On Building a Sustainable Marketing Plan for Indie Authors

In this insightful episode of Talking Book Publishing, hosts Kathleen and Adanna welcome Mary Vensel White, author, editor, publisher, and Orange County president of the California Writers Club. Mary shares her multidimensional expertise in publishing and digs into one of the most elusive topics for authors: book marketing. She brings a refreshingly honest and practical perspective on the importance of market research, knowing your genre, identifying comparable titles, and how all of that plays into placing your book in the right hands.

Listeners will walk away with a deeper understanding of how cover design influences buying decisions, the power of ebook promotions (even free ones!), and why setting a budget and timeline early in the writing process is crucial. Mary and the hosts also explore effective low-budget marketing, the evolving role of social media, and how to reach readers in both digital and physical spaces. Whether you're a debut indie author or a seasoned writer looking to update your strategies, this episode is packed with actionable advice that cuts through the noise.

We’d like to hear from you. If you have topics or speakers you’d like us to interview, please email us at podcast@talkingbookpublishing.today and join the conversation in the comments on our Instagram @writerspubsnet.

Transcript

00:00:07 SPEAKER_00
Hello, everyone. This is Kathleen Kaiser in Talking Book Publishing, along with my co -host Adanna Moriarty. And today we have a really interesting guest, Mary Vensel White, who we're going to be talking to on a variety of topics about marketing. Welcome, Mary. Thank you.

00:00:25 SPEAKER_02
Thanks for having me.

00:00:26 SPEAKER_00
First, why don't you give us a little background on who you are and what you're doing so people understand where you're coming from?

00:00:33 SPEAKER_02
Yeah. So I wear several hats, probably the heaviest right now and the most, maybe the best looking, is as publisher of Type 18 books. I came to publishing sort of indirectly and perhaps unwillingly in some ways. I would say unwillingly, but unexpectedly. How about that? I'm an author, first and foremost, I guess. That's how I started. And I have, you know, four books, a fifth coming out. And a few years ago, I had a young adult book. And I thought, you know, post -COVID, it was really hard to even get attention from agents or anybody. So I won't tell the whole thing. But basically, I find myself with a small publishing company that I really love. I also, for many years, have done editing. So I have an editing business. And I also teach. So everything related around books and writing and reading and love it. Yeah. But for the marketing, you know, I have experience with my own books and being an author, but also now for the last few years through the publishing company.

00:01:31 SPEAKER_00
That's a real challenge to be taking all of that on. And you're also the Orange County president of the California Writers Club.

00:01:38 SPEAKER_02
Yeah, I also do that. Yes, thank you. I love all of these things. That's the problem. And when I think about being less busy and tired, I'm like, but which one? Which one goes? I don't know. Yeah, so I also, you know, through the Writers Club, I book a lot of the programming, who we get to come speak. And we have speakers on craft and also on business. And that certainly was a component that sort of... gave me a little bit of the gumption to start a publishing company. Some of the information I had gleaned from, you know, people that were experts in publishing and doing all sorts of things. So, yes, another piece.

00:02:15 SPEAKER_00
Well, we were thinking, because you've got such a well -rounded background and expertise that you can tell people, book marketing is always a sort of a quagmire for a lot of authors. And you suggested something that I think is really important, and that's how to do market research. I started my marketing, official marketing career in market research. So I look at everything that I've built over the rest of my career from that point of view. But a lot of people don't understand it. So why don't you tell us what you think about what that is?

00:02:54 SPEAKER_02
Well, I mean, as I said to you before, I certainly would not claim to be any sort of expert, but I will say that we've learned a lot in the last almost three years with the publishing. I think at the end of the day, market research is about knowing what's out there on the market that's similar to your book. Well, overall publishing in general, what's going on? What are the trends? What books are out there that are like yours? And the reason why all that is important is because at the end of the day, marketing is all about finding a reader for your book, right? And so much goes into play with that, what the cover looks like, what places you're shouting out about the book, et cetera. It's not always as easy as you would think. A lot of writers might think, oh, well, everyone could read my book. It's fantastic. But there's really, you know, and there are a lot of readers that are very, they'll read all sorts of things. But market research, I think, is really just doing whatever you can to figure out where to put your book out there so that people that will not only get the book, but also then like the book, hopefully, so you don't disappoint their expectations or whatever. Figuring out how to place your book is, I think, market research. And then, of course, all the things that go with it, once you figure out a place, all the financial aspects and all that kind of stuff. You could do, of course, 10 podcasts about advertising and all that. But yeah, trying to figure out, first of all, how am I going to position my book? That starts with genre sometimes, and people say, well, my book's three different genres. Okay, but try to figure out, again, where are your readers? I have a book right now I'm working on in the publishing house that we haven't announced yet, so I can't say too much about it, but definitely in three different sort of areas, but I have to figure out. It's kind of quirky, and it's literary, so I have to figure, but it's historical, and it's a little crime, and so I have to figure out, like, are my readers the crime readers? And you know what? Maybe not, but maybe. I'm figuring it out. I have to find those quirky literary readers that are going to like all three things. So anyway, market research, I think, finding research or finding readers for your book.

00:05:07 SPEAKER_01
So when you're working on that, I mean, how do you do that? Like, do you have tools that help you like find comp titles and stuff like that? Like, what does that process look like for you? I mean, I mean, obviously you're at a different scale than someone who's self -published, but I mean, everybody should be doing that anyway to find out, you know, how to best position their book and hopefully make their sales better.

