This is The Write Now Podcast with Sarah Werner, Episode 87: PR For Writers. 

Welcome to Write Now, the podcast that helps all writers, aspiring, professional, and anywhere in between, to find the time, energy and courage you need to pursue your passion and write. I’m your host, Sarah Werner. And in the past couple episodes, in episodes 84 and 85, I did a two part series on marketing. So what marketing is, what it means to do marketing as a writer, and some tactics and ideas for crafting your very first marketing campaign. In episode 86, I got slightly off topic by talking about what writers owe the world. But today we are getting back into, I don’t know, part three of talking about marketing.

 

So today we’re talking about something that I think a lot of us hear the word marketing and, okay, that’s familiar to us. We know that in our eyes marketing is a dirty word, which it is not, go listen to episode 84. But today we’re talking about a very niche aspect of marketing, and that is PR, public relations. So, “okay, Sarah, what the heck? What does PR mean?” If you’ve ever heard people talk about PR or public relations, you’ve probably heard giant corporations who have a PR manager who if the giant corporation makes a mistake or kills someone, or if something terrible happens, their PR manager will come in and give it a spin. That’s not what we’re here to do. So if you’re out there killing people and doing terrible things, stop. And PR… Well, I don’t know, maybe PR would help you. I was about to say PR is not going to help you. I don’t know, who am I to say.

 

But today we’re going to be talking about public relations and how that’s different from marketing, and why you as a writer, whether or not you’re published, you’re on your way to publication, or if you just have a story that you want to share, how it can be valuable for you. In the two part marketing episode, I talked about how marketing was all about building relationships, and PR is going to be very similar to that. And I want to take a step back and actually talk about what PR is, because it’s one of those nebulous, buzzwordy things that I think… We think marketing and we’re like, “Oh, ads or social media posts, or search traffic, something, something.” But with PR we’re like, “Is it like some vague handshakes going on in a secluded room? What is PR?”

 

So I went out to the Public Relations Society of America, PRSA, and here’s what these experts say that PR or public relations is. “Public relations is a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics.” Well, okay. That’s kind of what I said marketing was, which it is. And I’m going to stick to that. Marketing is building relationships between you, and in this case you are the organization, and your audience, your public, as the definition says it, your ideal reader or the person who is going to pay you money for whatever art it is that you’re creating.

 

I love very vague definitions, like the one here from the PRSA. They use so many words to say so very little. I don’t know, we communicate strategically to build relationships. It’s like, “Yeah, that’s what going on a date is.” The Princeton Review has a definition that I like a little bit better. And it says, “A public relations specialist is an image shaper. Their job is to generate positive publicity for their clients and enhance their reputation.” And that’s really, I think, the sense that I’m used to hearing about public relations in, is that focus on shaping the image, twisting the story, generating positive publicity, enhancing reputations, mitigating damage.

 

I feel like that definition is a little bit clearer. And okay, Sarah, you might be saying at this point, “Why are you talking to us about PR?” I’m not a corporation that needs to have its image shaped, correct, but I’m going to go back to The Princeton Review for a clearer look at the type of PR we’re going to be talking about today. And that is, “Developing strong relationships with all the players in your social graph.” Okay. So these aren’t necessarily going to be the same relationships that we built in episodes 84 and 85 when we were talking about marketing. The relationships that we built in our marketing talks were from you as a writer to your audience.

 

Today, what we’re going to be talking about is everybody’s favorite word, networking. Yeah. I tricked you a little bit and I’m sorry about that. We’re going to be talking today about PR, which is actually networking. Or if I want to put a little bit of a PR spin on this, we’re going to be talking about making friends with your peers. Here’s why we’re talking about this. You can’t passively wait to get discovered. I know that this is a dream for so many people. You’re sitting in your house and suddenly there’s a knock on your door, or your phone rings, or you get a text message, or you get a mention on social media. And all of a sudden someone is saying, “Oh my gosh, have you heard of… insert your name here. This person is a genius, and everybody must know about them immediately.”

