How to Make Time for Marketing While Writing Your Book
EPISODE EIGHTY ONE
Finding the time and energy to create social media posts for marketing while you're writing your book can be one of the biggest challenges authors face. Jenn has a couple quick tips to help you maintain those connections with your readers online without taking too much time away from your writing.
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TRANSCRIPT:
Jenn Hanson-dePaula:Hello, and welcome to the Book Marketing SimplifiedPodcast. I'm Jenn Hanson-dePaula.
Marcus Depaula:I'm Marcus Depaula. Jenn, you brought up a topic that's one ofmy favorite things to talk about. It's our most precious resource, and that is time.Specifically in this episode, we want to talk about the challenge that authors face inbalancing time between writing their book and having to do book marketing.
Jenn: Especially when authors have very little time if they're working a full-time job, they're managing family, running kids back and forth everywhere, finding those little pockets of time to actually write your book are very, very important. Then when you see, "Oh gosh, I also have to market, I have to grow an audience, I have to do all this stuff," it can be very stressful, but also confusing as to how you should actually spend your time.
Marcus: What kind of practical tips can you offer to authors as they are in that busy, exhausting time of writing their book? How can they continue to market things so that when they're done writing the book, their marketing is already rolling at a good pace and they're not having to try to catch up?
Jenn: The very first thing is to remember what phase of the marketing process that you're in. I've talked about this before, but just really quickly, there are three phases of marketing. There's the attraction phase, there's the promotional phase, and then the follow-up phase. When you are writing your book, you are in the attraction phase, and this begins the minute that you start writing up until about three to four months before the book releases. When we're in that attraction phase, even if you have multiple books under your belt and you're writing, you can still be in this attraction phase.
The attraction phase, you want to relate to people on a personable, relatable level. Let's talk about what that looks like. When you think about connecting with anyone that you just meet for the first time, what do you normally talk about? You talk about things that you have in common, common interests, or common goals. If you are writing, let's start with fiction, obviously you have a lot in common with books. You talk about the books that you're enjoying. Maybe you talk about your favorite bookstores or you talk about your favorite bookish things or how you like to organize your books.
That's another popular thing. If you're writing a nonfiction book, whether that be self-help or information-type books, you have that thing in common of, "Oh, we have a certain problem or we have a certain solution or we have certain life experiences that we can connect on." Giving them advice or tips on life experiences or work experience that you've had that can help them. It's thinking about what you have in common with your ideal readers and just relating to them. You are not actively promoting this book that you're writing.
When it comes to actually promoting your book, when you get to that promotional phase, you already have people that like you, that have related with you. It's removing that pressure of trying to sell because you aren't in that phase yet. You don't have to focus on selling. You can just focus on being you and connecting with people on things that you're already interested in and that you're already probably talking about with friends or colleagues or whatever it is. You're just addressing it in social media form.
Marcus: It's really easy to approach when we get on social media as, okay, now I'm in this marketing mode instead of treating it like a human interaction. Your approach to marketing is that we are connecting with humans. We're not just trying to push a product on them.
Jenn: It's important to remember how you interact with people in real life.
Marcus: Right.
Jenn: Because if you just make a friendship, you don't immediately start pushing something on them. You spend time with them and you let them get to know you and you get to know them. The same applies to your social media.
Marcus: Keeping that in mind, this marketing process that we're working on is not just about selling books. Again, it's about connecting with people. As you're connecting with those humans, it's about you as the author. It's not just about your book that you're talking about.
Jenn: Exactly. There are so many authors where you get to know them first as a person, especially on social media. There have been many times where I have interacted with an author and I like them so much as a person and I like their personality. I connect with their personality. I immediately go and see, oh, what are their books like? Because oftentimes if you like the author as a person, you're going to also like their books.
Marcus: Yes, and you'll be willing to give them your money.
Jenn: Yes. Even if you are getting pressure from a publisher or an agent or even just yourself on, I have to grow this audience. If you're focusing more on the numbers, please just give yourself some grace, especially during this time because those connections are going to be so much more powerful than just focusing on growing a number because those connections are what are going to make your book that much more attractive to them when it is for sale.
