Episode 217 - The Many Levers of Your Author Platform with Andrea DeWerd
December 19, 2023
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Andrea DeWerd discusses THE MANY LEVERS OF YOUR AUTHOR PLATFORM, including two approaches to social media: going wide or going deep; the pros and cons of social media scheduling and cross-posting apps; tips for finding your target demographic on social media; the evolving status of BookTok and TikTok; the fact that an author platform is more than social media, and how to find those alternatives; tapping into your existing network or community, or even building a platform with fellow authors and author services providers; establishing a presence on Goodreads, BookBub, and Amazon Author Central; and, finally, knowing when it’s time for a change.
If one of those topics piques your interest, you can easily jump to that section on YouTube by clicking on the flagged timestamps in the description.
If one of those topics piques your interest, you can easily jump to that section on YouTube by clicking on the flagged timestamps in the description.
"Social media is not the be all end all of book marketing. It is not the only thing that is going to sell your book. It's probably more like the icing on top." —Andrea DeWerd
Andrea Jo DeWerd is a book marketing strategist, consultant, writer, speaker, and the founder of the future of agency LLC, a book marketing and publishing consulting agency headquartered in Brooklyn, NY. Andrea is also the co-founder of MADonna Writing Retreats, a luxury writing retreat experience in Barcelona. She’s a 13–year veteran of Big 5 publishing with over one-hundred career NYT bestsellers.
Links
Andrea's Links:
Author website: thefutureofagency.com & ajdewerd.com
Facebook profile: https://www.facebook.com/thefutureofagency
Instagram profile: https://instagram.com/ajdewerd
LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ajdewerd/
Related Episodes:
Episode 206 - Embracing Your Own Kind of Online Peculiar with Sue Ellson
Matty's Links:
Affiliate links
Events
Author website: thefutureofagency.com & ajdewerd.com
Facebook profile: https://www.facebook.com/thefutureofagency
Instagram profile: https://instagram.com/ajdewerd
LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ajdewerd/
Related Episodes:
Episode 206 - Embracing Your Own Kind of Online Peculiar with Sue Ellson
Matty's Links:
Affiliate links
Events
I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Andrea! Did she inspire you to try any new social media platforms, or to drop any old ones? Did you get some ideas for how to build your author platform outside social media?
Please post your comments on YouTube--and I'd love it if you would subscribe while you're there!
Are you getting value from the podcast? Consider supporting me on Patreon or through Buy Me a Coffee!
AI-generated Summary
The world of book marketing is incredibly vast and can often feel overwhelming for new and seasoned authors alike. In a recent episode of the Indie Author Podcast, we dove deep into this subject with our esteemed guest, Andrea Jo DeWerd. As a book marketing strategist, consultant, writer, and founder of the Future of Agency LLC, Andrea brought valuable insights to the table, discussing author platforms, social media, SEO, and other essential topics.
The Multi-Faceted Author Platform
Contrary to popular belief, an author's platform is more than just their social media presence. Andrea clarified that an author’s platform is their network, their connections, and anyone they can call upon when it comes time to promote their book. This includes tangible portions of their platform like websites, newsletters, and social media, but it also extends to the author’s credentials and other professional affiliations they might have.
She emphasized thinking creatively about what’s in your control and advised authors not to limit their idea of their platform to just social media.
Handling Social Media
Not every author feels comfortable using social media. Recognizing this, Andrea advises authors against forcing themselves to fit into a platform that they don’t enjoy. She promoted the idea of choosing a platform not only based on where the target audience may be but also where the author feels comfortable and can provide regular content of value.
She encouraged authors to think beyond social media if they're feeling hesitant and brought up Substack as a platform for long-form newsletters for authors who aren't comfortable with active social media engagement.
Navigating Website Analytics
Websites, according to Andrea, offer unique opportunities for authors in terms of claiming and controlling your own search. With Google analytics, authors can see the path readers take from social media to the author's website and then to the bookstore, providing valuable data for marketing strategies.
Andrea acknowledged the time and energy needed for website optimization efforts and suggested taking a step-by-step approach to improving your website for search engine performance.
Using Goodreads, BookBub, and Amazon Author Central
Andrea discussed the benefits of claiming author profiles on platforms like Goodreads, BookBub, and Amazon Author Central. She emphasized the importance of regularly updating these profiles with your latest releases and encouraged authors to be active on these platforms without necessarily reading reviews. She warned authors of falling into the trap of constant comparison and advised them to ensure such platforms remain a positive space.
The Future: BookTok and Threads
As the conversation turned towards trends, Andrea shared her observations about emerging platforms like BookTok and Threads. While she noted that BookTok has become somewhat insular, catering to a narrow slice of literature, she hinted at Threads as a potential platform for authors willing to try something new.
In conclusion, the podcast shed much-needed light on author platforms from the unique perspective of a seasoned book marketing strategist. The central message was clear: ensure your platform is more than just social media, engage with readers genuinely and authentically, monitor your digital footprint, be active on notable book platforms, and don’t be afraid to try out emerging platforms. Above all, find a platform that feels good to you and interests your reader base. It's less about fitting the mold and more about creating a unique author identity in the digital space.
The Multi-Faceted Author Platform
Contrary to popular belief, an author's platform is more than just their social media presence. Andrea clarified that an author’s platform is their network, their connections, and anyone they can call upon when it comes time to promote their book. This includes tangible portions of their platform like websites, newsletters, and social media, but it also extends to the author’s credentials and other professional affiliations they might have.
She emphasized thinking creatively about what’s in your control and advised authors not to limit their idea of their platform to just social media.
Handling Social Media
Not every author feels comfortable using social media. Recognizing this, Andrea advises authors against forcing themselves to fit into a platform that they don’t enjoy. She promoted the idea of choosing a platform not only based on where the target audience may be but also where the author feels comfortable and can provide regular content of value.
She encouraged authors to think beyond social media if they're feeling hesitant and brought up Substack as a platform for long-form newsletters for authors who aren't comfortable with active social media engagement.
Navigating Website Analytics
Websites, according to Andrea, offer unique opportunities for authors in terms of claiming and controlling your own search. With Google analytics, authors can see the path readers take from social media to the author's website and then to the bookstore, providing valuable data for marketing strategies.
Andrea acknowledged the time and energy needed for website optimization efforts and suggested taking a step-by-step approach to improving your website for search engine performance.
Using Goodreads, BookBub, and Amazon Author Central
Andrea discussed the benefits of claiming author profiles on platforms like Goodreads, BookBub, and Amazon Author Central. She emphasized the importance of regularly updating these profiles with your latest releases and encouraged authors to be active on these platforms without necessarily reading reviews. She warned authors of falling into the trap of constant comparison and advised them to ensure such platforms remain a positive space.
The Future: BookTok and Threads
As the conversation turned towards trends, Andrea shared her observations about emerging platforms like BookTok and Threads. While she noted that BookTok has become somewhat insular, catering to a narrow slice of literature, she hinted at Threads as a potential platform for authors willing to try something new.
In conclusion, the podcast shed much-needed light on author platforms from the unique perspective of a seasoned book marketing strategist. The central message was clear: ensure your platform is more than just social media, engage with readers genuinely and authentically, monitor your digital footprint, be active on notable book platforms, and don’t be afraid to try out emerging platforms. Above all, find a platform that feels good to you and interests your reader base. It's less about fitting the mold and more about creating a unique author identity in the digital space.
Transcript
[00:00:00] Matty: Hello and welcome to the Indie Author Podcast. Today my guest is Andrea Jo DeWerd. Hey Andrea, how are you doing?
[00:00:06] Andrea: Hi, good to see you.
[00:00:07] Matty: It is great seeing you too.
Meet Andrea Jo DeWerd
[00:00:09] Matty: To give our listeners and viewers a little bit of background on you, Andrea Jo DeWerd is a book marketing strategist, consultant, writer, speaker, and founder of the future of agency LLC, a book marketing and publishing consulting agency headquartered in Brooklyn, New York. Andrea is also the cofounder of Madonna Writing Retreats, a luxury writing retreat experience in Barcelona. She's a 13-year veteran of big five publishing with over 100 career New York Times bestsellers. And I met Andrea when I heard her speak at the 2023 Writer's Digest Annual Conference, and I thought the information she had to share was so valuable that I wanted to invite her to the podcast.
Is an author platform more than social media? (The answer is yes)
[00:00:45] Matty: And so we're going to be talking about the six levers of your author platform. And I think that a great topic to start out with is, is author platform just social media or is it something more?
[00:01:00] Andrea: Okay, so this is a great place to start because so many people come to me and say, I know I need to have a platform, but I don't want to be on social media. What do I do? And I have this conversation so many times. What I always want to remind folks is that your platform is more than just social media. Your platform is your network. It's your connections. It's anyone that you might call upon to help you when it comes time to promote your book.
So I would think about this creatively. There, there are the things that are in your control, which are like website, newsletter, social media. We're going to talk about those a lot today, I'm sure. But think about what else is in your control that you might be able to call on. Maybe you are an entrepreneur and have a speaking platform. Maybe it has nothing to do with what your book topic is. Maybe you're writing middle grade or YA fiction and you have a completely different professional life that. But you have connections from that and you might be able to, you know, pull that network and, use it in some way. Let your friends and family, let your professional network know that you have now written a book.
