Book Authors The Book is Written Now What? Biggest Mistakes Authors Make being Invisible on Social - Episode 8 with Danielle Brown

Carey Sperry:                     Hello and welcome to Carey Sperry, All Social Y'all Podcast. I'm your host Carey Sperry. On All Social Y'all we discuss how to employ social to become truly customer centric. We identify how social is a fuel for business growth and we talk with some of the best and brightest business leaders, entrepreneurs and digital marketers, our guests share inspiring stories and effective tactics to discover, interact, and emotionally connect with customers where they are on social platforms.

Carey Sperry:                     Hello everyone and happy new year. Thank you for being here. It is a new decade and I am so excited you're here with us. I have some exciting news to share with you and it is what this episode is going to cover. Social media as an author. We know that the huge majority of authors think that once their book is published on Amazon, that it will sell and that is not the case at all. What happens more often than not is no marketing plan is put into place before the book launch date so the author is so busy just getting their book written and polished perfectly to publication thinking that's it. Inevitably, countless authors become sorely disappointed when book sales are suffering and they feel upset, ashamed, and even worse, very discouraged. They believe that people want to read what they have taken such grand efforts to put down on paper, yet they cannot understand why they aren't being found on Amazon.

Carey Sperry:                     I have brought on a woman to our team here at Social Xeno. Her name is Danielle Brown. She comes from the publishing world and in this episode we break down what not to do when you want your book sold. Are you an author yourself or are you an aspiring author? Do you know someone who's an author or are you just interested in applying some practices that we share here about selling something? It doesn't just have to be a book for you to take away a few learnings here in this episode. We break down the mistakes that authors make that fail the sale of their book. They are not committing to following through and executing on finding readers and building large audiences before the book is published. Not asking for help, not defining specifically who is going to get the most out of your book instead of broadly thinking about how many people will be interested in reading it, and not getting out from behind the desk to be visible to the ideal reader. Take a listen.

Carey Sperry:                     (music)

Carey Sperry:                     Hi everybody. So happy to be back. This is episode eight and I would love to introduce you to Danielle Brown. We have partnered together on this new package that we just explained and introduced to you, but she's formerly with Entrepreneur Press. She specializes in writing, editing, book proposals, pre-order and post-launch book marketing and author branding. She's also a podcaster and a Toastmaster leader, so, so happy to have her here today. We're going to talk about what is to come, starting today, for everyone here and Danielle, maybe if you could just tell us a little bit about yourself and your experience in the publishing world.

Danielle Brown:                Absolutely. Thank you, Carey, so much for having me. I have always been drawn to books and the book world and I am a huge reader of pretty much anything. When I first ventured into the publishing industry, it was just a godsend and it was really enlightening to see behind the scenes of the publishing world while I was with Entrepreneur. But while I was there, I really worked with the Entrepreneur brand and dealt with authors, with the Entrepreneur brand's needs in mind. And now I've ventured into working directly with authors because I see that as a real need, that authors need help and guidance for their book marketing, for querying it to publishers, and I'm just really passionate about helping those nonfiction authors build their brands and platforms to help their book succeed.

Carey Sperry:                     That's so great. Yes. We're just such a great pair because my strengths are not your strengths and your strengths are not my strengths. That's been such a joy to so quickly, we were introduced by a common peer in the agency world and it's just been great ever since. We're so excited to be here today to talk more about it. About books. How difficult or easy would you say, Danielle, that it is to sell a new book today?

Danielle Brown:                Wow. That is really a tough question. I think the industry is changing a lot. Everyone wants to ask the question about, because of this digital age are book sales going down? But I don't think that's really the question anymore. It's more about where people are buying books because they're no longer buying them in stores, they're buying them from online retailers. The sales process is just different. There is definitely a need for books and there are plenty of people buying them, but that process and that journey to get people to buy your book is very difficult nowadays. It's much more reliant on the author directly selling the book than it used to be because it used to be just get it in the stores and people will pick it up, but that's not the process anymore. It's becoming more and more difficult to really understand and fine tune that process.

Carey Sperry:                     Good points. It's crowded where you can buy books today too. Everyone, of course, thinks of Amazon, but it's not like you can just put up a book and assume it's going to sell. A really thoughtful process and being able to maneuver through that landscape is key. A book takes a ton of focus and so many writers say, "I'm going to do this." And then they get into it and they realize how challenging it is to actually finish it, but it takes expertise on what you're writing about, a motivation to write. Do authors often see the launch or publishing date as the end to their work and is it necessary to have a marketing plan for the book, really?

Danielle Brown:                Oh boy. That's a loaded question. Well, first of all, yes. A marketing plan is crucial, but this definitely goes back to what I was saying about that journey and the industry changing because for so long, I think the landscape has been that when an author finishes writing the book and it's either been released or been sent to the printer or whatever that last little milestone is, it's like a weight has been lifted off your shoulders. There's no more editing you can do and the book is done. That's what we've thought since the beginning of books, right? But nowadays that marketing and the sales side is not just about getting it in the store, in a physical store. Now, it's about online retailers, eCommerce marketing, and it goes far beyond just that launch date or that release date. A marketing plan needs to start, I'd say, even while you're writing and editing the book, because in order to have a really fleshed out successful marketing campaign, the sooner you start, the better.

