Episode 105 - The Fifth Process of Publishing: Marketing with Orna Ross
November 9, 2021
"I can honestly say I think this is the most level-headed, insightful, and downright HELPFUL piece I've ever heard on the topic of author marketing (and how it differs from promoting). Stellar job, Matty and Orna. Sincere thanks to both of you." --Podcast listener Pauline Wiles
Orna Ross of the Alliance of Independent Authors joins me for the fifth of a series of seven episodes devoted to the Seven Processes of Publishing. This week the topic is marketing. We talk about the difference between marketing, which is your welcoming handshake to a potential reader, and promotion, which we’ll address in the next episode. We talk about the “post-natal mania” that authors suffer after their first book, and how this “buy my book!” approach is understandable but not effective marketing. We discuss the importance of having marketing be a two-way conversation with readers.
Orna offers a host of ideas for how to achieve these goals, while emphasizing that this is not a checklist to be marched through blindly, but a menu of options from which you can pick to match your strategic goals, with an eye to what will work well for you personally. Orna offers a host of ideas for how to achieve these goals, while emphasizing that this is not a checklist to be marched through blindly, but a menu of options from which you can pick to match your strategic goals, with an eye to what will work well for you personally.
Orna Ross is the founder and head of The Alliance of Independent Authors, a non-profit professional business membership organization for self-publishing authors. ALLi provides trusted advice, supportive guidance, and a range of resources, within a welcoming community of authors and advisors.
Orna Ross is the founder and head of The Alliance of Independent Authors, a non-profit professional business membership organization for self-publishing authors. ALLi provides trusted advice, supportive guidance, and a range of resources, within a welcoming community of authors and advisors.
"You absolutely have to go where your readers are and find a bridge between you and them. That has to be done, that's part of the job. But what's that bridge going to look like? There are a thousand ways to build a bridge." —Orna Ross
Are you getting value from the podcast? Consider supporting me on Patreon or through Buy Me a Coffee!
[00:00:00] Matty: Hello, Orna. How are you doing?
[00:00:02] Orna: I'm very well, Matty. How are you?
[00:00:05] Matty: I'm doing great, thank you. And I'm very excited to be back for our fifth of our series on the Seven Processes of Publishing, and today we're going to be talking about Marketing. And so the first thing I wanted to start out with is that ALLi considers marketing and promotion to be two separate activities. I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about what the differences are and why you felt it was important to make that distinction.
[00:00:28] Orna: I think it's really important for a number of reasons. When it comes to books, there is the sort of stuff that you need to do as what you might call your basic, your core marketing stuff. They're non-negotiable, you have to have them. Things like book covers, book descriptions, website, we would say transactional website for an indy author, and various things like this. Setting these up is quite a bit of work, and at every level you've got to work out so much to do this successfully. And in many ways, they're evolving. Lots of us find that we change these things as we go, but putting them in place is really, as I said, it's non-negotiable, it's got to be done.
[00:01:17] But they don't in and of themselves sell books. What they do is position you in the market. They give you a core place for your author platform, your website, where you can gather everything together. And they establish your promise to the reader. So when you're setting up your marketing, what you're doing is you're actually saying to the casual browser who comes across a book or your website or your book description or whatever it might be, you're saying to them, here's the kind of book this is, and you're either going to be interested or you're not. I don't mind if you're not, be gone with my blessing. But if you like this kind of book, here's a good one.
[00:02:01] And I say that through my marketing. I say it through the quality of my book covers. I say it through the quality and user-friendliness of my website. I say to the reader, this is a good book not by jumping up and down and saying, "my book is great, my book is great!" But by actually through my marketing messages, subliminally giving them confidence, making them feel like they know what kind of book it is, and they know that they would like it or not. And just essentially, it's the hello. It's you putting out your hand for a handshake, then they need to come in and see more to find out what they want to buy.
[00:02:42] Promotion, which we'll be dealing with in the next session, promotion Is quite different. Promotion is for book sales. It has a start date and an end date. Your marketing rolls on and on, it's constant, but promotions are set campaigns, which are designed to shift a particular book at a particular time for a particular time period.
[00:03:05] So they really are quite different. And I think what happens to authors, the reason why it's so important to make the distinction between the two is that authors do all of the set-up stuff, and then they feel that they've done that, why is nobody buying my book? They don't understand that marketing at this level is really important. Nobody will ever buy your book without it but having it in and of itself is only going to sell a few books here and there. You need the promotion to actually shift books in quantities.
[00:00:02] Orna: I'm very well, Matty. How are you?
[00:00:05] Matty: I'm doing great, thank you. And I'm very excited to be back for our fifth of our series on the Seven Processes of Publishing, and today we're going to be talking about Marketing. And so the first thing I wanted to start out with is that ALLi considers marketing and promotion to be two separate activities. I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about what the differences are and why you felt it was important to make that distinction.
[00:00:28] Orna: I think it's really important for a number of reasons. When it comes to books, there is the sort of stuff that you need to do as what you might call your basic, your core marketing stuff. They're non-negotiable, you have to have them. Things like book covers, book descriptions, website, we would say transactional website for an indy author, and various things like this. Setting these up is quite a bit of work, and at every level you've got to work out so much to do this successfully. And in many ways, they're evolving. Lots of us find that we change these things as we go, but putting them in place is really, as I said, it's non-negotiable, it's got to be done.
[00:01:17] But they don't in and of themselves sell books. What they do is position you in the market. They give you a core place for your author platform, your website, where you can gather everything together. And they establish your promise to the reader. So when you're setting up your marketing, what you're doing is you're actually saying to the casual browser who comes across a book or your website or your book description or whatever it might be, you're saying to them, here's the kind of book this is, and you're either going to be interested or you're not. I don't mind if you're not, be gone with my blessing. But if you like this kind of book, here's a good one.
[00:02:01] And I say that through my marketing. I say it through the quality of my book covers. I say it through the quality and user-friendliness of my website. I say to the reader, this is a good book not by jumping up and down and saying, "my book is great, my book is great!" But by actually through my marketing messages, subliminally giving them confidence, making them feel like they know what kind of book it is, and they know that they would like it or not. And just essentially, it's the hello. It's you putting out your hand for a handshake, then they need to come in and see more to find out what they want to buy.
[00:02:42] Promotion, which we'll be dealing with in the next session, promotion Is quite different. Promotion is for book sales. It has a start date and an end date. Your marketing rolls on and on, it's constant, but promotions are set campaigns, which are designed to shift a particular book at a particular time for a particular time period.
[00:03:05] So they really are quite different. And I think what happens to authors, the reason why it's so important to make the distinction between the two is that authors do all of the set-up stuff, and then they feel that they've done that, why is nobody buying my book? They don't understand that marketing at this level is really important. Nobody will ever buy your book without it but having it in and of itself is only going to sell a few books here and there. You need the promotion to actually shift books in quantities.
click here to read more
[00:03:34] Matty: It's sort of like the infrastructure side of book sales, having all the mechanisms there, as you say, in place. And I like the comment about, it’s not the jumping up and down and waving your book in someone's face. And actually I talked with Mark Lefebvre about this in the episode 100, which was THE RELAXED AUTHOR, and we were talking about it in the context of don't go into social media and just post "buy my book, buy my book, buy my book." But I think it generalizes to any aspect of your interactions with readers and potential readers, and a learning I had attending a conference, it was Thrillerfest that I went to for several years, and it was interesting that the more successful the author, the less likely it was that they were going to mention their own work in a conversation with you. And I guess that makes sense because if you're Charlaine Harris or George R.R. Martin or any of these very successful authors, you kind of don't need to, the people already know. But I think that's such a hard transition to make, and I saw it in my own author career, that it's much easier now for me, now that I have a number of books under my belt, to not do that than it was with the first one. Because I think with the first one, you're just desperate for people to know about it. Now, am I venturing into promotion by talking about this now? Or would you consider this part of marketing?
[00:04:53] Orna: I would consider this part of marketing, because I think this is about settling into your marketing groove, is how I think of this kind of thing. And I think what you're raising is super important. After your first book, you're suffering from what I call post-natal mania. You're not quite right. You have this new baby, and you want everybody to know about it, you're super excited, hormones are flying all over the place and you don't behave like the average human being in those weeks, and that's fine. It's completely understandable. You have done something amazing, which is actually bring a book, not just finish a manuscript, but actually bring a book into publication. You scaled to enormous mountains. It's like if you're a mountaineer, having done Everest and Kilimanjaro. It's really huge and you're entitled to your mania, but that's what it is. It's not actually marketing and it's not effective.
[00:05:52] And I think what you're saying about the established authors, that is so interesting because I think another reason, as well as the fact that they've got more confidence and we all get more confidence the more books we write and publish, but also it doesn't really sell books. Like mentioning your book in passing conversation, people won't remember your title, your beloved title that you spent ages working on. They won't really click and most people at the beginning, when we're talking about our book in that sort of obsessive way, we're talking mostly to people who are never going to buy your book. If they do buy, they buy because they love you, but they don't normally read that kind of book.
[00:06:32] So you've got to get over that hump, if you like, and then settle back down, start writing the second book and create some distance between yourself. And when you get to book three, I think things really come into proper vision for you as both a writer and a publisher. But obviously that takes time. And give yourself the time. It's absolutely fine to make mistakes at the beginning and to jump up and down and say, "buy my book, buy my book, buy my book." Just don't expect it to be very effective.
[00:07:03] Matty: Yeah. And I guess maybe there's a distinction between saying "I've written a book" and "buy my book," because I would definitely find "I've written a book" to be a more palatable message to hear from someone on social media, for example, or if I met them at a cocktail party or whatever, than "buy my book."
[00:07:18] Orna: Absolutely, yeah. Telling somebody to buy anything is never a good way to get them to buy it. And even if you just come across, like one of those really brash ads on the television that you just go whizzing past, you don't pay attention. And particularly when it comes to complex, and that might work if you're selling sofas, but it doesn't work if you're selling a complex product like a book.
[00:07:44] Because actually, what sells a book is emotion, a feeling. It's not even the cognitive messages that are in the book that are as important to the person who hasn't read it as the subliminal sort of messages that are coming through the use of language in your book description, and particularly the subliminal messages that are coming through the book design, your book cover. That's why your cover is so key to your marketing and why often authors find, and we discussed this a bit when we were talking about cover design, often authors find that their first attempt of this doesn't really work, and sometimes you have to go back a second or third time before you realize.
[00:08:26] And then as you add more books into your stock, your whole look as an author, your author platform, it all changes. So it isn't a set thing, it's not like building a physical platform, you just build it and you just leave it there. It's actually an evolving thing, your author platform, and the more books you produce, it will shift and mutate a little bit. But if you know your core passion as a writer and mission, if you have one also, they remain core and then everything else can kind of settle in around those.