 

And all of a sudden there’s paparazzi around you taking pictures, and you’re walking down a red carpet, and people are throwing fistfuls of money at you. And it’s amazing. And you’ve been discovered with a capital D. We’re told, I think, in not so ridiculous or specific terms, that it works that way. You hear about models getting discovered, you hear about singers getting discovered. One little video on YouTube and all of a sudden you’re an overnight sensation. But do you have time to wait? I didn’t. Maybe it’s because I get impatient. Maybe you’re impatient. Maybe you’ve been writing for years and years, and nobody is recognizing you in the way that you want to be recognized. Maybe you haven’t been discovered yet in any sense of the term. Maybe you haven’t been published yet. Maybe you can’t get an agent to look at you.

 

We can’t sit around and wait to be discovered, because if you’re doing that, you’re assuming that someone, A, is looking for you, and B, that they know where to look to find you. Because if you’re going to get discovered, somebody has to know about you. You have to make yourself discoverable. And that’s what we’re going to be talking about today, that’s PR. And it’s different from marketing because marketing, we were talking about you and your audience. In PR, today, we’re going to be talking about you and the people around you who have the ability to help you essentially get discovered or to become discovered, or whatever language you want to use. Today we’re going to be talking about, how do you become known? How do you become, for lack of a better term, famous? That’s right. I said it, I said famous.

 

Years ago I took a fabulous PR course by Laura Roeder, the person who is behind MeetEdgar, which is a social media scheduling tool. And her course was called Creating Fame. And I was really embarrassed about taking it because it seems very silly and very childish to actually admit to anyone outside of the quiet of your own brain, that you want to become famous, that you want to be known, that you want to be sought after and requested, and that your presence is demanded. And while I wasn’t interested in necessarily the red carpets or the paparazzi, or whatever else comes to mind when you say the word famous, I was interested in how some names and some personalities, and some people seem to get noticed or discovered more than others.

 

Okay. Scale of one to 10, how uncomfortable are you right now thinking about being famous or even being known? How uncomfortable does that make you? Whether you’re an introvert or an extrovert, some people are more comfortable with attention, some people are less comfortable with attention. Some people think they’re not ready for it yet. Some people think that it is beyond their reach. Maybe you are one or all of these. And yes, being seen and becoming known carries a certain degree of discomfort with it. Because when you’re out on display, people see you. And when they see you, they see the whole you. I’ve started doing live streams every week. And I’ve talked about these in other episodes, but it’s really hard to let yourself be seen, or it is for me at least.

 

I’m always 40 pounds too heavy. I don’t have straight teeth because we couldn’t afford braces. I’ve got my quarantine hair that’s growing out into a quarantine monster. All of these vulnerabilities, all of these perceived weaknesses in ourselves invite in our mind’s criticism. And being seen, being known, being famous, puts you in the crosshairs of criticism. And that’s the real downside to being seen, is that when you put yourself out there, when you put something that you’ve made out there, you run the risk of people criticizing it. You run the risk of people saying, “I don’t care for that.” Being seen and being known sets us up to be judged, and judgments are not always kind. In fact, they are seldom kind.

 

As I’ve been working more and more on this podcast and other creative projects that I have going on, I’ve gotten a lot more negative feedback. I’ve gotten a lot more people saying not great things about me. And yeah, people say a lot of unfair and unkind things if they don’t know you. They make snap judgements because they don’t know any better. Or they maybe feel some negative emotions arising within themselves, perhaps jealousy, perhaps envy. Or perhaps you’re simply reminding them that they’re not living up to their full potential and they take it out on you. All of this is to say, if you want to become known, if you want to become famous as a writer, as a creator, as a teacher, as a speaker, whatever it is, it’s not a purely comfortable journey, but it is depending on your definition of success, very, very much worth it.