Marcus: Again, just like in real life, strong connections with other humans takes time. It doesn't happen overnight or immediately. They're not going to be willing to buy your book after one post.
Jenn: We are also inundated with a lot of marketers who are promoting, "Grow your social media by 20,000 in a month." I'm sorry, that is not realistic. Again, you're focusing on a number. We want to focus on the quality of the connections. When we start to see ads or we start to see other companies that are promoting quick ways for you to grow your audience, that can seep into our subconscious and thinking, okay, this is what I have to do to succeed. That is not the case. I have known so many authors and I've worked with so many authors who have what would be considered a small following.
We're talking like less than 2,000 followers or even less than 1,000 followers who sell books consistently. It's not about the number, it's about the quality of those connections that you have.
Marcus: As we're reserving our bandwidth for the writing and not getting overwhelmed by having to market our book at the same time during this attraction phase, what are some practical things that authors can do to save them time in actually creating the content?
Jenn: Something that I like to reiterate to authors is that we have overcomplicated social media. We need to dumb it down and repeat. Repetition is the key to marketing. It takes multiple times for people to actually take action, but it also takes multiple times for it to sink in. I was just talking with an author yesterday about how I reuse a lot of my content. I present it in a different way, but the concepts are still the same. It's crazy how there are some people who've been following me for years that I have said similar things.
I've just presented it a different way where they respond, "Oh my gosh, I never thought of it that way." It's like, "Wow, I've been saying this for a very, very long time." Sometimes again, it's how you say it and how you present it that changes the thing.
Marcus: The context that they're in that moment too.
Jenn: Exactly. Everyone needs to remember that. One of the biggest time-saving tools is just reusing your content. Reuse what you have already posted. Now this doesn't just mean downloading the same video and uploading it again. Even though that's fine, after three or four months, you can reuse some of that, but the best way is to repurpose it. You can present the same information, but you can use maybe a different background. Maybe if you did a talking head video where you're talking straight to the camera, the next video, you can take that same information and use it as B roll.
There's like video or images going on in the background and then use that as text on the screen or you can make a carousel of different photos. There are many different ways that you can actually repurpose your posts. Not overthinking it, but reusing the content that you already have is going to save you a ton of time.
Marcus: You've come up with a great process to help authors save time by planning ahead to get the most out of reusing the content that they take time to create.
Jenn: Absolutely. It's something that has been a huge, huge, huge help for not only myself because I use this as well, but also for hundreds of other authors that have used it. It can be found in our Stand Out Social Media for Authors. What it is it empowers you to plan out your content ahead of time, so you know exactly what you're going to be posting and when, and you can reuse a lot of this content so that you're not racking your brain sitting there the day of trying to think of what to post.
When you can get those ideas planned out, it's going to save you a ton of time. I also provide you with literally hundreds of content ideas that if you just have racked your brain and you just can't think of anything, I have your back. I have a ton of different ideas already for you.
Marcus: Like you said, this is stuff that you're using yourself on a daily basis. You use it for your clients, no matter what level of engagement, if they're doing the done with you services, the done for you services. This is like at the core of your day-to-day creating and managing the posts that you're planning.
Jenn: Absolutely. You laugh at this saying, but it's true. Back in high school, my accounting teacher always said, if you're prepared, you're not scared. It's true. As corny as it is, it is true.
Marcus: We understand how overwhelming it feels as you're writing a book, how much energy it takes to do that. These processes that you've laid out easily for people to do should not just save you time, but also help keep you from being scared, like your teacher said.
Jenn: Absolutely. It gives you the processes and the systems that you need so that you're not just posting just to post. You're actually seeing the growth, you're seeing the engagement, so when your book is ready and for sale, your audience is going to be primed and ready to go.
Marcus: If you don't already have the Standout Social Media for Authors, head on over to jenndepaula.com or the episode notes for our podcast.
Jenn: We'll see you soon.