[00:09:05] Matty: It was interesting when we were talking about the emotion and the difference between saying "I have a book" and "buy my book" is I was flashing back to my corporate career. Because until 2019 I worked, among other places, at QVC, the shopping network, the online retailer. And one of the approaches they had was that sales should be like talking to your friend over the backyard fence. "Over the backyard fence" was a common phrase that you would hear to distinguish that kind of sales approach, especially when QVC first started up, the very heavy, sort of in your face, screaming promotions of TV ads, it all seemed like an infomercial. I think that's kind of a nice theory to carry forward, that you want to have a conversation like you're talking with a friend over the backyard fence, which could steer you away from the "buy my book approach."
[00:09:57] Orna: I think that's brilliant. Just imagine your right reader, your perfect reader on the other side of that fence. And you’ll not only be chatting to them about your book, you'll be asking them about what they're reading, what they've enjoyed. It's a two-way conversation. Marketing at this level is a two-way conversation. So we're learning as much from our readers as we are giving to them. It's definitely the more dialogue we can get in there in terms of reading our reviews properly and inviting email responses and just getting to know our readers as real people, not this faceless mass, it really feeds back into the writing and the marketing.
[00:10:41] Matty: So one of the things that I think is a common question, especially early in a writer's career, is how early in the process should writers start trying to establish this marketing platform that you're talking about?
[00:10:51] Orna: Yeah. So you are not just a writer, you're also publisher because you're an indy author, you're an author-publisher. And so you've got these two things going on at the same time. And I think the answer to this question depends on what kind of writer you are. And by that I don't mean your genre or anything, but I mean how you are as a person when you're writing. Are you the kind of writer that needs to completely protect what you're doing and not let the outside world in? So are you the kind of writer who doesn't speak to family or friends, doesn't tell them what's going on? They may know you're writing a book, but they have no idea of the content. Or are you the kind of person who bursts out of the study in the evening and says hey, today I wrote this and that.
[00:11:34] If you're the second kind, you can safely start to use social media and other ways to kind of begin to get your message out there. Marketing, the sooner you start, the better from a marketing perspective, what your number one always has to be protecting that creative writing part of yourself. And you will know best as to whether that's able for that. If it isn't, forget about it. Get the book out. And particularly on first books, I think there's not a lot to say if you're not the kind of person who's happy to share the writing, if you're not ready to. If you're writing a complex novel, say, that is multiple timelines and stuff like this, and there's going to just change and change and mutate, you need to get to the end, go back to the beginning to write it again. There isn't a lot of point in sharing that unless you're really super comfortable about being that raw and exposed, and very few of us are. So at that stage, focus on the writing and getting things done and don't worry too much about marketing.
[00:12:37] So yeah, beginning as soon as you possibly can, is the right thing from the marketing perspective, but keep in mind what the writer needs. And then, when you have the book done and safely through, when it begins to go to your editor and to other people, then you can and go from there. You can begin to send it through.
[00:13:00] Matty: I think that people do enjoy seeing that behind-the-scenes aspect of the writer's life. So even if you're not explicitly sharing the content of what you're writing, sharing the process might be of interest to the people that you want to nurture as your followers.
[00:13:17] Orna: Yes, it absolutely can be. But you know, it does depend on how sensitive you are, really. And some of us are very sensitive. So I absolutely agree, if you can, find a way, but if you can't, don't worry too much about it. There will be plenty of time for marketing when you've got something to actually sell.
[00:13:37] There's also the danger for some people, and really, we vary so widely on this that it's very hard to give just one answer, but there's also a danger for people, they separate themselves and start looking at the book with a critical eye instead of deeply immersing themselves in the flow that's needed to finish.
[00:13:56] So, I know for example, I couldn't have shared, even if we'd had those tools back at the beginning, when I was a beginning author. I was already struggling having been a journalist, I was already struggling with having too public a mind, having self-censored myself as a freelance journalist to give editors what they wanted. And switching to fiction, it was really important that I wasn't thinking about what the editor wanted or the reader wanted for that first book, because I had to learn how to become a novelist. And that is quite a job in itself. And so for me, I'm just speaking personally, doing anything at a social level would have derailed the project, I think.
[00:14:44] But then not everybody feels that way at all, so it really is about finding your own way. And if you can find any way to begin to market and integrate that with your writing, then that is the ideal because that's what you're going to have to do always. And so the sooner you can set up that habit of, I'm not just a writer, I'm also a publisher and I'm wearing my writing hat, I'm doing this, I'm wearing my publisher hat, I'm doing that, and getting comfortable with those two. And sooner you can do that, the better. So if you can, do, but if you can't, don't worry. That's what I'm trying to say, I think.
[00:15:19] Matty: One of the tricky parts of marketing activities for me is that I need to distinguish between readers and fans. And so, the best example I can think of this is that a long time ago, and this was back when you could do giveaways on Goodreads for either free or almost nothing. Now, I think it's quite expensive, but early on, I did a giveaway on Goodreads in exchange for email addresses for my mailing list, and I got like a thousand people on my mailing list.
[00:15:47] And so I've seen that over time in the many years since then, every time I send an email out, a couple of people unsubscribe. It shouldn't be surprising, but it's still sort of painful to see. And then at a much slower rate, I'm adding people in. You know, I'll recognize a name that I've seen in my private Facebook group, and now I see them on my email newsletter list, and so I think that's the distinction between readers and fans. That the people I got initially were readers and the people that I'm getting now are fans. Is that something that should impact how an author goes about their marketing activities for their work?
[00:16:25] Orna: This is such a great question, really, it's such a great distinction, and one I think that too few authors are kind of cognizant of. So anytime that you do any sort of giveaway, you're going to gather people who are only there for the giveaway. That's why free books are a useful strategy up to a point.
[00:16:44] So you can set yourself up in such a way whereas I'm only going to really focus on fans. I'm only going to focus on those people who most love what I do, and I'm going to have the most connection with, I'm not going to give them anything. I'm just going to put myself out there. Here's what I do, I probably won't get their email address until they buy a book on my website. That's one way to go about it. I'm going to really focus on using one of the distributors like Amazon or Apple or somebody, I'm really going to focus in there and trying to find fans.
[00:17:14] But I think for most people what happens is there's a bit of a scattered gun kind of approach. So I think of it as concentric circles. And in the middle, Kevin Kelly wrote way back at the beginning of the internet, that a thousand true fans can sustain a creative in their living, because they'll buy everything you do. They'll follow you no matter where you go, no matter what your creative development is, they just love you, they really align with you, and they follow you to anything.
[00:17:43] And that's recently, with Kelly's permission, been modified to a hundred true fans spending a thousand. So it was originally a thousand true fans spending a hundred, and that was a sufficient income for you to keep on doing your thing. And now it's even more in that direction by saying a hundred true fans who would spend a thousand a year is enough for you to keep doing your thing.
[00:18:05] So I think it's very difficult if you're only going to try and find those people. I think you have to have the readers. So if we think about the concentric people here in the middle, they are your fans. The next ring around that will be the more casual reader who kind of likes what you do, but they prefer that author and this author over here, but you're not bad, you're okay. And if you have a new book, yeah, they'd like to know, kind of, yeah, sure, if they have time, they'll put it on their TBR and maybe, fingers crossed. Those people, by the way, are on your mailing list. They're interested enough to be on your mailing list, but they're not wild about you. They're not going to buy everything you do. And if you start to do a new series, they're going to think twice about whether they're going to follow you over there or not.
[00:18:47] The next concentric circle around that are the people who are on your subscriber list, but they're really quite casually connected to you. The next circle outside of that is somebody who's bought a book, but never signed up for your mailing list and hasn't done that yet. And then outside of that, of course, the people on the biggest, widest circle of all, they haven't heard of you at all.
[00:19:07] So, I find that a useful way to think about it because you can then get your promotions, depending on what way you want to handle it, you can get your promotions going into one of those circles, deciding in advance which of those circles you would like to approach.
[00:19:25] So if you give away a lot of free books, for example, to a lot of people who haven't heard of you before, that’s good marketing, but they will fall off. They won't all come all the way into the center of your circle. Some of them will, a few of them will. So at each level of the circle, you're reducing the percentage. And that's not personal. And actually, you want them to unsubscribe if they're in any doubt, because well, for all sorts of reasons related to deliverability and stuff like that, in terms of your emails actually landing in the inboxes of those who do want to receive them. If you've got too many people who are not sure and they're not opening your mail, then that actually affects your deliverability rates, and your emails can wind up going into the spam boxes of people who actually do want to get them.
[00:20:17] You want at all times, and I do think this is the central thing to keep, you're aiming your bullseye there in the middle of these concentric circles. You're aiming at those people and you're trying to get as many of them as possible into that middle. But in order to do that, you'd cast your net wide. And you can think about how you go about that. And again, a lot will depend on the kind of books you're writing, what your own right readers like to do, what they're used to from other authors and all that kind of stuff.
[00:20:52] Matty: I also find that the process of turning potential readers into readers and fans is that the more interactive you can be with them, and this kind of harks back to something you had said earlier, the better it is. So I've had good luck doing author takeovers on Facebook pages. And there you can spend an hour or two hours or a day or however long the takeover is, chatting with people. And then I see a very high percentage of those people then showing up on my email list of people can look for those opportunities, where you're able to interact with them, not to show them your book. Then that's kind of a nice approach.
[00:21:24] Orna: Definitely, and if you enjoy anything like that, then your publishing side loves that. So just as a trade publisher would push you out to every event in town, you as your own publisher have to decide which events, you're going to push yourself to, that won't derail your writing. And that's always the delicate balance that you're trying to achieve. So if you are the kind of person who loves going on to Facebook and doing a Facebook takeover, fantastic, do that.
[00:21:53] If that's your idea of hell, don't do that. Do something that you love. So much about marketing will only work if you like it, and so often we're doing things because we saw some other author do it and we'd go, oh that's a good way to sell books. And it probably is, but is it your good way to sell books? That's the question you have to ask yourself.
[00:22:15] So you absolutely have to go where your readers are. You absolutely have to find a bridge between you and them. That has to be done, that's part of the job. You won't sell books if you don't do that. But what's that bridge going to look like? And there are a thousand ways to build a bridge between a writer and a reader, there's so many ways.
[00:22:35] And the more interesting and yourself, the more authentic, I think this is one of the reasons that people love things like Facebook page takeovers, or live video or audio, because it brings it alive, and they can get a real sense of who is the person behind the book. And readers really like that. Authors deplore it sometimes. They think, I spent three years putting this book together, it says everything. Why do you want to ask me questions? Read the book! And we can be a bit impatient in that way.
[00:23:05] But it is actually wearing our publishing hat, that's what you want to be tapping into. That wish, on behalf of the reader, for something else, something that will be the bridge, something that would kind of hold their hand to bring them across into the world of the book.
