Guest Post by Penny Sansevieri | Sept 3, 2022
Want to know the key to successful book marketing for self-published authors? A strong understanding and connection to your readers.
It’s surprising how many authors start marketing their books without knowing who they are writing them for. If you’re writing fiction, this is particularly important because there are subgenres and tropes that can make or break your book. You want to ensure you are reaching out to the correct people and not wasting your time in places your readers don’t visit often.
Even worse, I’ve spoken to authors who don’t know their genre or have written for a genre that doesn’t exist! That’s like trying to sell your book to thin air- those readers don’t exist! Let me say this as clearly as I can.
If you’re wondering why your book isn’t selling, I can tell you that you are probably marketing to the wrong readers without even knowing what your book is about. People will not purchase something they don’t feel connected to.
Connecting with your readers, otherwise known as reader engagement, gives you longevity and should be the driver for all of your book marketing. That is if your goal is to determine how to sell books along the way.
Finding your perfect reader market and building those connections will take some trial and error, but it will be worth it! Remember, “marketing is first and foremost about connecting.”
Get creative, and put yourself out there!
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GUEST POST FROM:
Penny C. Sansevieri, Founder and CEO of Author Marketing Experts, Inc., is a bestselling author and internationally recognized book marketing and media relations expert. She is an Adjunct Professor teaching Self-Publishing for NYU. She was named one of the top influencers of 2019 by New York Metropolitan Magazine. Her company is one of the leaders in the publishing industry and has developed some of the most innovative Amazon visibility campaigns as well as offering national media pitching, online book marketing, author events, and other strategies designed to build author/book visibility. She is the author of 18 books, including "How to Sell Your Books by the Truckload on Amazon," "Revise and Re-Release Your Book", "5-Minute Book Marketing for Authors," and the newly-released “From Book to Bestseller.” AME has had dozens of books on top bestseller lists, including those of the New York Times, USA Today, and Wall Street Journal. To learn more about Penny’s books or her promotional services, visit www.amarketingexpert.com
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Additional Tips from The Historical Fiction Company:
People have to know who you are before they are going to take the time to read your book. The initial push, with press releases, blog tours, etc. gives the first impetus, but people forget quickly in today's society. So, you've got to make them not forget you. Take a cue from social media influencers, they never let a day go by without posting or saying something about their brand or themselves.
Content = Interest = Sales
(Content below from a Bowker post by Brian Jud - Brian Jud is a book-marketing consultant, Executive Director of the Association of Publishers for Special Sales (APSS – www.bookapss.org) and author of How to Make Real Money Selling Books and Beyond the Bookstore. Contact Brian at brianjud@bookmarketing.com or www.premiumbookcompany.com.)
You must create massively valuable content regularly. There are many, many ways you can do so, but any strategy will work as long as you follow the three key principles of this approach: 1) Provide Massive Value
We’re not talking about a little bit of value – we’re talking about MASSIVE value. Massive value means that your content actually makes a difference in someone’s life. After indulging in your incredible content, your audience should feel inspired, educated, or thoroughly entertained. They should remember that experience for days, weeks, months, and even years to come in some cases. 2) Provide It Regularly
It’s not just enough to give people a wonderful book or a wonderfully entertaining video once. You must regularly provide amazingly valuable content for your audience. “Regularly” should be at a MINIMUM weekly for most forms of content, but it might be daily or monthly depending on how easily and quickly it can be produced. 3) Create Value for YOUR Audience
Finally, you must create this incredible value for your audience – not random people who may or may not even care about your books or what you do. You want to create massive value for your audience who will be likely to purchase your books and share them with others. For example, if you write about historical figures, you ought to be creating content that is interesting and valuable to people interested in historical figures, thus the reason I am constantly asking for guest posts on the blog or posting blog articles on other people's blogs about my own writing. If you write historical biography novels, you ought to be creating content that’s valuable and interesting to people who read historical biographical novels. There are many, many kinds of content you can create and even more ways to distribute this content to your audience. The key is to pick one kind of content and only one distribution strategy and become the absolute master of that channel.