So think creatively about that and what you can add. This also extends to your credentials. I was working with a client who is a vet and was selling, one, a memoir, but also two, middle grade fiction about animals. And we really had to make that connection very clear that she is credentialed to write. Middle grade fiction because she knows animals very intimately from her life as a vet. Her book is not about being a vet; her memoir is, but that particular book, it was important to let readers know, you know, why she's qualified to speak about that topic. So you, using credentials is also part of your author platform and lets you bring in an audience in a new way. So think beyond social media.
Tap into your existing network or community
[00:02:35] Matty: Yeah, the comment about your network and a network you might have, as you enter an author career is interesting because I spent many years as a project manager in the corporate world, many of those years in IT, and, when I left my corporate job in 2016, I had hundreds and hundreds of LinkedIn contacts, and I'm always happy to tell them if I have a new book or I have a new podcast episode or something like that, but, I sometimes also wonder, like, should I have started fresh? Because it's almost like if you've, put out your first book and you've told all your friends and family and you're writing a mystery, but all your friends and family are always buying books about travel in Europe on Amazon, and so you end up getting this weird also buys. Does the same kind of thing happen with a social network? Like if you're carrying members of your old social network into your author career?
[00:03:20] Andrea: Absolutely. I think that's a really important point to make to think about. I was talking with the author today who's starting to write in a new genre. We want to bring her current audience along for the ride. So we're trying to figure out exactly what is her current audience interested in, and then how do we make that shift? It might be gentle and, you know, your shift from project management to writing other kinds of books, that, that might be a more dramatic shift.
I think the messaging is really important. I would think about what's the common denominator? And besides, you know, major moments in a book's life cycle, what else could you share with your network there that, that they might be interested in? And is there a hook that would draw them into the book in a different way? So same with social media. If you know that, someone was writing children's books before, and now we're trying to reach, middle aged women's fiction market. That shift might look like, leaning on parents first. So we think parents are the people who are buying that picture book first. Now we want to really target those moms. What is the common denominator that they might be interested in from one book to the next?
It's hard. It takes a couple months to do that, to start kind of posting a mix of messaging. Maybe two messages to one message each week about the kind of shifting from the old audience, the old content to the new content, but doing that, that messaging switch just very gently through, through social media posts and through a mix of messages, is a nice way to do that.
Look for alternatives to social media
[00:04:41] Andrea: The one thing I will add is just also that social media is not for everybody. So if you are feeling hesitant there, look at what else you may be able to do. And I'm working with a client now who is going to just be on Substack. She's going to write a long form newsletter because that is a more comfortable place for her to be than social media. So that is a more basic switch to drop social media and do a newsletter, but think about your comfort level and if there's a platform that really feels better to you than others.
Social media is not the be all end all of book marketing, it is not the only thing that is going to sell your book, it is probably like, it's probably more like the icing on top, the thing that maybe pushes something over the edge, it just gets a lot of buzz when we see something really go viral on BookTok or Bookstagram in particular, And but for the majority of authors, it's not going to be the thing that sells your book. So, so look around, look around, look at what you like doing, and maybe choose a different platform. It doesn't have to be social. Maybe it's a podcast.
Two approaches to social media: go wide or go deep
[00:05:35] Matty: Yes, exactly. I did have one other question about social media because I've heard and, at different times followed two different approaches, both of which make sense to me for different reasons. One is that don't bother being on a social media platform if you're not planning on being active there. And the other one is there's no harm in posting, even if you're not going to be active on a platform, as long as, I guess, you're kind of setting that expectation.
So, for me, I'm most active on Facebook, and, you know, I post everything I do there, but I've also started posting more regularly on Twitter and Instagram. I'm never going to be active on Twitter or Instagram, but I kind of feel like, especially for my podcast episodes, this is more true for my nonfiction than my fiction, that many of my guests are active on those platforms, and I feel like I'm both doing them a service, but also selfishly, reaching their audience if I'm doing that. Do you have a feeling about the pros and cons of posting on a social media platform where you're not planning on being active? Or active in the sense of interactive?
[00:06:38] Andrea: This is a really interesting question because I think it's changing right now, especially with folks leaving Twitter, now called X. My answer used to be more the former, what you were talking about of, you know, really only focusing on the platform where you're going to be active and respond to comments and drive engagement. Part of that is because if you're not responding to comments and being interactive, the algorithm does push your content further down, you will be, you know, deprioritizing the algorithm. If it's not your main network. Kind of, who cares? Who cares if you're not at the top of the algorithm if it's not where you're focused?
The one thing I would say is that apps like Buffer and Hootsuite make it so easy to cross post across different platforms. You can post the same content on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram if there's a photo attached to it. And you don't have to be active in all those places. You can just follow the comments on LinkedIn or, you know, wherever you're most active. But it makes it very easy to cross post and be, maybe have a passive presence in those places.
So my opinion about this is really shifting and it's also becoming more common, especially with people leaving Twitter, to say that they have an updates only account. So you'll see that in Twitter bios now that folks are really actively leaving Twitter. I'm one of those people. I've chosen to leave Twitter very recently, which is still a little bit of a grieving process for me. I really am sad about what Twitter used to be for the writing community. But a lot of people are saying there's an up an updates only account, you might see a couple things a year of, you know, a link to buy something, sign up for a retreat, a new product, but folks are really not being active there, but they're leaving a cookie crumb trail of where to find me.
So I think that's going to be more common these days, especially as we're trying new platforms, we're trying Mastodon, we're trying Threads. So I think you'll see that more of folks having updates only accounts where you might post once in a while really important stuff, but then leave information about, you know, where to find your more active platforms.
I think this is really more a question of an author's energy. So you want to put your best. Social media energy, maybe one to two hours a week into your favorite platform. So whatever that is, put your best energy there for sure. Do that first. If it's draining your energy to cross post to Instagram and Twitter, I would drop that entirely. I don't think it's worth posting once in a while there just for whatever fraction of an eyeball you might gain. If it's a passive repost, if you're able to do that. From Facebook or from LinkedIn without really putting much effort into it, then I think there's absolutely no harm to keep doing that, and you'll reach the people who happen to be there.
Social media scheduling and cross-posting apps
[00:09:09] Andrea: I will say that Pinterest is a great platform for that. Pinterest is great for searchability, and it's very easy to cross post anything with photos or videos. So if you're posting photos or videos to either Instagram or Facebook or LinkedIn, cross post them to Pinterest. It's, there's easy automations to set up through either a website called Zapier or a website called If This Then That. I have these automations set up so every time I post on Instagram it automatically posts to Pinterest. It also emails links to my Instagram to my mom, so she remembers to look at my photos on Instagram.
So that takes about a half hour to learn and set up, and then you never have to think about it ever again. But you might grab a fraction of traffic of folks who are looking for new books on Pinterest or happen to be looking for content related to your topic.
[00:09:57] Matty: And is there a one time or subscription fee for those services like Zapier and the other one you mentioned?
[00:10:03] Andrea: Not if you only, if you're under a certain threshold, so I think Zapier, you can have up to 20 automations for free, before you get charged, so you can set up at least a couple for free.
[00:10:13] Matty: I did experiment. I'm not going to say the name because I have the feeling that the issues I was facing were not a problem with this platform. It was just the nature of the beast. But maybe you can advise me that I got a social media scheduling app because I was going to post to those ones that I mentioned plus TikTok. God help us. I'm sure we'll get to that. And what I found was that pretty frequently this dashboard would tell me it had posted something, but I would, it wouldn't be there if I went and like actually checked the platform, it wasn't there, which was just a bug or could have been user error.
But the thing that I found most seemingly, disappointing about it or the downside of it was the inability to effectively flag people. So like if I have a podcast episode go up and I get all the social media URLs of my guests, then when I go and post on the different platforms, then I always flag them. So. You know, I'm hopefully, letting them know, and also letting their followers know that this is available, and I didn't really see a way to do that on, the scheduling apps. Was I missing something, or what's your thought about that?
[00:11:15] Andrea: Some of them are better than others at that, is what I will say. I recommend Buffer and Hootsuite, there are many others I've experimented with, none of them are perfect. I, the experience that you had of something not posting that does happen to be on Hootsuite once in a while, And, what happens is that, this is nerdy tech stuff, but it's a problem with the API connection. So your Facebook now, Facebook login requires two factor authentication. So you get texted a code from Facebook. Buffer or Hootsuite needs to connect to that text code. So it gets disconnected very frequently now because of that two factor authentication. So it makes your actual social media platforms more secure, but it makes your social media management apps, much more annoying to work with. That is a problem across the board.
What I would say then is to make sure you're logging into your management platform at least once a week to make sure that those things are reconnected. It does take a little bit more work, than set it and forget it, unfortunately. But, so as far as tagging people, some, there, there is one platform in particular that is not very good at that is very hard to find people's handles. Buffer is okay and Hootsuite is okay. There's another one that I will not recommend because, it was very hard to tag people in the platform. So that, I think is a preference. It just takes a little bit of experimentation and figuring out, you know, which one, works best for you.
The other thing I will say is that for most of them, you have to have someone's handle exactly and know how to spell it. You cannot search in the platform. So you're searching on Instagram or Twitter or Facebook natively, and then typing it in the exact caption back in your scheduling platform. It does take a little bit of work there. So, there is one platform that is more expensive called Meltwater, and they are better about using the live search to find people without having to leave Meltwater to go find it somewhere else. But it's unfortunately more expensive.