[00:23:20] So you've got to remember how much pull there is on everybody's time. Think about yourself, think about your own reading habits. Think about what you want from the writers you love. What sort of bridge would you like them to lay down for you to walk over? Yeah, again, to think in those ways, and you can come up with some good ideas. The more original and personal and authentic you can make it, the better.
[00:23:45] Matty: You've mentioned a couple of times the importance of balancing marketing or any of these other publication processes with the writing. Are there red flags that people should keep an eye out for that would suggest that they are not striking that balance in a healthy way?
[00:24:01] Orna: Yeah, I think it's really useful to time yourself and just see how much time are you actually spending on the writing. It's very easy to get confused and think you're spending a lot of time on your writing when you're actually spending a lot of time on your marketing.
[00:24:18] So you need to clearly label, I think of it as three different aspects, which I think I've mentioned before in this series, the maker who makes the books and also makes the social media ads or the podcast or whatever it may be, that's the maker. There's the manager who does all the stuff related to money, income, and processes, improving your writing process, improving your publishing process, all of that kind of thing. And then there's the marketeer who looks after the promotions and all the marketing work. So it's really helpful to do, and I have a creative business planning program where we all look at the week and the day in terms of maker, manager, and marketeer. So you get very clear about what you're doing when, and I think that's really useful.
[00:25:09] One of the reasons I have this is because, I've found this so challenging myself, between being an also publisher and then also running ALLi, there was a lot of pulls on my time and I used to think I was doing more writing time than I actually was. And these planners helped me to get clear and to really see what was going on in my day and therefore in my weeks and months.
[00:25:31] I ended up actually having to get completely different physical spaces for my maker. My maker has a space all of her own now. And ALLi happens obviously in ALLi world. But the publishing happens outside of the making space and I think that's important.
[00:25:50] Matty: Are there are characteristics of those three spaces that make each of them appropriate for the activity that goes on in that space?
[00:25:57] Orna: Yeah, definitely. I think your creative, maker space needs to be very, speaking for myself, each of us knows what our own maker likes, but for me, it's got to be very soft, and it's got to be very quiet, and it's got to be very removed from the world. So I feel like I'm stepping in here, there's just me and my imagination, it's got all my favorite books in here, it has got a few childish kinds of things. And so your maker, generally speaking, is soft and vulnerable and needs to open up, to be coaxed out play. So it's also a more playful space and there is a nice day bed if you're going to have a little snooze, that kind of thing.
[00:26:35] Whereas the ALLi environment and the publishing environment is much more businesslike. Still fun, I mean, it's a creative business, it's not mechanical or mechanistic in any way, but it is more businesslike and that's appropriate.
[00:26:50] Matty: The big challenge I think I have is that, especially coming from a project management background, the draw of the marketing and the manager aspects is that it's like a list of tasks and you can go through the tasks, and you can check them off, and each time you checked something off, you have the sense of accomplishment. Whereas the making part is usually much more sort of loosey goosey, and you might get to the end of a period of making and you don't really know whether you've accomplished what you wanted to accomplish or not.
[00:27:20] And I found that for me, the equivalent for me to where I'm doing it as when I'm doing it. And I used to spend the time before one o'clock daily sprint that I had with two fellow authors doing the marketing and the managing part. And then we eventually moved the sprint up till 11, because I'm like, if I have until 1, I'm going to fill until 1, but if I only have until 11, I stop at 11. And it was only by mechanically moving that marker that I was able to spend more time making and less time on those other things, which I think was a healthier balance for me.
[00:27:55] Orna: Absolutely. I mean, you're raising something that's really important. The two resources that we're playing with are time and space. I mean, we could introduce money there as well. And so space, yeah, I talked about that, but time is really important for me. The actual deep work of the latest book that I'm writing, the deep writing work has to be done first thing in the morning. And there are a couple of reasons for that. If it isn't done first, probably won't be done because so many calls on the outer sphere and they all sound more important and more urgent, and in a way they're easier.
[00:28:30] There are all sorts of reasons why they're easier. They are deep, kind of psychological and emotional reasons, and we don't need to know what they are, but we do need to know that it will always be challenging to give that inner part of yourself the attention that is needed to sit down and go deep. And so I have to do that first thing in the morning. Speaking to an author during the week, he said he has to do it last thing at night when everything else is done. He can't actually let himself relax until he's ticked all the boxes.
[00:29:02] So I think a lot is, I mean, you come from a project management background, you will have a whole load of habit energy built up around project management that feels good to you. And you've got to feed that part of yourself. A lot of authors that I talked to, nothing fills them with more horror than a to do list or a project management aspect. They don't enjoy the marketeer / manager. They just want to sit in making all day, but just not possible, really, for any author, any creative. So yeah, again, it's about knowing yourself and exploring, experimenting, and seeing what works for you with regard to all of that.
[00:30:16] Matty: We had sort of mentioned before the various aspects of a marketing platform for an author, and I just want it to walk through them and have you comment on each of them as we go in terms of what they can bring to a marketing effort.
[00:30:29] So the first one, I don't know that we want to spend a ton of time on this because it could turn into a whole episode on to itself, but social media. We've talked a little bit about the idea of spending your time where you enjoy being. Any other tips you would want to share about social media?
[00:30:45] Orna: Yeah. Don't stay in your comfort zone if you're using social media as part of your business. Don't stay with your friends. Realize that what you're trying to do is reach readers and think about how you use this medium to reach more readers if that's what you're doing. If you're on to enjoy your friends, be fully on there to enjoy your friends and don't bring business into it. So get very clear.
[00:31:12] A third thing that I found very useful was to separate out my social media. So this is just a personal thing. I haven't seen a lot of people do it, but it worked very well for me. My poetry now is on Instagram only. It doesn't really surface anywhere else. And Twitter is for nonfiction and Facebook is for fiction. It's kind of loosely divided up in that way in my mind. And that really helps me to know what I'm doing where.
[00:31:37] Make a distinction between your Facebook page on your Facebook profile. If you use your Facebook profile for your personal stuff, be cognizant of the fact that you have a Facebook page and how they link.
[00:31:51] The other thing I would say, if you're going to use a social medium to sell, go be a user. Don't go on to something that you haven't got a clue how it works. It doesn't last. You'll see countless author accounts on all the different platforms that are just mordant. They don't work.
[00:32:10] So it's not something to be embarked on lightly. It's something that you really need to think about and engage with. It's another form of writing. It's communication in another way. It should amplify and expand what you're saying in your book. You should be the author when you're out there. If you're using it in order to sell books, you go out there and not as yourself, but as a representation of yourself, the part of you that writes books.
[00:32:37] And again, you're thinking about the reader. So you're thinking that giving good value to them, not going on to sort of complain because your delivery didn't arrive on time or whatever it might be. A bit of humanity is absolutely fine, but within the context of providing value to the reader, always.
[00:32:57] Matty: I don't know if this is actually a new feature of Facebook or I just noticed it, but I've seen recently that you can join groups or do Facebook page takeovers, things like that, as a page rather than as a profile, because before that either existed, or I noticed it, I would join groups as my profile, and then suddenly I would get a bunch of friend requests and I actually only want my profile to be accessible to actual friends.
[00:33:23] I don't think I'll ever be able to just go back to what I used to post on my profile because there are too many people that have gotten in there now that are not my friends and family. But it was a nice way to make that distinction that you're saying that you draw a line between what's personal on social media for you and what is more business oriented for you.
[00:33:41] Orna: Yes, exactly. And Facebook is always changing things and sometimes they do things prematurely and then they catch up when they see how people respond on that.
[00:33:51] So, yeah, they're always making changes, and this is the thing that these platforms, why our marketing, why we must have our website. I know we're talking about it about social media, and we've continued to do that. But just to use the opportunity to say, because these changes are constantly going on and always will be, you need a stable place of your own on the internet. You need your own space, your own website, where everything happens, and then you see your social media as outposts.
[00:34:21] Matty: Well, let's use that as an entree to websites. Talk a little bit about what are the primary considerations for an offer in terms of having a website presence?
[00:34:28] Orna: So, one of the things I've mentioned this already, but I'll say it again, always saying it. As an indy author, you're a publisher, you're not just a writer. And so you should have a transactional website. If a reader finds your website, you want them to be able to buy your book. So that's number one, your website is transactional and therefore you're different to an author who has sold all their rights to one publisher or a couple of publishers, but they have other people who look after that, it's fine for them to just have a brochure site, but as a publisher, you need a transactional site.
[00:35:05] And then you have to decide with your website, what is the one thing that you most want your reader to do? So you would ideally like them to buy books. But there is a problem with that I mentioned earlier, that is that a lot of readers are hesitant to buy a book from an author that they don't know and love. There are millions of fantastic books out there. So you are in competition with all those other books that they could be reading. And so they're not sure when they come onto your website, if they've never heard about you before. They may be bowled over by your fabulous covers, your brilliant reviews, and your general ambience and jump right in and buy a book, and that's great. But most of us will want them to sign up and get to the sign up is the most important thing for most authors.
[00:35:52] But you have to decide, are you going to be pushing the sales, are you going to be pushing signups, or are you going to be pushing something else, something unique and original to you? Whatever it is that you decide your website is there to do, then that should be really crystal clear, and all roads should lead there.
[00:36:10] So your site map on your website should lead your reader through, in a very logical sort of way, to what you want them to do. So if you want to sign up, then make that your homepage, make the sign up page your homepage. And make it attractive and give them a reason why they should sign up. Generally speaking, that's free books, with all the attendant dangers that we've discussed already. But whatever it might be, really try to attract them into the signup. If it's about the book sale, then think about accordingly. And think about how you shape and structure your website around that one thing that you want them to do.
[00:36:48] Secondly, remember that your fonts, your colors, and the shapes of your site, how you do your dropdown menu, everything on that site is sending obvious or subliminal messages and you don't want the message to be, this person is not professional. And it may well be sending that message if you've put it together yourself. So I would really highly recommend that to hire somebody who's good at design to do your website.
[00:37:22] Thirdly, it's worth putting a bit of time and attention into SEO, search engine optimization. So in the same way that you will have to choose categories and keywords when you're uploading your books to Amazon, Apple, and so on, use those same categories and keywords. It's surprising how many times you see a disjunction here. Use those same categories on keywords all around your site. That should happen naturally, but often on our websites, because it is our own part of the internet, we can get a little bit distracted and find ourselves writing and all sorts of different things.
[00:37:59] Fourthly, if you do lots and lots of very distinctively different things, don't be afraid to get them off your author website. Your author website should be about your books. It can give a sense of everything that you do. But again, thinking about the reader, the main focus of your website isn't really to tell them what you do. Again, that's a brochure type site that kind of includes everything and you know, interest them in that. You are thinking more strategically in a more business-like fashion.
