How to Save a Starving Author Day

Do you know someone with a passion to write and a yearning to be successful, but not exactly overflowing with cash?

Do you have a friend with a fledgling writing business that needs publicity, a writer with articles to be published, but a name still to be made in the industry?

Here's your chance to help that someone out. You may not be able to promise them publishing contracts, or shower them with money to have them write your memoirs, but you can assist in getting their marketing train out of the station. Whether your contacts are business or personal they are all contacts and part of an extended, often global, network of people your writer friend would otherwise not be able to reach.

1. If your writer friend/aquaintance is doing the rounds of the free web-content sites in order to build a name for themselves and fatten their portfolio, do them a favour and click/comment/rate their articles. Some websites pay [admittedly small amounts] each time a writer's article is viewed, others offer no money but do provide the chance to get more articles out and used with the author's bio attached.
2. Add your friend's name and webpage url to your e-mail signature
3. Interact at their blogs
4. Pass on names/business cards to anyone you hear of that may need a writer
5. Post adverts on your company's electronic bulletin board
6. E-mail details of their writing services to all of your friends and ask them to pass on/click/recommend/publicise wherever they can
These are all simple, easy things to do that won't cost you more than a few minutes at a time, but could be the link between your struggling friend and the next level up in their writing business. For new starters in any industry, the costs of publicity can be enormous making word-of-mouth networking a valuable tool. For writers, who often start out as extremely part-time - bashing away at computers after everyone else has gone to bed or up before the dawn to get a head-start - and very much alone, the boost a friend can make to their efforts will be greatly appreciated.
You might even get a free coffee out of it!

For writers who have dutifully read all the above mentally making lists on which friends they can second into their personal publicity department, you too can follow this advice. Set aside time for "Save a starving author day" and start writing e-mails. Make as many past acquaintances as possible new friends with a catchy e-mail. Remind them who you are, provide a few friendly details on what you're doing and enlist them into your hunt for work. Just keep the promises of coffee to your closest circle of friends or you might end up spending more time at the café than at your computer.

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Trish is a freelance writer with desktop publishing, promotional material, content sourcing, location and information research, fiction critique and web group management skills tucked firmly into her workbelt. To find out about rates and other services, or to read more of her articles, visit Trish at http://beginningsmiddlesends.blogspot.com/ or send an email to wordcatcher@hotmail.com