[00:13:03] Matty: yeah, the, all the interconnectedness, like the admitted benefit of being able to do it, to manage in one place does bring along its own set of challenges as well.
[00:13:12] Andrea: That's it. Pros and cons.
More alternatives to social media
[00:13:15] Matty: So I wanted to talk a little bit about, you had said before, like you had, you were working with an author whose platform was on Substack, not social media. Can you talk a little bit about some of the other non-social media, platforms that authors can use to build an author platform?
[00:13:31] Andrea: The other big one that comes up a lot is Medium, right? Authors writing other long form content on Medium, and I would say about either of those, either Medium or Substack or another newsletter platform is, just think about how much else you have to say if you're someone who is writing a lot and, writing prolifically, maybe if you were a blogger back in the day or used to have another blogging platform, maybe that's a good option for you.
Offering value for newsletter sign-ups
[00:13:55] Andrea: newsletters, getting in someone's inbox, I think it has to deliver value. You're asking someone to give up a bit of personal information, their email address, which can be personal. It's a little bit closer relationship than passively following someone's on social media. So I think if you're going to ask for someone's email, you have to deliver them something of value.
So think about, you know, tips or things you can teach them or interesting facts, maybe. I always point to historical fiction authors who have so, so much beautiful research, share some of that really interesting research. Maybe there's some cool resources there, or maybe you can teach someone else how to do that amazing research.
If you're writing nonfiction, I imagine you have sources and interviews and tons of ancillary content. also tip nonfiction authors, if you're not recording your interviews with your sources, start recording now. they can be used for podcasts later, they can be used for video, they can be used for, you know, transcripts for newsletter, but they there's so much other content that can be shared in that way, thinking of repurposing anything that goes into just one book, but it has to be something of value to the recipient.
So think about, you know, what are they going to get out of it? What can they learn from it? Is there some kind of idea exchange that can happen there? And it might be as simple as, you know, maybe you read prolifically and you're recommending books. Here are three books you might like if you also liked reading my book, that kind of content.
So a book sharing Booklist, sharing article lists of, you know, here are interesting things I'm reading this week that are related to topics in my book. But there has to be just a little bit of value for them in it, to make them want to open it, and truly look forward to it every week.
And also think about the newsletters that you really like getting, and, you know, what do you get out of it? Why are you excited to open it every week? there are about two that I open, you know, immediately first thing, and one of them is called The Daily Carnage, which is from a marketing agency. It's the one marketing newsletter that I read. so I recommend that to everybody. And one is Astrology for Writers by Jenna Kadlik, who's a Brooklyn based writer. I read her newsletter religiously.
So, think, you know, think about that feeling when you, you look forward to getting that email in your inbox. You know you're going to get something really good out of it. You're going to know how to navigate the current, the coming ellipse and know how to plan your creative projects, because of Jenna Kadlik, or Daily Carnage will give me some new marketing tool or insight every day. So, what can you do that is, it’s going to be of value to someone else. as far as other platforms, you know, it's challenging because those aren't really the active ones besides social media and then podcasts. If you're, if you have a topic that is so expansive that it would lend itself well either to interviews or to a long form narrative.
Podcast is an interesting platform for that. YouTube is the other one. I think, but unless you're intending to be a full time YouTube content creator, being a video YouTuber, I think that option is probably not, not the best for most folks unless you're doing something that's very like how to, like makeup tutorials or cookbook authors always do very well on YouTube.
The role of an author website
[00:16:47] Matty: Well, the other one that I always like to ask about, and I've been on this jag of asking guests periodically about this because I'm still trying to get my brain around it, but, an author website. So I've had a couple of interviews over the last year, I guess, of talking with, experts in this field about author websites and, sort of debating a little bit on, being the devil's advocate about our author websites as important as they used to be, because.
Don't you want to send people to your direct sales store or social media or, you know, the online retailers or something like that? And, I'm almost convinced, like I'm convinced in my head but not in my heart yet that I should be spending more time on my website as like a destination. But I'm still struggling with the question of what's the benefit to me as an author and a businessperson of driving people to my website as opposed to somewhere else. Do you have a perspective on that?
[00:17:42] Andrea: so thinking about website, it is generally a more static platform. So it's not one, you know, where you have to make changes. I'd say still update it maybe every 3 to 6 months, but, my opinion on whether you need to have a platform or have an author website has changed also, I think, in the last couple of months.
Especially seeing what has happened with social media, how little control we have over the Twitter algorithm, the Instagram algorithm. I think websites are important because they let an author claim and control your own search. You are completely in control of your SEO for your website, for your name, and for your book titles, really, in that way. Of course, you can do that on Amazon, and you can, we can talk hours about just playing with the Amazon algorithm and getting that search. But Google search is increasingly important, especially for nonfiction, and for topical fiction in particular, but it's also, it's the one place, maybe, where all of your books and projects live in one place, and you have full control over that.
So I see the benefit in driving direct to a sales page, you know, direct to retail if you're promoting one book at a time. It may be if you're a debut author, you only have one book so far, but once you hit that threshold, once you have two books, once you have multiple projects, you don't want to abandon the first one, you So managing a website and really taking control of your search there I think is really important because it's really the one place where an author can completely own that, and start to associate their name with their book title, having those things linked together come, help it, help both of them come up higher in Google search and come up higher in Amazon search.
So all of those things play together. The more qualified links that you have that go back to your website and then go back to Amazon or other retailers helps all of those things surface higher, higher in search in the algorithm. There's a very top line overview of that, but, I do think it's important for search reasons.
[00:19:30] Matty: Yeah, I do keep my website up to date, and the one page that I update all the time is, the upcoming appearances and events page, so it's, there's always, you know, at least once a week I'm up, I'm in there updating something about that, but, you know, occasionally you'll get the people who are all about, you know, the technical things that need to be done to drive people to your website, and I'm like, like, it's clear in my mind that I'm thinking of it as the backup to if I get kicked out of Facebook, And it looks professional, you know, if like, I can send somebody to my own website, it just seems like a marker of professionalism.
[00:20:06] Andrea: Very specific in the analytics there. So the benefit is of driving folks through your website and then to retail is that you can track all of that. You can see that they came from Facebook and then they clicked off to Amazon or they clicked off to Barnes and Noble or whatever. You can drive down pretty deep in those Google website analytics.
your website and you control that data. Amazon doesn't control that data. That's the real benefit. If like you can see what is actually driving people to your site. You may or may not do anything with it. Maybe you want to optimize and make sure you're getting more people to your website from Facebook or from your newsletter, wherever, or maybe it's just interesting information that you're not going to do anything with. Totally fine. But it is important that you control that data, that you're not dependent on Amazon or someone else for that information.
[00:20:49] Matty: Yeah, I think anything that was, removes our dependence on those kind of platforms is good. And I realized that maybe if I were advising someone on this, I would say that the work is no for when you do whatever those optimization steps are, like, If you're going to do those optimization steps and then you're never going to look at the data, then deprioritize it, like bump it down to the back burner for a little bit and then come back to it later because you need both the time to do the setup that's being recommended and then to look at what is providing you and just doing one without the other isn't really giving you much benefit.
[00:21:21] Andrea: That's right.
Author considerations for search optimization
[00:21:23] Matty: so we've talked a little bit about search optimization. Can you speak a little more generally, even outside the website scenario, about what kind of things authors should be keeping in mind for search optimization?
[00:21:37] Andrea: A thing a lot of folks don't remember to do at this point, once, once you have an ISBN, claim your profiles. Go claim your BookBub profile, go claim your Goodreads profile, claim your Amazon Author Central, and then related to your website, you can claim your Google Knowledge Panel. these are all things that can be completely in your control for search.
So when you search for anyone on Google, there's a little side panel that pops up on the right-hand column, and it will say, is this you? Claim this panel, at the bottom. So you can click that, and you can point people to that. You can put a one sentence bio in that sidebar, or two sentence bio, I don't know the character count off the top of my head, but you can also choose which social media platforms do you want to point people there.
So maybe you only want to point people to Facebook, and you want to remove the LinkedIn or Twitter or whatever else is showing up there, because that's where you're focused on your social. You get to control that, and a lot of people don't realize that. So that, I think that is very valuable, because you could also point people to your newest book there. You can really control that information and control when somebody is looking for you, what are they going to find first.
Establishing a presence on Goodreads, BookBub, and Amazon Author Central
[00:22:31] Andrea: The other platforms, Goodreads, BookBub, and Amazon Author Central in particular, I do like to treat those really as set it and forget it. They are helpful for discovery, for pointing people back to you and your books. What I am talking about is setting up your Goodreads author profile. Like, add your bio, add your photos. You can link a blog or an RSS feed of other content that you're doing. I am not telling you to go read your reviews. That is not what I am saying. So listen to my words. Claim your profile. Do not read your reviews, authors.
What is helpful to do there is to spend just a little bit of time adding your books to lists on Goodreads, under, it's under discovery and then lists. you can, there are crowdsourced lists for every topic and genre, so you might find, books to read on the beach or whatever you want. Books to read when you think you want to quit your job. You can find very specific things. So look for about 20 or 25 lists that fit your book and you can add your book there and have people up and people will upload think it's relevant.