00:05:33 SPEAKER_02
Yeah. I mean, good old fashioned just time and research. I mean, everybody can go online and look at Amazon, look at their lists. see what things are grouped together see what things are selling i do have kdp rocket which is a program anybody can buy i don't i don't know what it sells for anymore but i think i bought it for a hundred dollars and that's a great program to find comps. You can put in a title and it'll tell you other books that have the same keywords. Of course, metadata and keywords, that's a whole other thing we probably won't even get into. But yeah, I mean, see what's out there. Go to the bookstore. Go look and see what's out there. What do the covers look like? One kind of nice thing about self -publishing, and I felt this going into my press originally too, is you can work on a kind of quicker scale as far as trends with covers and things. Because most publishing houses are planning like two years out, right? So you can kind of see sort of what's out there. So to make sure that yours, you know, fits in a way with expectations of the type of reader you're looking for. And the thing with self -publishing too in covers, you can always change it. you know if a year two years from now so that there's a lot of benefits but yeah research either in the store online if you use kdp rocket or something like that to figure out comps another book i'm thinking of there was such an obvious comp and we had already had these other comps and then all of a sudden and it was a book i had read and i thought oh yeah what about this one it was a big book and Yeah, so just hopefully you're out there in the world. Hopefully you're in the writing and publishing community where you're getting a variety of emails from different sources and kind of know what's out there. I mean, it's surprising to me how often I meet a writer who's working on a book and they just don't really even know what's going on in publishing at that moment. It always seems very strange to me. I mean, at least have a general point of view, right? The bestsellers and, you know, what's going on. so many people us writers can be very you know introverted so sometimes we're not good at that yeah i mean you should at least oh i'm sorry okay i was just gonna say we should at least be reading in our genre right like well not to throw shade but there's a lot of writers who don't read either which always now if it's just because of time i can relate to that but that always boggles my mind

00:07:40 SPEAKER_00
i mean you should at least oh i'm sorry okay

00:07:42 SPEAKER_01
i was just gonna say we should at least be reading in our genre right like well

00:07:48 SPEAKER_02
not to throw shade but there's a lot of writers who don't read either which always now if it's just because of time i can relate to that but that always boggles my mind

00:08:01 SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I find that so interesting. They haven't read anything in the last five years in their genre, or their subgenre, or if they think they've got three of them. They haven't read any of them. So what do you know? I mean, like I always I think it's good to go on Amazon, look at books in what you think is your genre and click on, you know, down where they have the details in the ranking. Go to the best sellers in that category, if nothing else, to see what the covers look like. I mean, there's a whole thing. You can take a little thumbnail of your cover and put it up and see how it looks.

00:08:37 SPEAKER_02
And lots of things like, you know, in the past. I don't know, maybe 10, 20 years. Just books are leaning towards being shorter overall. Now, does that mean you can't put out your 400, 500 page book? No, of course not. But just be aware of that. You know, chapters are leaning towards being shorter, all sorts of things like, and it goes to, you know, reader expectations and wanting the best for your book. It's not to say that, oh, I better get in and chop all my chapters, but I don't know, at least be aware of it. And factor that into when you're looking for your particular readers, you know. Yeah, what are they buying? Exactly. We live in such a fortunate age that so much is online, right? We can easily look up all sorts of things. Sometimes it's almost too much, but yeah. I would say, you know, be aware of what's out there, even if it's in a general New York Times bestselling list kind of way. But I'd look at what the indies are doing too, because that's important.

00:09:37 SPEAKER_01
Well, and the indie world has just blown up so much. I mean, like, in a different kind of way, I think, than the Big Five could ever even probably anticipate it. I mean, people just want to support smaller, more independent, you know, authors and writers that have been turned down, I think, actually, too, to see. Because, like, there's so many stories out there. What are we doing? Yeah. Yeah.

00:10:06 SPEAKER_01
I think I just always think it's so interesting because, you know, as probably you do, but Kathleen and I spend our entire lives talking to other writers and, you know, other people in the industry. But especially like, you know, people email us and ask us for help or whatever. And, you know, when we talk about marketing, I feel like their eyes glaze over. Like they're always sort of, you know, in this. well, why should I care about marketing? I just want to write my next book. You know, this book's done. I want to work on my next book. And it's like, well, what's even the point? I mean, if you're not willing to take some time and, you know, love your baby.

00:10:47 SPEAKER_02
Yeah. I mean, I always start with, you know, whenever I talk to not even just someone who I'm going to like shepherd through self -publishing project, but authors, I sign for the press too. And one of my first questions is always like, where do you see what do you want to do once this book is out are you a real go -getter you know i worked with this one lady she had this whole you know she does youtubes and she's got this whole network and she's just a go -getter on social media is that your thing or do you just want to get it out and maybe have a nice party go to a local bookstore maybe visit some book clubs in your your neighborhood there's not necessarily anything wrong with that but just you know be aware that you'll probably sell a couple hundred copies to all your friends and the bookstores at your events and that'll probably be the end of it unless it really by some fluke of nature takes off right but i think you know At the bare minimum, you could once in a while run an e -book promotion. They're pretty cheap. I mean, people, that's a good point, actually, by the way, about promotion and marketing. People really overlook e -books all the time, you know. You're going to make more money on e -books anyway. People don't realize that either. But, you know, market your e -book once in a while. Mark it down and have a little sale and make a little cash off the e -books once in a while.

00:12:09 SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I mean, I'm always... pushing for e -book sales because I think print books are hard. I mean, some people are diehard print lovers like Kathleen. I mean, she is a diehard, you know, physical book. But I think at today's world, like a lot of people are for convenience. I mean, you're taking the bus or the subway to work and you can, you know, pop out your Kindle or your phone. read on it, like, you know, making sure that that market is not forgotten about. I mean, it's something like 70 percent of people read e -books. So not only it's, you know, like 30 percent only read e -books and then another 30 percent read both and another 30 percent only read physical. But I mean, so 60, 70 percent of the market, people read e -books. So the interesting thing about you saying those statistics.

00:13:00 SPEAKER_02
the interesting thing about you saying those statistics. So what that implies, there's people like you and me who read both. And there's that whole group of people who only read e -books. My sister is one of them. As far as I know, I don't think she buys physical books ever. So think about that. It's a whole other group of people. I think people think, oh, I'm trying to sell e -books when I'd rather sell a print book. I don't really even get that logic because you'll make more money on the e -book. But it's a whole other group of people.

00:13:33 SPEAKER_01
I understand the logic. It doesn't mean it's the right logic. It's because when you look at a print book, you're like, well, that says $17 .99, and my e -book is $1 .99, so I'm definitely going to make more money from my print book because it's $17 .99. That's what they see. Probably won't go.

00:13:50 SPEAKER_02
won't go. Right, right. I'll get a dollar or two from your book, maybe, because of the discounts. Anyway, yeah. But it's a whole other audience. I think that's the main thing to think about too, is it's a whole other audience. That being said, I don't think you should under, there's a whole philosophy about giving out free and 99 cent eBooks. And I have opinions about that too, but do your research, get some advice on how to price your book and where to put it. And there's a lot of places that will do promotions for you for a one day eBook sale or whatever that are pretty affordable. You know, if you want, because that's another thing people say, oh, advertising and promotion, it's so expensive. And yeah, it can be. But there's some pretty affordable choices as well.

