These were all lessons I’d learnt from a pile of marketing books I’d read over the last month. The post was too long to have it all in one blog, so here are the second half of the ‘ways’.

The first five ways included:

• Defining your audience
• Connecting in a meaningful way
• Strategising your social media usage
• Being your own fan
• Advertising

You can see the details of those ways here.

WAY 6 – CAPITALISE ON LIFE, THE UNIVERSE & EVERY ATOM IN-BETWEEN

I’m 100% cheating, there’s about eleventy hundred ways in this one. *shrugs*

Anyway, you need to be el Captaino Capitalise. Literally.

Board Game Your Way to A Permanent Salary

One of the principles Joanna Penn talks about is preventing one organisation, say the rainforest of books, from having a monopoly on your earnings. If they fold, you’re in a world of cauldron boiling shit. Penn works on the principle of earning small amounts of money from as wide reaching markets as possible.

The opposing move is KDP but there are debates on the benefits of the exclusive-no-marital-affairs-allowed-KDP programme (like, its really only beneficial if your a first time author, or only have one book in it). She argues you should play the long game and, capitalise on the opportunity to grow your presence on all platforms: iTunes, Kobo, Nook blah, blah, blah.

But it’s more than that. You need to capitalise on each book like its an asset, because guess what, it is an asset. If you write non-fiction, ask yourself whether you could have a workbook to go with your content? Could you create and sell video courses?

If you’re a fiction author have you got both paperback and ebook? Do you have audio books? Have you got novellas set in the same world? or even merchandise? All these assets are different income streams, and if you have them in more than one country, then all of a sudden you have little golden pots of dosh from many, many sources.

The other reason you need to capitalise on your assets is because if you need to sell say 100 books a month to make a living, then only having one book or one asset i.e. only an ebook, makes that quite a task. If you have split your asset into 5 different streams, and have it accessible in dozens of countries, it becomes easier because you only have to sell 20 copies of each asset. If you have 10 books all split into different assets all of a sudden you have created your own little empire and the possibility of selling 100 ‘things’ becomes a LOT easier.  But even more exciting is the fact that having ten assets makes your chances of being seen increase tenfold. It’s the compound effect. Small increments, small sales over a lot of assets = bigger audience and bigger income.

Simply, my point is this: Spread your book seed like you’re a school boy slut.

No Wants Just One Doughnut

If you open a box of Krispie cremes, a box of chocolates or start slicing a cake, lets be honest, no one wants just ONE piece of sugar heaven. Deep down, we’re all addicts. I want to rub that chocolatty goodness all over my body while I motorboat the cake and have a doughnut eye mask for dessert.

But it’s not just food. We are a binge nation, I’ve confessed my binge habits before, but society at large binges on books, TV series and films. We have to consume EVERYTHING NOW, NOW, NOW. So capitalise on it. If you write series rather than one offs, then readers will come back for more, they will consume your series faster than I can munch a bag of cookies.

Also, it is much harder to sell one off books than series. This is because of the principle I mentioned above – the more assets (or books in a series) you have, the easier it is to be ‘seen’ plus you hooked people in once, why waste the opportunity to have them hankering after more?

Perm Your Book 80’s Style

Okay, I don’t mean give it a curl to compete with mine (mine’s like a telephone cable). I mean that nifty little tactic of setting something permanently free.

Usually the first in a series. Why? Because it’s a hook, it will draw people in, you can campaign with it, and everyone loves a bargain. Capitalise on it too – by having links straight to your subscriber list at the end of the book.

Funnel Like a Tornado

If you’re going to capitalise on the referrals from your free book, you need to ensure that wherever you direct them, it’s to somewhere with no distractions (like fun blog posts or interesting social media links) wherever you send them, ensure its a page free from distractions. The only thing you want them to do is sign up to your subscriber list.

WAY 7 – MANTRA MAIL

I know. I know. You’re sick of me talking about email lists. But honestly, I’m just repeating what the big guns say. I’ve talked before about: creating a mailing list, errors to avoid, and ways to increase your list.