 

Now, if your definition of success as a writer is to simply sit at your desk and writing things you enjoy, and you don’t care if you make money doing it, you don’t care if people see it, you don’t care if you sell the rights to make a movie, you don’t care about any of that, then PR is not for you and this is not a good way to spend your very precious and valuable time. I want to say that just… Well, I say I want to say that right up front, but we’re like already many minutes into this episode. So I want to say PR is not for everybody, but if you’ve been doing marketing and you’re frustrated at the lack of visibility that you’re having, if you are doing speaking gigs and you’re just not in the space that you want to be, you’re not in the space that you are as known as you want to be, or as famous as you want it to be, then that’s what we’re going to talk about.

 

So what makes someone known? What makes someone famous? Like I said earlier, I really enjoyed Laura Roeder’s Creating Fame PR course. And she says in that course that essentially fame isn’t something you either have or don’t have, it’s not an intrinsic quality, it’s something that you intentionally build. So it’s not contingent upon something that’s already within you. PR comes from the actions that you take. The other thing I’m going to talk about from her course was these four elements of what makes someone known or famous.

 

And those four things are number one, who they associate with on and offline. So who do they surround themselves with? Number two, the social proof that’s going on about them. So testimonials, quotes, case studies, that kind of thing. Number three, either you know their name or you hear their name, or read their name a certain number of times and it begins to stick and you know of them. So if I say the name Danielle Steel, you’re probably going to know that’s a very prolific author. She’s quite famous. She’s quite well known. If I hear that name, I immediately know and understand who we’re talking about. And then number four, the stories about that person.

 

So who they surround themselves with on and offline, social proof in the forms of testimonials, quotes, et cetera. Number three, you either know their name or you hear their name or read their name often. And then number four, there are stories about a person, almost like they’re a myth or a legend. There’s that whole story about Picasso doodling in a park and a woman asks, “Hey, can I buy that cocktail napkin that you’ve just sketched on?” And he’s like, “Of course, that’ll be 70 bazillion dollars.” And she’s like, “But it’s just a little sketch on a napkin.” And he’s like, “Yes, but it took me my whole life’s experience to get up to this point where I could draw it for you.” So that’s a story that goes around about a person.

 

So all four of these elements are elements that you as a writer, as a creator, have control over. What stories are going around about you? Which of these stories are you creating and curating? And who is hearing what about you? I like to boil down PR into essentially getting the right people to hear the right things about you. And the absolute number one best, absolute best way that you could do this is by making friends with those people. Okay. So how do we do that? We can’t exactly just walk up to our favorite author and be like, “Hey, let’s be best friends.” And they’re like, “Okay, hooray.” And then you link arm and arm and you go skipping down on Aspen Lane. That’s not what I’m talking about. We have to get you to the point where this will happen.

 

So number one, create good stuff. And you should be doing that anyway as a writer. You should be putting your heart, and your soul, and your pride, and your emotions, and all of these things into the thing you’re creating, because that work is going to speak for you. You can’t just dash off a book and say, “Okay, now I’m ready to get famous.” No, you have to make something good that is worth talking about. So creating some kind of good signature work. For most writers I feel like this is already a fire that’s inside of you. You already want to create something amazing.

 

If you have trouble understanding what makes you a great writer, or if you’re still getting there to becoming a great writer, because it takes time. It took me a ton of time, decades. And I don’t even know if at this point I’d say I’m a great writer, but that’s a whole separate talk for another day. If you’re not sure what that spark is yet, go back to your writer’s mission statement. I have a Write Now Podcast episode that I refer to a lot, episode 46, Crafting Your Mission Statement. If you haven’t done it already, go ahead and craft your mission statement. You’ll need it for all of your marketing stuff anyway. And if you already have it, read it over. It’s a really great reminder of what you want to create, why you want to create it, and what change you want to make an effect and see in the world around you. That’s going to give your work meaning and purpose, and it will help your work stand out.

 

So step one in this journey, make good stuff, create good work that’s worth talking about. Step two, know your audience. This is all part of the marketing that we talked about in episodes 84 and 85. Know who your audience is, brand your work and market it. Use your face, use your name, or if you are working under a pen name, use your pen name. And if you don’t want your face to be seen, that is totally okay. In the case that you’re not using a photo of your face, get a logo. And it can be simple. I made my own Sarah Rhea Werner logo in a… I shouldn’t admit this, but I made it in PowerPoint. You can make your own in Canva, which is C-A-N-V-A. And it’s out at canva.com. That’s a free software you can use just to make a letter mark or a logo for your name.