00:14:37 SPEAKER_01
Really affordable. I mean, for sure.

00:14:40 SPEAKER_00
By the way, I just saw, I think it was last month in Publishers Weekly, some statistics. YA readers right now are buying more print books than e -books because their mothers read e -books. So they're buying print books.

00:14:56 SPEAKER_02
Makes sense.

00:14:57 SPEAKER_00
Totally different. I have children.

00:14:59 SPEAKER_02
have children. I have young adult children. I get that. They've really marketed, you know, this, I don't know. I don't want to say anything about the younger generation, but we do live in a very consumer era and they're very about the physical look of the books too, you know, which I mean, can't begrudge the young adult market. They're buying books like crazy, which is fantastic. But that plays into the cover discussion as well. If you're going to do YA, you better make sure it looks good for these, especially these influencers who want to do pretty posts about it, you know?

00:15:33 SPEAKER_01
Yeah, for sure. I mean, cover is so important just for so many reasons. I mean, it's that first impression. I mean, Kathleen, didn't you read something about like... if they don't like the cover they never even flip it over oh yeah that's yeah that's one of the big statistics is that amazon has it and also some some of the ebook promoters that if they don't like the cover they don't even read the description they just go and when you're doing your ads if your cover like you can be buying ads on amazon but if your cover is up against five competitors and they look sharp and you don't

00:15:46 SPEAKER_00
yeah that's yeah that's one of the big statistics is that amazon has it and also some some of the ebook promoters that if they don't like the cover they don't even read the description they just go and when you're doing your ads if your cover like you can be buying ads on amazon but if your cover is up against five competitors and they look sharp and you don't They're not even going to look at you. They just go right over you. It's superficial, but that's why the cover is so important. And it's worth the investment of getting a good cover designer that works in cover. Not some graphic designer who says, oh, I can do that. They don't understand the fonts, the colors. Every genre has its own formula. And that's so important to be looking like you belong, like something they've bought that they liked before.

00:16:40 SPEAKER_02
And I think we can all, I could probably, I won't, but I could probably go pull something off my shelf right now that I bought, even though I don't like the cover necessarily. It's interesting with the publishing house because I do aim to have more literary things, but then I also tend to sign genre things like historical and fantasy and all kinds of stuff. I love, you were talking about how the literary, you know, the indie publishing has grown so much, and it has, and I feel like there's definitely a pocket that those covers sit in, and I love it. But I've always kind of wanted to straddle a more commercial look as well. So it's just tricky. It's just tricky. And that, you know, is that wrong of me? I remember when I had this historical fiction, it was the first book I signed for the press. And I just thought to myself, when you think about historical, they're always the same, right? The block letters, the lady with her back turned. They're very similar when you think of it. Go to Target, go to Amazon and go to historical. They're literally all the same. And my thinking was, well, I want it to really stand out. At the time, the big fantasy books were out on TikTok. And I don't know, even though it was historical, I was kind of influenced by that. So I brought all these things into play. And the very same month, we had a speaker at our writers club, and she was pretty well, you know, she had done well. author. And she said her first cover for her historical was rejected by Barnes and Noble. She's, you know, with a big publisher, because they said it wasn't historical enough looking. And I had this book coming that I had changed. And I was like, oh, no. So that's another thing. You know, we talked at the beginning about trends and making sure you fit in. But do you also want to stand out a little bit? There's no easy answers, but do some research. Use your best judgment. But if anything, you know, back to your point, like look professional. That's my biggest goal. I want my books to look like they sit perfectly fine next to books at the big stores, you know, on the big lists. I want them to look like they belong there, too.

00:18:44 SPEAKER_01
I think that when we talk about research, you know, the reason that it's so important is you just nailed it with your own, which is. Sometimes we're like, oh, like, but we like this or we like this look or I want it to be this. It's my book. I can make it whatever I want. And you absolutely can. But if you want people to read it, you need to go with the market. And that's what the whole purpose of researching your genre is for. So you take yourself out of it a little bit. And it's not just about like, I want this and I want that. And can it be this and can it be that? But it actually becomes like, you know, will this sit? in a bookstore next to other books and look like it fits yeah so like you said you know get so hire a cover designer and tell them all about your concept you know my my goal with cover designers is like to to direct but let them do their thing

00:19:26 SPEAKER_02
so like you said you know get so hire a cover designer and tell them all about your concept you know my my goal with cover designers is like to to direct but let them do their thing Like we said earlier, that's their thing. I'm not a designer. Of course, I might have a feeling, you know, you can send them a few different covers that even if they're in different covers, I'll send them and I'll say, we like the font on this one because it shows historical. We like the colors on this one, how it's limited to a few colors. Like, you know, I give them a little direction. And then to me, that's actually exciting to see what they come up with. Most of the time, I'm super happy. There have been a couple times where I just wasn't seeing eye to eye with a cover designer. I'm like, it's just not working out. We need to go in another direction. But it's not in my area of expertise. And unless you have experience in that, you shouldn't think it's in yours either. I've tried, believe me. I thought, let me just do this myself. No, it's not going to work out. And I think people try to cut corners there. But you can find pretty affordable cover designers, too. Use sites like Readsy, Fiverr. Fiverr, everybody has contrary opinions. And certainly I've had good and bad experiences, but mostly good. You got to vet people, you know, ask for sample covers, you know, have conversations. But there's, believe me, there's affordable ways to figure a lot of things out if you want to.

00:20:49 SPEAKER_00
It's an investment.

00:20:52 SPEAKER_01
I've seen really good stuff come out of Fiverr. I work as a designer every day and I didn't design my own book cover. Like just so people know, like, you know, when you're like, I can do it on Canva or whatever. I mean, again, you can, but like I work as a designer every day. I make graphics, I do websites, like I do all of that and I wouldn't create my own book cover. Just some perspective.

00:21:19 SPEAKER_02
Yeah. I mean, I do editing and I still have my book edited. There are also a couple of sites that have pre -made covers. Now, you know what I view that as? Kind of like, you know, when you go thrift shopping, there's a lot of like, not, I feel like I'm a really good thrift shopper. Like I can find the things that look maybe a little more quality. And that's how, you know, some of these sites like Book Cover Zone and stuff like that, pre -made book covers. I will not tell you what they are because I will keep my secrets to my grave, but I've gotten one or two perhaps pre -made book covers that then you have them tweak a little that are fantastic. So you got, it's an option. A lot of them in there aren't so great either, but that's another affordable option if you can find something in a pre -made cover.

