Three Ways to Simplify Your Book Marketing
EPISODE ONE
If you feel overwhelmed with book marketing and social media, I'm going to break down the three things that you need to focus on to actually make your marketing work. These three points will significantly simplify the process, help you see bigger results, and leave you more time to do what you want to do - write!
First, there are two mental adjustments I want you to make:
You don't need to do it all
You don't need to do everything perfectly (you WILL make mistakes)
Here are three action steps that you can put into place today to simplify your book marketing:
Set a goal
Identify your ideal reader
Pick one social media outlet
Links
The Mixtus Method - Simplified & Effective Book Marketing Foundations
Transcript
JENN DEPAULA: My name is Jenn dePaula, and this is the Book Marketing Simplified Podcast.
MARCUS DEPAULA: I'm Marcus dePaula, and Jenn, where do we start with this? There's so much that you help people with on a daily basis, where should we start?
JENN: The main thing that I see on social media with people emailing me is authors being completely overwhelmed. They have this mountain of pressure on them of this is what they have to do to be successful with marketing their book or getting the word out.
MARCUS: Where's that pressure coming from?
JENN: That's the thing. I think it's self-inflicted, not in a bad way by any means, but it's seeing what everyone else is doing, and thinking that that is what they need to do to successfully market their book or to be successful. It's comparing your chapter one to someone else chapter 10. You have no idea where many of these authors are in the process, you're assuming a lot.
It's interesting talking with publishers. I'm not saying all publishers are like this, but when they tell an author the marketing, a lot of is going to be on your shoulders because you have to have a social media presence, you have to have content that you're sharing, and they assume that the author knows what all that entails.
What has been done traditionally to market a book is completely different than what it is now. So many authors, it's assumed upon them that they should know what it means to market a book. When you don't even know what's entailed with that, it becomes completely overwhelming because you start making things up in your head, it's like, "Oh, God, I have to get on Oprah. I have to do all of these things." That isn't the case. It's actually very simple, might be watering it down a little bit. It does take work, but it does not need to be nearly as complicated as many authors assume it's going to be.
MARCUS: Well, how much of that self-inflicted pressure just comes from when an author finds out from their agent or their publisher, they say, "Okay, you need to look at SEO. You need to think about doing Facebook ads." Then they start to Google that, and there's so much conflicting information out there, and it's just overwhelming, the amount of information that you find just typing in Facebook ads into Google search.
JENN: Well, and even just listening to other book marketing experts. That's the thing. I don't expect everyone to follow everything that I say. If they don't feel comfortable, or if they just don't jive with it, that's fine. It's finding someone that you feel comfortable with and that you understand what they're talking about, but when you can really strip everything down to the bare essentials, you are going to be so much more effective because you can focus on a few things and do them really, really well.
MARCUS: We all have to start somewhere. What's the one thing where we should start?
JENN: The first of the three mental adjustments that you need to make as an author is that you don't need to do it all. For example, you do not need to be everywhere online to be seen. You just need to be in a few places.
MARCUS: Where your readers are.
JENN: Exactly. I see other book marketers or influencers or whatever saying that you have to be everywhere online to be seen.
MARCUS: It's so overwhelming.
JENN: It is overwhelming, and you don't have time for that. If you only have time to really engage on one social media outlet, do it. If you feel like Twitter is just completely overwhelming and you're getting lost in the conversations, if you just aren't seeing the communication or the engagement on Facebook but you are seeing it on Instagram, then focus on Instagram. Knowing what each social media outlet offers is important, so educating yourself and okay, this is how it works, these are the demographics that are on Facebook, or whatever, and that's another reason why knowing who your ideal reader is so important.
MARCUS: Bingo.
JENN: It's about focusing on one thing that you can do really, really well. You don't need to do everything. The second adjustment is that you don't need to do everything perfectly, you will make mistakes. This is something that I hear authors say so often, they say, "I don't want to put a post out until everything is perfect." Here's the thing, if you're just starting your account, no one's going to see it anyway because you haven't posted anything, and waiting for a situation to be perfect-
MARCUS: Never going to happen.
JENN: No, plus it's not going to ensure that it's successful. Getting something started and getting it out there because I always tell new authors that when we start a campaign, it's like watching a baby walk for the first time. It's wobbly, they fall down, and it's awkward, but once they get going, they are off to the races. If you're waiting for perfection to get things started, you're going to be waiting forever. Honestly, you are going to make mistakes. There are going to be those posts where it's like, "Oh, I did not get the response." I've had that happen all the time. I've been so excited about a post and no one really got it. I was like, "Okay, let's move on." We didn't get a response to a blog post.
MARCUS: But it's learning from that.
JENN: Absolutely.
MARCUS: Then progressing and adjusting. It's about making progress, not perfection.
JENN: Not perfection. Absolutely. Then the third mental adjustment is that it's not about the numbers. I know a lot of people say, "I know it's not about the numbers," but then they feel down on themselves because "Oh, I haven't reached this number. I don't have this many followers yet, or this many newsletter subscribers."