But honestly, I can’t help but be sucked in by the glorious silky logic they spout.

Say the book rainforest fails, the company folds and that’s the only way you sell books. You’re fucked. Fucked like Titanic meets iceberg.

BUT, say you have an email list, a method of contacting people direct, something that drops into their personal sphere of attention. All you need to do is email your list and BOOM, you’re selling books again.

The reason email is the best form of marketing, is because unlike social media (where most people scroll past you like their flicking a bogy away) email is direct. Personal. Most of us open it.

If you get them to open it, and you hook them in the first sentence you are FAR more likely to sell them a book.

See… gorgeous logic…init…? *drools*

WAY 8 – GET YOUR GEEKY MAGPIE ON

I can often be found goggle-eyed fingers trying to touch everything in the shiny gadget store that only ever eats half an Apple.

It’s because deep down, I am a child – a magpie child – and children like toys. Well, it just so happens that the magpie god herself has bestowed glorious gadgety wonderment on writers: A plethora of software goodies.

Now, I am not going to go into lots of recommendations because a) I haven’t tried and tested the software and therefore won’t recommend it, but b) because these people great and glorious pen scribbling monsters are authors too, so go buy their books.

What I will do, is outline the kinds of squeal inducing software out there which they recommend in their books:

1. Keyword tools. Nick Stephenson, recommends a couple of tools that you can use with Amazon to take the hours out of trawling through searches on the book rainforest. The software helps you make strategic decisions on what words to use in your book’s information.
2. Various plugins to help you customise what they call a ‘squeeze page’ a page to drive people to your email list.
3. Programmes to trick Amazon so you can have universal links and earn affiliate commission on your own books.
4. Analytics software to ensure you are measuring campaigns effectiveness and growing your website.
5. Other non-software related stuff included: Photographers for author photos, book cover designers, editors and websites to help you design and create online courses.
   

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WAY 9 – $64 MILLION DOLLARS OF BLOG HAPPY 

Let me ask you a question. Before you became serious about writing, before you put pudgy fingers to clackity keyboards, how did you find the books you read?

As a wee angry teeny bopper I found books in libraries, bookstores and through word of mouth. (the internet wasn’t… ahem, fashionable then didn’t exist.)

Now, (with the exception of all the book reviewing sites like, Rosie, Linda, Sarah and Shelley to name but a few, who I constantly get recommendations from), I find books in all the ways I used too, and through a few more too:

1. Looking at the Amazon ‘recommended for you list’ (which is created when you buy a book – it then suggests things similar to your purchases).
2. The Amazon ‘inspired by your wish list’ section
3. I receive Goodreads emails – in particular a monthly newsletter that has the latest releases and hot books in genres I like.
4. I also get an Epic Reads newsletter that is specific to Young Adult books
5. Instagram – until I wrote this post I didn’t realise thats how I was getting book suggestions but it actually is. I follow lots of YA reviewers on instagram and they constantly put photos of books up, many of which I either haven’t read, or haven’t heard of. So I trundle off to Amazon and put them on my wishlist.

How do you get book suggestions? Let me know in the comments below.

Why am I asking where you find books? Because there is, or at least there used to be, a myth perpetuating blogging: that blogging should be an authors platform because it sells books. But how can it sell books (in the mass selling kind of way rather than the odd one or two) when readers aren’t looking to buy new books on blogs.

So should you blog?

Well gosh darn now that’s the ultimate evil bitch of a question. Look folks, I ain’t guna sit here and tell you one way or another. At the end of the day, we all have our reasons for blogging irrespective of bloggings book business benefits (#ExcessiveAlliteration). Some do it for the social side, others therapy and all the reasons in between.

Me? Well, I blog in part for the social side and partly because its a timeless place to log all the lessons I’ve learnt on my journey and that saves me looking like the bag lady who carries around 3467 notebooks full of scraps of paper.  Both reasons mean I’ll carry on whether it’s helpful for selling books or not and I hope that’s the same for you.

But some people come to blogging thinking it will sell books. Hate to piss on your bonfire, but it won’t. Not in a strict click-to-conversion style of book selling you’d get from advertising.