 

You can also get them professionally done. You can get them done on Fiverr. You can ask a friend who’s a graphic designer for a trade in favors. Maybe do some copywriting for them, maybe they make you a logo. But you just need some kind of brand element that you can market your stuff under. Again, a lot of writers do this with a certain font. If I say, “Oh yeah, the Stephen King font,” you’re going to think of like, “Oh yeah, that thing that looks like Stranger Things, that logo that red against the black.” Or like we said earlier, Danielle Steel, you can think of that sort of loopy elegant font. And I think at least in the books that I always shelved at the library, her name was always in the puffed up gold embossed look. So we definitely associate those with the brand of the writer and what it is they create. And it helps it stick in our minds.

 

So okay. Creating great stuff, making sure that you have a solid brand that communicates effectively with your ideal audience or your prospective audience, check and check. Now, this is where marketing and creating turns into the PR side of things, because number three, and this is the hard one for a lot of us, number three is to reach out. This is the PR part of things. This is where we make friends and create our own opportunities. So in the two marketing episodes that I did, we talked about building a bridge or a network or a relationship between you and your audience. Whether the audience exists or if it’s just a perspective audience or an ideal audience, we talked about building that bridge. When I say reach out, I’m not talking about reaching out to your potential readers, listeners, viewers, et cetera. I’m talking about reaching out to your peers and other professionals.

 

Hey Puff. Meow she says. This is not snuggle time, this is podcast recording time. Yeah. But yes, we were talking about reaching out. So when we talk about opportunities, we’re sort of going back to the very beginning of this episode, when I said you can’t passively wait around to get discovered. Opportunity is not going to come knocking. If you are hiding, if you are shutting yourself away and not letting yourself be seen or known, opportunity is going to go and find someone else. I want to be so very clear about this because I have spoken to so many angry, jaded and bitter writers, who sit at home and wait. Opportunities come from people who know you or from people who have heard of you. That is where opportunities come from. Sometimes those people are friends, sometimes they’re acquaintances. And sometimes they are people you have networked with, who you have interacted with in a PR friendly way, which we’re going to talk about. But all opportunities come from other people.

 

It’s not like that thing where some stranger knocks on your door unexpectedly and you get a giant check. I was at the publisher’s clearing house and I was like, “Man, I can’t wait until I get my publisher’s clearing house check. I can’t wait until opportunity comes and finds me.” Unfortunately, or maybe it’s not unfortunately, you’ve got to seek these out, they’re not going to come find you. Or hey, if you’re incredibly lucky, maybe some guy with a giant check will come to your door and say, “Hey, you’ve been selected to be a famous writer. Come with me to Barnes & Noble so we can get you into a book signing outfit and you can sign all these books.” Maybe that will happen. But for the rest of us, we have to reach out.

 

So here’s what this looks like. And it might look a little bit different for everyone. For me reaching out and becoming known meant doing speaking gigs. And I started very small. I started at the public library. You can do community classes, talking about story structure, talking about writing your memoir. I started out locally talking about leadership and tech. Apparently, public speaking is the number one fear among most people. I don’t know, I like public speaking. It’s exciting for me. But if it’s not for you, rest assured there are many other ways you can reach out, create opportunity, form relationships, and to become known. So for me it was speaking gigs. For other people it might be guest posts on blogs, or guest spots on a podcast. For other people it might be interviews, whether you’re doing the interviewing or you’re the one being interviewed. That’s a fantastic way to become known.

 

Another way is contacting your contacts, and continually building your list of contacts. I do this in a spreadsheet. I have an opportunity spreadsheet and it’s changed over the years. When I first started the spreadsheet, probably about four or five or six years ago, I was looking for guests for the Write Now Podcast for the coffee break segment. I think I started doing those in 2015? I would have to look and I’m very, very much too lazy to do that. But I was thinking like, “Oh, I could reach out to all these people and they could come be on my podcast.”