Kinds of Content
Written Word Audio Pictures / Visual Video All of these forms of content can be used, but you ought to focus on just one form of content and become the master in that arena.
One of our members at the Club on FB is a master at Youtube and now he has over 100,000 subscribers in just a year. You can bet his sales for any of his books is based on this kind of content.
Distribution Channels
The major distribution channels today in order of importance are: 1) YouTube & Tiktok
I believe YouTube and Tiktok are the most important channels because video is the most powerful form of content. Video is much more interactive and personal than written text, pictures, or even audio. Video combines the visual and auditory centers of your audience’s brain and will hold their attention better and allow you to convey even more information and entertainment in less time. A great example of someone creating amazing content and an entire business based only on YouTube marketing is Luxy Hair created by Mimi. Luxy Hair has over 132 million views on YouTube and almost 1 Million subscribers. YouTube is the only platform they use to distribute their educational content which has helped her create a massive online business. Remember what I said before – just focus on becoming a master in one platform! 2) Facebook
Facebook is incredibly powerful because it is the largest website in the world – over 1 billion people use Facebook regularly, and Facebook Fan Pages were created so that people like you can build an audience and stay in touch with them daily. This provides for some incredibly powerful ongoing relationship building and marketing if done well. Drew Canole’s Facebook Page Juicing Vegetables is a great example of someone who’s created a massive online brand using Facebook. Drew’s page has over 560,000 Facebook fans and it’s helped propel his book Juicing Recipes from FitLife to a #1 bestseller on Amazon with over 500 reviews averaging 4.5 stars and consistently ranked as one of the top 2,500 bestselling books on Kindle. How did he do it? He focused 100% on building his platform on Facebook! 3) Blogging
Blogging is incredibly powerful as well. It takes a lot more work than many other content distribution strategies simply because there are a lot of technical aspects you must understand far beyond simply writing blog posts. You can also create video posts for your blog as well as text posts. Tim Ferriss is a great example of someone who’s become a #1 New York Times bestselling author and built a massive platform and online business almost entirely through blogging. Tim’s blog is consistently ranked one of the top 25 blogs in the world. How did he do it? He focused 100% on blogging and provides the most incredibly valuable content and information on his blog that he possibly can. He also studied blog design and marketing intensely, and of course, applies what he learns. See Tim’s video on How to Blog without Killing Yourself to learn more. 4) Podcasting
Podcast shows are incredibly powerful, and many completely unknown people have become “famous” simply by creating an amazingly valuable podcast show. Podcast shows can be either audio or video or a mix, and your audience will download your shows from either iTunes or a website online. Abel James is a great example of someone absolutely dominating the podcasting platform. Abel’s show Fat Burning Man reached the #2 podcast spot on iTunes just behind Jillian Michaels – and a year before that no one had ever heard of Abel or his podcast show. How did he do it? He focused ONLY on podcasting and created the best content he could. 5) Twitter
Twitter is a powerful channel with hundreds of millions of active users, but it can be very limiting and it’s difficult to build a large Twitter following without using at least one other content channel such as those listed above. I wouldn’t recommend focusing on Twitter unless you enjoy being incredibly social online. Gary Vaynerchuk is a great example of someone who’s absolutely crushing it on Twitter and has built a massive following of raving fans. Gary is very active on Twitter and is brilliant when it comes to social media and how to build long-term relationships with customers and followers. Always remember – long-term relationships lead to long-term success! Now that you understand the foundation of this life-changing strategy and what channels you can use, let’s talk about implementation – here’s what you must DO in order to make this strategy work for you.
Pick One Channel and Master It
You must first pick only ONE channel and then master it. Don’t try to be a Facebook, Twitter, Blogging, Podcasting, and YouTube master. Just focus on ONE strategy and become the best you can be at that strategy. Splitting your attention, focus, and content amongst different channels will only dilute your message and reduce your value in the marketplace, thus reducing your income! Instead, focus on increasing your value by becoming a master in your one channel.