The consensus seems to be, and let me caveat this with a big juicy blog sundae caveat, it kinda depends on:

Your business model – Are you a fiction only author? Or do you write non-fiction?

According to the experts, as a purely fiction writer, blogs are less important – I mean, I haven’t google searched the authors of the last few YA fiction books I’ve read, let alone checked to see if they blog and if they do, I sure as shit haven’t read it. And if I haven’t checked I’m guessing most other readers haven’t either.

What does this tell you?

Readers, generally speaking, (don’t be a smart arse and tell me you read blogs and books, of course there are exceptions) don’t read blogs. Writers do.

While writers obviously read, they do not make up the vast majority of the mass page turning book monkey market. So your not likely to find your audience squirrelled away behind the covers of your latest blog post.

If you write non-fiction, then blogging is more useful for connecting with potential readers. If you’re a fan of history, I’ll bet there’s a few history websites you frequent.  I’m a fan of  conspiracy theories  and I subscribe to a heap of stuff because I am interested in the latest news and theories. Same for writing craft books – I subscribe to a ton of writing craft author’s blogs because I’m a content whore and want to know all the best tips and tricks to help me write. Guess what – I find out about books this way too.

BUT don’t hang up your blogging gloves just cause you don’t write non-fiction. There’s squillions of reasons to blog if for no other reason than it’s enjoyable.

If you want to read a hilarious post from Chuck Wendig on this, you can find it here.

So tell me – how do you find your audience?

If you found these tips handy, why not subscribe to get lots more straight to your mailbox. Sign up here.

The post 9 Ways to Help You Find Your Readers Part II appeared first on Sacha Black.

As I draw nearer to handing my book to beta readers, the prospect of completing it, having to press publish and my labour of love subsequently disappearing into the utterly saturated Amazon rainforest of books, never to be seen again, is becoming frighteningly real.

In an attempt to prevent the only people buying my book being mumsy and wifeypoos, I read 3 marketing books last month:

Joanna Penn’s How to Market a Book

Nick Stephenson’s Supercharge Your Kindle Sales

And Tim Grahl’s Your First 1000 Copies 

The whole point of my blog is to share what I learn on this sanity testing journey to authordom and what did I learn? Well, I’m resolute on the fact finding your readers will always be the holy grail of authorlyness and because it’s the holy grail, not all of us will find it. BUT, I also learnt a whole heap of other neat tricks to help us along the way, as well as finding an answer to the 64 bergillion dollar question, should an author blog…?

I learnt a shit ton of stuff, so I’ve split this post into two.

So here are 9 ways to help you find your audience, this week I bring you way one to five.

WAY ONE – DEFINE YOUR AUDIENCE

There’s nothing like specificity when you’re trying to achieve something and defining your audience is THE number one rule, I actually learnt that from beta reading Bloggers Bash attendee Cynthia’s super helpful book: Write Your Marketing Strategy.

Before you try and con yourself with the ol’ ‘I don’t write in a genre’ adage, just remember what you’re trying to do… sell books. Not having a genre is fine, as long as you can define your audience, and don’t kid yourself, your audience, ain’t ‘everyone’. If you don’t know who your audience is and you’ve finished your book, shame yourself with a bout of rhythmic slapping until you rid yourself of bullshit and then start frantically researching other books like yours until you find the answer.

Once you have the answer, define them, and by that I mean ask yourself questions like:

• How old are your target audience?
• What hobbies or interests might they have?
• Are they employed?
• What social media do they use?
• What else might they read either in your genre or outside of it?

Even knowing the answer to some of these questions makes it easier for you to target your readers. Knowing the answers means you can both tailor your marketing to their needs and wants and target said marketing in the right places.

WAY TWO – THE MEANINGFUL LOVE FEST

The mantra the experts are touting (and they really are touting it, the phrase seems to have been coined in some kind of new wave brain washing literary love fest) is to make ‘real’ meaningful connections with people. Apparently, that stops the car salesman feeling when you drop the equivalent of a author C-bomb by emailing your subscribers and possibly, maybe, gently pointing out the fact your latest book is published.