00:22:06 SPEAKER_01
Well, you know, we were talking before we started the show about, you know, just kind of marketing on a whole. i mean i think market research covers all of that go into like that but maybe we could just kind of switch for the second half of the show about you know talking about like really what it looks like to plan like your marketing and how important that is because i mean i know in my experience just with authors that you know so often they just want to write they just want to write they just want to write all the rest of this is like stuff that they feel like is busy work that I'm telling them to do and it's not necessary. And then they're like, oh, you know, I did the website. Why is it my book selling? And I think that, you know, talking about like that, what that actually looks like and planning that and why just helps everybody.

00:22:59 SPEAKER_02
Yeah. I mean, like I said before, when I first started the press, one of my kind of sales pitches to authors was, you know, we can publish on a much faster timeline than bigger publishers. And now that's all changing because we got a distribution deal this year. And now we're and we've learned a lot, too. And there's I mean, I know it's really frustrating. Publishing sometimes seems like the slowest moving wheels ever. But there's a good reason for that. There's so much you can do a year out from publishing. Right. And we're again, we're learning and we haven't always been great about all of these things. But one of the things you can definitely do is have at least a pretty almost done version of your book out. ready to go to readers to get reviews, right? It's so important to try to get reviews. And I mean, you'd be surprised the big publishers, how many hundreds, if not thousands of free books they send out just trying to get reviews before a book comes out. So, okay, well, you don't want to invest in a thousand books to send out. That's fine. But plan on having your book ready early enough, at least in a pretty finished form that you can send out to people. Where do you find reviewers? There's places like Book Sirens. You can put your book there for a pretty cheap amount and get reviewers. It's like $2 a reviewer, whoever takes your book. You can do giveaways on Goodreads or a library thing, you know. You can just send them to, you can approach influencers, people on social media, people with blogs on your own, offer copies. You know, again, time consuming, but the more reviews you can get early on. So that can be part, so part of your plan should be right out of the gate. Like, what's my timeline? What do I want to accomplish? You know, do I want to try to get reviews? Do you want to try to get trade reviews? Well, those need at least a few months out if you want to pay for a Kirkus review or try to get, you know, Publishers Weekly, which is next to impossible. But you can try it. Or, you know, some of the other ones, Indie Reader, Readsie Discovery. There's all these tiers, right? And yeah, it costs money, but make a plan. You know, how much are you going to invest to get at least maybe one trade review? So reviewing, that's one of the reasons why publishers push out so far. There's so much to do. And then now I'm discovering too, like there's so much BS that happens at the last minute. You'd be surprised on versions of books that have been through, you know, six people have looked at them and, oh, there's a typo. It's always whatever page you open to it jumps right out at you. And you're like, wait a minute, this is coming out in a month. So there's going to be a lot of last minute tweaks. I'm debating now, you know, you might get a great quote from a review that you're going to want to then put on your cover and redo the cover. Get a timeline, I guess, would be my first promotional plan. So many people think, well, I want to publish it by the fall. And you're like, well, it's July. OK, but you're not going to have much. But another good thing, I think, too, is calling me anxiety. Yeah, I mean, I'm having anxiety about 2027 right now. I'm like, oh, my God, I need to get going on these 2027 books, you know. But I think, you know, to have some kind of plan. Figure out what, again, your goals are. Make sure you're going to have enough time to relax. And it's hard because people want to get their books out. But think, too, about what's a good season. You know, nobody, well, I shouldn't say nobody. We're not going to publish books in the summer anymore. You know, most books are either spring or fall. There's a good reason for that. And you might think, well, I want it in this time. I want it in June. you can but again do do research on what's the best time to release it what kind of promotions can you take advantage of all that kind of stuff and of course the timing is a big general thing and money how much money do you want to spend do you have a budget set aside for promotion and what's that going to look like you know what's your big items that you might want medium little How can you make choices? And it's like budgeting for a house, you know, your lifestyle or anything else. Like what choices are you going to make money wise, you know, to spend?

00:27:08 SPEAKER_01
So, I mean, do you have like a recommended timeline? Like, I mean, if you were going to tell someone who is either self -publishing or going indie, you know, like things like when should they start with their social media or, you know, like when they're thinking about. things and I'm going to publish here and I have all of this stuff to do like when should they start I mean yesterday right I mean the social media is an interesting thing too because with the first book that came out it was the young adult and I guess my long story short is I don't know how much social media sells books at this point to be honest I mean that's just my opinion of course you can reach people of course you know

00:27:37 SPEAKER_02
mean the social media is an interesting thing too because with the first book that came out it was the young adult and I guess my long story short is I don't know how much social media sells books at this point to be honest I mean that's just my opinion of course you can reach people of course you know I use my personal social media for different things. You know, Facebook is pretty broad. Well, what is Facebook? I guess it's everything. A lot of writers, a lot of friends. My Instagram, I keep more personal. So I guess we all know the advice about social media. You can't just get on there and then just twice a week say, oh, my book, you guys, my book. Right. But people that have well -established big followings. There's only so many times you can put your book out there.

00:28:23 SPEAKER_01
I mean, you could build an 80 -20 rule is what it is. I mean, like you 20 % promotion and 80 % not. But I do know the statistic. If you have social media, Instagram and TikTok specifically, the 2024 stat was 80 % of your following will buy your book. So if you have a thousand followers, 800 books are sold. I mean, so it's something if you work it right. But you have to grow that ahead of time. You have very skeptical of that stat. I believe you.

00:28:59 SPEAKER_02
I'm very skeptical of that stuff. Because, I don't know, I guess for the publishing house, maybe personal, you're right. Maybe if your connections are more personal. But for the publishing house, we have, you know, info as an author. Yeah, as an author,

00:29:13 SPEAKER_01
not as a publishing house.

00:29:14 SPEAKER_02
So I would say probably your close connections, a lot of them will buy your book for sure. But that's not all you need, you know. I mean, one good thing about social media is, of course, using hashtags and using groups. And so we've been... transitioning our thinking to it's not even so much followers although followers are great especially if they're going to share it's it's tapping into social media in general again with groups hashtags facebook has so many reading groups you know that you can be part of and and post things on but using proper hashtags to get the word out about books and making some connections. I think it's about partnerships too, you know, finding those influencers who then will share and they have 12 ,000 followers or whatever, and maybe you'll get a few sales there. But I also think that everybody, even in book influencer world, everyone's just so bogged down with information. It's just, I forget how many books publish every day, right? So like eight, every eight seconds a book is published.

