Mixing Genres and Mediums To Make More Money (Partnerships)

What do you think of when you think of comic books? Do you think of it as good writing, or good artwork? The truth of the matter is that (depending on the comic of course!) it's both. On rare occasions a comic creator is both the artist and the writer but in most cases you have different people doing the writing and the artwork--they are pooling their talents together to make something better than either one could make on their own. Some people have called this the 1 plus 1 equals 3 concept--I call it good teamwork, smart business and an overall good idea.

It's true that the creative process and the business process are very different things, but I never understood why people can't be creative when it comes to business--so long as it proves fruitful and delivers something of value. Some people appreciate writing, others appreciate art. Others appreciate poetry, others music. I've worked with a lot of poets in my line of work and one in particular comes to mind. I'll call him Mike. Sally was a musician who never wrote lyrics. She was very instrumental and could make some very catchy tunes. What happens when you mix poetry with instrumentals? You get songs. And that's what these two did. They put up a website that both of their already established fan bases could go to and the partnership did very well as both sides of the coin gained momentum from a fan base that they otherwise wouldn't have had exposure to.

Of course this isn't the only example that comes to mind. I knew a young lady who wrote science fiction stories who had a brother who was a very good science fiction artist. They toyed with the idea of creating a graphic novel series but found that they couldn't work together properly on a joint creative effort--but they did find a great middle ground--her brother started to illustrate her short stories. A few science fiction pictures inside the text can make a world of difference for the more visually inclined--and how many times do you hear that people would like to know the story behind a piece of art? The combination did very well.

In marketing it is very important to be specific in what you are offering--like we've talked about previously--if your market is everyone, your market is no one. You have to have what you are doing very clearly defined. But it is also a very good strategy to mix fan bases of different kinds by creating a product that several different groups could appreciate.

There is always something to be gained with a good partnership. People are finding out now perhaps more than ever that we can all go much farther forward together than separately. And good team work means that everyone brings something valuable to the table. When trying to add value to the lives of your readers by putting out a good product--exploring different means of giving them content is very important. And mixing genres of delivery has the potential to yield rewards that might be impossible to achieve through a single medium.

In the early 1900's the ice cream man and the waffle man at a fair mixed their products together to create the ice cream cone--think of how working together benefited all of us in that situation.

In the world of the 21st century, the equilibrium is much easier to attain. With the right combination everyone benefits--the audience, and the creators. And when done properly, there is no downside at all.

Questions and Answers: Driving Traffic To Your Writing Blog

This is a message I received from a reader of the blog on my facebook page.

(If you haven't liked the page yet, please click the link below!)

http://www.facebook.com/#!/MakeMoneyWriting21

Dear James,

I really like what you're doing here! I have been in several writer's groups and was a writing major in college and I feel like I know so many poor writers!

I have been writing for over 18 years now. Because of the Internet being so popular, I decided to start a blog for my writing about a year ago where I post my essays, short stories and poetry. I update the blog at least once, sometimes twice a week so it is very filled with content. By problem? Each post still, after a full year only gets 10-25 views! I feel like the blog hasn't grown and doesn't grow no matter how much content I put on it. Everyone always tells me that content will make a blog grow its audience, but that doesn't seem to be the case here, I tried. What do I do?

~Janice.

I had to write her back after reading this to find out some more information. This is more or less my reply.

Hey Janice,

Thank you for your kind words! I have a couple of questions, what is the title of your blog? How do you organize the content and what is the general theme?

Her reply confirmed my suspicions--because many, many authors make this very easy to make marketing mistake. It turns out her blog title was something clever and catchy with her name in it. However, the title of the blog made no mention of the type of content produced. In addition, her response to the theme question told me that she, like many authors, felt she didn't write about any specific theme and that her writing took on a much wider scope of topics. While this shows serious talent and breadth of knowledge--it is also the worst possible thing an author can do when trying to get new readers for their material. (Unless of course they already have an audience of thousands--in this reader's situation, that was not the case.)



This was my second reply:

Janice,

I have a couple of quick suggestions for you. I would reccomend starting a new blog--or three. One for your essays, one for your short stories and one for your poetry. Then I would examine the themes you write about most often--even the most diverse authors have specific things they come back to, even if they don't realize it. You might have a favorite character your short stories revolve around--you might be a fan of love poetry, or uplifting poetry (the themes can be lose) and you might write essays about politics, sociological issues or more. Just because they are not solidly defined into one genre doesn't mean there isn't a theme. For the next few weeks I'd try to focus on one of these blogs specifically, make the title of the blog clear and tag it with lots of things that will bring in readers interested in the theme of your content--online this is how our blogs generate new readers. Also--once you have a theme to pick from you can go to social media groups that have interest in your topic and let them know about your specific postings. An autism blog for example is more likly to generate more readers of autistic matters than a blog entitled "inset any catchy author name blog here" that happens to post about autistic issues--at least on a first glance (which is unforotnatly sometimes all anyone has to look at these days.) Also, link all three of these other blogs to your main blog--that will keep people who went to you for the topics coming back to you for the content so when you come out with books or audio files for sale your audience is much larger.



