Why Isn't My Book Selling? Part One
EPISODE SEVENTY FIVE
Whether you are a new or established author, once the book is done and released, getting people to buy your book is often a challenge. Effective book marketing starts with visibility.
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TRANSCRIPT:
Jenn Hanson-dePaula: Hello, and welcome to the Book Marketing Simplified Podcast. I'm Jenn Hanson-dePaula.
Marcus dePaula: I'm Marcus dePaula. Jenn, today you wanted to talk about a pretty broad question. Why isn't my book selling?
Jenn: Yes. This is an overarching problem, whether you're a new author, whether you're an established author. We always want to know, why am I struggling so much with actually selling books? Yes, there are many components, like making sure you have the right cover, making sure it's well written and all of those different elements. When it comes to the actual marketing and then ultimately selling your book, when there's a struggle with sales, it's one of two issues.
The first one is visibility. The second one is conversion. Conversion just means turning those followers into actual book buyers. We're going to break this one up into two episodes. I think in the 70 episodes we've done, this is our first two-parter.
Marcus: There's a lot to cover here.
Jenn: Yes, there is. In this episode, we're going to be talking about the visibility factor. When we talk about visibility, many authors think, okay, this is just on social media, but this is any way that we get in front of our ideal readers. Ultimately, social media, yes, that's one of the most global ways that you can get in front of more readers in one swoop.
Marcus: Probably the easiest way at this point in time.
Jenn: Absolutely. There's also podcasts. There's speaking events. There are media opportunities. There are many different ways that you can get in front of your ideal readers. When we talk about visibility, so let's just use social media for our example here. If you are posting and posting and posting, you are checking off the to-do list essentially, and you think I'm doing everything, but I'm just not visible. This is many times when authors come to me saying, I feel like I'm doing everything right, but I'm just not growing. What is the problem? The very first thing that I always want to tell authors is that you have got to be clear on who it is that you are speaking to.
That's, again, the ideal reader. When we are clear on who it is that we want to connect with, it's going to make your content break through the noise. I've talked about this many times, but especially when it comes to what we're posting, we need to be very mindful that this is what readers are actually wanting and looking for. When we approach social media as just like showing the cover and not sharing some of the details as to what it is about the book that makes it stand out or why readers will actually like it, that's where we run into problems. What we want to do within the visibility factor is to really think about what specific details and keywords that they're looking for.
If you just say I'm writing a romance, you hold up the book and you give just some very general descriptive words about what the book is about, that is going to fall on deaf ears because it's not going to have enough of a hook to really sink their teeth into. If we say this is a romantic comedy, think When Harry Met Sally Meets Friends set in the '90s in West Virginia. It's something just where you're giving specific details and you are really giving them those keywords that are going to catch their eye and go, "Oh my God, I loved Friends or I loved You Got Mail or I loved Life in the '90s," or something like that.
Marcus: Things that they can relate to.
Jenn: Exactly, and that are going to catch their eye. We have a very short attention span audience that's going to be scrolling very quickly. When you just copy and paste the book's description in your caption, people are going to be whizzing right on by. You have to be thinking about what are those keywords? What's that why that readers are looking for? The same with nonfiction. Let's say you're writing a business book that solves a very specific problem. You're going to look at the very specific questions and the problems that your readers are having and seeing how you can address those problems or how you and your book are the answer to those problems.
It's getting very specific within what it is that you're talking about. This is specifically on social media. When we get specific within the topics that we're talking about, we're reaching a very specific audience. Remember, when we try to talk to everyone, we're really talking to no one because we're just blending in with the noise. Let's say you're not very active on social media, but you are active on podcasts. You're an active podcast guest. You are doing all of these podcasts, but you're still not seeing those eyeballs. You're not getting enough traffic to your website. You're not seeing that traffic to Amazon or wherever it is that you're directing readers to.
If that's the case, I would encourage you to look at the actual podcast that you're talking to. Look at who it is that they are reaching. Who is their audience? What is it that they are looking for? Because many times I see authors who say, "Oh, I've been on hundreds of podcasts or I've written hundreds of blog posts," or things like that. When I say, "Okay, if you've been on there hundreds of times and you're not seeing people either follow you or subscribe or do anything that you're wanting them to do, are you talking about the right things? Are you talking to the right podcasts? Are your topics, if you're writing blog posts, are those topics actually resonating with people?
Are they directing people from their social media outlets to these podcasts or to these blog posts?" It's all about thinking, how are you leading people to that blog post or to that podcast? How are you communicating with these people? Is it creating content that is going to resonate with them? When we think about the visibility factor, it's not so much about just being there and checking that off of our list. It's asking yourself, am I creating content, which means creating a social media post, writing a blog post, or being on a podcast that is going to resonate with my readers? Is this going to be of interest to them? Am I communicating it in a way that is clear and easy to understand?
Marcus: In the places that your ideal reader is actually spending their time already.
Jenn: Exactly. If you are a business person who's speaking to CEOs, they're probably not going to be on Instagram. They might be on LinkedIn or they might be at conferences or they might be listening to podcasts. It's thinking through about where your ideal reader most likely is.
Marcus: One of the things that I hear online when talking about visibility when it comes to marketing, there's a lot of advice I see about just buying ads. How does this play into visibility in your opinion?
Jenn: When people just automatically go to ads, just to try to get in front of their audience.
Marcus: More eyeballs.
Jenn: Yes. Yes, it can work, but you are going to be paying a lot of money to test things out. When we automatically go to ads and we have not gotten our messaging down, when we don't have a clear idea of who our ideal reader is, when we have not cleared what it is that our readers are looking for and resonating with, you're going to be paying a lot of money to test. With that, I always say, especially if you are doing social media ads, test it out for free on your posts. Use your posts to see, "Okay, what are readers looking for? What are they resonating with?"
It might surprise you. There have been so many times where I think, "Oh, this is exactly what my audience is looking for and it's crickets." Then I do something that I've talked about before or that it's just a little too basic and it goes through the roof because that is what my audience is looking for. The same with clients that I've worked with. When we take the time to really learn and observe that testing time when you do buy ads, if you have a clear idea of this is exactly who my ideal reader is, I know exactly what they're looking for and what resonates with them, and this type of post works really, really well, you are going to cut that testing time in more than half and your ads are going to be that much more potent and effective.
It's not just about the ads themselves being the answer to the problem. It's knowing these very important factors to actually make them work to the best of their ability.
Marcus: Not just about getting those ads in front of the right eyeballs on each platform, which like you said, takes a lot of time and practice to figure out the perfect combination. Getting back to what you said earlier, it's then about making sure that the thing that the ad is saying is going to make them want to click on it. Just like when you're creating posts, you want to create something that's going to make them want to stop and actually watch the full reel or read the text in the image. This leads into our next topic, which we'll save for the following episode on conversion.
Jenn: This visibility factor is what I find to be the most troubling for most authors, and trying to get that visibility factor can be a bit tricky. That's also why I created the Standout Social Media for Authors, which helps you figure out what your hook is. It takes you through that entire visibility process. If you are having trouble with getting that visibility, we have this very amazing resource for you that you can check out. Once you do have those eyeballs on you, once you do have that visibility, then it's taking those connections and turning them into actual book buyers. That's what we're going to be talking about next time.
Marcus: Stay tuned for next week's episode.
Jenn: Exactly. If you need help with your visibility, check out the Standout Social Media for Authors in the show notes or at jenndepaula.com.
Marcus: Thanks for listening.
Jenn: Talk to you soon.