From Cold Clicks to Raving Readers
After I won Kindle Scout last summer with Winter Peril, I was on a personal quest. How do I want my career to proceed? I wasn’t sure. Honestly I wasn’t submitting the novels I was writing and yes I was writing, but the question in my mind was ‘what do I want to do?’ or ‘what’s my next move?’ I had no answer so I really started studying marketing and how to sell anything, including books. I never worked in a mall. I never tried to make my living selling anything. I worked for others all my life. I had desk jobs of varying sort and sales was never who I was.
The bottom line was I didn’t know how to sell, but I knew what I was doing so far wasn’t working. A prayer that the next book sold more of the previous book let me stick my author head in the sand and not worry about sales. However that path I was on helped me write but didn’t help me make myself discoverable.
I knew nothing, much like my favorite character Jon Snow.
I also knew that I did not want to spend $700 for what I am sure are amazing courses from the likes of Mark Dawson or Nick Stephenson. I wanted to but I couldn’t justify the expense as I was pregnant for most of the question. $700 can buy a lot of diapers that I might need. I also had no experience with sales and needed help.
So I studied marketing podcasts, lead generating education videos on youtube and devoured every corner of the web I could. I took copious notes and really sat there doing a mind map with an online tool. I am adding a screen shot below to show you!
Clearly from this to my final decisions, life changes. I’m not focusing right now on sci fi fantasy as I thought I would. I’m focusing on contemporary romance.
Then I started putting the puzzle together of my own true marketing plan and how I wanted to succeed. I believed the idea ‘the money is in the list.’ Why? I walk into Macys or the super market and they want my email address. The grocery store that I go to buy meat wants my email. Why? I’m not going to buy my meat elsewhere at the moment as they have the best meat and prices I know. So why would the grocery store want my email? They want to email me about the sales. Why? Do they get more foot traffic from every click? They probably do and my book business is mostly online. People can skip the store trip entirely and get a book instantaneously or shipped to their house.
So I wrote the first part of the journey and made it available in ebook format. I’m currently taking copious notes that I will transform into part 2 for advanced marketing later in the year, probably for print in 2017 at some point. I’m sharing this nonfiction because in my heart I’m a teacher. I love talking about things I learned. I’m also a writer and I can do more than fiction which is my dream and what I love writing.
So basically this was the goal. How do I do lists and how do I manage writing and marketing? What can I do for marketing?
MindMap Your Marketing Plan to find your goals, your readers, the benefits you offer and marketing options that work.
Build Your Newsletter with readers who love your work using lead sources and giveaways you’ll offer. If you only have one book or no book yet, we’ll discuss alternatives to a free novel. Then once you have subscribers, let’s discuss how to automate your communication to transform clicks to reviewing readers.
Then finally, Blogging is necessary and can fit in your life. We will dig deeper into content than just ‘set up a blog’ information with our eyes on remaining visible so when readers find you, they discover your world of novels
Pre-Order:
Amazon: http://amzn.to/2aYODCB Barnes and Noble: http://bit.ly/2bwYhAq
Kobo: http://bit.ly/2bk3yMp Itunes: Coming Soon
