Finding an audience is essential for every writer. Karen Lock Kolp shares her favorite ways to connect with followers who are perfectly suited to your books.

As a writer with three nonfiction books published and more on the way, I often get asked, “How do you find ideas for what to write about?”

Now, I say, “I ask my community.”

Book ideas – and manuscripts – begin when people engage with me after listening to my podcast, corresponding via email or in social media, or becoming a private client.

But it was not always so. Once, I had a vague idea that I wanted to write, and a hope that I could produce something someone would find useful. But I didn’t know how to start, or how to connect the dots to write one book, never mind multiple.

Is that where you are right now? Or perhaps you are a little further along the timeline, with a great book idea, or even a draft – but you’re not sure who might read it?

Whether you’re just beginning, or further along and stuck, here are 5 ways for you to move forward!

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Your author website is the only marketing platform you can completely control. It is the online home for your books and the way that many readers will discover more about you. In this article, Fauzia Burke shares the important elements for your author website, and also the mistakes to avoid.

It's indisputable: all authors and small publishers need a mobile-friendly, professional-looking author website. It is, by far, the most important element of your book marketing strategy.

Although a lot has changed when it comes to creating a website, some things remain fundamental. This article covers the author website basics you should consider as you are getting started or redesigning your site.

For starters, you have complete control over the content of your website, and you can put just about anything and everything on it. Many people jump into the process of hiring a web developer before thinking about the purpose of their site.

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Every author, regardless of the way they publish, needs to think about marketing their books. Troy Lambert walks us through the common road-blocks that authors encounter when they approach marketing and gives tips on how to get through that resistance.

Want to make a writer cringe? You can do it by simply asking them one question: “How’s marketing going?” At the very least, you will get their attention.

That is because no matter how great a writer you are, it’s pretty likely that you struggle with marketing.

A part of this is understandable. The rules of the game change every few weeks if not more often. It can be another part-time job just to keep up with these changes and try to make the right marketing decisions. It’s exhausting.

But the other harsh truth is this: the book that is not marketed does not sell. If you’re going to be a writer who sells a decent number of books, you’re going to either have to learn to market your work yourself or pay someone to do it for you.

Here are seven marketing struggles that every writer faces no matter how experienced and popular they might be.

1. Knowing Where to Start

Even if you have an established audience, you need to know the best way to reach them. Of course, they are your fans, but they still need to discover that you have new work out there.

There are several ways you can do this, from your email list to Book Bub and Amazon followers and more.

But if you look at things like read-through rates, or the percentage of readers who read your first book in a series and follow it all the way through, you will see that you need thousands of readers, and you also need to constantly attract more of them to your work.

This means you must not only reach your fan base but the other readers who are like them and will love (and purchase) your work.

This means you must start by learning who your readers are, where they hang out, how you can reach them, and what the most effective (and least expensive) way to do that is.

2. Understanding Testing

First of all, it is important to clarify a couple of things. Book marketing is any act of getting the word out about your work, and can include social media, blogging, word of mouth, your street team and email list, and paid advertising.

There are ways to test all these methods to discover what works best for you and what actually nets you the most followers and sales. Not only can you test where you are sharing things, but what you are sharing.

For example, you might send a couple of groups of emails to your mailing list, one with a certain link or certain text, one with a different link or different text. You can then evaluate the results to see which email is opened more often, and how often links are clicked on.

Using your sales data from different platforms, you can then determine where you are getting the best results, known as conversions in marketing speak.

But it isn’t always about sales. Sometimes, it is about people subscribing to your newsletter, following you on social media or Amazon, Book Bub, Goodreads, and other platforms.

You’re building your audience and your author platform, or the people who are already connected to you that you can reach.

3. Vetting Marketing Opportunities

There are million “opportunities” out there, and companies who will offer to market your book for you. Many will promise you amazing results and even bestseller status. How do you tell what is real and what is not?