 

And so I started this spreadsheet of the name of a person, their website, their Twitter handle, or their Instagram handle or whatever it was, some kind of social media handle. An email address from their website, like info@famous author, whoever, .com. And then maybe a few extra columns of like, have I reached out to them? Have I invited them to be on my show? Did they say yes or no? Or please never contact me again. Did I actually get a hold of somebody? Did I get their assistant? Did I get a form letter? What did I get?

 

So asking to do guest posts, asking to do interviews, your local TV station, your local radio station. Maybe interviewing other people on a podcast that you’ve started. Doing speaking gigs on your subject of expertise. For me, I started out speaking about female leadership and tech because that’s where I was at the time. And I ended up speaking mostly about podcasting and storytelling, which is kind of where I am now because my expertise has changed over the years. And then reaching out and contacting these contacts. They can be people that you don’t know at all. So I remember for me on my list was Seth Godin, Austin Kleon, William Gibson, just all of these really big pie in the sky people who I considered to be celebrities. I put them on my list anyway. Other people might be the program coordinator for your local library, some kind of community liaison or leader. Just really working through, who is it? Who leads this conference? Who helps coordinate this conference, if conference speaking is what you want to do?

 

Now, when you reach out to people there’s a million different ways that you can interact with them, but there’s two main ways that you can choose to interact with the people on this contacts list. And for those of you who are like, “Oh my gosh, I don’t even know where to start with this contacts list,” that’s okay. Maybe brainstorm with another writer. Maybe that other writer that you know is at the top of your contacts list. And you can say, “Hey, what other writers do you know? What agents do you know? What people, who in publishing do you know?”

 

And again, who you put on this list will depend on what you want out of your PR experience. So for me, with where I am right now, I’m not necessarily looking for traditional publishers. And so I’m not really interested in adding those people to my list of contacts, but I am interested in other indie podcasters. I’m interested in indie authors, all of that stuff. And so you’ll want to curate your list of people based on what you want to do with that set of people. And it won’t be big at first. I had maybe three or four people on my list at the very beginning. And that was okay, it’ll take a while. It’s not like you’re going to hit the ground running with thousands of people. This will take time.

 

But there’s two different kinds of ways that you can interact with people when you email them, when you direct message them, when you meet them at your next conference, which is harder to do because right now when I’m recording this we are in a quarantine, and all of the conferences going on right now are digital. But the two ways you can interact are as a fan and as a peer. And there is a huge difference that I did not know about until I started interacting with people on a large scale. And I started attending multiple conferences a year. And I started spending a lot of my time traveling and understanding how these things work. When I started interacting with people I really admired in my field, I started interacting as a fan because I saw myself as less than these other people.

 

And you know what, in the eyes of society and probably also myself, because I have very low self esteem, I was, I was a nobody. Everybody feels like a nobody, that’s the secret. When you interact with somebody on your list like a fan instead of a peer, you’re acting like they’re doing you a favor by noticing you. And this gets really weird and really hard to talk about, but I noticed this change in how I was interacting with people. The first time I met somebody who I would consider someone famous in my eyes, maybe not in the grand scheme of the whole entire world, but somebody who I considered famous, I just totally lost it. I totally fangirled. And I was like, “Oh my gosh, I can’t believe I’m reading you, blah, blah, blah.” And it was very indulgent. And it was very all about my experience meeting them.

 

So approaching somebody like a fan. And this is really hard to talk about because, again, I did this a lot, and I’m a little embarrassed about it. By asking to have your pictures taken with them, asking them for proof that you’ve met, asking for autographs, that kind of thing. Interacting like a fan usually means that you want something from them. I think a lot of it comes down to give and take. And if you approach somebody as a fan, what you’re doing is putting yourself into a position where you’re saying, “Hello. I want something from you. I want some of your fame to rub off on me. I want to be known like you are known. I want to be in your presence. I want you to autograph this. I want you to notice me. I want you to dot, dot, dot.” And I don’t want to crap on fans when I say that, because I am a fan of so many things. And I have very much fangirled over many people. And I think maybe even cried a couple times.