Mastery Must Be Practiced DAILY!!!!!! (I can't emphasize this enough)
In order to become a true master, you must practice daily! I recommend spending 30 minutes a day creating content for your channel. You don’t have to do exactly 30 minutes a day – you could spend 3.5 hours one day a week and then schedule your content to be released each day over the week. The key here is regularity and consistency! That’s why this strategy is so simple – anyone can spend 30 minutes a day creating a video or writing a blog post. The reason 99% of people fail to become successful as bloggers or YouTubers is that they are not providing massive value regularly. They create a few videos a week for a few weeks and then take a few months off. They’re not 100% committed to their success. If you are 100% committed to your success, you will work daily to achieve your goals and you will succeed. If you are 99% committed to your success, you will fail.
The Strategy Works for Everyone
This strategy works for anyone selling anything! Not just authors selling books. By educating and entertaining people, you will build a loyal fan base who will be happy to spread your message far and wide and buy your products or services, whether you’re selling books or consulting or hair extensions.
Increasing Your Income Even More
Once you master one channel, you can dramatically increase your income by expanding to other channels or by creating additional products to sell to the same audience. Once you become a master in one channel, you’ll never struggle financially again because you’ll have an audience who likes you and is eager to learn more from you and buy more of your value. But don’t try to expand to more channels or create thousands of products until you have mastered one channel and built a loyal following. 1) Create a great product 2) Create a great audience Both take a serious commitment to excellence and daily activity. Focus on just one and you’ll be struggling to get by. Focus on both with unrelenting consistency and passion and you’ll never struggle financially again. Most authors struggle because they only focus on writing books. When you focus on writing great books AND creating a great audience, you’ll never struggle again.
From the HFC CEO:
And most authors don't realize that this is a business. It is not about the art of writing, it is business, pure and simple. You have to invest in yourself and for every business, as you can see from the entrepreneurs on Shark Tank, sometimes the initial time and investment are high... but the long-term results are the reason why that panel of investors believes in them enough to propel them to the next level.
As far as your own personal level of strategy for your books, aside from the marketing we offer here at The Historical Fiction Company with blog tours, weekly marketing, press releases, etc., each and every post you make on any social media platform needs to end with you drawing your followers to your books. It is not enough for you to just post an interesting tidbit about your historical topic, you need to give the reader a compelling reason to click the buy button for your book. In my opinion, personal connection with your readers is the key.
You need to find where your audience hangs out. At the HFC Facebook club, we provide a platform where you can provide good content for the historical readers on the site. There are over 5000 potential readers there and basically, if you are not posting content or info about you and your books, then no one will know who you are. This is one of the reasons why we encourage authors to do an author takeover day... so the readers can get to know you personally. Content is more appealing than someone who posts a book link and runs, which is why we don't allow promotional book buy links during the week. Use this opportunity to engage with the community and with the readers looking for their next book to read.
People like to know the author on a personal level, so you need to ramp up your game.
The squeaky wheel analogy is soooo true in this regard.
When I first started the HFC website and the Historical Fiction Club on FB, I started with 10 people. Now, with my consistent blogging and mastering ONE social media account at a time, the website is now getting 3000 to 5000 visitors a week. Just in one year. And the Club on FB has grown from 10 to over 5000. But my focus, since my own writing is on the back burner for the time being... is to keep ramping this up each and every year so that this is long-term. As an author, it has to be treated the same way, and soon, you are going to see me start doing the same for my own books when my next in the series comes out.
There are many authors who have upwards of 20 to 30 books and are making 6 figures, making a commitment for the long term. When your audience sees that you are not a fly-by-night author, and you are serious about believing in your own books, the belief rubs off and picks up speed as long as you never give up.
Believe in yourself, treat writing as a career and not just a hobby, and don't give up. Just because this is your "book baby" doesn't mean that everyone is going to flock to see this miracle. Give the audience massive worthy content and form a connection until they are compelled to buy your books. These are growing pains for every single author out there, and having a support group is highly beneficial.
Thank you for visiting The Historical Fiction Company!
Please let us know if we can do anything for you in marketing, book cover design, author branding, editorial reviews, manuscript evaluation, or developmental editing.
Dee Marley
The Historical Fiction Company Owner/CEO