Carey Sperry:                     You've seen authors fail, I'm sure with your career so far. What have you witnessed as the top three mistakes, let's say, that authors make while they're, when they do set out to write and publish their book? Before the launch or after they launch?

Danielle Brown:                Yeah. Well, a big one I think is follow through. I think that authors naturally, we're naturally writers or we have these big ideas and by the time we've put it into a book that can sell, like you said, it's taken so much focus and research and effort to package it in a way that makes sense. And we have all of these ideas as authors, as writers, and when it comes to marketing, we'll have even more ideas, but it's the follow through and the execution that sometimes can just fall through the cracks. Because maybe that's not your strong suit or it's not something that comes naturally to you or it simply isn't what you've been doing for the past six to nine months. Follow through is really key.

Danielle Brown:                And to that end, I think the second mistake is not asking for help because a lot of authors, if you aren't a marketing expert already, it's easy to think that it'll be no big deal and you can handle it yourself. But as soon as you're in the thick of it, you need someone to help you. You need someone to ask the right questions, to know what's going to succeed, and to give you that advice. And I think authors don't always know when to ask for help and aren't good about doing that.

Danielle Brown:                I think the third biggest mistake and the third thing that can make an author the most successful is focusing on building a platform and earning a loyal following. Now, obviously, this can sound like influencer marketing, mumbo jumbo, just everyone wants to be an influencer, but it's less about that and more about reaching the readers that actually want what's in your book and you need to find them. You need to find them and get them already bought into you in order to sell the book to them. And I think that authors don't understand that before the book comes out and they need to. They need to understand it as soon as possible so that they can build that platform to reach the right people.

Carey Sperry:                     Those are really key. Follow through, not asking for help, and building your audience and your platform. There's different words for it, but it's like talking to who it is that you know wants to read your book. It's like marketing anything else and it's, when you do it and you find that audience and build those listeners so to speak, then they're going to follow through and buy your book, which is really exciting.

Carey Sperry:                     Why is it important for authors to find their target market? Let's dig into that aspect of it. Finding that target market or who it is, depending on what the book is about, who are those people and defining that? Let's just start there and then I kind of have a followup question to that.

Danielle Brown:                Yeah, absolutely. Well, I think, like we touched on already, it's so important to find that target market because authors need to understand who they're speaking to. Now, obviously, because they've written the book, they should have an understanding of who that ideal reader is. There should be an image in your mind of what they look like, where they've gone to school, how old they are, how far they are in their careers, what career they're in maybe. You have this ideal image of what that reader looks like and you need to hone in on that so that you can put your book in those reader's hands. Because if you just say it's for anyone and you market it to everyone, then people don't feel as connected to it. They need to feel that personal connection. They need to feel like you wrote that book just for them. It's speaking directly to where they're at in life and the pain points that they're feeling. And if you can connect to them on that intimate, personal level, then that will create, not only a sale for your book, but also a long lasting relationship.

Carey Sperry:                     There's that word again, y'all. It's that emotion and tapping into that. When people feel something, then they take action, whether they follow you, your readings online until they purchase your book or they go to an event where you might be speaking. Whatever it is, when they feel something and that emotion kicks in, that's when people really start taking action. Would you say that most authors know that they need to define their audience like this and create events or content in order to expose their book to the right people? Or, Danielle, would you say most authors don't know that? I'd be curious.

Danielle Brown:                I think most authors don't quite know that. I think they've thought about it, but not to the extent that they need to. And the reason I say this is because when you write a book, you become the expert on that topic. Like we said already, there's so much work, research, and effort that goes into creating that book. I mean, that might be 60,000 words, but there was 120,000 words worth of effort going into it. When you do that, all you really can see is the value of the work you put into it. And for you as an author, it's easy to think, "Well, everyone can get value from this. This is valuable to everyone." They could look at any person and find a reason why that person needs that book, but we need to reverse it. They need to think, "Okay, but who is going to get the most out of this?" And just switch it around and I don't think that authors do that quite enough. As soon as they do it, something clicks and it'll make sense. They don't quite put themselves through that exercise.

Carey Sperry:                     Yeah. Let's take a self help book for example, where someone's gone through a really tough life and they've had hardships and then they learn all these things about themselves because they've hit rock bottom and then they emerge as this really amazing successful, both in personal and financial life. Anyone could use that book. We all have hard times. Facebook, what we post on there is just our life and the happy times. I mean I'm not saying everybody's life is equally hard. I'm not saying that at all. Some people really have it worse, of course.

Carey Sperry:                     But what I'm saying is you can, like Danielle said, in concept with, and self help is not the only example. You could take a bunch of different subject matters of books and say anyone could and they might not even know what they're going to benefit from it before they read it, but then they'll read it and they'll be like, "Wow, I took this away and I had no idea this is what I would take away from it." But what Danielle is saying is when you identify your ideal reader and you hone in on that, you're going to make yourself visible in the online book sales world and the online digital world so that they have the capability of even finding you in the first place.