 

So if you are there in fan territory with me, you know how it is. It can be very overwhelming to meet somebody who you’re a fan of. But if you’re going to be doing PR, and if you are going to make this person one of your networking contacts, you need to approach them not as a fan but as a peer. So you need to approach them, and I know this is hard, but with confidence. That’s number one, is confidence. And by confidence, I don’t mean acting like a cocky jerk. By confidence I mean just knowing that you are a person of equal worth to the person that you’re talking to. It can be really hard when you are in the presence of somebody whose name you know and whose work you admire. But one of the things you have to remember is at the end of the day you are both creators on the same playing field.

 

So instead of wanting something from this person, wanting to take, come to it with an attitude of giving. And I don’t mean… This is just so delicate, and talking about PR is such a difficult subtle thing to do, because it is so easy to overdo it either way. It’s so easy to be sycophantic. It’s so easy to be a condescending jerk. I have had so many people come up to me at podcast and conventions and explain to me what podcasting is, because they want to seem smart, they want to seem like experts. But really what it does is it turns me off, and I’m like, “Wow, this person is very condescending. I don’t want to be friends with them. I don’t want to network with them. They think I don’t know what I’m doing. That’s very condescending, that’s very insulting.”

 

So when you show up and you talk with someone as you would a peer, what you’re doing is you’re acting like a friend. And you’re not taking, rather you are being yourself with them, trying not to fangirl a little too much, and just being a normal person with them, understanding that you are on their level and that you’re allowed to talk to them. Again, this is a little bit easier to do at creator meet and greets and in-person conferences, but you can also email people and just say, “Hey, I really like and respect what you’re doing. And I just wanted to shoot you a quick note and introduce myself. Hello, I’m Sarah. I’m the creator of the Write Now Podcast, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.” If I were to approach that as a fan, I would say, “Oh my gosh, I love your work, 19 exclamation points. Can you please send me a free t-shirt and also come to this party I’m throwing so that I look cool?”

 

So there’s a very, very, very, very, very thin line between interacting with one of your contacts or hopefully contacts to be as a fan versus as a peer. And I know this all sounds really mean and cruel when I say it, and I hate that, but I also want to be honest with you about what it means to put yourself on the same playing field as the people whose fame you hope to emulate. It’s very easy to make a spreadsheet and put Danielle Steel, William Gibson, Jeff VanderMeer, all these famous writers onto your list. Contact them, get back emails from their assistants saying, “Thank you for your email. This person is very busy. Goodbye.”

 

I know it can feel very disheartening, and it can maybe feel like you’re not getting anywhere and that you should give up, but you shouldn’t give up. Don’t give up because the final key that I want to leave you with in addition to doing all the guest posts, interviews, speaking gigs, contacting people, reaching out, making friends, all of that good stuff, is that the people who are famous now might not be the people who are famous when you become famous, or known, or seen. It’s easy for us to look at people who have been in the limelight for decades, like Jennifer Aniston, like Gwyneth Paltrow. The people on magazine covers they’ve been well known for years and years and years, and reaching out to them might prove to be very fruitless. But it wasn’t an accident that I talked about treating people like your peers, because I want you to look at who are your peers right now, who are other writers, who are other creators, who are people who are just now getting into being literary agents who can rise together with you?

 

I noticed this when I first got into indie podcasting, that a lot of the names I was hanging out with were not famous, they were just indie creators like me. I wasn’t famous, I’m still not famous. But I recognized that they had a tremendous amount of talent and I wanted to hang out with them and learn from them and contribute to their success. This is what I call the up in commerce. If you look back at old photographs of movie stars, or stand up comics, or writers, a lot of them weren’t all super famous when they met each other. Chances are you are friends right now with somebody who in five years, 10 years, 15 years is going to become a very well known name. I learned this back when I was working for a marketing agency, and I became friends with some very cool people who I loved. And I’ve watched them over even just the past five or six years that I’ve known them.