• If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
• Legitimate channels seldom reach out to you. You reach out to them. If you get an email filled with promises, it is probably a scam, or at least not worth the effort to put your book on that platform.
• Google them. It sounds simple, but often a simple Google search will reveal what other authors have learned about the service and even the experience they have had. Learn from the mistakes of others, and gain knowledge from their success.
• Ask your peers. Whether online or in-person, you know writers. Find out what works for them and what doesn’t.

What you will find is that not every opportunity is a good one or even a legitimate one. There are times to take a risk but using your valuable marketing budget to do so is often a problem.

4. Time

Here’s a secret you should know: no writer ever feels like they have enough time for marketing.

It is a necessary part of the writing business and selling books but can be overwhelming and time-consuming. Just keeping up with industry changes requires dedicated time each week in addition to creating and monitoring what is working and what isn’t.

Here are some tips:

• Schedule marketing and social media time and use it wisely.
• Hire help if you can. Social media and ad management can often be done by a virtual assistant at a reasonable cost, one that keeps you writing.
• Automate where possible. There are programs that can help you with social media posting, ad management and even project management, many of them free or for very little cost.
• Write blog posts and emails ahead of time and schedule them. You need to focus on writing the things that make you money, and since these can be automated ahead of time, you can spend one day creating them rather than writing them more often.

The truth is, there is no easy answer except for time management. Set aside time to market, take a deep breath, and do what you can.

[Note from Joanna: More tips on managing your time in Productivity for Authors.]

5. Money

The second most common thing writers say about marketing is that they do not have the money to market. “When I sell more books,” they say, “I’ll be able to afford to do more marketing.”

There’s a major issue with this thinking. The only way to sell more books is to do more marketing, and even so-called free marketing channels will cost you time and effort, and since time is also a premium, they are not really free.

The second issue is simply this: if you don’t invest in your work, why do you expect your readers to do so?

You’ve already invested in a great cover, good editing, proofreading, and producing your book. Why would you skimp now on getting the word out about them?

You might have to make some sacrifices, do some freelance writing or editing, or heaven forbid get a part-time job (think bookstores and libraries or something else book-related if possible) in order to raise money to finance your marketing efforts. The one thing you cannot do is neglect them entirely.

6. Return on Investment

How do you tell if your marketing and advertising efforts are working? That is another complex topic. You need to track where sales are coming from if possible, and while there are tools for doing so, they can be a bit complicated to understand at first.

The number one key is that you must be tracking: everything from ads to social media posts to sales on different platforms and the followers you gain on various platforms. If numbers are trending upward, you are doing the right thing. If they are headed downward or even just holding steady, you may want to rethink strategy.

Many advertising platforms like Book Bub, Amazon, and Facebook, offer tools to track your ad performance. Use them in conjunction with tracking your sales, and you will begin to see a picture emerge.

7. The Sucking Marketing Black Hole

A writer writes, but we do so much more than just that. The sucking marketing black hole has one looming danger: it can suck you in to the point where you are no longer writing as much because you are spending so much time figuring out how to sell books.

Things go in various cycles in your writing business the same as in other businesses, so there will be more times when you are will be marketing more than others, and other times where your focus will be writing with a lot less time dedicated to marketing and social media.

It’s about balance, and like those ball-chairs that are supposed to help with your posture, that balance can be tricky. Every single writer struggles with marketing from time to time, and some more often than others, no matter how popular or how easy they make things seem from a distance.

The key is that you turn and face the struggle. Get started. Pay attention and test things. Budget your time and money but dedicate some of both to marketing. Be careful, measure your return on investment, and if at all possible, avoid the sucking marketing black hole.

After all, if you don’t write another book, you won’t get to go through this fantastic process all over again when it comes time to market that one.

How do you balance your writing and marketing time? Please leave your thoughts below and join the conversation.

Troy Lambert is a freelance writer, author, editor, and publisher who has dreamed of writing books since he was a young boy. He wrote his first book, George and the Giant Castle, when he was six years old. After being told by teachers, counselors, and many people around him that writing was a great hobby, but not a great way to make a living, Troy explored other money-making options.