00:30:15 SPEAKER_01
is published. And so,

00:30:16 SPEAKER_02
I mean, if you're like me and you're on there, you're just you're looking at books all day long. So unless somebody says, you guys, this is the most amazing book I've ever read. Maybe you get some effect from that. But all of these, oh, I liked it. Four stars. I liked it. I don't know. We're all just seeing so much, I guess, is my point. So even then, you know, you're looking for that specific reader that's going to want that specific book.

00:30:31 SPEAKER_00
I liked

00:30:41 SPEAKER_02
But I would say, yeah, as far as to your question, you should have a presence because if people want to go find you, they should be able to. I'm sure we can also think of very well -known authors that don't even have a website. But, you know, you get to a certain level of success. You can have all kinds of nuances about yourself. You're not there yet. So have a website, you know, be on at least a couple of social medias where people can find you if they want to get in touch. And, you know, to whatever extent you want to do it, start interacting and building. Not everybody wants to be on social media, and I kind of respect that in a way. But then be realistic about, you know, where else are you going to get your book out there? You're going to do some promotions. You're going to go speak at your library. You know, you're going to read some ads on Amazon. Have a goal, you know. Not everyone wants to get on and post, you know, five times a week. And that's fine. But, you know, how do you want to reach readers? I guess you need to think about.

00:31:39 SPEAKER_00
I think social media is the cheapest way to do it. Yeah. You know, if you're having trouble with money and you've got a low budget, you know, getting on there. And if you're like do Facebook and Instagram, it's a professional page. So you can schedule all of them and it'll run to both of them. You don't have to be on both of them, you know, posting daily. You can schedule a week or two of those.

00:32:04 SPEAKER_02
That's true. And I mean, making connections with people who are already doing that, it's a great thing. This is sort of related, but recently, you know, we get a fair trickle of queries into the publishing house. And a few weeks ago, I started getting a bunch of them. And I was like, what is going on? And I realized somebody had posted a little feature on the publishing house on Authors Publish, which is a great site that apparently has a big... apparently has a big email list. And we have gotten so many queries, which I love. But the reason I bring it up is it had me thinking about how sometimes these things like to grow exponentially. It just takes one mention somewhere. It just takes, you know, you find one influencer who says, yeah, this book is great. And then maybe you'll pick up 30 followers from her post or his post, right? So don't just, you know, make your social media and get your couple hundred followers and then every day preach to those same people. Make connections, you know, interact on their site. Say, oh my gosh, that was a great review you wrote. I wonder if you'd take a look at my book. It's similar. And, you know, be there for people too, you know, share their stuff. And I've always modeled almost anything I've done in any of my careers off of like beg, borrow, and stealing from other people who are doing well. It's true. I mean, you want to emulate people who are doing a good job. You know, what kind of posts are they doing? Maybe you should do something similar, but also make connections with them, too. So that's what to me, the big like kind of dream or goal with social media is that even if you can't build your personal little circle, you don't want to preach to them every day anyway. So make connections and look. There's so much out there. Right. So many readers.

00:33:49 SPEAKER_01
And it's well, and I love that idea of reaching out to, you know, like. influencers I guess or whatever book talkers you know bookstagrammers because they do have a following and that following does trust their recommendation usually like you know and so being brave enough for the rejection because you might get shot down but to start reaching out to them and you know like I have a friend who had a book of poetry come out and her sister sent it to a tiktoker And she her sales blew up for like two weeks from that one TikToker. I mean, she sold so many books. So I think that, you know, like and she didn't do it herself. She was like, I don't know about that. And, you know, but like having somebody in your in your wheelhouse, I guess, you know, a friend, a publicist. You know, a sister, a brother, if you're not brave enough, that would be like do it. Just start sending out your book and start sending out queries and, you know, messaging them in their private messages on whatever social media and be like, I really like your stuff. I'm an author. Can I send you my book?

00:35:06 SPEAKER_02
Yeah, I mean, social media is kind of this level playing field in a way. I mean, if you want to like. you know tag even like a famous person you can if you want i don't know how effective any of that is and i definitely wouldn't harass or bother them but you know you can reach out to all sorts of people i have a little stewing in the back of my mind and i don't say this about all books but i think one of these books we have coming out really really should be like a film or a netflix series so i'm gonna like i'll reach out to people that's like why not you know how are you you hear these stories about oh somebody handed their book to reese or whatever. But, you know, that's kind of high level. But why not reach out to people online that have some kind of voice that you don't have or wider reach, you know, and that is one of the benefits of social media. And it makes it kind of fun to making connections, you know, who doesn't want to hear influencer that says, Oh, yeah, I really enjoyed your book. Great. There's another reader. Even if you gave her a free copy, she's going to share about it, which, by the way, gives you more content because then you can share her her stuff. Right. You're not constantly just doing your own posts. So it's kind of a win win. But I think you need to make goals, like I said, and see how much time you want to spend on it, because it can be a little time consuming trying to keep up with content on social media.

00:36:23 SPEAKER_01
So outside of social media, I mean, like, what are other people what are other things that people can do? you know maybe at different price points like if they are the broke author and they're just trying to like you know hopefully get some kind of recognition for their book and someone who has more of a budget because i think that budget is one of those things that people don't understand either and you know i mean you can you can build your own website you can pay someone to have a website you can do your own social media you can pay someone to do your social media Like, you know, you can do your own marketing. You can pay someone to do marketing. Like, there's so many places. I mean, what is your advice, like, and throughout the timeline, you know, of this idea of marketing, right?

