Since 1994, Jim Rubart has worked with clients such as AT&T/Cingular, RE/MAX, ABC and Clear Channel radio though his company Jr2 Marketing, but his passion is writing fiction. He's also a photographer, guitarist, professional speaker, golfer, and semi-pro magician. He lives in the Northwest with the world's most perfect wife and his two almost-perfect sons. No, he doesn't sleep much. You can reach him at jlrudini[at]comcast.net

Marketing Is Everything? Then What’s Advertising? And PR?

Can you define and explain the differences between marketing, PR, and advertising? No? Don’t stress, even so-called experts get confused. This morning I saw this definition of marketing on a well-respected agent’s blog:

Marketing is advertising that is paid for, including ads in magazines, display units in stores, and things like postcards or posters.

Sorry, wrong answer. Thanks for playing; come back again sometime!

First, let’s throw out some quick definitions, then talk about getting the right attitude toward each of them.

• Advertising—Paid publicity: radio ads, TV ads, banner ads, postcards, bookmarks, billboards, display ads, end caps, posters, etc.
• PR (Public Relations)—Unpaid publicity: magazine articles, radio and TV interviews, feature stories, blog tours, newspaper articles, etc.
• Marketing—The umbrella over advertising and Public Relations. So marketing is ads and PR plus everything else. Everything.

If you’re a novelist, or aspire to be, you must realize everything you do is marketing, either positive or negative. Whether you like it or not, you are marketing yourself in every moment. Sorry to be crass, but you are a product and you are either enhancing the product or detracting from it all the time.

Remember, you’re always being watched—by publishers. Agents. Bookstore owners. Readers. And people are picking up positive or negative impressions of you every time you open your mouth; every time you blog, every time you write an e-mail, every time you give a book review. What is the image you want to convey?

If you’re going to a formal banquet, you gals plan the dress you’ll wear, the makeup you’ll use to complement your eyes or the color in your dress. Guys think about whether to wear a tie or just a sport coat sans tie. You’re presenting yourself, you’re marketing yourself.

And these days, with the Web, if you market yourself in a way you don’t like, tough. It’s there forever.

Let’s talk about the current monster on the Web: Facebook. Do you have a marketing plan on how you’re going to use Facebook? Most authors I work with say this, “Uh, yeah. I post a bunch on there, and then when my book comes out, I’ll post that it’s ready, give ’em a link, and I think a lot of my Facebook friends will buy it.”

That’s not a plan. That’s a hope. And here’s the real problem: Most of the posts leading up to the book announcement scream,

“Nothing to see here! Pretty mundane stuff! Not really worth taking a look!” It doesn’t matter if you have five thousand Facebook friends if you’re boring them to death.

Picture a room full of five hundred people. You’re lined up with thirty or forty other authors. Each of you is told you’ll have five seconds to walk out in front of the crowd and tell them something. Then you’re done. The good news is over the next hour you’ll get to stand in front of the crowd another thirty times, five seconds each time. What would your plan be? What would you say? That’s Facebook. And here are some of the types of posts I see an abundance of:

• “My dog just laid down for a rest.”
• “Had a great cup of coffee, this morning, wow it was soooooo good!”
• “Watched some TV tonight and vegged.”
• “Wow, it rained hard last night!”

Here are some of the other types of posts I’ve seen:

• “This has to be one of the best vids I’ve ever seen on YouTube.”
• “When you critique someone, are you Simon Cowell, Paula, Kara, or Randy?”
• “My new book cover. Love it? Hate it? Tolerate it?”
• “Great Hawaii trip with the fam. Pics of us on a zip line half a mile long and 600 feet above the ground. What kind adventures have you had lately?”

Think about that crowd of five hundred again. You get one more shot at them. You get ten seconds this time to promote your book. Whom do you think the crowd will be more interested in and be ready to listen to? The first group of posters, or the second?

Let me be clear. If you’re solely on Facebook to keep in touch with close friends, don’t worry about how you’re marketing yourself. It’s a great way to keep in touch. But if you see Facebook as a marketing tool, tell us about the interesting, funny, fascinating things about yourself. Engage us. Tell us about videos and articles and pictures and books that you think are worth exploring. You’re a writer. Be creative. It might be something common like the rain coming down hard, but tell us in a compelling, entertaining way.

Are there people on your Facebook page you skip over? Me too. Are there people you can’t help but stop and see what they’re saying at the moment? Me too. I think you get the point.

You don’t think you’re marketing every moment? You are. For good or bad.

I love talking about attitudes toward advertising and PR, but we’re out of time—so we’ll do it in a future column. Plus my cat just caught a mouse outside on the back deck. Gotta go right now and tell my Facebook friends all about it.