Marketing | Cathy C. Hall Writes

What I’m really pushing is you, I suppose, to get out there and explore YouTube. ‘Cause I’m convinced that YouTube is the face of the future in marketing and promotion. Yes, even for writers.

This morning, I read in my PWDaily about a 91-year-old grandma, Clara Cannucciari, who’s just garnered a book deal, thanks in large part to her YouTube and Facebook presence. Her grandson, Chris Cannucciari filmed her, cooking Depression-era dishes and talking about the lives and times of those difficult days. I couldn’t believe what a great job this Italian grandmother did in this segment (see her Youtube video and be amazed!). And now the grandson’s writing the book, Cooking With Clara.

I’m not very handy in the whole videocam world, but I think it’s time to quit watching and start doing. My bud, Bill Elder, who has a terrific vlog (It’s over there in my Favorite Detours), has snagged a ton of subscribers, and he’s doing some slam-up promotion for his voiceover business. I need to apply what’s left of my little gray cells and jump on that YouTube bandwagon. The sooner, the better. I ain’t getting any younger, you know.

And for those of you who thought you might be too old for Facebook (Okay, I’m including myself), I have two (or four) words: 91-year-old Clara. Stand back, grandma, I’m jumping in!

Normally I’d wax poetic about the snow we had in Georgia because that’s what Southerners do. But I’ve got too much writer-y stuff to catch up on, and too many interesting Things to Do for you.

Thanks to speaker Shelli Wells’ tips at the Springmingle conference, I’ve got a few tweaking tasks, like my website and my kiddie lit blog. If there’s one thing that everybody harped on all conference long, it was marketing yourself. You can check out Shelli’s Market My Words and get a few of those tips for yourself. And read all about her “Comment Your Butt Off” Contest and how you can win a free website building consult from Shelli.

If you weren’t the lucky winner in my Writer Mama Giveaway, you should scamper over to Christina’s Writer Mama blog and find out where she’s giving away a copy of her book today. Every day in March (Yes, every day) she’s giving her book away on a different blog. Seriously, Christina Katz is a marketing machine.

And, finally, maybe you’re like me and thinking about doing some actual, er, writing. I’ve got to get to work on my “what I learned from my dog and cat” stories for those Chicken Soup books (Stories due March 31st). It’s going to take some serious thinking to come up with anything I learned from Sally the crazy dog. I mean, let’s be honest. I already knew how to be crazy.