00:37:08 SPEAKER_02
Well, one of the first things a self -published author can do is when the book comes out, plan a couple events. Those can be basically free, right? Because... One of the first advice I ever got from a marketer, a publicist, with my first book was with HarperCollins. But even so, it was a small imprint and they weren't doing much in terms of marketing. So I hired a local publicist. And one of the first things she told me, it's always stuck with me. When you want to reach out to your local newspaper or whatever, right? Oh, well, they should write a feature on me because I'm a local author and I have a new book coming out. That's not news. Nobody cares that you wrote a book. So there has to be some kind of angle. I mean, and so she says one of the angles and I've never and maybe this is very simple stuff, but I was, you know, I didn't know anything. She's like, one of the angles can be, gosh, now I've lost it. It's not just that you wrote a book. Oh, you're having an event. That can be the angle. This author is going to be speaking at Joe's bookshop on September 9th. Right. So even if you don't have some groundbreaking. angle to reach out to your local paper like you know the author finally figures out the cure to cancer or something but maybe it's just she has an event that's news and the thing is too when you reach out to those local media another tip would be make their job super easy send them a well you know organized letter that's got all the information they can just actually cut and paste if they want to right They're looking for content too. So one thing I would say is have an event or two that you get out. We've had really good luck with Barnes & Noble all over the place, and I know they're a chain, but they are good about ordering in your book. And if you don't think you can feel like a traditional event, then you can just usually sit at a table and do a signing. They'll usually do that for local authors. Obviously, your amazing independent bookstores that you have nearby, even if you have to bring your books on consignment, and that's when you bring your own stock, and then they'll still keep a little portion of sales. It's just good optics. And I know people are, you know, afraid to have events that nobody comes to. And we've all been there, believe me. But, you know, if you have events, that can be news, right? Local organizations, you know, is there something your book has to do with? Are you part of anything? Are you in a women's group? I've had good looks with clients for the editing part, booking like at women's clubs and things like that, particularly if the book is... got some angle that they might be interested in. Book clubs, you know, you can find local book clubs, all sorts of places, etc. So have a couple events, maybe. That's a pretty affordable thing to do. If it's at a shop or a venue, you typically don't have to spend any money. And then reaching out to local media, also free, right? You can do that. Once you have events, there's usually local online places you can post the event for exposure, also free. But as far as other promotions, I mean, there's such a range, you know, advertising or like we're saying before, e -book promotions. You can discount your e -book, but maybe, you know, a good thing to do when you do that is have some promotion run, like by some organization that has a mailing list of e -book readers, right? Or something like that. So again, it's just... grunt work, you know, getting online, figuring out, you can Google what are the best sites for ebook promotions, you know, and then you can go to them and check them out. What do they cost? What does it look like? How are you going to time it so that, you know, you make the most of the launch? But that being said, I also think that that whole old model of, oh, you launch it and you have 30 days, you know, when you self -publish and even with our press, we don't stop promoting books after 30 days. You know, it's fall season. I'm going to be talking about our psychological suspense book that came out last year. Right. So you don't have to feel so pressured about, oh, I have to do everything in October when my book comes out. You can plan for the whole year.

00:41:13 SPEAKER_01
You know, that's a smart to plan for the whole year. I have a handout that we did for something else. I can't remember what it was, Kathleen, but it's Adanna's top 10 e -book promotions. I can. Oh. I can put that on our show notes so people can download my little handout if they're interested in at least seeing my top 10 favorites. Maybe there'll be some I don't know about. Please do.

00:41:37 SPEAKER_00
Yeah. Well, there's a lot with e -books, too, that they're only like 75, under $100, most of them. And they have several hundred thousand people that receive the notice. That's a market right there to use. It's a numbers game. Yeah. It's got to understand it's a numbers game.

00:41:57 SPEAKER_01
I don't know what the actual number is, but the Fussy Librarians free e -book one, they have like half a million people on that list. And it costs like, I mean, it depends on your genre, but it costs like, you know, anywhere from like 20 to maybe 50 bucks, like to run it.

00:42:15 SPEAKER_02
Well, how do you guys feel about giving e -books for free,

00:42:18 SPEAKER_01
free, though? Because I think it depends on what you're trying to do. You know, if you're going for sales, no. If you're going to get your, you know, if you're going trying to boost your Amazon reviews, absolutely run a free campaign. Because the more Amazon reviews you have, then when you go to do something like an ad, that ad delivers better because you already have the reviews to get. So I think that it really, really depends on what you're trying to do when it comes to a free campaign. I don't think all books should be run on a free campaign. But I think that if your book is brand new and you know that you're going to be running more ebook campaigns and run ads like both off social media and through Amazon, running a week or two of, you know, having your having your book be at that free for five days and just really trying to boost your reviews like before you go into a more robust ebook promotional campaign. Right. Totally valid.

00:43:25 SPEAKER_00
Yeah. Book Bud just came out. In fact, I'm putting it in the WPN Insider that goes to our members. A new article. And Dana, maybe I'll send you this link to put up on the website that free campaigns are actually still working, but it's your goal. What is your marketing goal? And if it's getting those reviews. Because those reviews also attract the algorithms to pump your book up when people are searching and using your keywords.

00:43:57 SPEAKER_02
I guess in my limited experience, I've only run a couple free campaigns and we had a lot of downloads and did not see any reviews from either one. And they were in genre categories, so I don't know what the deal was with that. But in theory, you would think it would work. Yes, but we really saw... nothing from it so yeah me too sometimes those reviews trickle in over time though especially like i mean i know for me like with my kindle when i see something like a free book or a 99 cent book i'll buy it but i won't read it for a while because yeah i haven't read a book for pleasure in like five years so my thinking my new thinking on that based on my limited experience is that

00:44:20 SPEAKER_01
me too sometimes those reviews trickle in over time though especially like i mean i know for me like with my kindle when i see something like a free book or a 99 cent book i'll buy it but i won't read it for a while because yeah i haven't read a book for pleasure in like five years so my

00:44:40 SPEAKER_02
thinking my new thinking on that based on my limited experience is that Those same people might also get it for 99 cents or $1 .99.

00:44:49 SPEAKER_01
I mean, they might. They might. But I think that, yeah, I just think that, you know, like, I think it depends on what your goal is. And I think it's the long term goal, because one of those things that those downloads spike, even without reviews, is if you are running, if you start your Amazon ads before you run your free campaign, right? And then you get a boost in downloads. And then that downloads go away and your book reverts to 99 cents or $1 .99. What you have done is told the Amazon algorithm that your book is important because you've got this huge spike in downloads. And then your ads deliver better and you make more money at that 99 or $1 .99. So, I mean, again, and I think it's the goal and it's the long term of that campaign, right? It's not just in the moment or in this week. It's like. I mean, for Amazon ads, especially like that's kind of a months long game to make sure that those ads continue to deliver and how you do that. And with this algorithm change from A9 to A10, we're now like outside influences help push that algorithm. So it makes you it makes it think your book is more important than maybe it is. So if you're running Facebook ads and maybe a social media campaign and an e -book promotion, right? And that's all funneled into your Amazon and you're running a week long free campaign. Like, you know, that just helps. So, I mean, I think that I think it's all. And again, it comes down to your budget. Like, what is your budget? Do you have a budget to run both a free campaign, a 99 cent campaign, a dollar 99 cent campaign, which you would do in the reverse? You would do a dollar 99, 99. Right. Because you can't run free on a lot of places if. Yeah, you can't run a paid ad if you run free within 90 days on a lot of e -book promotion sites.