But it's just one more place to like put your book out there for discovery and see if there's, you know, any fraction of traffic you might be able to capture from that. So do that. Add your book to your list and then leave it alone. Do not read your reviews. similar with BookBub, you can rate. Other books by other authors, which just helps you, become associated with those authors, so if people like books like Water for Elephants by Sarah Groon, which is being made into a Broadway musical, which is why it's in my brain right now, if you like books like Sarah Groon’s, you might like books by, you know, you, author, so there might, there can be a little bit of association that happens on BookBub, it's, it's really just another discovery tool that I think a lot of folks ignore. And BookBub sends so many daily emails if you sign up for different genres, it's mostly, of course, for deals, for ebook deals, for price promos, But they have a huge email list just for historical fiction, a huge email list just for memoir and inspiration.
So having your book associated with other books that might be put on deal or on promo helps your book pop up in the algorithm in that way. So, do that once, do not spend a lot of time there, but when you have a new book, I'd pop back to all of those profiles and make sure you've added it to new lists, rated a couple new comp titles in that way.
Amazon Author Central, there's limited options for what you can do there, but at least make sure you've claimed your profile, update your photo, update your bio, because that will show up on all of your book product pages automatically. A lot of folks forget where it is feeding from and forget where that 10-year-old photo is coming from, and it's for your Author Central.
[00:25:10] Matty: Yeah, I finally put together a big spreadsheet of everywhere I had posted my picture or my bio with a link to it so that when I had a new book or had a new picture I would know the 17 bazillion places I had to go fix it.
[00:25:23] Andrea: Brilliant. Great idea.
Building a platform with fellow authors and author services platforms
[00:25:25] Matty: The whole thing about BookBub is very interesting because I think that the obvious focus of platform building for most authors is to find readers, but I also think that there's this opportunity to build a platform among either your fellow authors or the gatekeepers like BookBub, so I am not claiming in any way that this is true, I'm just saying that there's a part of my brain that thinks that if I'm active on BookBub as a member of the community, maybe I'm going to be more likely to be smiled upon, maybe they have like a little dashboard in the background that's saying how often you do anything other than just submit for a feature deal.
I suppose in the past, I might've thought of Goodreads that same way, but now that it's part of Amazon, it doesn't feel that way so much anymore, but can you talk a little bit about whether that idea of building a platform among one's peers is something authors should be thinking of?
[00:26:21] Andrea: So you're right. There are editorial teams at both Goodreads and BookBub. it is like one or two people amongst a team of 500 Amazon engineers at Goodreads. And you're right. It used to very much be that way that you could be rewarded for being a good Goodreads citizen is what I would say. I do think BookBub still looks at this to an extent.
Because I think it's a place where a lot of authors are not active as a promotional platform. You're, exactly what you said, folks are submitting for deals or maybe for advertising, but not using the platform natively. The benefit of doing that is that when you are recommending books on either Goodreads or BookBub, other regular readers can follow you and follow your recommendations in that way, which helps you gain a following.
And on BookBub, you have to have over a certain threshold of followers before they will give you certain promotions like the pre order alert. you have to have a thousand followers on BookBub before you can be considered for that, and that pre order alert is actually, free and a very valuable presales tool.
How are you going to gain followers there if you're not being selected for ebook deals? You're going to have to use the platform natively and, you know, be known as a person who is recommending books, of interest. What I can't tell you is how effective it is in general, like how easy it is to catch the eye of those editorial teams. I think there are so many authors and, you know, Goodreads has become very, so, so saturated. but I think BookBub is still an opportunity for folks to make a, more of an organic splash and gain those followers and hopefully get that free presales alert.
[00:27:53] Matty: I do have the feeling that the BookBub team, well, everybody's a smaller team than the Amazon team, but the BookBub team is, I just sense a smaller team. I'll just clip this out and send it to them and say, dear BookBub, how many people do you have working there anyway?
[00:28:05] Andrea: Exactly.
[00:28:06] Matty: so we've talked, I guess one thing that I would take from what you were just saying about interactive, interacting natively on a platform like BookBub is that some of those are just fun.
Like, it's fun to be on BookBub and see what people are recommending and things like that. And so, I think there are some things where you can justify it just because it's an enjoyable thing. Like, maybe you don't put it down in the ROI column of your author business, maybe you just put it down in your hobby, you know, your personal hobby thing, and you may be, gaining personal benefits, but, no harm in having fun in places where you might gain financial benefits and platform building benefits anyway.
Online options for reader engagement
[00:28:45] Andrea: that's right. Yeah, I think, you know, I didn't exactly answer your question, too, about just, peer networking. I think that's part of it. Like, hopefully you will have fun talking to other book lovers and talking about books and sharing what you are genuinely reading and interested in. I would think, really think of it that way, of like, it's one more place for you to talk about books and talk to book lovers.
there's also benefit in the same way. There are other book club websites or book club groups on Facebook in particular, Goodreads has great book club groups, that might be a fun place for you to interact and engage. I don't know exactly what the ROI is because it's so dependent on, you know, does the group decide to read your book at some point? Do they decide to promote it? Will they adopt it? It's hard to say. It's very hard to say, but you might have fun as a reader, engaging with those book clubs. And if that's something that you have time and energy for, I would definitely recommend that to authors. Like, I'm in three book clubs just because it's fun.
[00:29:34] Matty: Yeah, I have actually had good luck, and as you're saying, I'm not quite sure how to measure the good luck, but good luck with Facebook readers groups. There are a couple that are very well run, and I've participated in a number of events there, and I can see those people coming over to my, author Facebook page.
And, interestingly, about once a month, I post on my fiction author page, I say, I know most of you are here because you're readers, but since readers are sometimes writers, too, you might be interested to know that I have this other page called The Indy Author, and I just, posted one of those coincidentally a few days after I had done one of these, Facebook group events, and saw several of those people come over to my nonfiction platform, and then I also often see people that I've met through those book clubs commenting on Facebook ads.
And there are even Facebook ads that I didn't target. I'm letting Facebook doing the targeting, but targeting them. And then I see people I've met through those groups, you know, saying, yes, I've read this. This is a great book. So it's kind of a virtuous cycle. Plus being fun, as you're saying.
The evolving status of BookTok and TikTok
[00:30:35] Matty: now I'm going to, at the other end of the spectrum for me anyway, I have to ask about, BookTok. So BookTok was all the rage for a while and I'm not hearing that much about it now. I don't know if it's because I just tuned it out or it's really sort of decreasing in popularity. What are your thoughts about BookTok these days?
[00:30:54] Andrea: BookTok in general, I think, I think it's become a little bit of an insular community. Once one book becomes popular, one author, like Colleen Huber, of course, it was very hard for anything else to break through. And it's like, the ten books that BookTok crowned just keep getting recommended and recommended.
I haven't seen a lot of those readers, and this is completely, you know, just through watching and through seeing kind of what spikes at different retailers. I haven't seen a lot of other books been able to really break through. It's like, we crowned Colleen Hoover and we crowned, you know, ten other books. I guess Fourth Wing is probably one of the more recent ones that did come out of that. But it hasn't been, what Bookstagram has become, which is, you know, many more books, many more authors, many more Bookstagramers being able to break through in that way.
We are still trying as marketers, and I know the publishers are still trying to provide books and offer recommendations to the big BookTokers and have them, really help us make something else go viral.
I haven't really seen it happening in that way. We're trying to make a splash there, we're trying to have them shift their attention to something else, and it seems like the book talk type has become so narrow, they want to read this. So they're recommending this and it just, it hasn't expanded beyond to like a more general readership. TikTok, broader TikTok, I think is helpful though for nonfiction authors, who are operating outside of the BookTok algorithm. So I have seen in very weird examples, serious biographical history and, serious science books. Making a little bit of a splash on TikTok because they were talking about a very specific topic that TikTokers wanted to learn about.
People are using TikTok like they use Google or like they used to use YouTube. They're going to learn about how to write a resume or how to, you know, how to spot an XYZ comment in the sky tonight. they're looking, they're using TikTok for very specific information, using it for tutorials. So if you have nonfiction that could fit into one of those categories, I think that's a really good place for you.
For our general fiction writers, memoir writers, maybe more of our narrative nonfiction and, fiction. I think it's going to be hard to break through unless you can shoehorn yourself back into like a how to or related category. What I do see working for writers in general on TikTok is more like, more of what you were talking about with your nonfiction platform of like, come learn to be a writer, come look behind my process.
That content is working. I can't tell you that it's actually selling books, though. It's interesting content that people are watching and absorbing, but I don't know if it's actually driving people back to buy the maybe fiction that might go along with something like that.
[00:33:33] Matty: Yeah, one of the reasons I had pursued this social media scheduling was in order to get to TikTok, because I knew I wasn't going to be posting there. Among other reasons, I'm just not good with my phone. I have to do everything from my desktop, and that was problematic, but I did have, you know, was interested in it primarily for my nonfiction platform. Maybe I'll have to give some other different social media scheduling thing a tool and give it another try, because now I have like four TikTok videos out there about independent publishing.
When is it time for a change?
[00:34:03] Matty: so as the last question, I wanted to ask you if there are red flags that people should be looking out for, and now I'm thinking more specifically back to social media, that's saying this platform that either I've tried out or I've maybe been using for a long time, like are there red flags that say maybe it's time to move on or maybe it's time to give it a rest, and if that's the case, do you have recommendations for how a person can decide what other platform they might want to move to as a replacement for that platform?