After nearly three decades amassing a collection of name tags, hairnets, and various careers, he finally found the way to fulfill his dream of writing full-time and making a living at it. He currently has written over two-dozen books including ghostwriting projects, is a freelance writer, content strategist, ghostwriter, publisher, and occasional editor.

Troy lives, works, and plays in Boise, Idaho with his wife and a pack of very talented dogs who are occasionally enlisted to write blog posts and book blurbs. His fiction work can be found at fictionupdates.troylambertwrites.com and you can learn more about writing for a living at writingasabusiness.troylambertwrites.com. Learn more about his publishing work at unbound.pub.

Providing useful, inspirational or entertaining content on popular blogs in your niche can be a great way to reach your target audience, especially when you are just starting out. Nina Dafe shares tips for how to do this effectively and which mistakes to avoid.

If you took the decision to become an authorpreneur and write a non-fiction book, it’s more than likely because you realize that they are a great way to:

• Position yourself as an expert in your field
• Increase your authority and credibility
• Give you a larger platform to share your influence, thought leadership and message
• Increase your followers, subscribers and fanbase
• Expose you to your ideal clients – keeping you booked, busy and making bank.

However, none of this is possible if nobody knows that it (or you) exist! The truth is, “if you build it they will come” is only true in Hollywood. A literal field of dreams, if you will.

If you want to create more impact and ultimately sell more books, you will need to attract more attention to you and your brand. This means becoming more visible through networking, PR and marketing.

A great place to start is mastering guest posting by becoming a guest author, blogger or contributor on another person’s platform.

Having now been featured in over 40 platforms, including Thrive Global, HuffPost, Bustle and the TEDx blog, here are some tips for getting started with guest posting based on my experience:

Pre-pitch

Before you even submit your guest post, there are a few things that you should do to make sure that you give yourself the best chance of success, including:

1. Research

First and foremost, do research to make sure that the platform that you want to guest blog on actually accepts pitches and/or submissions – as not all blogging platforms do. I can't tell you how many pitches I've received, even though I don't accept guest posts on my blog!

Once you've established those basics, you'll want to get clear on who the platform's demographic is and whether it ties in with yours. So research:

• Who the platform's target audience is
• What the audience's interests and/or pain points are
• How your expertise can help them
• Whether your topic has been covered before

Next, check their submission guidelines to see how they prefer to receive guest posts. For example:

• Is there a word count?
• Are there particular topics that they like/dislike?
• Can you promote yourself within the article or do they prefer that be confined to your author bio?
• Do they prefer submissions to be emailed or sent via a particular platform?
• Do they prefer that you pitch your guest post idea or send a fully-fledged article?

2. Network

As the saying goes, “people only do business with people that they know, like and trust”. With this in mind, another great step to take before sending your pitch would be to find ways to connect with the editor of influencer so that you can establish a rapport. More on this, later!

During your pitch

Now that you've laid all of that groundwork, you can formulate and send your pitch.

Here are some common mistakes and how to avoid them:

1. Having unclear subject lines

If you are sending your guest post via email, you'll want to make sure that the email subject line is not vague. Make it as clear as possible so that it doesn't get lost in the pile of emails that the editor or influencer is reading every day!

This can be done by following any instructions that they may have about this in their submission guidelines. If there aren't any, I like to make it clear that I am sending a pitch and what it's about, as in the example below:

[Pitch] 3 Networking Mistakes and How to Avoid Them According to Experts

2. Starting with your bio/qualifications

Although counter-intuitive, resist the urge to start by introducing yourself and your history. Editors and influencers are busy people, receiving thousands of emails a day. Do them (and yourself!) a favor by getting straight to the point of why you're contacting them.

Your short, professional author bio should go towards the end of the pitch instead. Also link to your media bio and/or the “press” page of your website, if you have one, so that they can check out your expertise and previous PR experience to build credibility.