00:46:46 SPEAKER_02
I think like, so like a minimum, at minimum, you could get out in the community, get a couple events. I know a couple authors who, and I'm not as great at it, but are really good about hitting the pavement and walking into local bookstores and saying, hey, my local author, here's my book. Can I bring you a few and see if they sell? right get your book into local stores and then you know again at minimum maybe once or twice a year at big sell you know we're going to have a lot of black friday sales first for books so maybe a couple times a year at these optimal times invest a couple hundred dollars in doing like promote you know either you could mark your print book down you could mark your ebook down and maybe a couple times a year like let's say your budget's pretty minimal and you're like i'm only going to spend a few hundred dollars every year well then plan even with that do it strategically when's a good time to advertise books you know one of the biggest book buying seasons and let me take advantage of that book them early because sometimes those promotions sell out because of that right and then just keep your eyes and ears open on social media reach out to people Put in whatever time, you know, when we talk about budgeting, I mean, budget your time, too, because we all have busy lives and you don't want to get overtaken with it if you don't want to. But, you know, maybe set. I'm going to spend, you know, an hour three times a week looking at this stuff. And, you know, I'm constantly saving things for myself to look at when I have that allocated time. Right. But there's a little bit you could do that's pretty affordable.

00:48:15 SPEAKER_00
affordable. I like to tell people. if you're really serious you've got to market your book if you want people to read it you've got to market it so when you start writing it or when you start your you know you've written the first draft then when you start rewriting and you're going through your second draft start setting like 25 50 a month away Set up a little savings account, put it in there, because by the time you've rewritten it again and then you send it out to an editor and then you get it back, you will have a little cushion to be able to afford these things. It's not like, oh, God, it's publishing on Wednesday. What do I do now? And you've got to come up with money.

00:48:58 SPEAKER_01
Right. I love that idea. And and maybe do a whole budget of things that you like a dream. You know, like I want a website. I don't want to do it myself. I want, you know, whatever. And so you can budget for it. So when you're putting away your 20 or 50 bucks, like, you know, you know what your end goal is. So then you can pick a publishing date.

00:49:21 SPEAKER_02
Yeah. And websites is a whole other thing. You can find good designer for pretty affordably. for a website or do it yourself if you have it's it's not that hard to do it yourself but again do you want to and do you have the time is it's not it's not that hard i think that you know if you go with someone who has expertise in it like you know they can finesse it better i mean and they and they have ideas of things that like maybe you wouldn't think of to put on your website but if you do it yourself definitely go look at other look at other yeah look at other ones and

00:49:36 SPEAKER_01
not it's not that hard i think that you know if you go with someone who has expertise in it like you know they can finesse it better i mean and they and they have ideas of things that like maybe you wouldn't think of to put on your website but if you do it yourself definitely go look at other look

00:49:56 SPEAKER_02
at other yeah look at other ones and And a good thing about websites, too, is they're really trending towards more simple now. When I first had my first website, I don't know, 12, 15 or whatever years ago, authors had much more decorative sites, right? They were very artistic and there was a lot of stuff going on. And I did it. I hired someone and they made me this beautiful site with all this decor. And then several years later, that's not really the trend anymore, in my opinion. Everybody just wants... I don't really have a... It has to do with our attention spans. You know, I want to get on a website and find the information I want. I don't need to be entertained with your pictures. And maybe it's just me. But I feel like websites in general are more simple, like have a little decor. We're writers. You know, you don't want it to look like a business site, but they're pretty simple.

00:50:45 SPEAKER_01
Simple. But as a website designer, I will just say this. Having visuals is how you lead your visitors on your page through a journey. So even. Even I mean, it's still storytelling and whatever, regardless of what you whether it's business or a writer or you have a spa, you know, like whatever is like the visuals because we're humans are visual. So the visuals are what lead you from from block of text to block of text.

00:50:58 SPEAKER_00
regardless of

00:51:08 SPEAKER_01
the visuals are what lead you from from block of text to block of text. And without those visuals, people will just bounce right off your website. So, you know, there there's like a science into building a website that works. you know we call in balance i think yeah we call it ux it's user experience is what we're going for is that you know things are easy to find and that you can lead them through and you know calls to action so you're like hey buy my book hey you know visit my social media hey join my newsletter like you know you're trying to build a tree out of your website you know so but yeah i definitely agree that i think simple and i think big blocks of text are out. I mean, if you have four paragraphs on, you know, together and one section, it's too much. Nobody's ever going to read it because over 50 percent of people only look at websites on their phone. Like, think about what that's like to have to scroll through that block of text. And most of them just the first page,

00:52:13 SPEAKER_02
too, which is actually a trend I don't really like with websites because. I still like, and then maybe it's maybe, you know, old fashioned, but it seems like most websites, there's so much on the first page because that's the only place most people will go and they'll scroll down. I like a first page that has a menu so that I can figure out where I want to go. I don't want to scroll down a super long first page, but I think that's an unpopular opinion of mine because I think most websites, there's a lot on the first page now, would you say?

00:52:43 SPEAKER_01
Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, your first page is your first impression. And the longer that you can keep someone on your homepage, the more likely they are to scroll to other pages. For a lot of authors, especially if they only have one book and they don't have a bunch of other stuff, I usually suggest what I call a one -page brochure site, which is you only have one page. but you can have a menu at the top that have anchor tags to your section to something but you can have still about and all of that but it just brings you lower in the page it's not bringing you off page but i think that for a lot of authors a one -page website that have you know a really good introduction to your story maybe you know a really good introduction to you something fun i my my current thing that i think i love Is that if you write fiction, especially, is curating a playlist like on Spotify or YouTube that can go with it. So when people are reading your book, they can have a playlist like, you know, making it fun and making it entertaining and like adding some stuff to it that like makes you feel like a person that they're buying from and not just like, here's my book, here's my book, here's my book. But yeah, I mean, I think that. I don't know. I mean, obviously, I think websites are the most important thing you can do.