[00:34:32] Andrea: That's a really interesting question. I'm thinking, I think first, as someone who's worked with so many authors for a long time, I want to protect your energy. If a social media platform is not fun for you anymore, if you feel like you're getting yelled at on Twitter all day, it's not safe for you anymore, it's not safe for your mental health. And if it's not helping you sell books in that way, if you're just getting started. You know, backlash or getting pulled into conversations that don't feel like a place where you want to be, I think it's time to go. And I do say that, you know, it happens with, it can happen with Facebook comments, it can happen in group chats, it can happen in TikTok, it can happen once in a while on LinkedIn comments. But if those places are feeling toxic to you, I think, you know, feel free to, you know, say goodbye and find something that, that makes you feel good.
And that, that's when I am thinking of more of the newsletters, things that are more of a one way street, one way conversation. Sometimes the scheduling apps also help with that, that you're not actively scrolling on the apps and reading all the conversation if you're just posting your content and then getting out. That might be another way to, to approach that situation. So there's that of like, Is it still fun for you? Does it still feel okay? Because I want authors to feel happy and feel like they can invest their time in places that feel good.
And then, you know, I will say, like, if you have seen your engagement really plummet on any particular platform, sometimes the algorithm has just decided, and I know I'm talking about it like it's anthropomorphic, but, we don't always know. We don't always know why. There have been one particular word or phrase that got flagged. God knows what happened with your algorithm, but if you're really not seeing the engagement that you used to, and I'm talking maybe, like, Like a 90%, 80 percent reduction in your engagement. That might be time to also look at something else, because it's not worth banging your head against the wall if it's not working. If your posts are being shown to ten people, and you used to get hundreds, or hopefully thousands, it’s not worth it.
So as for looking for something new, I will say that Threads is an interesting place right now for writers. There is kind of a lovely book community growing there. Again, I don't know the ROI yet because it's still so new, but there is a kind of a lovely, like, book recommendation supportive community growing on Threads. And I'm like, ooh, could it be the thing that replaces the writing community on Twitter?
Hopefully. We'll see. Thank you. So I would say keep an eye on, keep an eye on the new ones. I'm not hearing much about Blue Sky or Mastodon anymore. I'm not hearing much about Clubhouse anymore. I think everyone tried those things and then, you know, decided after a couple weeks that it wasn't for them. But I do see more folks now, especially in the last couple weeks leaving Twitter and giving threads a try. So I would say, yes, keep an eye on that and give it a shot for a couple weeks. See how it feels to you.
Finding your target demographic on social media
And then what I always say when you're thinking about what social media platform to be on, think about where your audience is. That is really the most important question. If you are trying to reach Gen Z, they are probably on TikTok. If you are trying to reach, you know, Millennials and Gen X, they are probably on Instagram. If you are trying to reach Boomers, 55 they are probably on Facebook, so that is also a, that's a safe bet.
LinkedIn skews obviously professionals, but skews a little bit more male, and also higher income. There are parents on Pinterest, parents on Facebook, so I think that's really important too. If you are joining TikTok because. . . You enjoy TikTok, fine, that's one thing, but if you are trying to reach a 55 plus audience, they are maybe not there, so maybe you are yelling into the void and not reaching your primary audience.
So I think that's really important too. If you're ready to shift, I would ask yourself, you know, one, where am I going to be comfortable? Where am I going to have fun? And then two, where's my audience?
[00:38:15] Matty: Perfect. Well, Andrea, thank you so much for sharing all those tips, all the levers that an author can pull to control their author platform, and thank you for making all those suggestions for alternatives people can pursue. Please let everyone know where they can go to find out more about you and everything you do online.
[00:38:30] Andrea: Amazing. Thanks so much for having me. So my book marketing agency is called The Future of Agency. We are at thefutureofagency.com. And I also run those amazing writing retreats. We are filling for Barcelona, February, 2024 right now at madonnawriting. com.
[00:38:47] Matty: Great, thank you so much!
[00:00:06] Andrea: Hi, good to see you.
[00:00:07] Matty: It is great seeing you too.
Meet Andrea Jo DeWerd
[00:00:09] Matty: To give our listeners and viewers a little bit of background on you, Andrea Jo DeWerd is a book marketing strategist, consultant, writer, speaker, and founder of the future of agency LLC, a book marketing and publishing consulting agency headquartered in Brooklyn, New York. Andrea is also the cofounder of Madonna Writing Retreats, a luxury writing retreat experience in Barcelona. She's a 13-year veteran of big five publishing with over 100 career New York Times bestsellers. And I met Andrea when I heard her speak at the 2023 Writer's Digest Annual Conference, and I thought the information she had to share was so valuable that I wanted to invite her to the podcast.
Is an author platform more than social media? (The answer is yes)
[00:00:45] Matty: And so we're going to be talking about the six levers of your author platform. And I think that a great topic to start out with is, is author platform just social media or is it something more?
[00:01:00] Andrea: Okay, so this is a great place to start because so many people come to me and say, I know I need to have a platform, but I don't want to be on social media. What do I do? And I have this conversation so many times. What I always want to remind folks is that your platform is more than just social media. Your platform is your network. It's your connections. It's anyone that you might call upon to help you when it comes time to promote your book.
So I would think about this creatively. There, there are the things that are in your control, which are like website, newsletter, social media. We're going to talk about those a lot today, I'm sure. But think about what else is in your control that you might be able to call on. Maybe you are an entrepreneur and have a speaking platform. Maybe it has nothing to do with what your book topic is. Maybe you're writing middle grade or YA fiction and you have a completely different professional life that. But you have connections from that and you might be able to, you know, pull that network and, use it in some way. Let your friends and family, let your professional network know that you have now written a book.
So think creatively about that and what you can add. This also extends to your credentials. I was working with a client who is a vet and was selling, one, a memoir, but also two, middle grade fiction about animals. And we really had to make that connection very clear that she is credentialed to write. Middle grade fiction because she knows animals very intimately from her life as a vet. Her book is not about being a vet; her memoir is, but that particular book, it was important to let readers know, you know, why she's qualified to speak about that topic. So you, using credentials is also part of your author platform and lets you bring in an audience in a new way. So think beyond social media.
Tap into your existing network or community
[00:02:35] Matty: Yeah, the comment about your network and a network you might have, as you enter an author career is interesting because I spent many years as a project manager in the corporate world, many of those years in IT, and, when I left my corporate job in 2016, I had hundreds and hundreds of LinkedIn contacts, and I'm always happy to tell them if I have a new book or I have a new podcast episode or something like that, but, I sometimes also wonder, like, should I have started fresh? Because it's almost like if you've, put out your first book and you've told all your friends and family and you're writing a mystery, but all your friends and family are always buying books about travel in Europe on Amazon, and so you end up getting this weird also buys. Does the same kind of thing happen with a social network? Like if you're carrying members of your old social network into your author career?
[00:03:20] Andrea: Absolutely. I think that's a really important point to make to think about. I was talking with the author today who's starting to write in a new genre. We want to bring her current audience along for the ride. So we're trying to figure out exactly what is her current audience interested in, and then how do we make that shift? It might be gentle and, you know, your shift from project management to writing other kinds of books, that, that might be a more dramatic shift.
I think the messaging is really important. I would think about what's the common denominator? And besides, you know, major moments in a book's life cycle, what else could you share with your network there that, that they might be interested in? And is there a hook that would draw them into the book in a different way? So same with social media. If you know that, someone was writing children's books before, and now we're trying to reach, middle aged women's fiction market. That shift might look like, leaning on parents first. So we think parents are the people who are buying that picture book first. Now we want to really target those moms. What is the common denominator that they might be interested in from one book to the next?
It's hard. It takes a couple months to do that, to start kind of posting a mix of messaging. Maybe two messages to one message each week about the kind of shifting from the old audience, the old content to the new content, but doing that, that messaging switch just very gently through, through social media posts and through a mix of messages, is a nice way to do that.
Look for alternatives to social media
[00:04:41] Andrea: The one thing I will add is just also that social media is not for everybody. So if you are feeling hesitant there, look at what else you may be able to do. And I'm working with a client now who is going to just be on Substack. She's going to write a long form newsletter because that is a more comfortable place for her to be than social media. So that is a more basic switch to drop social media and do a newsletter, but think about your comfort level and if there's a platform that really feels better to you than others.
Social media is not the be all end all of book marketing, it is not the only thing that is going to sell your book, it is probably like, it's probably more like the icing on top, the thing that maybe pushes something over the edge, it just gets a lot of buzz when we see something really go viral on BookTok or Bookstagram in particular, And but for the majority of authors, it's not going to be the thing that sells your book. So, so look around, look around, look at what you like doing, and maybe choose a different platform. It doesn't have to be social. Maybe it's a podcast.
Two approaches to social media: go wide or go deep
[00:05:35] Matty: Yes, exactly. I did have one other question about social media because I've heard and, at different times followed two different approaches, both of which make sense to me for different reasons. One is that don't bother being on a social media platform if you're not planning on being active there. And the other one is there's no harm in posting, even if you're not going to be active on a platform, as long as, I guess, you're kind of setting that expectation.
So, for me, I'm most active on Facebook, and, you know, I post everything I do there, but I've also started posting more regularly on Twitter and Instagram. I'm never going to be active on Twitter or Instagram, but I kind of feel like, especially for my podcast episodes, this is more true for my nonfiction than my fiction, that many of my guests are active on those platforms, and I feel like I'm both doing them a service, but also selfishly, reaching their audience if I'm doing that. Do you have a feeling about the pros and cons of posting on a social media platform where you're not planning on being active? Or active in the sense of interactive?
