Anna Caig works with The Society of Authors, The Literary Consultancy and Jericho Writers, as well as one-to-one with many writers, delivering marketing training, coaching and mentoring.
These new workshops running in November 2021 are a way for writers at any stage of your career - whether you're a novice considering uploading that first short story to a blog, or an established author wanting to grow your readership - to learn effective marketing techniques in a way that's fun and all about connecting with readers who will love your work.
Workshop One
What’s your story? How exploring your writer brand works with your creativity
Tuesday 2 November: 7pm-8.30pm
Bringing together author branding work with exploring your creative motivations, this is an exciting workshop which explores the unique perspective you bring to your work, what inspires you to write in the first place, and how this insight can be used to start forming meaningful connections with readers and potential readers.
If the idea of becoming an ‘author brand’ makes you cringe, you’re not alone. It can feel awkward, unnatural or even like ‘selling out’. But it doesn’t have to be this way. An authentic author brand will reflect the inspirations behind your writing, and act as a great foundation for creative and engaging promotional work.
Testimonial from Michelle Matthews, writer: “I found training with Anna useful as part of my writing process. I’m not a published novelist (yet), but thinking about branding and marketing as I’m writing my first book means that the two things can inform each other as I go along. In fact, writing my brand story inspired some of the imagery I’ll be using in the novel!”
Workshop two
Marketing for writers – the fundamentals
Tuesday 9 November: 7pm-8.30pm
Whether you have a book launch planned or you’re just starting to think about publishing a short story on your own blog - and everything in between - this workshop will provide you with the toolkit of essential marketing knowledge to start building connections with readers and potential readers.
This is all about taking good, strategic marketing principles and applying them in a way that works for creative people - demystifying the language and the processes, and exploring how to bring your creativity and passions into the way you promote yourself. We’ll also look at some practical ideas for content that can help you start to build a platform and invite readers into the world of your writing.
Testimonial from Libby Cutts, writer, says: “I came to Anna's workshop as a new writer thinking I might be rather ahead of myself - learning about brand and marketing before I have an agent, but I found it immensely helpful and interesting. The exercises on brand were particularly useful to a developing writer because it helped me to focus, to think about the kind of writer I want to be. These are topics that creative people would often prefer not to think about but I really came away feeling that what I learned did feed back into the creative work itself, giving it clarity and direction.”
Price: £15 per workshop/ £25 to attend both (they work well as a pair)
If there are topics you’d like to request for future workshops, please do email and let me know – this is a lower cost option for writers to work with me that I’m keen to develop over the coming months.
Your tutor
Anna Caig works with The Society of Authors, The Literary Consultancy, Jericho Writers, The Romantic Novelists' Association, Tŷ Newydd National Writing Centre, as well as one-to-one with many writers, delivering marketing training, workshops, coaching and mentoring.
She has worked in communications for 18 years, specialising in media relations, reputation management and strategic marketing campaigns, and began her training business to support writers to build their brand and reach more readers. She now works with traditionally, indie and self-published writers, as well as helping creatives in any discipline find a wider audience. Since setting up Anna Caig Communications, she has worked with over 250 authors to help them spread the word about their work in a way that is authentic to why they write in the first place.
Anna is the former Head of Communications at Sheffield City Council and tutor on the MA Journalism course at The University of Sheffield. She writes crime and historical fiction, and reviews books for the Sheffield Telegraph and on her blog.