00:54:07 SPEAKER_02
Yeah. People need to be able to find you. And it's weird when you can't find someone, right? And like I said, there's even some famous authors that I'll go to look and I'm like, oh, they don't. They only have a good website, but they don't have a website.

00:54:19 SPEAKER_01
have a website. I'm like, that's weird. It really bothers me when you go to look for like an author and they only have a Goodreads page or they only have Instagram. And I'm like, hmm. You know, because, I mean, you want to know more about people. And I want them to have all of those things, like, as the buyer, not even as someone who does this. But, yeah. And you want people to be able to find you,

00:54:40 SPEAKER_02
to be able to find you, too, even if it's through an agent or a publicist or whatever.

00:54:46 SPEAKER_00
Yeah. Yeah. It's because the author has become the celebrity, not your book. You know, it's been that way for a number of years now. We're a celebrity society, and we go that way. And that's why we want to learn more about who the author is, what they do, what they like. I love the playlist idea because when I'm writing and working on a novel, I have music in the background that I'm listening to already.

00:55:13 SPEAKER_01
That's the mood. I mean, you know, you're world building, right? So like having music or. You know, I know people who like give away recipes or something like that with their newsletter that goes with their book or like, you know, if their book set in the 40s, like they, you know, like whatever Jell -O pudding and stuff like weird recipes that would fit the time. So, I mean, I just think like when we think about world building, it works for memoir, too. I don't think it would help great for self -help unless your self -help is how to play the guitar or something. But like, you know, I mean. But it really works for novels, like when you're world building, like that people really get into it. Then you can use that across your social media, too. But I don't know. I feel like I think they're getting to know you,

00:55:57 SPEAKER_02
they're getting to know you, which, you know, inspires loyalty. And then, you know, we all want to feel like we know an author. And even if we like their book, we still if we know them, too. Well, then we feel like we know them. Have you ever had that experience where. Maybe you run into someone that you kind of know on social media, but then you're like, wait, do I really know them? Do I not know them? Because you kind of do, right?

00:56:19 SPEAKER_00
Well, it's not only getting to know them. You're asking them to maybe pay $15, $18, $20 to buy a book and take two or three nights out of their life to read it. They don't know who you are.

00:56:36 SPEAKER_01
Well, and I think that goes back to what Mary was talking about. Like some people maybe don't love social media, right? So, I mean, like Diana Gabaldon for years wrote, she would write snippets on the CompuServe .net. It was kind of like you could go and get advice on your writing and stuff like that. And she did that even after she was published. constantly was giving away snippets of the book and asking people for feedback and stuff so she really was interactive with her community this was like pre -social media and that helped her book sales so you know when we're when we're thinking about stuff like you know maybe even jumping backwards into a little bit more traditional you know like huffing it through bookstores with your book in your one sheet and you know all of that kind of stuff like you know what are other ways like how do you how do you interact with your community and that's all part of that timeline because the longer you can interact with your community in your book genre the better sales you will have for sure and you know and like we're saying with social media it's not always just hell my book you guys hey my book my book

00:57:39 SPEAKER_02
sure and you know and like we're saying with social media it's not always just hell my book you guys hey my book my book You know, I mean, all publicity is good publicity, even if you're talking about something else that happened to you or I don't know, whatever you want to talk about, a cause that you're into or or anything at all. And, you know, that's still going to be people listening to you and feeling like they're getting to know you because we all know those people who are guilty of just every week. My book, my book. And if you go click on their profile, that's all they ever do. And they probably don't get hardly any interaction. No, because people don't like that.

00:58:18 SPEAKER_01
like that. No. People don't like that. They're like, oh, it's not. Yeah. Well, and you're and they don't always want to be hawked to, you know, like that's just if you're all you're doing is selling. I mean, you know, I mean, if you're an organization, if you're a publishing house or like writers and publishers network, like I think that's different. But as at an individual level, like, you know, but even like at a publishing house level or. writers and publishers like you have to have value like give you have to you know there has to be more than just buy my book it has to be like i don't know for instance wyoming sugar which is in the middle of wyoming they they make beet sugar it's not even cane sugar they have started on their facebook page giving historical sugar education and you know like it's hysterical but it's awesome because it's engaging like you know whoever would have thought you want to know tidbits about the the sugar the history of the sugar industry you know like or or why why it's so awesome or whatever like I mean their posts are hysterical I came across it accidentally last week but you know I mean Like it's valuable.

00:59:31 SPEAKER_02
valuable. You don't always know what's going to appeal. And I do remember, you know, I do feel like sometimes social media can be a little like head scratching. I used to have a blog and I do all these back in years ago and I do this very insightful book review or something or, you know, some. personal creative nonfiction piece that I really worked on. And, you know, it's like 12 people liked it. And you're like, okay, cool, I guess. And then one day you just change your profile picture. I don't know why it has to post about that. I wish it wouldn't, right? And 89 people, you know, great photo. And you're like, okay, well, thank you, I guess. Like I didn't really do anything. But in fact, I wish it wouldn't have shared that. But it just shows you like, I don't know, like finding that balance of, you know, being something that people are interested in, I guess. Not so much like long post.

01:00:22 SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I think that's a good place because we need to wrap this up today. Finding the balance of what can work for you in your marketing is really what... is what's going to make it happen in the end. Because you have to do it. Yeah,

01:00:36 SPEAKER_02
find readers. After where we started, you know, where are your readers? Where are your people that might be interested in your book? And how can you get to them and communicate with them?

01:00:45 SPEAKER_00
Well, Mary, thank you very much. This has been a great hour and lots of information for our listeners. And we will put up some information that whatever you want us to put up as links about you on the site. Okay. you know, it's available anywhere for download, but, and we'll put up that thing on free ebook promos. And Adanna had one, her top 10 favorite.

01:01:11 SPEAKER_00
Yeah. Okay. Well, thank you very much. And we really appreciate you being here today. Thanks for having me. Fun to talk with you guys. Yeah. Thanks, Mary. Okay. Bye. Bye.

01:01:33 SPEAKER_01
Talking Book Publishing is brought to you by Writers and Publishers Network. It's a resource for writers and indie publishers at every level and offers tools to be successful in their writing career.