[00:06:38] Andrea: This is a really interesting question because I think it's changing right now, especially with folks leaving Twitter, now called X. My answer used to be more the former, what you were talking about of, you know, really only focusing on the platform where you're going to be active and respond to comments and drive engagement. Part of that is because if you're not responding to comments and being interactive, the algorithm does push your content further down, you will be, you know, deprioritizing the algorithm. If it's not your main network. Kind of, who cares? Who cares if you're not at the top of the algorithm if it's not where you're focused?
The one thing I would say is that apps like Buffer and Hootsuite make it so easy to cross post across different platforms. You can post the same content on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram if there's a photo attached to it. And you don't have to be active in all those places. You can just follow the comments on LinkedIn or, you know, wherever you're most active. But it makes it very easy to cross post and be, maybe have a passive presence in those places.
So my opinion about this is really shifting and it's also becoming more common, especially with people leaving Twitter, to say that they have an updates only account. So you'll see that in Twitter bios now that folks are really actively leaving Twitter. I'm one of those people. I've chosen to leave Twitter very recently, which is still a little bit of a grieving process for me. I really am sad about what Twitter used to be for the writing community. But a lot of people are saying there's an up an updates only account, you might see a couple things a year of, you know, a link to buy something, sign up for a retreat, a new product, but folks are really not being active there, but they're leaving a cookie crumb trail of where to find me.
So I think that's going to be more common these days, especially as we're trying new platforms, we're trying Mastodon, we're trying Threads. So I think you'll see that more of folks having updates only accounts where you might post once in a while really important stuff, but then leave information about, you know, where to find your more active platforms.
I think this is really more a question of an author's energy. So you want to put your best. Social media energy, maybe one to two hours a week into your favorite platform. So whatever that is, put your best energy there for sure. Do that first. If it's draining your energy to cross post to Instagram and Twitter, I would drop that entirely. I don't think it's worth posting once in a while there just for whatever fraction of an eyeball you might gain. If it's a passive repost, if you're able to do that. From Facebook or from LinkedIn without really putting much effort into it, then I think there's absolutely no harm to keep doing that, and you'll reach the people who happen to be there.
Social media scheduling and cross-posting apps
[00:09:09] Andrea: I will say that Pinterest is a great platform for that. Pinterest is great for searchability, and it's very easy to cross post anything with photos or videos. So if you're posting photos or videos to either Instagram or Facebook or LinkedIn, cross post them to Pinterest. It's, there's easy automations to set up through either a website called Zapier or a website called If This Then That. I have these automations set up so every time I post on Instagram it automatically posts to Pinterest. It also emails links to my Instagram to my mom, so she remembers to look at my photos on Instagram.
So that takes about a half hour to learn and set up, and then you never have to think about it ever again. But you might grab a fraction of traffic of folks who are looking for new books on Pinterest or happen to be looking for content related to your topic.
[00:09:57] Matty: And is there a one time or subscription fee for those services like Zapier and the other one you mentioned?
[00:10:03] Andrea: Not if you only, if you're under a certain threshold, so I think Zapier, you can have up to 20 automations for free, before you get charged, so you can set up at least a couple for free.
[00:10:13] Matty: I did experiment. I'm not going to say the name because I have the feeling that the issues I was facing were not a problem with this platform. It was just the nature of the beast. But maybe you can advise me that I got a social media scheduling app because I was going to post to those ones that I mentioned plus TikTok. God help us. I'm sure we'll get to that. And what I found was that pretty frequently this dashboard would tell me it had posted something, but I would, it wouldn't be there if I went and like actually checked the platform, it wasn't there, which was just a bug or could have been user error.
But the thing that I found most seemingly, disappointing about it or the downside of it was the inability to effectively flag people. So like if I have a podcast episode go up and I get all the social media URLs of my guests, then when I go and post on the different platforms, then I always flag them. So. You know, I'm hopefully, letting them know, and also letting their followers know that this is available, and I didn't really see a way to do that on, the scheduling apps. Was I missing something, or what's your thought about that?
[00:11:15] Andrea: Some of them are better than others at that, is what I will say. I recommend Buffer and Hootsuite, there are many others I've experimented with, none of them are perfect. I, the experience that you had of something not posting that does happen to be on Hootsuite once in a while, And, what happens is that, this is nerdy tech stuff, but it's a problem with the API connection. So your Facebook now, Facebook login requires two factor authentication. So you get texted a code from Facebook. Buffer or Hootsuite needs to connect to that text code. So it gets disconnected very frequently now because of that two factor authentication. So it makes your actual social media platforms more secure, but it makes your social media management apps, much more annoying to work with. That is a problem across the board.
What I would say then is to make sure you're logging into your management platform at least once a week to make sure that those things are reconnected. It does take a little bit more work, than set it and forget it, unfortunately. But, so as far as tagging people, some, there, there is one platform in particular that is not very good at that is very hard to find people's handles. Buffer is okay and Hootsuite is okay. There's another one that I will not recommend because, it was very hard to tag people in the platform. So that, I think is a preference. It just takes a little bit of experimentation and figuring out, you know, which one, works best for you.
The other thing I will say is that for most of them, you have to have someone's handle exactly and know how to spell it. You cannot search in the platform. So you're searching on Instagram or Twitter or Facebook natively, and then typing it in the exact caption back in your scheduling platform. It does take a little bit of work there. So, there is one platform that is more expensive called Meltwater, and they are better about using the live search to find people without having to leave Meltwater to go find it somewhere else. But it's unfortunately more expensive.
[00:13:03] Matty: yeah, the, all the interconnectedness, like the admitted benefit of being able to do it, to manage in one place does bring along its own set of challenges as well.
[00:13:12] Andrea: That's it. Pros and cons.
More alternatives to social media
[00:13:15] Matty: So I wanted to talk a little bit about, you had said before, like you had, you were working with an author whose platform was on Substack, not social media. Can you talk a little bit about some of the other non-social media, platforms that authors can use to build an author platform?
[00:13:31] Andrea: The other big one that comes up a lot is Medium, right? Authors writing other long form content on Medium, and I would say about either of those, either Medium or Substack or another newsletter platform is, just think about how much else you have to say if you're someone who is writing a lot and, writing prolifically, maybe if you were a blogger back in the day or used to have another blogging platform, maybe that's a good option for you.
Offering value for newsletter sign-ups
[00:13:55] Andrea: newsletters, getting in someone's inbox, I think it has to deliver value. You're asking someone to give up a bit of personal information, their email address, which can be personal. It's a little bit closer relationship than passively following someone's on social media. So I think if you're going to ask for someone's email, you have to deliver them something of value.
So think about, you know, tips or things you can teach them or interesting facts, maybe. I always point to historical fiction authors who have so, so much beautiful research, share some of that really interesting research. Maybe there's some cool resources there, or maybe you can teach someone else how to do that amazing research.
If you're writing nonfiction, I imagine you have sources and interviews and tons of ancillary content. also tip nonfiction authors, if you're not recording your interviews with your sources, start recording now. they can be used for podcasts later, they can be used for video, they can be used for, you know, transcripts for newsletter, but they there's so much other content that can be shared in that way, thinking of repurposing anything that goes into just one book, but it has to be something of value to the recipient.
So think about, you know, what are they going to get out of it? What can they learn from it? Is there some kind of idea exchange that can happen there? And it might be as simple as, you know, maybe you read prolifically and you're recommending books. Here are three books you might like if you also liked reading my book, that kind of content.
So a book sharing Booklist, sharing article lists of, you know, here are interesting things I'm reading this week that are related to topics in my book. But there has to be just a little bit of value for them in it, to make them want to open it, and truly look forward to it every week.
And also think about the newsletters that you really like getting, and, you know, what do you get out of it? Why are you excited to open it every week? there are about two that I open, you know, immediately first thing, and one of them is called The Daily Carnage, which is from a marketing agency. It's the one marketing newsletter that I read. so I recommend that to everybody. And one is Astrology for Writers by Jenna Kadlik, who's a Brooklyn based writer. I read her newsletter religiously.
So, think, you know, think about that feeling when you, you look forward to getting that email in your inbox. You know you're going to get something really good out of it. You're going to know how to navigate the current, the coming ellipse and know how to plan your creative projects, because of Jenna Kadlik, or Daily Carnage will give me some new marketing tool or insight every day. So, what can you do that is, it’s going to be of value to someone else. as far as other platforms, you know, it's challenging because those aren't really the active ones besides social media and then podcasts. If you're, if you have a topic that is so expansive that it would lend itself well either to interviews or to a long form narrative.
Podcast is an interesting platform for that. YouTube is the other one. I think, but unless you're intending to be a full time YouTube content creator, being a video YouTuber, I think that option is probably not, not the best for most folks unless you're doing something that's very like how to, like makeup tutorials or cookbook authors always do very well on YouTube.
The role of an author website
[00:16:47] Matty: Well, the other one that I always like to ask about, and I've been on this jag of asking guests periodically about this because I'm still trying to get my brain around it, but, an author website. So I've had a couple of interviews over the last year, I guess, of talking with, experts in this field about author websites and, sort of debating a little bit on, being the devil's advocate about our author websites as important as they used to be, because.
