I’ve just finished reading Inbound Marketing and have gone from:

Ugh! Marketing!

to:

Huh! That’s kinda cool.

According to the book, the days of interruption based marketing – the thing that gives most of us (me anyway) the Ugh! reaction – are numbered. In its place, we can expect companies to take more active roles in social media.

Instead of pushing their message out to people (and interrupting people with unwanted ads) savvy inbound marketers will engage the people who are already talking about them or their industry and connect the dots from there, and they’ll do so, not by talking about their product or services, but by taking an interest in the people they’re connected to.

For writers, or anybody else with a message/product, this is great news. Instead of worrying about marketing your work, just be a good digital citizen, use your procrastination breaks to browse the social web and talk, learn, engage, make friends, have fun, and maybe even make a sale or two.