Their ethos is – if you’re providing quality material, being super helpful and someone signed up to your list, then they do want to hear from you. So stop beating yourself up with greasy car salesmen, no body likes them, someone’s got to sell cars and frankly that fetish is just weird.

I’m not sure any of the books actually defined what meaningful connections were, but if I were to scratch my noggin I’d say it’s connecting with people in a way that provides them with something they want or need, thereby making them want to come back to you again. #WinWin. You get a reader and they get what they want.

WAY THREE – STRATERGASM YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA

The point about defining your readers is you then know where to look for them.

I write YA fiction. Authors are told to use social media to connect with readers. Use it. USE IT ALL they said, but unless you’re a 16 legged 8 brained octopus with major skills in multitasking, then you can’t possibly use every social media platform effectively.

So don’t.

I’ve been using Facebook and Twitter to connect with people, but my school girl error is not recognising where YA’s hang out.

Twitter and Facebook are so last season, they make Yo-Yos, Nintendos and Pokemon look fashionable (wait one, Pokemon are fashionable again…), anyway you know what I mean.

If you wana get down wit’ da kids, it’s all about Instagram and Snapchat. So if I wanted to connect with YA readers I’d be better off focusing on those social media outlets than anywhere else.

Pinterests primary audience is women aged 25 to 34, but both the age categories either side of that one also have high usage of Pinterest. So if your target audience is women starting there is a good place.

If your target audience isn’t on Twitter then hammering the hashtags isn’t guna do shit for your sales numbers. It’s a hard pill to swallow, but one you need to if you’re serious about selling books.

What’s the takeaway here? Target, target, target.

Target like it’s your wanker-bosses soft spot and you’re going in for the kill and never waste time on crap that isn’t going to help you reach your goal.

WAY FOUR – FAN GIRL THE SHIT OUT OF YOURSELF

This one was from Tim Grahl. I highlighted the following quote in big neon yellow.

I’ve been told a number of times in life (#MostlyAtWork) that my passion and enthusiasm comes across as aggression. Frankly anyone that thinks that can take a running jump off the go-fuck-yourself-cliff. Too much?

Tim said this:

“Enthusiasm sells. Let it out.” Tim Grahl, p.124 of Your First 1000 Copies.

FUCK YEAH. I felt like doing a rocky punch in the air at the top of the steps.

Tim explains, and I’m using my own words here: we need to fangirl ourselves. Cause like, duh… If we’re not buzzing our tits off over our own books, why in the shiz would anyone else give a flying eff?

Why be enthusiastic?

Because enthusiasm is just as virulent as the self-doubt plague. It’s infectious and rubs off on others.

What does that mean? It means talking about your book. And I know. I know, *gently rubs calming oil into your writerly hands* talking about your book is scary and ‘sleazy salesman’ but you know, it’s not really. Not if your enthusiastic about it, and you believe it’s going to help someone or brighten their day.

WAY FIVE – ADVERTIZLING

Hate to say it, but reaching audiences for free these days is becoming rarer than Dodo spotting safaris.

Facebook has been dropping its conversion rates for years. Facebook page posts appear in hardly any feeds these days because they cottoned on to advertising.

The same can be said for Instagram and Pinterest. As much as it pains me, I’m fairly sure I’ll have to invest if I want to get any traction in book sales.

The one good way to advertise for free (at the moment) is through Facebook videos. Facebook are competing to be THE biggest platform for video delivery – in other words they are trying to take over YouTube. As a result, Facebook is allowing any video posted directly through Facebook to appear in a significantly higher portion of newsfeeds.

Thoughts? How do you find your readers? What cool tricks do you have up your sleeves? Let me know in the comments.

If you want even more free tips and tricks straight to your inbox, sign up here.

The post 9 Ways to Help You Find Your Readers Part I appeared first on Sacha Black.

Here’s the thing: My mum, loves me to the ends of the Earth, which means she reads these posts. All of them.

