When I was writing Project: Happily Ever After, I fantasized that a huge publisher would snatch up the book, roll out the proverbial red carpet, and give me publishing’s equivalent of the royal treatment.

Then reality hit. I was poor (relatively speaking) and I wasn’t famous. I wasn’t getting the royal treatment.

If I wanted people to find out about my book, it was up to me to make it happen. So I launched the Poor Woman’s Publicity Campaign, which included an extensive virtual book tour.

Initially, I thought a 25-site tour was a tall goal. Then I counted up the relationships I’d formed by blogging and networking. That’s when I realized I could reach that number easily. So then I shot for 50. Then I shot for 75. Then I figured I might as well go for 100. (What the heck, right?)

I now have 120 sites lined up, with more joining the tour every day. When all is said and done, the tour will reach a collective 100+ million readers. Here’s how I pulled it off.

I Got Over My Fear of Rejection

This asking for help business? It’s not my strength. I worry that I am a bother to people. I worry that I am bugging them. I worry that they are sick of hearing me talk about my book and asking them to help me sell it.

All I really want to do is sit behind my computer and type words. I don’t want to beg people to read those words. I just want them to accidentally stumble over them.

You with me? Good because I have something important to tell you. It’s this. Unless you are a hopeless spammer whose photo is hanging in the Narcissist’s Hall of Fame (not very likely if you are a professional writer), then people probably are not sick of hearing about you and your book. And if you want to wear clothes and have hot food to eat and a roof over your head and electricity to power the Goddess that is known as your computer, you need to promote those words.

These are the questions I asked myself before approaching other bloggers. These questions helped me get over my reticence of asking for help:

* Am I annoyed or negative in any way when I read a post on a blog, Facebook or discussion board asking for help? (No)

* Do I believe in my message? (Yes, which means it’s selfish not to share it)

* Will this help others? (Yes, so it’s selfish to keep it to myself)

* Has anyone even remotely hinted that I am nauseatingly self-promotional or that I talk about myself too much or that I might need to seek treatment for narcissism? (No, so my fears that people think this about me are probably unfounded)

* Am I practicing any of the annoying marketing techniques that I can’t stand when they are targeted at me? (No)

I Paced Myself

Starting about 3 months before book release, I asked 3 to 5 bloggers a day to join the tour. I started with my good friends and then slowly worked my way out to bloggers I knew less and less well. To add bloggers to the tour, I:

• Asked friends to introduce me to other bloggers. One blogging friend single handedly brought 10 bloggers onto the tour. Another blogging friend lined up some huge name bloggers for me (including one for the Huffington Post).

• I posted on my blog that I was looking for bloggers. I also posted to various discussion groups and boards that I frequent.

• Asked bloggers who ran in the same circles with me (for instance who spoke at a conference I attended) to join the tour.

• Asked every new Twitter follower who seemed to have a blog if he or she would like a review copy of my book.

• Asked every new blogger who joined the tour to spread the word about the tour or to put me in touch with other bloggers who might want to join.

Eventually, however, I had to face facts. I had to approach bloggers cold. And unless you are a spam bot, cold emailing is hard.

Check back tomorrow when Alisa shares her do’s and don’ts for approaching bloggers, plus how her efforts have paid off.

Alisa Bowman is the author of Project: Happily Ever After, which tells the story of how she went from the brink of divorce to falling back in love. She is also the creator of ProjectHappilyEverAfter.com, which is a gathering spot for recovering divorce daydreamers. She will be talking about her virtual book tour during the “Renegade Book Publicity” panel at the upcoming American Society for Journalists and Authors Conference in New York on April 29th. Ed. Note: I’ll be moderating a panel about ebooks at the same conference the following day, so come soak up all our writerly wisdom!

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Like many freelancers, I started out as a “writer-of-all-trades,” covering every subject I could think of. When I went fulltime in January, 1997, I was desperate for clips and experience. So I tried to come up with as many ideas as possible, pitching dozens of markets in the process.

About 18 months into my fulltime freelance career, though, I decided to change my approach. I no longer tried to write about any topic I came across that I thought I could pitch. Instead, I started to focus on a handful of topics that interested me personally, and that there were hundreds of high-paying markets for—namely, health, fitness, and nutrition—and began specializing in those areas.

In the years since then, I’ve met hundreds of other freelance writers, and have discovered that the majority of the ones who make a good living freelancing fulltime (say, more than $50,000 a year) have taken a similar approach. They specialize. Maybe they write about fitness and health. Or business and technology. Or food and nutrition. Or parenting and health.

But regardless of what they specialize in, they’re created niches for themselves. In a career that spans more than 14 years, I’ve found multiple benefits to specializing. As a specialist, you can:

1. Nail more assignments, even as an inexperienced writer. Specializing means that you have more depth in a subject than other freelancers, so you’re more likely to get an assignment than a writer new to the subject.
2. Make more money. Editors and other clients will pay more for experience—and if you ask for a higher per-word rate, you can justify it with the fact that you’re already well-versed in the topic.
3. Pitch timely story ideas more efficiently. When you’re freelancing, you have to be able to come up with timely story ideas, and specializing makes it easier to do so. You’re not trying to keep up on every subject out there, which is impossible anyway.
4. Save time researching and writing. As a freelancer, your time is your most valuable asset. When you specialize, you cut down on your research time because you’re not always getting up to speed on a particular subject. Sure, you’re always learning new things, but the “learning curve” is not nearly as steep.
5. Build a platform. Today, this is one of the biggest reasons to specialize. Specializing lets your build your brand, so to speak, and create a lucrative niche. You’re competing against millions of other freelancers. Developing a specialty makes you more memorable and helps set you apart.
6. Sell more reprints. Many writers don’t bother with reprints because typically the markets that purchase reprint rights don’t pay that well. But when you specialize, you can create an inventory of work you can offer to reprint markets, producing multiple sales. For example, in 2010, I had one reprint market buy seven stories from me for different issues throughout the year for a total of $520. Another reprint market bought five stories at $150 each. Reprints take little time to market, and that money quickly adds up!
7. Branch into other types of writing (like books, blogging, and corporate work). This is another excellent reason to specialize. I started out writing for magazines and newspapers. However, as a health/fitness/nutrition specialist, I’ve also coauthored books; ghostwritten books and book proposals; freelanced for companies like The Pampered Chef; and broken into motivational speaking on topics like healthy habits and stress management. None of those things would have happened if I didn’t have a strong niche as a health/fitness/nutrition writer.

However, let me make one point—specializing doesn’t mean you must only cover topics related to your specialty. I occasionally stray outside my niche, and enjoy covering topics that are completely new to me. But the majority of my work—whether it’s articles, books, ghostwriting, speaking, or reprints—all fall into my specialty, which makes me more efficient than a generalist, and means I make more money in less time. And for me, that makes specializing well worth it.

Kelly James-Enger is a speaker, author, ghostwriter, and freelancer who’s written more than 800 articles that have run in more than 55 national magazines. She’s the author of books including Goodbye Byline, Hello Big Bucks: The Writer’s Guide to Making More Money Ghostwriting and Coauthoring Books; Six-Figure Freelancing: The Writer’s Guide to Making More Money; and Ready, Aim, Specialize! Create your own Writing Specialty and Make More Money, second edition. Visit www.becomebodywise.com for more about her, or check out Dollars and Deadlines, her popular blog for writers who want to make more money in less time.

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