Don't you want to send people to your direct sales store or social media or, you know, the online retailers or something like that? And, I'm almost convinced, like I'm convinced in my head but not in my heart yet that I should be spending more time on my website as like a destination. But I'm still struggling with the question of what's the benefit to me as an author and a businessperson of driving people to my website as opposed to somewhere else. Do you have a perspective on that?
[00:17:42] Andrea: so thinking about website, it is generally a more static platform. So it's not one, you know, where you have to make changes. I'd say still update it maybe every 3 to 6 months, but, my opinion on whether you need to have a platform or have an author website has changed also, I think, in the last couple of months.
Especially seeing what has happened with social media, how little control we have over the Twitter algorithm, the Instagram algorithm. I think websites are important because they let an author claim and control your own search. You are completely in control of your SEO for your website, for your name, and for your book titles, really, in that way. Of course, you can do that on Amazon, and you can, we can talk hours about just playing with the Amazon algorithm and getting that search. But Google search is increasingly important, especially for nonfiction, and for topical fiction in particular, but it's also, it's the one place, maybe, where all of your books and projects live in one place, and you have full control over that.
So I see the benefit in driving direct to a sales page, you know, direct to retail if you're promoting one book at a time. It may be if you're a debut author, you only have one book so far, but once you hit that threshold, once you have two books, once you have multiple projects, you don't want to abandon the first one, you So managing a website and really taking control of your search there I think is really important because it's really the one place where an author can completely own that, and start to associate their name with their book title, having those things linked together come, help it, help both of them come up higher in Google search and come up higher in Amazon search.
So all of those things play together. The more qualified links that you have that go back to your website and then go back to Amazon or other retailers helps all of those things surface higher, higher in search in the algorithm. There's a very top line overview of that, but, I do think it's important for search reasons.
[00:19:30] Matty: Yeah, I do keep my website up to date, and the one page that I update all the time is, the upcoming appearances and events page, so it's, there's always, you know, at least once a week I'm up, I'm in there updating something about that, but, you know, occasionally you'll get the people who are all about, you know, the technical things that need to be done to drive people to your website, and I'm like, like, it's clear in my mind that I'm thinking of it as the backup to if I get kicked out of Facebook, And it looks professional, you know, if like, I can send somebody to my own website, it just seems like a marker of professionalism.
[00:20:06] Andrea: Very specific in the analytics there. So the benefit is of driving folks through your website and then to retail is that you can track all of that. You can see that they came from Facebook and then they clicked off to Amazon or they clicked off to Barnes and Noble or whatever. You can drive down pretty deep in those Google website analytics.
your website and you control that data. Amazon doesn't control that data. That's the real benefit. If like you can see what is actually driving people to your site. You may or may not do anything with it. Maybe you want to optimize and make sure you're getting more people to your website from Facebook or from your newsletter, wherever, or maybe it's just interesting information that you're not going to do anything with. Totally fine. But it is important that you control that data, that you're not dependent on Amazon or someone else for that information.
[00:20:49] Matty: Yeah, I think anything that was, removes our dependence on those kind of platforms is good. And I realized that maybe if I were advising someone on this, I would say that the work is no for when you do whatever those optimization steps are, like, If you're going to do those optimization steps and then you're never going to look at the data, then deprioritize it, like bump it down to the back burner for a little bit and then come back to it later because you need both the time to do the setup that's being recommended and then to look at what is providing you and just doing one without the other isn't really giving you much benefit.
[00:21:21] Andrea: That's right.
Author considerations for search optimization
[00:21:23] Matty: so we've talked a little bit about search optimization. Can you speak a little more generally, even outside the website scenario, about what kind of things authors should be keeping in mind for search optimization?
[00:21:37] Andrea: A thing a lot of folks don't remember to do at this point, once, once you have an ISBN, claim your profiles. Go claim your BookBub profile, go claim your Goodreads profile, claim your Amazon Author Central, and then related to your website, you can claim your Google Knowledge Panel. these are all things that can be completely in your control for search.
So when you search for anyone on Google, there's a little side panel that pops up on the right-hand column, and it will say, is this you? Claim this panel, at the bottom. So you can click that, and you can point people to that. You can put a one sentence bio in that sidebar, or two sentence bio, I don't know the character count off the top of my head, but you can also choose which social media platforms do you want to point people there.
So maybe you only want to point people to Facebook, and you want to remove the LinkedIn or Twitter or whatever else is showing up there, because that's where you're focused on your social. You get to control that, and a lot of people don't realize that. So that, I think that is very valuable, because you could also point people to your newest book there. You can really control that information and control when somebody is looking for you, what are they going to find first.
Establishing a presence on Goodreads, BookBub, and Amazon Author Central
[00:22:31] Andrea: The other platforms, Goodreads, BookBub, and Amazon Author Central in particular, I do like to treat those really as set it and forget it. They are helpful for discovery, for pointing people back to you and your books. What I am talking about is setting up your Goodreads author profile. Like, add your bio, add your photos. You can link a blog or an RSS feed of other content that you're doing. I am not telling you to go read your reviews. That is not what I am saying. So listen to my words. Claim your profile. Do not read your reviews, authors.
What is helpful to do there is to spend just a little bit of time adding your books to lists on Goodreads, under, it's under discovery and then lists. you can, there are crowdsourced lists for every topic and genre, so you might find, books to read on the beach or whatever you want. Books to read when you think you want to quit your job. You can find very specific things. So look for about 20 or 25 lists that fit your book and you can add your book there and have people up and people will upload think it's relevant.
But it's just one more place to like put your book out there for discovery and see if there's, you know, any fraction of traffic you might be able to capture from that. So do that. Add your book to your list and then leave it alone. Do not read your reviews. similar with BookBub, you can rate. Other books by other authors, which just helps you, become associated with those authors, so if people like books like Water for Elephants by Sarah Groon, which is being made into a Broadway musical, which is why it's in my brain right now, if you like books like Sarah Groon’s, you might like books by, you know, you, author, so there might, there can be a little bit of association that happens on BookBub, it's, it's really just another discovery tool that I think a lot of folks ignore. And BookBub sends so many daily emails if you sign up for different genres, it's mostly, of course, for deals, for ebook deals, for price promos, But they have a huge email list just for historical fiction, a huge email list just for memoir and inspiration.
So having your book associated with other books that might be put on deal or on promo helps your book pop up in the algorithm in that way. So, do that once, do not spend a lot of time there, but when you have a new book, I'd pop back to all of those profiles and make sure you've added it to new lists, rated a couple new comp titles in that way.
Amazon Author Central, there's limited options for what you can do there, but at least make sure you've claimed your profile, update your photo, update your bio, because that will show up on all of your book product pages automatically. A lot of folks forget where it is feeding from and forget where that 10-year-old photo is coming from, and it's for your Author Central.
[00:25:10] Matty: Yeah, I finally put together a big spreadsheet of everywhere I had posted my picture or my bio with a link to it so that when I had a new book or had a new picture I would know the 17 bazillion places I had to go fix it.
[00:25:23] Andrea: Brilliant. Great idea.
Building a platform with fellow authors and author services platforms
[00:25:25] Matty: The whole thing about BookBub is very interesting because I think that the obvious focus of platform building for most authors is to find readers, but I also think that there's this opportunity to build a platform among either your fellow authors or the gatekeepers like BookBub, so I am not claiming in any way that this is true, I'm just saying that there's a part of my brain that thinks that if I'm active on BookBub as a member of the community, maybe I'm going to be more likely to be smiled upon, maybe they have like a little dashboard in the background that's saying how often you do anything other than just submit for a feature deal.
I suppose in the past, I might've thought of Goodreads that same way, but now that it's part of Amazon, it doesn't feel that way so much anymore, but can you talk a little bit about whether that idea of building a platform among one's peers is something authors should be thinking of?
[00:26:21] Andrea: So you're right. There are editorial teams at both Goodreads and BookBub. it is like one or two people amongst a team of 500 Amazon engineers at Goodreads. And you're right. It used to very much be that way that you could be rewarded for being a good Goodreads citizen is what I would say. I do think BookBub still looks at this to an extent.
Because I think it's a place where a lot of authors are not active as a promotional platform. You're, exactly what you said, folks are submitting for deals or maybe for advertising, but not using the platform natively. The benefit of doing that is that when you are recommending books on either Goodreads or BookBub, other regular readers can follow you and follow your recommendations in that way, which helps you gain a following.
And on BookBub, you have to have over a certain threshold of followers before they will give you certain promotions like the pre order alert. you have to have a thousand followers on BookBub before you can be considered for that, and that pre order alert is actually, free and a very valuable presales tool.
How are you going to gain followers there if you're not being selected for ebook deals? You're going to have to use the platform natively and, you know, be known as a person who is recommending books, of interest. What I can't tell you is how effective it is in general, like how easy it is to catch the eye of those editorial teams. I think there are so many authors and, you know, Goodreads has become very, so, so saturated. but I think BookBub is still an opportunity for folks to make a, more of an organic splash and gain those followers and hopefully get that free presales alert.
[00:27:53] Matty: I do have the feeling that the BookBub team, well, everybody's a smaller team than the Amazon team, but the BookBub team is, I just sense a smaller team. I'll just clip this out and send it to them and say, dear BookBub, how many people do you have working there anyway?
[00:28:05] Andrea: Exactly.
[00:28:06] Matty: so we've talked, I guess one thing that I would take from what you were just saying about interactive, interacting natively on a platform like BookBub is that some of those are just fun.