[00:38:32] And also because people's time for browsing websites in that sort of way is far less available than it used to be. You want to keep the site as simple as possible. A lot of author websites are absolutely coming down with junk. There's way too much stuff and people don't know where to go. They don't know what to do. They might even want to buy a book and not be able to find their way. They don't need every award you've won, every nice thing that anybody has said about you. They don't need all that upfront, really. You need to think about them and what makes a really enjoyable experience.
[00:39:09] And then you need to think about how you're going to get some back again. And this is where blogs or podcasts or Facebook Lives or author interviews or something comes in. You need a site not to be static. People want, if they come back next month, but they're not just going to the same site they saw last month and the month before and the month before. They need to get a sense of this author is working, they're producing, and that there's things going on that they're going to be looking forward to. So all in all is a lot to think about.
[00:39:43] Matty: There is a great episode. I'd like to point people to Episode 73 was AUTHOR WEBSITES with Pauline Wiles. And she was totally on the same page as what you're describing with simplicity is key. And also the level of simplicity that she recommends for first-time authors I think it gets a lot of people over the hump of being frightened about the idea of setting up a website, because she has some great suggestions for, there are just three or four or five components that you need when you start out and get those lined up and then expand as you want it to over time. But I think that would be a nice companion piece for people to take a look at.
[00:40:16] And you had mentioned blogging, so that's another of the components let's use that as an entree. Is blogging still a thing?
[00:40:21] Orna: Yeah, blogging's still a thing. It definitely is. Podcast have become popular. Video has become popular. You know, we are writers. We work with the written word. So if you can't make a blog interesting and compelling, then who can? Blogs still are a thing. But again, going back to what I said earlier, if you don't like blogging, they're not a thing for you and find another way to do it. You might prefer audio. You might prefer to do podcast. You might prefer to do live videos, which you then embed on your website. There are loads and loads of things that you can do. You just need to work out what they are.
[00:41:00] What's great about blogging is in the same way as a transcript on a podcast and other these things, this distinction is kind of wearing down because there was a time where Google wasn't indexing video, and it wasn't to indexing audio in the same way that it is indexed text. And so blogs have the advantage. And this is why a lot of podcasts did transcripts as well as being something that readers wanted, and some people wanted to read it rather than listen to it. It was also because you needed that to get the Google juice kind of thing. And that is not as significant as it used to be.
[00:41:37] But blogging is still an excellent way to reach a reader, but it must be targeted. You must know what you're doing. It's not about just blogging whatever comes into your head. Again, it's about those all-important keywords and categories and writing something that's interesting enough that it is kind of the best thing on the internet about that particular topic so that it will come up and turn up in searches.
[00:42:05] And this is much easier for nonfiction writers than it is for poets or novelists. So blogging works very well for non-fiction. Maybe not so well for fiction unless you've got a very clear kind of idea of a very distinct niche, and you can write around it in a way that it's going to surface up on searches. And very often fiction is just more nebulous and so it's difficult for it to top SEO searches. And it's the same with keywords and categories on the platforms. That's just a nature of fiction. It doesn't mean there's anything wrong with you, but it does mean that you need to stop and think it's blogging best use of my time.
[00:42:47] This is another reason why people don't blog because they're all written out by the time they've written their book. The last thing they feel like doing for marketing is turning around and do more writing. They'd rather do almost anything else.
[00:42:59] So yeah, so much of this, and I'm just realizing as we're talking, so much of this marketing stuff comes back to know yourself. Know yourself and trust the process of what you love and connect with is what your reader is going to love and connect with. Just trust that flow, that natural flow, rather than thinking I have to do blogging and I have to do social media and I have to do these things because that author did them and somebody else that you have to. You don't have to do anything, but you do have to do something.
[00:43:31] Matty: There is another Pauline Wiles episode. I want to point people to, this was Episode 27, WHY TO STOP BLOGGING AND WHAT TO DO INSTEAD. And her message actually was that blogging can still be valuable, but if your goal is to reach new readers and followers, then guest blogging is a better option than blogging yourself. So if you're blogging yourself, in a way you're preaching to the choir, you're connecting with the people who are already following you, probably, and you're gradually getting some people in. But if new reader outreach is what you're looking for, guest blogging is what she recommended.
[00:44:04] And I know that for myself and this ties back to what you were saying about consider what is comfortable and desirable for you is that I very rarely blog, like every once in a while there's some message I want to get out and it's just convenient for me to put it in my blog and connect people from social media to it, because it's like too long to put as a social media post, but that's very rare. And I'm just doing it sort of for my own entertainment, not for any marketing purposes.
[00:44:33] But I do accept invitations to appear as content on other people's sites, but usually only if it's audio or video, something I can record, because as you're saying, I'm definitely of the camp that if I have writing energy, I don't want to be spending it on a blog, especially somebody else's blog. I want to be spending it on my books or possibly my social media. And that ties in with something that Mark and I talked about in Episode 100 BEING THE RELAXED AUTHOR about if he's going to be contributing content to somebody else, he wants to do it in the most efficient way possible. And for him, audio or video is what that is.
[00:45:12] So let's use that as an entree to video content. How can author teach video content was productively as a marketing tool?
[00:45:19] Orna: Yeah, I think video is very underused by authors and they tend to think of the author interview. And just to add to everything you said there, which I 100% endorse, it's the same for podcasting and video appearances as it is for blogging. You will reach a lot more people. I hear a lot of authors saying I really should start a podcast. Probably not. Unless you're absolutely dying to start a podcast, unless you're absolutely itching to do it, what you should probably do is go and appear on podcasts. And same for YouTube lives or whatever it might be.
[00:45:54] So, yeah, video though is far more than just the author interview. Book trailers are very effective at selling books. Now you still have the issue of you have to get attention for your video or your podcast or whatever it is that you're doing. And that in itself needs to be marketed, but it is much easier to get somebody to watch it a book trailer than it is to get them to buy a book. So again, it's about that bridge. Video can be a fantastic bridge between your reader and your book, and there are all sorts of ways that you can do that. And you could also be in a lot more creative, myself included, around how they use video and how they create that bridge through video.
[00:46:38] There's a fantastic tool that I use now called StreamYard, where you can do your Facebook live or whatever you are doing, you both through StreamYard and you can be simultaneously broadcasting to Facebook, your Facebook page, Twitter, everywhere essentially, all at the same time.
[00:46:59] Those kinds of tools and things with video with audio really make a lot of sense to find out the way, again, in terms of effectiveness and efficiency, you might have time that you're spending getting the most return that you can makes a lot of sense. So a lot of it is about getting out there or else producing something really attractive, remarkable, and interesting that is going to give people a sense of what your book is about and create something in video that makes them go, oh my, I really have to read this.
[00:47:31] So I think there's a lot of scope there and a lot of scope to get creative. But again, it's time, it's energy, and you need to probably work with a good video editor who can kind of bring your vision into reality.
[00:47:46] Matty: I enjoy making book trailers, but I totally do it as just an entertaining activity for me. I never expect that I'm going to actually get any readers from it. Like if I can't justify the evening that I'm going to spend doing it, just because I think it's fun. You know, it's like, am I going to read a book or am I going to make a trailer? I'm going to make a trailer. I sort of weigh it in a different way because I don't know that it's bringing me that much.
[00:48:11] Orna: Yeah, cause again, you have to market it. So if you're enjoying the making part there, but maybe not engaging with the marketing part around the trailer. And if you enjoy making them, you definitely should make them because why not? They really do help a reader to know what the book is about. So they really are very effective. I mean, anyone who gets a bit of a budget in a publishing house, if they've got a contract, will get a trailer. A trailer is seen as kind of basic, you know, so if you can, do it. What tool do you use just as a matter of interest?
[00:48:45] Matty: Well, until recently, believe it or not, I used PowerPoint. This is showing my corporate background that I basically did a series of slides with transitions and text and things like that. But if I were doing it now, I would use probably Canva or BookBrush. So the tools that are available to do it now are much nicer.
[00:49:05] Orna: They're great. And could I do a call out for a lovely tool called Animoto. And they put it together with music and stuff and you just drop in your whatevers, from your slides and they produce this very nice video with lots of kind of special effects things up to you. Though they're all coming up, aren't they? They're all improving. Every time somebody does something, all the others come up to the same level. So these may well beyond Canva now and BookBrush and I'm not aware of that, but certainly I have found Animoto to be a great tool.
[00:49:39] Matty: Yeah. Well, we've given people a couple of options to look at.
[00:49:43] And I wanted to look last at podcasting. So of course I have a personal interest in this. I totally agree with what you're saying about the idea of being a guest on a podcast is a good test for if you want to be a host of a podcast. And I'm just going to put a blatant plug in for my book, THE INDY AUTHOR'S GUIDE TO PODCASTING FOR AUTHORS. And if you go to TheIndyAuthor.Com, and it's Indy with a Y, and click on Podcasting for Authors, in the book, I have a few questions at the end of each chapter, the early ones are aimed at trying to decide if podcasting is right for you. Like put together a list of topics you'd like to address, and if you can't come up with, you know, two dozen of them, you probably don't want to start a podcast. But there's a document out there called the Captain's Log because I love the nautical metaphor and it includes all the questions that appear at the end of the chapters and the early ones are focused on deciding of podcasting is right for you.
[00:50:38] And then if you get past that stage and you decided is, one of the distinctions I make is whether you want to use it as, are you connecting with followers or are you connecting with fellow creators? And so I still find that I'm probably benefiting more from The Indy Author Podcast as an opportunity for me to connect with people like you, that I might not otherwise get a chance to talk to one-on-one and it's totally makes it worth it to me to make the financial and time and effort investment to continue to do it. Whereas for some people it is definitely a more marketing rather than a networking kind of effort.
[00:51:16] And I have found that based on my own experience and that I've seen other people have with using a podcast for fiction, it's tougher for exactly the same kinds of reasons that we're talking about fiction blogging is a little harder than non-fiction blogging. Because my belief is that when people listened to a podcast about fiction books, they're following the author, they're not following the host. And so if I go on somebody else's podcast to talk about my fiction books, I'm probably still speaking to the choir, preaching to the people who already know me because I'm going to post about it on social media and they're going to listen to it and hopefully be entertained. But I don't know that I'm picking up a lot of new people. Do you have an opinion on whether you're picking up new people, if you're a guest or if you're a host for a fictional podcast?
[00:52:10] Orna: Yeah, I think this is great because I think we need to expand our idea of what a fiction podcast can do. So I think we're very used to the interview format in terms of podcasting and that's what you're talking about there. And I completely agree with everything you said. And a lot of authors don't understand this. So think it's really useful to be raising it. It's the complexity of fiction marketing. It's not a simple and it's not as straightforward as how-to nonfiction, let's call it that, guidebook nonfiction, which is very much around the information. Give me the information. So you can do keywords and things, it's very easy to do your SEO properly and to reach out and pick up new people.