3. Failing to establish a rapport

Yes, you want to be brief but you also want to be human and relatable to create a rapport. You can do this by complimenting the editor/influencer that you are writing to and establishing common ground. My favorite way to do this is by mentioning:

• When we met each other, either online or in-person previously
• A mutual friend
• My favorite past articles, programs, talks and their impact

This is why I mentioned the importance of networking pre-pitch earlier. It's also important to maintain this rapport post-pitch- but we'll get to that later.

4. Waffling

Once you've gotten their attention by establishing a rapport, shoot your shot and pitch!

As I said before, keep it brief. Get straight to the point by providing a quick summary of your guest post. Headings, subtitles and bullet points are your friends when it comes to avoiding waffling and making your email more inviting to look at and read as well.

5. Not being unique

If you did your research thoroughly, as previously mentioned, you'll know if your guest post topic has been covered on the platform before and in what capacity. Use that knowledge to set yourself apart by crafting a unique pitch.

In other words, try to present a unique and different perspective in your guest blog post.

Post-pitch

Have you heard the saying “the fortune is in the follow-up?” That's because it's true! Here are some helpful tips to know about it:

1. Timing is everything

As previously mentioned, editors and influencers are very busy people. This means that pitches can fall through the net. If this happens to you, you'll want to find a way to follow up so that they don't forget about you, lose interest or think that you're being a pest.

Most guest blogging guidelines will mention if and when you can expect to hear a response to your pitch. Contacting them during this time will place you firmly in the pest category – don't do it!

My rule of thumb is to contact 1-2 weeks after that time. If no response time is given, 1-2 weeks after sending is also a good time to send a follow-up email in general.

If handled correctly, in my experience, 9 times out of 10 they will thank you for following up and/or apologize profusely before actioning it.

2. It's a good relationship-building tool

A little known fact is that, because editors and influencers are such busy people, they tend to use the same experts for particular topics. Sending a good pitch and demonstrating your expertise within a guest post is only half the battle of building a good relationship with them and becoming a regular contributor, though. This is why what you do post-pitch is so important for building that know, like and trust factor.

Here are some of the ways that I do it:

Say thank you
When alerted that your post has been accepted and/or published, send a thank-you email. You can also go the extra mile by sending a thank you card, gift or some of your merchandise.

Give them publicity too

The best relationships are mutually beneficial. Editors and influencers want publicity for their platform too. You can reciprocate and help them achieve this by sharing your post:

• On social media, tagging them and/or using relevant hashtags
• With your email list (forwarding it to them so that they know you did it, of course!)

Be an asset

Another way to reciprocate is by finding ways to be an asset and add value outside of guest blogging. My favorite way to do this is by:

• Asking how I can be of service and finding ways to do so
• Connecting them with other content creators who would also make great guest bloggers for their platform
• Building and maintaining the relationship by continuing to follow up (see my bio for details about 7 ways you can do this without even having to leave your bed!)

So, to summarise…

Mastering guest blogging is one of the BEST ways to share your expertise, gain authority, market your non-fiction book and, ultimately, sell more copies. However, your greatest PR success will come through remembering that:

1. People only do business with people that they know, like and trust; so-
2. How you conduct yourself with editors and influencers pre and post-pitch is just as important as the pitch itself.

Have you thought of using guest blogging as part of your book marketing strategy? Please leave your thoughts below and join the conversation.

As an international bestselling author (of The Art of Unlearning: Top Experts Share Personal Stories on the Courage to Step Out of Your Comfort Zone), Nina Dafe mentors heart-centered, visionary Christian women who want to banish the blocks keeping them from crushing their business goals once and for all.

She is also an international speaker, talk show host, and award-winning blogger whose writing has been featured on multiple platforms including Thrive Global, TEDx, HuffPost, She Leads Africa, Bustle, Relevant Magazine, and Radiant Health Magazine. Named one of 101 women of influence by Monique Melton, you can find out more about Nina and her 7 tips for getting collaborations, referrals, PR and speaking opportunities (leading to increased credibility, subscribers, followers, customers and more) without even leaving the bed at Faraboverubiescollection.com!