Like, it's fun to be on BookBub and see what people are recommending and things like that. And so, I think there are some things where you can justify it just because it's an enjoyable thing. Like, maybe you don't put it down in the ROI column of your author business, maybe you just put it down in your hobby, you know, your personal hobby thing, and you may be, gaining personal benefits, but, no harm in having fun in places where you might gain financial benefits and platform building benefits anyway.
Online options for reader engagement
[00:28:45] Andrea: that's right. Yeah, I think, you know, I didn't exactly answer your question, too, about just, peer networking. I think that's part of it. Like, hopefully you will have fun talking to other book lovers and talking about books and sharing what you are genuinely reading and interested in. I would think, really think of it that way, of like, it's one more place for you to talk about books and talk to book lovers.
there's also benefit in the same way. There are other book club websites or book club groups on Facebook in particular, Goodreads has great book club groups, that might be a fun place for you to interact and engage. I don't know exactly what the ROI is because it's so dependent on, you know, does the group decide to read your book at some point? Do they decide to promote it? Will they adopt it? It's hard to say. It's very hard to say, but you might have fun as a reader, engaging with those book clubs. And if that's something that you have time and energy for, I would definitely recommend that to authors. Like, I'm in three book clubs just because it's fun.
[00:29:34] Matty: Yeah, I have actually had good luck, and as you're saying, I'm not quite sure how to measure the good luck, but good luck with Facebook readers groups. There are a couple that are very well run, and I've participated in a number of events there, and I can see those people coming over to my, author Facebook page.
And, interestingly, about once a month, I post on my fiction author page, I say, I know most of you are here because you're readers, but since readers are sometimes writers, too, you might be interested to know that I have this other page called The Indy Author, and I just, posted one of those coincidentally a few days after I had done one of these, Facebook group events, and saw several of those people come over to my nonfiction platform, and then I also often see people that I've met through those book clubs commenting on Facebook ads.
And there are even Facebook ads that I didn't target. I'm letting Facebook doing the targeting, but targeting them. And then I see people I've met through those groups, you know, saying, yes, I've read this. This is a great book. So it's kind of a virtuous cycle. Plus being fun, as you're saying.
The evolving status of BookTok and TikTok
[00:30:35] Matty: now I'm going to, at the other end of the spectrum for me anyway, I have to ask about, BookTok. So BookTok was all the rage for a while and I'm not hearing that much about it now. I don't know if it's because I just tuned it out or it's really sort of decreasing in popularity. What are your thoughts about BookTok these days?
[00:30:54] Andrea: BookTok in general, I think, I think it's become a little bit of an insular community. Once one book becomes popular, one author, like Colleen Huber, of course, it was very hard for anything else to break through. And it's like, the ten books that BookTok crowned just keep getting recommended and recommended.
I haven't seen a lot of those readers, and this is completely, you know, just through watching and through seeing kind of what spikes at different retailers. I haven't seen a lot of other books been able to really break through. It's like, we crowned Colleen Hoover and we crowned, you know, ten other books. I guess Fourth Wing is probably one of the more recent ones that did come out of that. But it hasn't been, what Bookstagram has become, which is, you know, many more books, many more authors, many more Bookstagramers being able to break through in that way.
We are still trying as marketers, and I know the publishers are still trying to provide books and offer recommendations to the big BookTokers and have them, really help us make something else go viral.
I haven't really seen it happening in that way. We're trying to make a splash there, we're trying to have them shift their attention to something else, and it seems like the book talk type has become so narrow, they want to read this. So they're recommending this and it just, it hasn't expanded beyond to like a more general readership. TikTok, broader TikTok, I think is helpful though for nonfiction authors, who are operating outside of the BookTok algorithm. So I have seen in very weird examples, serious biographical history and, serious science books. Making a little bit of a splash on TikTok because they were talking about a very specific topic that TikTokers wanted to learn about.
People are using TikTok like they use Google or like they used to use YouTube. They're going to learn about how to write a resume or how to, you know, how to spot an XYZ comment in the sky tonight. they're looking, they're using TikTok for very specific information, using it for tutorials. So if you have nonfiction that could fit into one of those categories, I think that's a really good place for you.
For our general fiction writers, memoir writers, maybe more of our narrative nonfiction and, fiction. I think it's going to be hard to break through unless you can shoehorn yourself back into like a how to or related category. What I do see working for writers in general on TikTok is more like, more of what you were talking about with your nonfiction platform of like, come learn to be a writer, come look behind my process.
That content is working. I can't tell you that it's actually selling books, though. It's interesting content that people are watching and absorbing, but I don't know if it's actually driving people back to buy the maybe fiction that might go along with something like that.
[00:33:33] Matty: Yeah, one of the reasons I had pursued this social media scheduling was in order to get to TikTok, because I knew I wasn't going to be posting there. Among other reasons, I'm just not good with my phone. I have to do everything from my desktop, and that was problematic, but I did have, you know, was interested in it primarily for my nonfiction platform. Maybe I'll have to give some other different social media scheduling thing a tool and give it another try, because now I have like four TikTok videos out there about independent publishing.
When is it time for a change?
[00:34:03] Matty: so as the last question, I wanted to ask you if there are red flags that people should be looking out for, and now I'm thinking more specifically back to social media, that's saying this platform that either I've tried out or I've maybe been using for a long time, like are there red flags that say maybe it's time to move on or maybe it's time to give it a rest, and if that's the case, do you have recommendations for how a person can decide what other platform they might want to move to as a replacement for that platform?
[00:34:32] Andrea: That's a really interesting question. I'm thinking, I think first, as someone who's worked with so many authors for a long time, I want to protect your energy. If a social media platform is not fun for you anymore, if you feel like you're getting yelled at on Twitter all day, it's not safe for you anymore, it's not safe for your mental health. And if it's not helping you sell books in that way, if you're just getting started. You know, backlash or getting pulled into conversations that don't feel like a place where you want to be, I think it's time to go. And I do say that, you know, it happens with, it can happen with Facebook comments, it can happen in group chats, it can happen in TikTok, it can happen once in a while on LinkedIn comments. But if those places are feeling toxic to you, I think, you know, feel free to, you know, say goodbye and find something that, that makes you feel good.
And that, that's when I am thinking of more of the newsletters, things that are more of a one way street, one way conversation. Sometimes the scheduling apps also help with that, that you're not actively scrolling on the apps and reading all the conversation if you're just posting your content and then getting out. That might be another way to, to approach that situation. So there's that of like, Is it still fun for you? Does it still feel okay? Because I want authors to feel happy and feel like they can invest their time in places that feel good.
And then, you know, I will say, like, if you have seen your engagement really plummet on any particular platform, sometimes the algorithm has just decided, and I know I'm talking about it like it's anthropomorphic, but, we don't always know. We don't always know why. There have been one particular word or phrase that got flagged. God knows what happened with your algorithm, but if you're really not seeing the engagement that you used to, and I'm talking maybe, like, Like a 90%, 80 percent reduction in your engagement. That might be time to also look at something else, because it's not worth banging your head against the wall if it's not working. If your posts are being shown to ten people, and you used to get hundreds, or hopefully thousands, it’s not worth it.
So as for looking for something new, I will say that Threads is an interesting place right now for writers. There is kind of a lovely book community growing there. Again, I don't know the ROI yet because it's still so new, but there is a kind of a lovely, like, book recommendation supportive community growing on Threads. And I'm like, ooh, could it be the thing that replaces the writing community on Twitter?
Hopefully. We'll see. Thank you. So I would say keep an eye on, keep an eye on the new ones. I'm not hearing much about Blue Sky or Mastodon anymore. I'm not hearing much about Clubhouse anymore. I think everyone tried those things and then, you know, decided after a couple weeks that it wasn't for them. But I do see more folks now, especially in the last couple weeks leaving Twitter and giving threads a try. So I would say, yes, keep an eye on that and give it a shot for a couple weeks. See how it feels to you.
Finding your target demographic on social media
And then what I always say when you're thinking about what social media platform to be on, think about where your audience is. That is really the most important question. If you are trying to reach Gen Z, they are probably on TikTok. If you are trying to reach, you know, Millennials and Gen X, they are probably on Instagram. If you are trying to reach Boomers, 55 they are probably on Facebook, so that is also a, that's a safe bet.
LinkedIn skews obviously professionals, but skews a little bit more male, and also higher income. There are parents on Pinterest, parents on Facebook, so I think that's really important too. If you are joining TikTok because. . . You enjoy TikTok, fine, that's one thing, but if you are trying to reach a 55 plus audience, they are maybe not there, so maybe you are yelling into the void and not reaching your primary audience.
So I think that's really important too. If you're ready to shift, I would ask yourself, you know, one, where am I going to be comfortable? Where am I going to have fun? And then two, where's my audience?
[00:38:15] Matty: Perfect. Well, Andrea, thank you so much for sharing all those tips, all the levers that an author can pull to control their author platform, and thank you for making all those suggestions for alternatives people can pursue. Please let everyone know where they can go to find out more about you and everything you do online.
[00:38:30] Andrea: Amazing. Thanks so much for having me. So my book marketing agency is called The Future of Agency. We are at thefutureofagency.com. And I also run those amazing writing retreats. We are filling for Barcelona, February, 2024 right now at madonnawriting. com.
[00:38:47] Matty: Great, thank you so much!