Carey Sperry:                     That's a good segue into my next question, which is how important is it for authors to be present on social media? Because a lot of writers, from what I gathered and just from you and I preparing for this beautiful service that we're going to be offering starting now, is that social media isn't something that comes easy to every author, and it's not something that necessarily they think that they need to be consistent on, so to speak. Can you talk a little bit about what you've seen maybe in some authors, the ones that do this well and what comes of it?

Danielle Brown:                Yeah, absolutely. I'd say, first starters, social media is not only important as an author when you already have your book released, but it is really important when you're just developing your book and querying to publishers. I mean, especially if you're looking at the big five publishers who might give you the most attention out of anyone, at least mainstream-wise, they might only look at authors who have 100,000 followers combined on their social media. That is a huge barrier to entry for any author who is a DIYer or solo-preneur or anyone who is a little camera of social media. It's really important even if you're just starting to get your book idea out there, to start building a platform right away.

Danielle Brown:                Now, after the fact, social media can be a huge and powerful tool for authors to connect with those readers. Like we talked about already, those readers are buying their books online in most cases, which means that you'll likely have to connect with them online as well. There are some other more traditional routes of book sales and engaging with those audiences, but to really make a bigger impact in bigger quantities, you have to have a social media presence. That's what's going to make readers feel engaged with you and well connected to you.

Carey Sperry:                     Well put and yes, it's about engagement, creating community. And there's lots of different ways that could make sense for, depending on the author, him or herself, the topic area, where, just like any other brand, you consider, "Where are my customers and where do I want to be so that I can be where they are?" Can you talk then a little bit about the importance of being, what we call visible and stages, like large stages, small stages, or even virtual stages, like a webinar-type platform to connect with and build these audiences?

Danielle Brown:                Yeah, absolutely. I've seen a lot of authors find success with building entire courses or at least course material based around their book concepts. Sometimes that book is just the tip of the iceberg, right? It's one big idea, packaged in as detailed of a format as you possibly can to give the best takeaways you possibly can to a reader. But there's so much. You could probably take each chapter and build an entire webinar or even course around that one section. As an author, it's crucial to be ready to hit the stage like you said, whether it's a small stage, large stage, virtual, whether it's webinars. You could use platforms like Skillshare to just create your own small courses, but you really need to think about how you can further the message of that book.

Danielle Brown:                What do people do after they read it? Or how are they even hearing about your book? Maybe they hear about it because they saw you speak about it or because they watched a webinar and now they're going to buy the book to learn even more because all they got was a chapter's worth. They're very interconnected. There's always more to talk about and more to expand on.

Carey Sperry:                     Even though we are very connected to our phones and on our computers to various sites and that's heavy in our lives, so to speak, we still want community face to face and being at events where we can shake someone's hand and meet someone. It's exciting to meet an author if you really love what they're saying and believe in their message and hope that they come out with a second book or a movie or something else. That's just awesome.

Carey Sperry:                     You and I both know that the number one fear is public speaking. People might be sitting out there going, "No way, not me. I don't need to do that. I don't want to do that because of that fear." What if they feel that way? What would you say, Danielle? And like what are the risks if they don't get out from behind their desks?

Danielle Brown:                Well, as an author, I think the biggest risk is just that your book is not going to sell. If you're not willing to engage with your audience in some way, whether that's social media or public speaking. I mean, even social media can feel like a form of public speaking. If think about doing a Facebook live or an Instagram story. I mean, public speaking is practically built into what social media offers a platform right now or a brand right now. If you're afraid of it, I'd say try to take baby steps. Try to tackle what's most comfortable. Would you rather do an interview format or a chat with someone in front of a group? Start there to make it a little bit more comfortable and then when you're ready you can step up to bigger stages or handling the stage all by yourself. Work your way up.

Carey Sperry:                     Good point. I agree. A lot of it is taking time to delve into what are you afraid of? What can I do to take baby steps? And one of your top three things is, in the mistake list, is ask for help. Do you know someone that's a great speaker? Where can you go for help? Thank you so much.

Carey Sperry:                     We've gotten to our closing time, but I do want to help people know where they can go to find out more about our program. We're calling it the Step Out series. Step out from behind your desk, step out and let people know about your book. If you would like to learn more, go to www.SocialXeno.com/StepOutSeries for more information and to schedule a call with Danielle and I.

Carey Sperry:                     Thank you everyone for listening. We'll talk with you next time! Thank you, Danielle.

Danielle Brown:                Thank you so much.

Carey Sperry:                     Thanks for listening to the All Social Ya'll Podcast. For free resources and materials, head over to AllSocialY'all.com. That's AllSocial Y-A-L-L .com. Also, we'd love to hear from you. What subject areas would you like to hear about in future episodes? You can share that with us by dropping me a comment on our website or in Instagram @AllSocialY'all.