When it comes to selling books, authors have two choices: hire someone to help or apply a do-it-yourself approach. As Boni Wagner-Stafford outlines in this post, there are several reasons why doing our own book marketing is worth the extra effort.

Those who want to write a book believe that writing the book is the hardest part. Those who have written a book soon discover that marketing the book is actually the bigger challenge.

There are a host of reasons for this, including that many writers prefer the intimate, one-on-one relationship with their keyboard over shouting anything about themselves or their book to anyone… However, your success is entirely in your hands and forethought and pre-planning your book marketing strategy will go a long way to achieving your goals.

What’s a Book Marketing Strategy?

Your book marketing strategy addresses:

• why you’ve written your book
• why the marketing strategy exists, and
• what you’re going to do to market your book.

It provides the answer to the question, “What should I be doing today to market my book?”

Hire Help or DIY Your Book Marketing Strategy?

Before you run out and hire someone else to craft a book marketing strategy for you, here are four big reasons to do this yourself.

1. Knowledge

The research, rationale, and foundational knowledge you build through creating your book marketing strategy yourself is empowering. You’ll build an intimate knowledge of your target reader, where they buy books and what format they consume.

You’ll learn much more about the market into which you are launching your book and specifically how you’ll reach your audience. You’ll understand the broader environment into which you are launching your book, including the socio-economic factors at play with your audience. You’ll understand your methods, messages, and the mechanics of getting the word out about your book.

You’ll know precisely which promotional products you want to produce and where you’re going to use them. You’ll know which events you want to speak at and attend.

This will not happen to the same degree if you hire someone else to do the work.

2. Confidence

You’ll have an easier time speaking to others about your book and engaging with potential readers and influencers.

You already know your own content: creating your own book marketing strategy will build confidence about how to speak to your readers and influencers, how to engage in conversations about peripheral topics, and how to naturally insert the topic of your book into those conversations.

3. Clarity

You’ll know exactly where you’re going and how you’re going to get there. You’ll have created for yourself a marketing roadmap that you can follow from the beginning. No more driving in the dark without headlights.

And this is a map you’ll keep on referencing, over and over. It will steer your marketing approach, your content, your timing, your social media. You’ll be better equipped to deal with the challenge of volume: there is so much that it is possible to do. You’ll cut through the clutter by aligning what you will actually do with the objectives you want to achieve with your marketing.

It’s the best way to choose the marketing activities that are right for you and your book.

4. Cost

These strategies are big, long, and detailed, and hiring someone to produce a really good one can be pricey. Save your money on the front end so you can invest some of it on other marketing activities that you have researched — and because you have done the research you can make that investment knowing it will get you closer to your goals, whether those goals include selling 2,000 copies, reaching one million readers, or achieving bestseller status in one or more categories.

One Caveat

By creating your own book marketing strategy, you’ll see, understand, and connect the dots in the big picture first. You’ll end up with a plan of action that aligns with your purpose for writing the book.

What a book marketing strategy will not do — no matter who creates it and how innovative, good, or thorough it is — is make up for an inferior product. Your manuscript must be the best it can possibly be, which means professionally edited and proofread. (Your neighbor or best friend who loves to read does not count.) Your book cover must be professionally designed, meaning unless you are a designer you do not want a do-it-yourself cover.

Before you invest your precious time in building a marketing strategy, be sure you’ve invested the right amount of time and money into these foundational elements of your book.

[You can find more ideas for book marketing here.]

Have you given some thought to what your marketing strategy will look like for your next book launch? Please leave your thoughts below and join the conversation.

Boni Wagner-Stafford is author of One Million Readers: The Definitive Guide to a Nonfiction Book Marketing Strategy that Saves Time, Money, and Sells More Books. She’s a writer, ghostwriter, and editor specializing in nonfiction and she manages communications and media relations for the Alliance of Independent Authors. She is also co-founder of Ingenium Books, where she coaches nonfiction authors writing in the genres of business, self-help, personal development, memoir, and journalistic nonfiction.

Boni, who has lived in more than fifty towns and cities in Canada, Mexico, and France, is currently residing in La Paz, Mexico.