[00:52:57] When we're doing fiction podcasting and poetry podcasting ... so let's just talk about poetry for us for a second. Poetry, the most effective form of podcast is samples of the poem and say, if your poetry is doing its job, because it's short form, it's ideally suited to audio. And so can serve as a taster for your book. So somebody listens to a poem, they're moved by the poem, they're so moved they buy the book. Simple. So poetry and podcasting really worked very well together. Just a simple audio reading. And there are loads of ways in which poets get together and do their readings on each other's websites and on podcasts and Instagram lives and all that kind of stuff. And all that is straightforward.
[00:53:40] And then in the middle you've got the poor novelists who are wondering how on earth do I use podcast to effect? So you’ve pointed out the difficulty. So you can go out there and put yourself around and be interviewed by trip book and you may enjoy that the first few times anyway. But how much are you actually picking up readers of that kind of book? Because you would have to have a laser sharp choice of podcasts. And then it may not even exist, the right podcast for you to reach your readers. People who are following somebody else whose podcast is so on-brand, to use a corporate term, for you. And so there might be a book blogger maybe who specializes in your type of book, but it's not going to be a whole lot going on out there in the wider world.
[00:54:31] So then the choice is kind of back to the book trailer thing. You make another piece of art, another piece of work, which draws in readers, and it is very closely connected to what you do yourself. Now I considered doing this. I was going to do a podcast called "Histories and Mysteries" because I write historical fiction and inspirational poetry and I felt that would kind of that umbrella would go across the two, and I was going to make it as close in experience as possible to the experience of actually being engaged with the books. In the end, I decided not to do it because I just thought it was too much hard work and that I'd rather write in all the book. So that's the problem.
[00:55:16] So I do realize that we're raising the challenge here rather than providing the answer, but I think it's very important to understand this before you open off and do all the work that's involved in doing podcasts is to think very closely and carefully. Again, put yourself in the reader's shoes. If they were to listen to this podcast, would they buy that book? And also think about the consistency of it, the amount of work that's needed to do with the amount of time it's going to take the amount of energy, creative energy that it's going to use.
[00:55:48] If it's a fit, it's fantastic. It's absolutely brilliant. There probably isn't a better way I would think. I mean, there's a reason why here in the UK, BBC Radio 4 books programs, those audio programs on the radio, they really shift books better than anything else on television, because the audio intimate connection, it's the closest we can get in a broadcasting environment to the intimacy that is there in the reading of a book. And particularly now is audio books take off, audio podcasting and audio books are a very neat fit, but you've got to create the bridge. It has to make sense. And so think very carefully about it when you're setting it up.
[00:56:32] Matty: I think that the idea that you have to make these decisions, especially about spending time on any of these things we've spoken about or writing, is so key. And again, I'm going to hark back to Mark Lefebvre's Episode 100 on THE RELAXED AUTHOR, which would be great for people to listen to before and after they listened to this series because I think the key of this set of seven that we're going to be doing is that you should have all this information about what's on the menu, and then you make an informed decision about which ones you're going to pick and maybe revisit it periodically to make sure that your appetite hasn't changed and you want to shift your focus a little bit. But that it's not intended as a checklist that here are the hundred things, and you better start at number one and start marching through what, because that way lies insanity.
[00:57:21] Orna: Absolutely. Permanent, not just your post book mania.
[00:57:25] Matty: Exactly. Well, Orna, this was so great. Please let listeners know where they can go to find out more about you and all your work online.
[00:57:35] Orna: Yeah. So I'm Orna Ross and my author website is on OrnaRoss.com. I am founder and director of the Alliance of Independent Authors, and you can find that at AllianceIndependentAuthors.org. And we have a self-publishing advice website, which you find at SelfPublishingAdvice.org.
[00:57:57] Matty: Great. So this has been the fifth of our series of the seven processes of publishing on marketing. And the next episode is going to be all about promotion. So stay tuned for that. And thank you again, Orna.
[00:58:08] Orna: Thanks, Matty, it's been a pleasure.
[00:04:53] Orna: I would consider this part of marketing, because I think this is about settling into your marketing groove, is how I think of this kind of thing. And I think what you're raising is super important. After your first book, you're suffering from what I call post-natal mania. You're not quite right. You have this new baby, and you want everybody to know about it, you're super excited, hormones are flying all over the place and you don't behave like the average human being in those weeks, and that's fine. It's completely understandable. You have done something amazing, which is actually bring a book, not just finish a manuscript, but actually bring a book into publication. You scaled to enormous mountains. It's like if you're a mountaineer, having done Everest and Kilimanjaro. It's really huge and you're entitled to your mania, but that's what it is. It's not actually marketing and it's not effective.
[00:05:52] And I think what you're saying about the established authors, that is so interesting because I think another reason, as well as the fact that they've got more confidence and we all get more confidence the more books we write and publish, but also it doesn't really sell books. Like mentioning your book in passing conversation, people won't remember your title, your beloved title that you spent ages working on. They won't really click and most people at the beginning, when we're talking about our book in that sort of obsessive way, we're talking mostly to people who are never going to buy your book. If they do buy, they buy because they love you, but they don't normally read that kind of book.
[00:06:32] So you've got to get over that hump, if you like, and then settle back down, start writing the second book and create some distance between yourself. And when you get to book three, I think things really come into proper vision for you as both a writer and a publisher. But obviously that takes time. And give yourself the time. It's absolutely fine to make mistakes at the beginning and to jump up and down and say, "buy my book, buy my book, buy my book." Just don't expect it to be very effective.
[00:07:03] Matty: Yeah. And I guess maybe there's a distinction between saying "I've written a book" and "buy my book," because I would definitely find "I've written a book" to be a more palatable message to hear from someone on social media, for example, or if I met them at a cocktail party or whatever, than "buy my book."
[00:07:18] Orna: Absolutely, yeah. Telling somebody to buy anything is never a good way to get them to buy it. And even if you just come across, like one of those really brash ads on the television that you just go whizzing past, you don't pay attention. And particularly when it comes to complex, and that might work if you're selling sofas, but it doesn't work if you're selling a complex product like a book.
[00:07:44] Because actually, what sells a book is emotion, a feeling. It's not even the cognitive messages that are in the book that are as important to the person who hasn't read it as the subliminal sort of messages that are coming through the use of language in your book description, and particularly the subliminal messages that are coming through the book design, your book cover. That's why your cover is so key to your marketing and why often authors find, and we discussed this a bit when we were talking about cover design, often authors find that their first attempt of this doesn't really work, and sometimes you have to go back a second or third time before you realize.
[00:08:26] And then as you add more books into your stock, your whole look as an author, your author platform, it all changes. So it isn't a set thing, it's not like building a physical platform, you just build it and you just leave it there. It's actually an evolving thing, your author platform, and the more books you produce, it will shift and mutate a little bit. But if you know your core passion as a writer and mission, if you have one also, they remain core and then everything else can kind of settle in around those.
[00:09:05] Matty: It was interesting when we were talking about the emotion and the difference between saying "I have a book" and "buy my book" is I was flashing back to my corporate career. Because until 2019 I worked, among other places, at QVC, the shopping network, the online retailer. And one of the approaches they had was that sales should be like talking to your friend over the backyard fence. "Over the backyard fence" was a common phrase that you would hear to distinguish that kind of sales approach, especially when QVC first started up, the very heavy, sort of in your face, screaming promotions of TV ads, it all seemed like an infomercial. I think that's kind of a nice theory to carry forward, that you want to have a conversation like you're talking with a friend over the backyard fence, which could steer you away from the "buy my book approach."
[00:09:57] Orna: I think that's brilliant. Just imagine your right reader, your perfect reader on the other side of that fence. And you’ll not only be chatting to them about your book, you'll be asking them about what they're reading, what they've enjoyed. It's a two-way conversation. Marketing at this level is a two-way conversation. So we're learning as much from our readers as we are giving to them. It's definitely the more dialogue we can get in there in terms of reading our reviews properly and inviting email responses and just getting to know our readers as real people, not this faceless mass, it really feeds back into the writing and the marketing.
[00:10:41] Matty: So one of the things that I think is a common question, especially early in a writer's career, is how early in the process should writers start trying to establish this marketing platform that you're talking about?
[00:10:51] Orna: Yeah. So you are not just a writer, you're also publisher because you're an indy author, you're an author-publisher. And so you've got these two things going on at the same time. And I think the answer to this question depends on what kind of writer you are. And by that I don't mean your genre or anything, but I mean how you are as a person when you're writing. Are you the kind of writer that needs to completely protect what you're doing and not let the outside world in? So are you the kind of writer who doesn't speak to family or friends, doesn't tell them what's going on? They may know you're writing a book, but they have no idea of the content. Or are you the kind of person who bursts out of the study in the evening and says hey, today I wrote this and that.
[00:11:34] If you're the second kind, you can safely start to use social media and other ways to kind of begin to get your message out there. Marketing, the sooner you start, the better from a marketing perspective, what your number one always has to be protecting that creative writing part of yourself. And you will know best as to whether that's able for that. If it isn't, forget about it. Get the book out. And particularly on first books, I think there's not a lot to say if you're not the kind of person who's happy to share the writing, if you're not ready to. If you're writing a complex novel, say, that is multiple timelines and stuff like this, and there's going to just change and change and mutate, you need to get to the end, go back to the beginning to write it again. There isn't a lot of point in sharing that unless you're really super comfortable about being that raw and exposed, and very few of us are. So at that stage, focus on the writing and getting things done and don't worry too much about marketing.
[00:12:37] So yeah, beginning as soon as you possibly can, is the right thing from the marketing perspective, but keep in mind what the writer needs. And then, when you have the book done and safely through, when it begins to go to your editor and to other people, then you can and go from there. You can begin to send it through.
[00:13:00] Matty: I think that people do enjoy seeing that behind-the-scenes aspect of the writer's life. So even if you're not explicitly sharing the content of what you're writing, sharing the process might be of interest to the people that you want to nurture as your followers.
[00:13:17] Orna: Yes, it absolutely can be. But you know, it does depend on how sensitive you are, really. And some of us are very sensitive. So I absolutely agree, if you can, find a way, but if you can't, don't worry too much about it. There will be plenty of time for marketing when you've got something to actually sell.
[00:13:37] There's also the danger for some people, and really, we vary so widely on this that it's very hard to give just one answer, but there's also a danger for people, they separate themselves and start looking at the book with a critical eye instead of deeply immersing themselves in the flow that's needed to finish.
[00:13:56] So, I know for example, I couldn't have shared, even if we'd had those tools back at the beginning, when I was a beginning author. I was already struggling having been a journalist, I was already struggling with having too public a mind, having self-censored myself as a freelance journalist to give editors what they wanted. And switching to fiction, it was really important that I wasn't thinking about what the editor wanted or the reader wanted for that first book, because I had to learn how to become a novelist. And that is quite a job in itself. And so for me, I'm just speaking personally, doing anything at a social level would have derailed the project, I think.