 

One of them is now the mayor of the city that I live in. One of them is now actively pitching scripts in Hollywood. One of them is the head of the Business Bureau. One of them is the editor of the City Newspaper. They weren’t that when I met them, they were just cool smart people who had bright futures. So make friends with people at all levels. If you want to, you can reach out to super famous names. Chances are they have an assistant, or they have some kind of roadblock in their way that allows them to maintain some semblance of order and privacy in their lives. But think about the people who are at your level right now and where you’re all going to be in five years, especially if you become friends and you work and rise together. I really think that’s the key.

 

The other key of course, is being willing to ask for what you want, whether it’s doing a guest post for a website that you admire. Whether it is being on somebody else’s podcast, whether or not it is doing an interview with a local TV station, radio, newspaper, magazine, special interest pamphlet, what have you, doing speaking gigs, getting in on the ground floor of a conference or an online seminar kind of thing, contacting people, just introducing yourself and saying, “Hey, I really like your work. I’m Sarah. And I’d like to be friends going forward.”

 

The worst thing that can happen is that they say no. And if you go back and you listen to episode 60 of the Write Now Podcast, it’s called Make Them Tell You No. And it encourages you to reach out in this exact same way, make them tell you no. Thinking about who you want to add to your contacts, speakers, authors, conference organizers, agents, publishers, ask them for what you want. But do it in a way that establishes you as a peer in their eyes and not as a fan. Be yourself, be honest.

 

I hope this episode was helpful. I know that it changed a lot in my life and my personal growth and my career as a creator, when I started embracing PR, when I started embracing, reaching out, reaching for opportunities, making friends with people who were in a place to offer opportunities. Again, this all comes back to where you want to be. You might not want to do public speaking, and that is absolutely fine, but there is something that you want. There’s an opportunity that you want. In PR reaching out to your peers, making friends. Because yes, it’s better that way, if you actually can say “Yes, my good friend, Travis, or my good friend, Paul or my good friend, Stephanie.” It just feels a lot better.

 

This is the third part in my two part marketing series. So I hope you’ve enjoyed it. I’m going to get back to talking about the more creator focused creative work, life balances side of things over the next few episodes. But for now I hope that this has been helpful. PR is not a thing that I’ve seen a lot of writers talk about. And so I thought I would do that. Special thanks go out this week to all of my beautiful and amazing supporters out on Patreon. Patreon is a secure third party donation platform that lets you pledge a dollar per episode, $2 per episode, $10 or $20 or $20,000 per episode, however much you feel is right for you. You can do that by going to Sarahwerner.com. That’s S-A-R-A-H-W-E-R-N-E-R.com. Going to the show notes for today’s episode, episode number 87, and scrolling to the place where it says help support this podcast.

 

Alternatively, you can go out to patreon.com/sarahrheawerner, that’s S-A-R-A-H-R-H-E-A-W-E-R-N-E-R, all one word, and make your pledge. I specifically want to thank patrons Amanda King, Amanda L. Dixon, Julian Vincent Thornburgh, Laurie, Leslie Madsen, Michael Beckwith, Regina Calabrese, Sean Locke, Susan Geiger, Tiffany Joyner, Leslie Duncan, Rebecca Werner, and Sarah Lauzon. Thank you all as always so much for your continued love, support, and financial generosity. I truly appreciate you. And I would not be able to produce this show without your support. So thank you.

 

Again, if you want to join their ranks, I would deeply appreciate it if you did so. Go out to sarahwerner.com or patreon.com/sarahrheawerner, and you can donate there. I’m going to this short because you have things to do, you have people to get in touch with, you have people to meet, you have discomfort to overcome. 

 

So I’m going to say with that, this has been episode 87 of the Write Now podcast, the podcast that helps all writers, aspiring, professional, and otherwise, to find the time, energy and courage you need to pursue passion and write. I’m Sarah Werner, and I know you can do this.