*waves, shouts ‘love you mum’* 

As much as I adore the fact mumsy reads them and tells me they’re wonderful. I’d rather like some unbiased feedback. I mean, mum thinks most things I do are good… amazing even.

Although now I think about it, she doesn’t know about the time I… 100% not finishing that sentence.

We all write for a variety of reasons: some blogs are therapeutic, some are started to meet the amazing community and others to build platforms. Whatever the reason, even if you start not caring whether anyone reads your stuff, something happens the moment you get, likes, comments that aren’t your mum, or your first spike in stats.

Realisation.

That’s what happens. The realisation that someone you don’t know, just read the words you wrote. For writers, that ignites the flame of desire. AND WE WANT MORE. More readers, more followers, more stats.

Writers’ get bitch slapped constantly with pessimism. This ain’t the ugly tree people. No need to smack us with every branch. But everyone does. They say stupid shit like:

“Well, you’ll never make it, how do you expect to get seen among the 4 gazillion books on Amazon?”  Or some other eye twitch inducing crap.

It gets worse. Cause then they clamber on their extraordinarily high horse, look down their bitter hair crusted noses and say: “If you’re going to write, you should just write for yourself.”

PERLEASE.

Obviously, I write for me, it’s fucking hard work, why else would I continue on this insane path?!

But… If I pour my bodily fluids into stories, and wear the pads out on my chubby fingers then I bloody well want to be read. If you don’t want to be read why not stick to paper and save us the inbox bulge.

I ran an experiment last year. I hated every second of it especially because it worked, which meant I had to carry on. I changed the methodology behind my titles, just to see… Ok sure, I did a bunch of other stuff too, but the titles were the game changer.

I hate my titles. I don’t mind admitting that. They make my skin crawl cause of the thick coat of sleaze ball slime they produce. They’re all, Tips for this, or Tricks for that. UGH. So impersonal, fake and ‘markety’.

But I reasoned with myself, even if my titles aren’t what I’d prefer, all I need to do is catch someone’s attention. If they read my posts, they’ll know I’m not Mr. smooth talking, gimmicky sales tactic, buy my totally-super-crazy-good book about frogspawn that will help you sell 1 million books.

Nah. I’m just another foul-mouthed writer, who blathers on too much while trying to figure out this writing bollocks.

So I changed them, and I’ll tell you how in a minute, but here’s the math. If you want proof (because I usually do): since last January (2015), whilst I was still scratching my butt and looking for the right pen, I had barely a whiff of views but, after a year of headline grabbing tactics, this January I had over ten times my original count. So yeah. This works.

But how do you do it?

ONE – Collect Headlines Like A Hoarder

I talk about the fact I am an obsessive hoarder of words and sentences all the time. There are plenty of people out there who write better headlines than me and have managed to catch my skeptical attention to read their posts. That tells me one thing. I need to learn from them. So I collect their headline and store it away to study its structure.

TWO – Sign up to Jon Morrow

FYI I’m not promoting him because he paid me. I just happened to see something he did on twitter and decided to follow to see whether his stuff peaked my interest. The freebie he gave away for the price of my subscription was his guide to hacking headlines.

It’s good. Like really good. I mean, I didn’t actually read the contents…oops (shrugs, I don’t do detail, just ask my Myers Briggs profile). But I didn’t really have too. I got the picture from the contents table. He gives the methodology for each type of headline in the bulk of the PDF, but the contents page gives you the basic types of headlines. I picked and chose from there.

Check him out here his newsletter is ok, it gives a varying amount of information, but I warn you it is quite salesy.

THREE – Headline Analyser

Lucy’s guest post, (in which a discussion ensued about the benefits of CoShedule and it’s analyser) is another useful tool you can find here.

I used it to analyse a few of mine, I got a B+. I don’t like B’s, I like A’s and the number 1. But I also wasn’t willing to carve off any more pieces of my soul to get an A grade headline.

Like, Jon Morrow, the analyser after a few attempts teaches you whats classed as good and whats classed as bad in your headlines. After a few more attempts, unless you only write drunk, you won’t need to use it as you will have the tactics nailed.