[00:14:44] But then not everybody feels that way at all, so it really is about finding your own way. And if you can find any way to begin to market and integrate that with your writing, then that is the ideal because that's what you're going to have to do always. And so the sooner you can set up that habit of, I'm not just a writer, I'm also a publisher and I'm wearing my writing hat, I'm doing this, I'm wearing my publisher hat, I'm doing that, and getting comfortable with those two. And sooner you can do that, the better. So if you can, do, but if you can't, don't worry. That's what I'm trying to say, I think.
[00:15:19] Matty: One of the tricky parts of marketing activities for me is that I need to distinguish between readers and fans. And so, the best example I can think of this is that a long time ago, and this was back when you could do giveaways on Goodreads for either free or almost nothing. Now, I think it's quite expensive, but early on, I did a giveaway on Goodreads in exchange for email addresses for my mailing list, and I got like a thousand people on my mailing list.
[00:15:47] And so I've seen that over time in the many years since then, every time I send an email out, a couple of people unsubscribe. It shouldn't be surprising, but it's still sort of painful to see. And then at a much slower rate, I'm adding people in. You know, I'll recognize a name that I've seen in my private Facebook group, and now I see them on my email newsletter list, and so I think that's the distinction between readers and fans. That the people I got initially were readers and the people that I'm getting now are fans. Is that something that should impact how an author goes about their marketing activities for their work?
[00:16:25] Orna: This is such a great question, really, it's such a great distinction, and one I think that too few authors are kind of cognizant of. So anytime that you do any sort of giveaway, you're going to gather people who are only there for the giveaway. That's why free books are a useful strategy up to a point.
[00:16:44] So you can set yourself up in such a way whereas I'm only going to really focus on fans. I'm only going to focus on those people who most love what I do, and I'm going to have the most connection with, I'm not going to give them anything. I'm just going to put myself out there. Here's what I do, I probably won't get their email address until they buy a book on my website. That's one way to go about it. I'm going to really focus on using one of the distributors like Amazon or Apple or somebody, I'm really going to focus in there and trying to find fans.
[00:17:14] But I think for most people what happens is there's a bit of a scattered gun kind of approach. So I think of it as concentric circles. And in the middle, Kevin Kelly wrote way back at the beginning of the internet, that a thousand true fans can sustain a creative in their living, because they'll buy everything you do. They'll follow you no matter where you go, no matter what your creative development is, they just love you, they really align with you, and they follow you to anything.
[00:17:43] And that's recently, with Kelly's permission, been modified to a hundred true fans spending a thousand. So it was originally a thousand true fans spending a hundred, and that was a sufficient income for you to keep on doing your thing. And now it's even more in that direction by saying a hundred true fans who would spend a thousand a year is enough for you to keep doing your thing.
[00:18:05] So I think it's very difficult if you're only going to try and find those people. I think you have to have the readers. So if we think about the concentric people here in the middle, they are your fans. The next ring around that will be the more casual reader who kind of likes what you do, but they prefer that author and this author over here, but you're not bad, you're okay. And if you have a new book, yeah, they'd like to know, kind of, yeah, sure, if they have time, they'll put it on their TBR and maybe, fingers crossed. Those people, by the way, are on your mailing list. They're interested enough to be on your mailing list, but they're not wild about you. They're not going to buy everything you do. And if you start to do a new series, they're going to think twice about whether they're going to follow you over there or not.
[00:18:47] The next concentric circle around that are the people who are on your subscriber list, but they're really quite casually connected to you. The next circle outside of that is somebody who's bought a book, but never signed up for your mailing list and hasn't done that yet. And then outside of that, of course, the people on the biggest, widest circle of all, they haven't heard of you at all.
[00:19:07] So, I find that a useful way to think about it because you can then get your promotions, depending on what way you want to handle it, you can get your promotions going into one of those circles, deciding in advance which of those circles you would like to approach.
[00:19:25] So if you give away a lot of free books, for example, to a lot of people who haven't heard of you before, that’s good marketing, but they will fall off. They won't all come all the way into the center of your circle. Some of them will, a few of them will. So at each level of the circle, you're reducing the percentage. And that's not personal. And actually, you want them to unsubscribe if they're in any doubt, because well, for all sorts of reasons related to deliverability and stuff like that, in terms of your emails actually landing in the inboxes of those who do want to receive them. If you've got too many people who are not sure and they're not opening your mail, then that actually affects your deliverability rates, and your emails can wind up going into the spam boxes of people who actually do want to get them.
[00:20:17] You want at all times, and I do think this is the central thing to keep, you're aiming your bullseye there in the middle of these concentric circles. You're aiming at those people and you're trying to get as many of them as possible into that middle. But in order to do that, you'd cast your net wide. And you can think about how you go about that. And again, a lot will depend on the kind of books you're writing, what your own right readers like to do, what they're used to from other authors and all that kind of stuff.
[00:20:52] Matty: I also find that the process of turning potential readers into readers and fans is that the more interactive you can be with them, and this kind of harks back to something you had said earlier, the better it is. So I've had good luck doing author takeovers on Facebook pages. And there you can spend an hour or two hours or a day or however long the takeover is, chatting with people. And then I see a very high percentage of those people then showing up on my email list of people can look for those opportunities, where you're able to interact with them, not to show them your book. Then that's kind of a nice approach.
[00:21:24] Orna: Definitely, and if you enjoy anything like that, then your publishing side loves that. So just as a trade publisher would push you out to every event in town, you as your own publisher have to decide which events, you're going to push yourself to, that won't derail your writing. And that's always the delicate balance that you're trying to achieve. So if you are the kind of person who loves going on to Facebook and doing a Facebook takeover, fantastic, do that.
[00:21:53] If that's your idea of hell, don't do that. Do something that you love. So much about marketing will only work if you like it, and so often we're doing things because we saw some other author do it and we'd go, oh that's a good way to sell books. And it probably is, but is it your good way to sell books? That's the question you have to ask yourself.
[00:22:15] So you absolutely have to go where your readers are. You absolutely have to find a bridge between you and them. That has to be done, that's part of the job. You won't sell books if you don't do that. But what's that bridge going to look like? And there are a thousand ways to build a bridge between a writer and a reader, there's so many ways.
[00:22:35] And the more interesting and yourself, the more authentic, I think this is one of the reasons that people love things like Facebook page takeovers, or live video or audio, because it brings it alive, and they can get a real sense of who is the person behind the book. And readers really like that. Authors deplore it sometimes. They think, I spent three years putting this book together, it says everything. Why do you want to ask me questions? Read the book! And we can be a bit impatient in that way.
[00:23:05] But it is actually wearing our publishing hat, that's what you want to be tapping into. That wish, on behalf of the reader, for something else, something that will be the bridge, something that would kind of hold their hand to bring them across into the world of the book.
[00:23:20] So you've got to remember how much pull there is on everybody's time. Think about yourself, think about your own reading habits. Think about what you want from the writers you love. What sort of bridge would you like them to lay down for you to walk over? Yeah, again, to think in those ways, and you can come up with some good ideas. The more original and personal and authentic you can make it, the better.
[00:23:45] Matty: You've mentioned a couple of times the importance of balancing marketing or any of these other publication processes with the writing. Are there red flags that people should keep an eye out for that would suggest that they are not striking that balance in a healthy way?
[00:24:01] Orna: Yeah, I think it's really useful to time yourself and just see how much time are you actually spending on the writing. It's very easy to get confused and think you're spending a lot of time on your writing when you're actually spending a lot of time on your marketing.
[00:24:18] So you need to clearly label, I think of it as three different aspects, which I think I've mentioned before in this series, the maker who makes the books and also makes the social media ads or the podcast or whatever it may be, that's the maker. There's the manager who does all the stuff related to money, income, and processes, improving your writing process, improving your publishing process, all of that kind of thing. And then there's the marketeer who looks after the promotions and all the marketing work. So it's really helpful to do, and I have a creative business planning program where we all look at the week and the day in terms of maker, manager, and marketeer. So you get very clear about what you're doing when, and I think that's really useful.
[00:25:09] One of the reasons I have this is because, I've found this so challenging myself, between being an also publisher and then also running ALLi, there was a lot of pulls on my time and I used to think I was doing more writing time than I actually was. And these planners helped me to get clear and to really see what was going on in my day and therefore in my weeks and months.
[00:25:31] I ended up actually having to get completely different physical spaces for my maker. My maker has a space all of her own now. And ALLi happens obviously in ALLi world. But the publishing happens outside of the making space and I think that's important.
[00:25:50] Matty: Are there are characteristics of those three spaces that make each of them appropriate for the activity that goes on in that space?
[00:25:57] Orna: Yeah, definitely. I think your creative, maker space needs to be very, speaking for myself, each of us knows what our own maker likes, but for me, it's got to be very soft, and it's got to be very quiet, and it's got to be very removed from the world. So I feel like I'm stepping in here, there's just me and my imagination, it's got all my favorite books in here, it has got a few childish kinds of things. And so your maker, generally speaking, is soft and vulnerable and needs to open up, to be coaxed out play. So it's also a more playful space and there is a nice day bed if you're going to have a little snooze, that kind of thing.
[00:26:35] Whereas the ALLi environment and the publishing environment is much more businesslike. Still fun, I mean, it's a creative business, it's not mechanical or mechanistic in any way, but it is more businesslike and that's appropriate.
[00:26:50] Matty: The big challenge I think I have is that, especially coming from a project management background, the draw of the marketing and the manager aspects is that it's like a list of tasks and you can go through the tasks, and you can check them off, and each time you checked something off, you have the sense of accomplishment. Whereas the making part is usually much more sort of loosey goosey, and you might get to the end of a period of making and you don't really know whether you've accomplished what you wanted to accomplish or not.
[00:27:20] And I found that for me, the equivalent for me to where I'm doing it as when I'm doing it. And I used to spend the time before one o'clock daily sprint that I had with two fellow authors doing the marketing and the managing part. And then we eventually moved the sprint up till 11, because I'm like, if I have until 1, I'm going to fill until 1, but if I only have until 11, I stop at 11. And it was only by mechanically moving that marker that I was able to spend more time making and less time on those other things, which I think was a healthier balance for me.
[00:27:55] Orna: Absolutely. I mean, you're raising something that's really important. The two resources that we're playing with are time and space. I mean, we could introduce money there as well. And so space, yeah, I talked about that, but time is really important for me. The actual deep work of the latest book that I'm writing, the deep writing work has to be done first thing in the morning. And there are a couple of reasons for that. If it isn't done first, probably won't be done because so many calls on the outer sphere and they all sound more important and more urgent, and in a way they're easier.
