are not presenting yourself as such. Don’t cheap out with how you present yourself. 

A quote I want to share to end this article is something I have learned by stepping out of my comfort zone and putting myself out there. “To be vulnerable – to really put yourself out there and lean into it – is to live courageously.” ~ Brene Brown

We are authors and world builders if we can make our character do courageous actions then we should be able to make courageous actions too, just remember that the next time you step out of you comfort zone and put yourself out there.