Best Wishes!

James.

Her response came about 3 days later.

James!

I just wanted to tell you that you were right. I had a favorite character that I based most of my short stories around so I focused on my fiction blog first. I posted 4 stories I had already written and then posted it around in facebook groups that were interested in my genre. I got nearly 100 views in my first day, and more than 100 on my second day posting. That's more than 2 weeks worth of views on my first blog! I'm also starting to get followers. Thank you so much!

These basic principles are the true core of gathering fans in the online universe:

Lead with your CONTENT not your name. (In the beginning, no one knows who anyone else is. They learn who writers are by their content...name recognition comes later.)

DEFINE what it is you are writing about (if you can't sum up your subject-matter, how is anyone else supposed to? You also can't properly promote what you can't define.)

I expect that Janice's writing are finally going to get the recognition they deserve. Your writing deserves the same recognition. So go out there and get the fans you have worked so hard for.

The $7500 Dollar-A-Month Poetry Blog

              You are probably wondering if you read this right. 7500 dollars in one month for poetry? Poetry? The art that no one pays for? Well, I've seen it happen personally. It's real, it works, it just takes a little bit of creativity. The prime example that comes to mind is someone we shall call Julie.

                Julie was a poet--she mostly wrote love poetry. True it might be sappy, love poetry certainly isn't original, and maybe people won't go out to the book store to buy volumes of it. But on the Internet? You wouldn't BELIEVE how many people search for them when they are in this mood or that mood--same reason why so many love songs on the radio become greatest hits. At first, Julie just started a simple free blog to post her poetry. She tagged it properly so it would show up in search engines and after only a month or two she had thousands of people viewing her work.

                That's not even remotely close to where it ends though. People started writing to her in response to her poetry--some people started showing her poetry of their own. So she decided to open submissions for some poetry that she would post on her blog--the submissions came pouring in. It was around this time that she signed up for google adsense--in case you haven't heard of it yet, it's a program that bloggers and website owners can use to place advertisements on the sidebars of their websites--for every click a reader gives on one of the ads, the owner of the blog/website makes a few cents. And google adsense is just one of many that can do this. For the first couple months, the adsense only came out to be a little bit--but it was still some extra money.

                It was around this time that Julie noticed Feb was only a short period away--we all know whats in Feb--Valentine's day--the time when love poetry is most desired. Julie went to a free printing service called lulu--put together a collection of her own poetry that she poised to set up for sale during valentines day. Beyond that--she set up a contest offering a modest prize in the form of a gift card to the winner for those who would send poems for her blog and she used a free polling service to post the finalist poems she selected and have her readers vote on it--the voting would only be open the week before valentines day and the winner would be announced on Feb 14th itself. She also assembled an anthology of love poetry based on the poetry she had published on her blog from other writers (with their permission of course) and posted dozens of her own poems and their poems on the blog as free samples.

                It gets even better. Flowers are very popular during valentines day--arrangements, stuffed bears, etc are all the rave and people want to send them to their loved ones. Julie found out that some websites that offer delivery service also offer affiliate marketing--that is, she signs up for their program and posts direct links to specific packages on her blog in the sidebars--and if anyone who orders the products through her site she gets a portion of the proceeds. Knowing just how many people would be coming to her blog, and knowing that the poetry would put people into lovey dovey moods, she set it up so that it would only take one or two clicks for them to purchase her book, the anthology and any of a number of arrangements.

                The bottom line? Her website had over 35,000 hits in the two weeks before Valentine's day and the combination of sales from the two books and the affiliate marketing from the flowering websites brought her in over 7500 dollars. Not bad for one month's work. Now I know one could argue that it took her at least 6 months to set up the blog in a position in which it could drive this home--but the key to remember here is that it was only the month leading up to Valentine's day that Julie even put all that much work into what she was doing. The rest of the time she was just doing what she always did best--writing her poetry and sharing it via a well positioned blog with the rest of the world.

                And here is the point to remember--lots and lots of people have similar set-ups like this. It's far more common than one would think. There’s no giant hidden mystery for the formula—in fact it’s very straight forward. I’m not going to say that anyone can do it—because we all have different levels of dedication, time, ability, etc etc. But anyone SHOULD be able to do it—if they are motivated enough, write enough and are dedicated enough to getting their work out there—then there are literally no walls up that should prevent them from doing so—and making a profit from it at the same time.