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Some Tips on Marketing Yourself As a Writer
by John Cantu
© HumorMall.com

"If it Was Easy Everyone Would Do It"

In another ezine I subscribe to, there recently seemed to be an inordinate amount of bickering about the drudgery of marketing. People were complaining about the time it took and about how thick the Writer's Market was (a US publication listing markets for writers of all types), and how small the print was, and quack. . . quack . . quack. The following is my slightly edited response:

About a week or so ago so there was a lot of ranting and raving about marketing. Let me tell you how this week has been so far (written Wednesday May 31, 2000):

On Monday got a check for $750 for writing material for a lawyer who had to give a five minute humor presentation to his firm on being named partner. Time spent was working for him was four hours and 52 minutes.

On Tuesday got a call from a buddy who is the new editor of a web ezine and wants me to write two 300-word columns a month for $50 each.

Today I got an email from a professional comedian who wants to talk to me next Tuesday about some material he needs. Also a call from a speaker client who wanted to check on the progress of my adding humor to her two day seminar script. And had to call a wanna be comedian to tell her I couldn't start work cause her tape hadn't arrived yet.

Now, you may be thinking, 'Damn I'd like to be in Cantu's shoes right now.' Okay, but how did I get here? In 1968 I read in Writer's Market that cartoonists bought ideas. (By the way I was astounded that people criticized the book for being dull. It is such a great resource to find a lot of buyers in one place. It is reference not entertainment - - - it's like criticizing the phone book for having lots of characters and no plot.)

Any how to make a long story short, I tried to write cartoon ideas - found I couldn't write funny stuff on purpose - gave it up for two years and then discovered a technique in 1970 that enabled me to start to write humor on demand. (Read Thirty Years of Comedy/humor Writing - Some lessons Learned for the full story on my two year hiatus from comedy writing and my discovery in 1970 that showed me how to write unlimited humor, keeping me from ever being bothered by writer's block again. Available in InnerSanctum - HUMOR WRITING TECHNIQUES: #3 or by purchase of CANTU'S COMEDY WIT AND HUMOR WISDOM , $29.95 - 265 pages PDF Ebook Click here for more info and order link.)

I submitted cartoon ideas on daily basis, 10-20 ideas in a batch to maybe over 100 cartoonists (and for some artists it was multiple submissions cause as soon as a batch came back I sent another one out) and got my first sale nine months later - $5. I had spent 10 or 20 times that in postage but it never occurred to me to complain about the wasted time or money.

You can discover markets anywhere but I found my market needs by researching in Writer's Digest and then submitting to likely buyers; writing to other artist care of magazines; subscribing to cartoon trade journals - in other words in the beginning I expended a lot of time, money, and effort for which I wasn't getting reimbursed. I didn't enjoy the market research. To be honest I despised it (still do) but how else could I find people to buy my stuff?

I sold $35 filler items to "Readers Digest" by submitting 20 items a week for 52 weeks. I read lots of back issues of "Reader's Digest" at the library to see what they were buying. Let me repeat, market research research is necessary. It is dull. It is boring. But it is necessary. I sold RD maybe six items that year - and like my cartoon efforts sold nothing the first nine months.

People get mislead by that old saw "Do what you love and the money will follow" - but what I have learned is: Do what you hate - market research and sales -- and the money will follow. THERE ARE NO SHORTCUTS.

"The dirty secret of marketing - IT NEVER ENDS!!!"

Remember this: No matter how big, how powerful, or how successful you become, you can never stop prospecting or marketing. A friend of mine sent me the May 27 sports section of the "Cleveland Plain Dealer." On page D2 was the following item: "WHEN WILL THIS END?- What was Tonya Harding thinking when she picked up trash for her community service? John Cantu of HumorMall.com knows. "Discard, discard, keep for living room, discard, keep for kitchen, discard, discard, keep for bedroom, . . . .."

I hate sports. But I wrote that line - for no money. A "San Francisco Chronicle" sports-humor columnist emailed me and said, "If you want to write some sports jokes and submit them, I will mention your web site every time I use one." So not only am I not getting paid, I am writing for free on spec! But I did it because the Chronicle has a circulation of 500,000. That was enough exposure for me. I didn't realize his column was syndicated throughout the country - Yes I am writing for no fee - but I am getting paid by getting my web address mentioned nationally.

HumorMall.com is not maintained by a web master or outside source. My partner and I created the web site up front, design it, write the content, and pay for the monthly web site hosting etc. It's all done by me and my partner. I have cancer and she is on total disability with a spinal cord injury in her neck. - We call ourselves "The Cripple and the Cancer Survivor Team"

You should be able to tell just from the front page of HumorMall.com what an inordinate amount of work it takes to make the web site look that professional BUT It is that professional look that can make a high powered lawyer feel comfortable paying me $150 an hour.