Hello everyone and welcome to this author platform crash course, I’m Joseph Hinson from Out:think, a firm that helps authors market their books, and today we are gonna be starting a series called Five Essentials for Effective Book Marketing.
These five essentials are going to take place over the next five lessons.
In part one, we’re going to cover the importance of knowing your audience, and specifically, I’m going to provide some actionable tips that you can use to find out more about your audience and how to reach them.
In part two, we’re going to be talking about building an engaging platform by creating value-based content for your readers.
In part three, we are going to discuss the importance of email marketing and how to leverage it for the best effect.
In part four, we’ll be discussing all about social media and the role it plays in your overall platform.
And finally, in part five, we’ll talk about measuring your success and adjusting your strategy accordingly.
So let’s get started with part 1.
Know Your Audience.
Start by asking questions. What are their demographics, their age, their interests? Where do they spend their time? What type of places do they shop? But before we talk about people you don’t know, let’s start with someone you do know.
Let’s talk about you.
It’s probable that your fans might have similar interests to you. So consider your own motivations for your actions and how those might overlap with your readers. Where do you spend your time online? Where do you go for information? What websites do you consider to be great resources? In what ways do you envision your readers are similar to you? In what ways are they different?
Find the similarities and differences to begin building out your reader personas.
Who are your contemporaries?
Look for books that are on the same bookshelf as yours. Now visit their Amazon book page and read their reviews. What do readers like about the book? What are they critical of?
What can you learn about their social media presence? What social channels seem to be the most actively engaged? That might give you some idea of where to focus your efforts on social channels.
Now visit those authors’ websites. If they asked you for advice, how would you advise them differently? How does that effect the content you’re going to craft for your readers?
What websites do your readers go for advice?
Most people that use the internet have websites they frequent. What about your readers? Maybe they watch Youtube. If so, what youtube videos are they watching, and what terms are they searching for?
How should you consider these various channels and modalities?
By answering these questions, you can gain a better understanding of who your ideal reader is, what they like, and where they spend their time online. With this information, you can start building your marketing plan with that in mind. Websites are a huge factor in author marketing because they can be a big indicator of your readers’ values, shared beliefs, and simultaneously give you a specific place to focus your outreach.
Knowing your audience is the key to effective book marketing. By understanding your readers’ demographics, interests, and values, you can create a marketing plan that targets them effectively.
Stay tuned for the rest of this series as we delve deeper into the five essentials for effective book marketing. If you know any authors who would benefit from this content, do me a favor and share it with them.
Pro Tip! In our course, The Ultimate Author Platform, we provide the persona matrix we use with our clients to help students work through these questions and identify their readers and how to reach them.