Sometime launching a book can feel like casting a pebble into a stormy sea. Author, journalist and writing tutor Martin Cloake looks at how you can make your marketing experience far happier.

Mention the word ‘marketing’ and it invariably furrows the brow of aspiring writers. Its association with spin, with the style-over-substance culture, seems a long way from the creative process. One recent comment on a forum for writers summed up the mood “Sigh… Writers today have to have SO much focus on marketing etc that the writing is becoming the second thing. It’s backward.”

But, at the risk of coming across like a purveyor of marketing snake oil myself, you can make the marketing process work for you. I should at this point declare an interest, I run a one-day course called How to pitch and market a book, but the experiences I’ve had since my first book was published in 2004 have convinced me that writers could and should embrace the marketing process. Continue reading →