[00:28:30] There are all sorts of reasons why they're easier. They are deep, kind of psychological and emotional reasons, and we don't need to know what they are, but we do need to know that it will always be challenging to give that inner part of yourself the attention that is needed to sit down and go deep. And so I have to do that first thing in the morning. Speaking to an author during the week, he said he has to do it last thing at night when everything else is done. He can't actually let himself relax until he's ticked all the boxes.
[00:29:02] So I think a lot is, I mean, you come from a project management background, you will have a whole load of habit energy built up around project management that feels good to you. And you've got to feed that part of yourself. A lot of authors that I talked to, nothing fills them with more horror than a to do list or a project management aspect. They don't enjoy the marketeer / manager. They just want to sit in making all day, but just not possible, really, for any author, any creative. So yeah, again, it's about knowing yourself and exploring, experimenting, and seeing what works for you with regard to all of that.
[00:30:16] Matty: We had sort of mentioned before the various aspects of a marketing platform for an author, and I just want it to walk through them and have you comment on each of them as we go in terms of what they can bring to a marketing effort.
[00:30:29] So the first one, I don't know that we want to spend a ton of time on this because it could turn into a whole episode on to itself, but social media. We've talked a little bit about the idea of spending your time where you enjoy being. Any other tips you would want to share about social media?
[00:30:45] Orna: Yeah. Don't stay in your comfort zone if you're using social media as part of your business. Don't stay with your friends. Realize that what you're trying to do is reach readers and think about how you use this medium to reach more readers if that's what you're doing. If you're on to enjoy your friends, be fully on there to enjoy your friends and don't bring business into it. So get very clear.
[00:31:12] A third thing that I found very useful was to separate out my social media. So this is just a personal thing. I haven't seen a lot of people do it, but it worked very well for me. My poetry now is on Instagram only. It doesn't really surface anywhere else. And Twitter is for nonfiction and Facebook is for fiction. It's kind of loosely divided up in that way in my mind. And that really helps me to know what I'm doing where.
[00:31:37] Make a distinction between your Facebook page on your Facebook profile. If you use your Facebook profile for your personal stuff, be cognizant of the fact that you have a Facebook page and how they link.
[00:31:51] The other thing I would say, if you're going to use a social medium to sell, go be a user. Don't go on to something that you haven't got a clue how it works. It doesn't last. You'll see countless author accounts on all the different platforms that are just mordant. They don't work.
[00:32:10] So it's not something to be embarked on lightly. It's something that you really need to think about and engage with. It's another form of writing. It's communication in another way. It should amplify and expand what you're saying in your book. You should be the author when you're out there. If you're using it in order to sell books, you go out there and not as yourself, but as a representation of yourself, the part of you that writes books.
[00:32:37] And again, you're thinking about the reader. So you're thinking that giving good value to them, not going on to sort of complain because your delivery didn't arrive on time or whatever it might be. A bit of humanity is absolutely fine, but within the context of providing value to the reader, always.
[00:32:57] Matty: I don't know if this is actually a new feature of Facebook or I just noticed it, but I've seen recently that you can join groups or do Facebook page takeovers, things like that, as a page rather than as a profile, because before that either existed, or I noticed it, I would join groups as my profile, and then suddenly I would get a bunch of friend requests and I actually only want my profile to be accessible to actual friends.
[00:33:23] I don't think I'll ever be able to just go back to what I used to post on my profile because there are too many people that have gotten in there now that are not my friends and family. But it was a nice way to make that distinction that you're saying that you draw a line between what's personal on social media for you and what is more business oriented for you.
[00:33:41] Orna: Yes, exactly. And Facebook is always changing things and sometimes they do things prematurely and then they catch up when they see how people respond on that.
[00:33:51] So, yeah, they're always making changes, and this is the thing that these platforms, why our marketing, why we must have our website. I know we're talking about it about social media, and we've continued to do that. But just to use the opportunity to say, because these changes are constantly going on and always will be, you need a stable place of your own on the internet. You need your own space, your own website, where everything happens, and then you see your social media as outposts.
[00:34:21] Matty: Well, let's use that as an entree to websites. Talk a little bit about what are the primary considerations for an offer in terms of having a website presence?
[00:34:28] Orna: So, one of the things I've mentioned this already, but I'll say it again, always saying it. As an indy author, you're a publisher, you're not just a writer. And so you should have a transactional website. If a reader finds your website, you want them to be able to buy your book. So that's number one, your website is transactional and therefore you're different to an author who has sold all their rights to one publisher or a couple of publishers, but they have other people who look after that, it's fine for them to just have a brochure site, but as a publisher, you need a transactional site.
[00:35:05] And then you have to decide with your website, what is the one thing that you most want your reader to do? So you would ideally like them to buy books. But there is a problem with that I mentioned earlier, that is that a lot of readers are hesitant to buy a book from an author that they don't know and love. There are millions of fantastic books out there. So you are in competition with all those other books that they could be reading. And so they're not sure when they come onto your website, if they've never heard about you before. They may be bowled over by your fabulous covers, your brilliant reviews, and your general ambience and jump right in and buy a book, and that's great. But most of us will want them to sign up and get to the sign up is the most important thing for most authors.
[00:35:52] But you have to decide, are you going to be pushing the sales, are you going to be pushing signups, or are you going to be pushing something else, something unique and original to you? Whatever it is that you decide your website is there to do, then that should be really crystal clear, and all roads should lead there.
[00:36:10] So your site map on your website should lead your reader through, in a very logical sort of way, to what you want them to do. So if you want to sign up, then make that your homepage, make the sign up page your homepage. And make it attractive and give them a reason why they should sign up. Generally speaking, that's free books, with all the attendant dangers that we've discussed already. But whatever it might be, really try to attract them into the signup. If it's about the book sale, then think about accordingly. And think about how you shape and structure your website around that one thing that you want them to do.
[00:36:48] Secondly, remember that your fonts, your colors, and the shapes of your site, how you do your dropdown menu, everything on that site is sending obvious or subliminal messages and you don't want the message to be, this person is not professional. And it may well be sending that message if you've put it together yourself. So I would really highly recommend that to hire somebody who's good at design to do your website.
[00:37:22] Thirdly, it's worth putting a bit of time and attention into SEO, search engine optimization. So in the same way that you will have to choose categories and keywords when you're uploading your books to Amazon, Apple, and so on, use those same categories and keywords. It's surprising how many times you see a disjunction here. Use those same categories on keywords all around your site. That should happen naturally, but often on our websites, because it is our own part of the internet, we can get a little bit distracted and find ourselves writing and all sorts of different things.
[00:37:59] Fourthly, if you do lots and lots of very distinctively different things, don't be afraid to get them off your author website. Your author website should be about your books. It can give a sense of everything that you do. But again, thinking about the reader, the main focus of your website isn't really to tell them what you do. Again, that's a brochure type site that kind of includes everything and you know, interest them in that. You are thinking more strategically in a more business-like fashion.
[00:38:32] And also because people's time for browsing websites in that sort of way is far less available than it used to be. You want to keep the site as simple as possible. A lot of author websites are absolutely coming down with junk. There's way too much stuff and people don't know where to go. They don't know what to do. They might even want to buy a book and not be able to find their way. They don't need every award you've won, every nice thing that anybody has said about you. They don't need all that upfront, really. You need to think about them and what makes a really enjoyable experience.
[00:39:09] And then you need to think about how you're going to get some back again. And this is where blogs or podcasts or Facebook Lives or author interviews or something comes in. You need a site not to be static. People want, if they come back next month, but they're not just going to the same site they saw last month and the month before and the month before. They need to get a sense of this author is working, they're producing, and that there's things going on that they're going to be looking forward to. So all in all is a lot to think about.
[00:39:43] Matty: There is a great episode. I'd like to point people to Episode 73 was AUTHOR WEBSITES with Pauline Wiles. And she was totally on the same page as what you're describing with simplicity is key. And also the level of simplicity that she recommends for first-time authors I think it gets a lot of people over the hump of being frightened about the idea of setting up a website, because she has some great suggestions for, there are just three or four or five components that you need when you start out and get those lined up and then expand as you want it to over time. But I think that would be a nice companion piece for people to take a look at.
[00:40:16] And you had mentioned blogging, so that's another of the components let's use that as an entree. Is blogging still a thing?
[00:40:21] Orna: Yeah, blogging's still a thing. It definitely is. Podcast have become popular. Video has become popular. You know, we are writers. We work with the written word. So if you can't make a blog interesting and compelling, then who can? Blogs still are a thing. But again, going back to what I said earlier, if you don't like blogging, they're not a thing for you and find another way to do it. You might prefer audio. You might prefer to do podcast. You might prefer to do live videos, which you then embed on your website. There are loads and loads of things that you can do. You just need to work out what they are.
[00:41:00] What's great about blogging is in the same way as a transcript on a podcast and other these things, this distinction is kind of wearing down because there was a time where Google wasn't indexing video, and it wasn't to indexing audio in the same way that it is indexed text. And so blogs have the advantage. And this is why a lot of podcasts did transcripts as well as being something that readers wanted, and some people wanted to read it rather than listen to it. It was also because you needed that to get the Google juice kind of thing. And that is not as significant as it used to be.
[00:41:37] But blogging is still an excellent way to reach a reader, but it must be targeted. You must know what you're doing. It's not about just blogging whatever comes into your head. Again, it's about those all-important keywords and categories and writing something that's interesting enough that it is kind of the best thing on the internet about that particular topic so that it will come up and turn up in searches.
[00:42:05] And this is much easier for nonfiction writers than it is for poets or novelists. So blogging works very well for non-fiction. Maybe not so well for fiction unless you've got a very clear kind of idea of a very distinct niche, and you can write around it in a way that it's going to surface up on searches. And very often fiction is just more nebulous and so it's difficult for it to top SEO searches. And it's the same with keywords and categories on the platforms. That's just a nature of fiction. It doesn't mean there's anything wrong with you, but it does mean that you need to stop and think it's blogging best use of my time.
[00:42:47] This is another reason why people don't blog because they're all written out by the time they've written their book. The last thing they feel like doing for marketing is turning around and do more writing. They'd rather do almost anything else.
[00:42:59] So yeah, so much of this, and I'm just realizing as we're talking, so much of this marketing stuff comes back to know yourself. Know yourself and trust the process of what you love and connect with is what your reader is going to love and connect with. Just trust that flow, that natural flow, rather than thinking I have to do blogging and I have to do social media and I have to do these things because that author did them and somebody else that you have to. You don't have to do anything, but you do have to do something.
[00:43:31] Matty: There is another Pauline Wiles episode. I want to point people to, this was Episode 27, WHY TO STOP BLOGGING AND WHAT TO DO INSTEAD. And her message actually was that blogging can still be valuable, but if your goal is to reach new readers and followers, then guest blogging is a better option than blogging yourself. So if you're blogging yourself, in a way you're preaching to the choir, you're connecting with the people who are already following you, probably, and you're gradually getting some people in. But if new reader outreach is what you're looking for, guest blogging is what she recommended.