The thing is if you have three people following you, and all three of those people are commenting and liking and are just excited about what you're sharing, that is better than 10,000 people who do nothing. It's all about who you're connecting with. It's not about the quantity of people that "are following you," it's about the quality of the connections that you're making and that takes time. Even if you have several thousand followers, they might be following you, but until you really start to get that engagement and that back and forth, then you're like, "Okay, they're catching on," and that takes time and consistency.
MARCUS: What action steps can authors take right now to put this into practice what you're talking about?
JENN: There are three action steps that I want you to take to really simplify your book marketing. The first step is to set a goal. The goal gives you something to aim at. I think when authors don't have that point to aim at, they're wandering and you can't measure your growth or your success. I remember having an author saying, "If I could sell 1,000 books, that would be a dream come true." And I've had other authors who say, "I need to sell 10,000 books." We all have different definitions of success.
MARCUS: I want to be on the New York Times bestsellers list.
JENN: If that is one--
MARCUS: Might be a little unrealistic if you're just starting out.
JENN: It is just starting out, yes, but at 10 years down the road, yes, if you want to work towards that.
MARCUS: Yes, baby steps.
JENN: Yes, but if it doesn't happen with your first book, it doesn't mean you're a failure. It's learning from what you did, things that you can adjust and moving forward. You can set short term goals or a big long term goal, but it all has to align to that one focus, and really figuring out what you consider as success is a big thing.
MARCUS: Because success is different for each person.
JENN: Absolutely. The second step is to identify your ideal reader. I cannot emphasize enough how I feel that this is the cornerstone, this is the difference that everything is built upon for successful book marketing. There are a couple of things just to even throw out to get you started on that because we do have what we call the ideal reader profile that we offer in our online course, The Mixes Method, but there are a couple of steps that you can use right now to identify your ideal reader.
One pick at specific age. When you sit down at your computer to write and if you close your eyes and you think about who is the absolute perfect person that could read my book? What does that person look like?
MARCUS: A 25 to 35-year-old.
JENN: That is not good. A lot of life can be lived within that dash. You want to pick a specific age.
MARCUS: 28?
JENN: Yes.
MARCUS: Okay.
JENN: 28-year-old. Is it a male or female? Are they married? Do they have kids? Because a married 28-year-old with three kids has a completely different life than a single 28-year-old with no kids. It's completely different life experiences. What are their hobbies? What are they interested in? What are their beliefs?
MARCUS: But aren't I leaving people out then if I'm not trying to speak to the 35-year-old?
JENN: Again, it goes back to our mental adjustment because that's a really great question. When we are just speaking to one person, that doesn't mean that only 28-year-olds are going to hear it. It is helping us to craft a message and to create topics that we can talk about, that's going to resonate with many many many many people. It's like throwing a boulder in the middle of a lake. It's a very focused meteor topic that we might talk about that we can throw down, and it ripples.
MARCUS: You have a saying that you say all the time, it's so powerful. "If you're talking to everybody--
JENN: -you're talking to no one."
MARCUS: That's right.
JENN: It's true. When you are trying to market your book or talk to everyone, you're just going to be general. To stand out online, you have to be specific. You have to talk about specific things. You can't be general. When you're general, you just blend in with what everyone else is saying.
MARCUS: Right.
JENN: The third and final step that you can take to simplify your book marketing is something that we talked about earlier, is just pick one social media outlet. When you identify your ideal reader, you can know, okay, a 28-year-old is more likely going to be on Instagram. We know from the demographics. This is something you can go in and google Facebook demographics, or Instagram. You have access to all of that information on Google.
When you can see, okay, a 28-year-old is most likely going to be on Instagram, I'm going to focus on Instagram, and really educate yourself on how to use Instagram, put that into practice and focus on one social media outlet rather than spreading yourself too thin making sure that you spend your time wisely on one outlet, rather than be just like, "Oh, I'll just give little bits and pieces here and there."
MARCUS: Randomly.
JENN: Yes.
MARCUS: Just to summarize, what are the three tips that people need to be doing? What's their homework assignment?
JENN: Step one, set a goal. Step two, identify your ideal reader. You pick one age. Is t a man or a woman? Are they married? Are they single? Do they have kids? What are some of their hobbies? What are they interested in? What are their beliefs? Take those steps and fill it in. That is the beginning of your ideal reader.
MARCUS: That's step two?
JENN: That's step two. Step three, pick one social media outlet to focus on.
MARCUS: All right. You've written about all these things on the blog. You've been blogging for over a decade now. All of this stuff is on the website. You can search keywords by using search field. We have a website to find out more, but we're going to be talking about this stuff in more detail on the podcast as well. If you want to subscribe to the podcast, so you can get it as soon as it's out, head on over to bookmarketingsimplified.com that'll redirect you to the podcast page on our website. We've got the links there for all the platforms where you will be able to subscribe. If you think this is helpful and you know somebody else that this could help us spread the word. We're just starting out with this, so we want to help as many people as possible and you can help us.
JENN: Until next time, I'm Jenn dePaula.
MARCUS: I'm Marcus dePaula.
JENN: Thanks for listening.