FOUR – Negative Headlines Work

There is something about humanity that means we just can’t help our ears pricking up at the hint of bad news. Jesus, watch the actual news. Can anyone remember the last time you saw a good news story on the news? I used to obsess over it. I don’t bother anymore. I pretend to at least start my day as a perky twinset and pearl girl.

(NB. Sacha Black is neither perky nor does she, nor will she ever wear, twinsets or pearls. Frankly, she’d rather cut her own liver out and eat it than be that person, (and she’s a vegetarian, so that’s saying something))

My point? Negative headlines work:

88 Mistakes to avoid when handcuffing your boyfriend to the staircase during role play

FIVE – Keep It Simple Stupid + Solve Problems

Keep it simple stupid is a phrase we used to use when I was in the Army Cadets as a teeny bopper. Once we reached a certain level of experience, we had to teach the other cadets. We went through an intensive ‘how to teach’ course, and the one thing I remember to this day, is that phrase:

Keep it simple stupid.

The point was, anything that needs explaining, needs explaining simply. WELL DUH. Sounds obvious, but it isn’t really.

Lets take this post. I could have written this headline:

7 key methods you need to use when constructing headlines to increase your blogging readership.

I fell asleep after methods, but the headline is technically correct. That is exactly what this post is about and ironically, that actually got a reasonable score on the headline analyser. But… I don’t write headlines for blog posts and neither should you.

I write headlines for Twitter and Pinterest. Why? Because they drive traffic.

Twitter – 140 characters – you got no choice but to be short, sweet and straight to the point.

That means less than 10 words, if you want to use Hashtags, go for less than 7.

Pinterest? Visual, short sentences with catchy designs that can be read in the blink of a finger scroll.

So how do I do that yet maintain the integrity of what the post is about?

Most writers are searching for answers. When I read posts on writing, or topics relevant to whatever latest illegal google search I’m doing its because I am seeking information or an obscure answer… for a character (scouts honour).

My posts? All solve problems in a round about way. I write them, because they solved my latest hair pulling out problem, so I share the answer I found.

This posts problem in less than 10 words? Trying to grab readers attention.

Bingo! There’s your title.

SIX – Word Construction & Emotion

Ok, this one I am less good at. The purpose here is to use premier league words. That’s a phrase my old school teacher used to say. He said the word ‘spectacular’ was a premier league word where ‘good’ was just a division one!

I got the point. Choose words carefully. Choose evocative ones instead of run of the mill.

What do I mean by that?

5 secrets to sniffing sherbet without mum finding out

The purple words are power words. Secrets is an emotive word. We all like secrets. That’s going to grab someones attention more than saying methods, or ‘ways’. The rest follow: no one wants to get caught – so without being found out is another power phrase.

There are other ways of using power words. Like being authoritative.

No one is going to want to read a post that follows this headline:

Using fertiliser is probably the best way of keeping your skin looking young

What? No. Fuck off, I’m not putting cow shit on my face for ‘probably‘ keeps the wrinkles away.

But if someone wrote:

Fertiliser Face Mask: the latest and BEST way to stay looking young

Well now, that… that might just tempt me to read on.

SEVEN – Numbers

Numbers in titles are like crack to readers. Honestly, I don’t know what it is about them. Oh and by numbers I mean the figure 10, not the word ten. When I did my stats analysis last year and looked at the top 20 posts, something stupid like 13 out of 20 had numbers in the title. If that doesn’t tell you something then I can’t help you!

Now the thing is, putting numbers in posts usually means a bog standard list i.e. 75 ways to make Tulip Pollen Cookies.

But it doesn’t have too. I try not to use lists in their most listy sense too often partly because I like the sound of my own voice but also in adding meat to my sinewy list bones, I actually learn about the subjects I waffle on about. 90% of my Monday posts have numbers in them, and guess what? Monday is my best day for views.

So, what tactics do you use for your post titles? What headlines have caught your eye in the past? Let me know in the comments.

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The post 7 Laws of Writing Reader Grabbing Headlines appeared first on Sacha Black.