[00:44:04] And I know that for myself and this ties back to what you were saying about consider what is comfortable and desirable for you is that I very rarely blog, like every once in a while there's some message I want to get out and it's just convenient for me to put it in my blog and connect people from social media to it, because it's like too long to put as a social media post, but that's very rare. And I'm just doing it sort of for my own entertainment, not for any marketing purposes.
[00:44:33] But I do accept invitations to appear as content on other people's sites, but usually only if it's audio or video, something I can record, because as you're saying, I'm definitely of the camp that if I have writing energy, I don't want to be spending it on a blog, especially somebody else's blog. I want to be spending it on my books or possibly my social media. And that ties in with something that Mark and I talked about in Episode 100 BEING THE RELAXED AUTHOR about if he's going to be contributing content to somebody else, he wants to do it in the most efficient way possible. And for him, audio or video is what that is.
[00:45:12] So let's use that as an entree to video content. How can author teach video content was productively as a marketing tool?
[00:45:19] Orna: Yeah, I think video is very underused by authors and they tend to think of the author interview. And just to add to everything you said there, which I 100% endorse, it's the same for podcasting and video appearances as it is for blogging. You will reach a lot more people. I hear a lot of authors saying I really should start a podcast. Probably not. Unless you're absolutely dying to start a podcast, unless you're absolutely itching to do it, what you should probably do is go and appear on podcasts. And same for YouTube lives or whatever it might be.
[00:45:54] So, yeah, video though is far more than just the author interview. Book trailers are very effective at selling books. Now you still have the issue of you have to get attention for your video or your podcast or whatever it is that you're doing. And that in itself needs to be marketed, but it is much easier to get somebody to watch it a book trailer than it is to get them to buy a book. So again, it's about that bridge. Video can be a fantastic bridge between your reader and your book, and there are all sorts of ways that you can do that. And you could also be in a lot more creative, myself included, around how they use video and how they create that bridge through video.
[00:46:38] There's a fantastic tool that I use now called StreamYard, where you can do your Facebook live or whatever you are doing, you both through StreamYard and you can be simultaneously broadcasting to Facebook, your Facebook page, Twitter, everywhere essentially, all at the same time.
[00:46:59] Those kinds of tools and things with video with audio really make a lot of sense to find out the way, again, in terms of effectiveness and efficiency, you might have time that you're spending getting the most return that you can makes a lot of sense. So a lot of it is about getting out there or else producing something really attractive, remarkable, and interesting that is going to give people a sense of what your book is about and create something in video that makes them go, oh my, I really have to read this.
[00:47:31] So I think there's a lot of scope there and a lot of scope to get creative. But again, it's time, it's energy, and you need to probably work with a good video editor who can kind of bring your vision into reality.
[00:47:46] Matty: I enjoy making book trailers, but I totally do it as just an entertaining activity for me. I never expect that I'm going to actually get any readers from it. Like if I can't justify the evening that I'm going to spend doing it, just because I think it's fun. You know, it's like, am I going to read a book or am I going to make a trailer? I'm going to make a trailer. I sort of weigh it in a different way because I don't know that it's bringing me that much.
[00:48:11] Orna: Yeah, cause again, you have to market it. So if you're enjoying the making part there, but maybe not engaging with the marketing part around the trailer. And if you enjoy making them, you definitely should make them because why not? They really do help a reader to know what the book is about. So they really are very effective. I mean, anyone who gets a bit of a budget in a publishing house, if they've got a contract, will get a trailer. A trailer is seen as kind of basic, you know, so if you can, do it. What tool do you use just as a matter of interest?
[00:48:45] Matty: Well, until recently, believe it or not, I used PowerPoint. This is showing my corporate background that I basically did a series of slides with transitions and text and things like that. But if I were doing it now, I would use probably Canva or BookBrush. So the tools that are available to do it now are much nicer.
[00:49:05] Orna: They're great. And could I do a call out for a lovely tool called Animoto. And they put it together with music and stuff and you just drop in your whatevers, from your slides and they produce this very nice video with lots of kind of special effects things up to you. Though they're all coming up, aren't they? They're all improving. Every time somebody does something, all the others come up to the same level. So these may well beyond Canva now and BookBrush and I'm not aware of that, but certainly I have found Animoto to be a great tool.
[00:49:39] Matty: Yeah. Well, we've given people a couple of options to look at.
[00:49:43] And I wanted to look last at podcasting. So of course I have a personal interest in this. I totally agree with what you're saying about the idea of being a guest on a podcast is a good test for if you want to be a host of a podcast. And I'm just going to put a blatant plug in for my book, THE INDY AUTHOR'S GUIDE TO PODCASTING FOR AUTHORS. And if you go to TheIndyAuthor.Com, and it's Indy with a Y, and click on Podcasting for Authors, in the book, I have a few questions at the end of each chapter, the early ones are aimed at trying to decide if podcasting is right for you. Like put together a list of topics you'd like to address, and if you can't come up with, you know, two dozen of them, you probably don't want to start a podcast. But there's a document out there called the Captain's Log because I love the nautical metaphor and it includes all the questions that appear at the end of the chapters and the early ones are focused on deciding of podcasting is right for you.
[00:50:38] And then if you get past that stage and you decided is, one of the distinctions I make is whether you want to use it as, are you connecting with followers or are you connecting with fellow creators? And so I still find that I'm probably benefiting more from The Indy Author Podcast as an opportunity for me to connect with people like you, that I might not otherwise get a chance to talk to one-on-one and it's totally makes it worth it to me to make the financial and time and effort investment to continue to do it. Whereas for some people it is definitely a more marketing rather than a networking kind of effort.
[00:51:16] And I have found that based on my own experience and that I've seen other people have with using a podcast for fiction, it's tougher for exactly the same kinds of reasons that we're talking about fiction blogging is a little harder than non-fiction blogging. Because my belief is that when people listened to a podcast about fiction books, they're following the author, they're not following the host. And so if I go on somebody else's podcast to talk about my fiction books, I'm probably still speaking to the choir, preaching to the people who already know me because I'm going to post about it on social media and they're going to listen to it and hopefully be entertained. But I don't know that I'm picking up a lot of new people. Do you have an opinion on whether you're picking up new people, if you're a guest or if you're a host for a fictional podcast?
[00:52:10] Orna: Yeah, I think this is great because I think we need to expand our idea of what a fiction podcast can do. So I think we're very used to the interview format in terms of podcasting and that's what you're talking about there. And I completely agree with everything you said. And a lot of authors don't understand this. So think it's really useful to be raising it. It's the complexity of fiction marketing. It's not a simple and it's not as straightforward as how-to nonfiction, let's call it that, guidebook nonfiction, which is very much around the information. Give me the information. So you can do keywords and things, it's very easy to do your SEO properly and to reach out and pick up new people.
[00:52:57] When we're doing fiction podcasting and poetry podcasting ... so let's just talk about poetry for us for a second. Poetry, the most effective form of podcast is samples of the poem and say, if your poetry is doing its job, because it's short form, it's ideally suited to audio. And so can serve as a taster for your book. So somebody listens to a poem, they're moved by the poem, they're so moved they buy the book. Simple. So poetry and podcasting really worked very well together. Just a simple audio reading. And there are loads of ways in which poets get together and do their readings on each other's websites and on podcasts and Instagram lives and all that kind of stuff. And all that is straightforward.
[00:53:40] And then in the middle you've got the poor novelists who are wondering how on earth do I use podcast to effect? So you’ve pointed out the difficulty. So you can go out there and put yourself around and be interviewed by trip book and you may enjoy that the first few times anyway. But how much are you actually picking up readers of that kind of book? Because you would have to have a laser sharp choice of podcasts. And then it may not even exist, the right podcast for you to reach your readers. People who are following somebody else whose podcast is so on-brand, to use a corporate term, for you. And so there might be a book blogger maybe who specializes in your type of book, but it's not going to be a whole lot going on out there in the wider world.
[00:54:31] So then the choice is kind of back to the book trailer thing. You make another piece of art, another piece of work, which draws in readers, and it is very closely connected to what you do yourself. Now I considered doing this. I was going to do a podcast called "Histories and Mysteries" because I write historical fiction and inspirational poetry and I felt that would kind of that umbrella would go across the two, and I was going to make it as close in experience as possible to the experience of actually being engaged with the books. In the end, I decided not to do it because I just thought it was too much hard work and that I'd rather write in all the book. So that's the problem.
[00:55:16] So I do realize that we're raising the challenge here rather than providing the answer, but I think it's very important to understand this before you open off and do all the work that's involved in doing podcasts is to think very closely and carefully. Again, put yourself in the reader's shoes. If they were to listen to this podcast, would they buy that book? And also think about the consistency of it, the amount of work that's needed to do with the amount of time it's going to take the amount of energy, creative energy that it's going to use.
[00:55:48] If it's a fit, it's fantastic. It's absolutely brilliant. There probably isn't a better way I would think. I mean, there's a reason why here in the UK, BBC Radio 4 books programs, those audio programs on the radio, they really shift books better than anything else on television, because the audio intimate connection, it's the closest we can get in a broadcasting environment to the intimacy that is there in the reading of a book. And particularly now is audio books take off, audio podcasting and audio books are a very neat fit, but you've got to create the bridge. It has to make sense. And so think very carefully about it when you're setting it up.
[00:56:32] Matty: I think that the idea that you have to make these decisions, especially about spending time on any of these things we've spoken about or writing, is so key. And again, I'm going to hark back to Mark Lefebvre's Episode 100 on THE RELAXED AUTHOR, which would be great for people to listen to before and after they listened to this series because I think the key of this set of seven that we're going to be doing is that you should have all this information about what's on the menu, and then you make an informed decision about which ones you're going to pick and maybe revisit it periodically to make sure that your appetite hasn't changed and you want to shift your focus a little bit. But that it's not intended as a checklist that here are the hundred things, and you better start at number one and start marching through what, because that way lies insanity.
[00:57:21] Orna: Absolutely. Permanent, not just your post book mania.
[00:57:25] Matty: Exactly. Well, Orna, this was so great. Please let listeners know where they can go to find out more about you and all your work online.
[00:57:35] Orna: Yeah. So I'm Orna Ross and my author website is on OrnaRoss.com. I am founder and director of the Alliance of Independent Authors, and you can find that at AllianceIndependentAuthors.org. And we have a self-publishing advice website, which you find at SelfPublishingAdvice.org.
[00:57:57] Matty: Great. So this has been the fifth of our series of the seven processes of publishing on marketing. And the next episode is going to be all about promotion. So stay tuned for that. And thank you again, Orna.
[00:58:08] Orna: Thanks, Matty, it's been a pleasure.
Links
From personal update:
For links to Matty's upcoming and recent events, click here.
From interview:
What did you think of this episode? Leave a comment and let us know!
