Story Magic
Hey fiction writer! Want your readers to stay up until 2am, so engrossed in your story they just can’t put it down? Want to build a successful, fulfilling, and sustainable writing life that works for YOU? Story Magic is the place for you. Every week, professional book coaches and editors Emily and Rachel from Golden May dive into writing craft, community, and mindset tips, tricks, and advice so you can write and publish books you’re damn proud of, again and again. We cover craft topics like story structure, character development, worldbuilding and ‘show, don’t tell’; we dive into how to grow your writing community of readers and writing partners; and we’ll talk about all those mindset challenges from imposter syndrome and perfectionism to fear of the blank page. Story Magic has all the tools you need to become the author you’re meant to be. You’ve got this, let’s go!
Story Magic
75 - Book marketing with Erica Birtles
Today, Emily & Rachel talk about book marketing with guest Erica Birtles.
What you’ll learn from this episode:
- The right time to start marketing your book
- What it means to bring value to your reader
- How to foster connection and engagement
- Specific marketing practices for selling your book
CHECK OUT THE BOOK TRIBE: https://thebooktribe.co.uk/
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Hey, writers. Welcome back to story magic, the podcast that will help you write a book you're damn proud of.
Emily:I'm Emily.
Rachel:And I'm Rachel.
Emily:And today we are talking with our good friend Erica Bertles of the book tribe about book marketing, which is something that many, many, many of you have asked us about, have questions about, have anxieties about, and Erica is here to help us, help us get rid of some of those anxieties. So welcome, Erika. We're so excited to have you.
Erica Birtles:Oh, thank you both. I'm really excited to be here as well.
Emily:Would you mind introducing yourself to folks and tell us a little bit about how you work with writers? Because I know it's a little bit of a unique angle from what other guests have had.
Erica Birtles:Yeah, sure. So, Erika bartles. I founded the book tribe earlier this year, but actually, my journey to this point has been rather non linear, I'd say. So I started off actually doing my ba, my bachelor's degree in acting. I then didn't do anything with that. I went and did a master's in history of art, didn't do anything with that. And I ended up going into work with my dad five years ago, and we run a marketing agency called Newton Day Limited, and I've been working over the last five years with him and with a great team of, well, just specialists in each of their own areas. They're just incredible. We've got web designers, copywriters, you name it. They're absolutely insane. And we've been working with businesses from small size enterprises to large corporates, on their marketing and business strategy. And so it's been quite an educational journey. I've certainly learned a lot personally about marketing and about how do you start businesses? How do you build businesses? How do you grow businesses? Which is a big question on everyone's lips, not just, you know, in business, but also in the writing world. How do you build a business around writing? And. Yeah, so over the last year or so, I've really been trying to figure out, okay, so how can I bring my experience, my knowledge into the world of writing? Because, myself, I'm a huge reader. I love fiction. Specifically, I read non fiction where it's required, but I do tend to read fiction. And I. I just wanted to see, okay, so, with my experience in business and marketing, how can I bring value to writers? How can I support writers? And so the book tribe has really become this passion project about how do I bring together not just myself, but other people like you, into a kind of a coalition of support for fiction authors, because I guess one of the biggest challenges, and I'm sure we'll get into this, is that I. The landscape of writing and publishing, it's just a sea of noise. And being able to navigate through that, to find the best practices, to find the services that you want to use as an author, to connect with readers is just insane and overwhelming. So the book tribe is my contribution in trying to help solve that problem. So that's where we're at.
Emily:I love it. I love the way that the book tribe focuses on how can we all support one another, like readers and writers and coaches and editors alike. Like, how can we come together in community and lift one another up? Because I feel like in a lot of ways, there can be a lot of competition in unhealthy vibes in this industry. And so I just. I really love the vibes of the book tribe.
Erica Birtles:Yeah. Yeah. And just to add to that as well, you know, it's, yes, about lifting each other up, but also, you know, it's between readers and writers. One of the biggest problems that I'd seen was that those relationships can get negative. It's not just between authors themselves, but actually between authors and their arc readers, authors and their beta readers, that actually, there are so many different relationships in this industry that need proper care and proper almost process that doesn't exist. Like, there's nothing to qualify anyone to be a beta reader. So having those kinds of mechanisms would be extremely useful. So hopefully we can try and solve that.
Rachel:Okay, so you came from corporate marketing, and at my last job, I worked for a startup company and dabbled in some marketing because when you work for a startup company, you end up doing, you know, everything under the sun. So one of the questions I had for you that was coming to mind was, what do you think? Are the differences, or are there differences between corporate marketing, book marketing? What are parallels and overlaps? Because I think there's some core functions of marketing. Provide a service or a product that gives value to your reader and market how you're going to improve that person's life. But what differences overlaps between regular role marketing and book marketing?
Erica Birtles:Yeah, I mean, to be honest, you started it really there in the sense that with writers, you have a product, your product is your book. And in a lot of cases, having a product is easier to sell than a service. And so by starting with your product, by understanding who your reading it reader is, you're actually in a better position than you are a lot of businesses, because there are some businesses out there who they have a series of different services and solutions and trying to market that is an absolute nightmare. So actually, the difference, I'd say, is that authors can be really specific about their marketing, and it doesn't have to be as crazy as marketing in businesses. And let's be honest, businesses don't do marketing. Right? Anyway, there's nothing much there to learn from. But I think when it comes to authors and their marketing, it can be super simple. There are, yes, mechanisms that you'll find that are similar to any other business. So you'll need a landing page, you'll need a product page, you'll most likely need social media. But really, it all comes back down to your product, your customer, and the value that you're bringing. And that doesn't matter what you're marketing, whether it's a book or whether it's a technology platform, it always comes back down to what's the problem that you're solving for somebody and for writers, that's simply a how are you, what are you giving to your reader that is, I don't know, different or special? Like how are you trying to make them feel? And it is kind of, it's an interesting industry, really, because you're actually, you're almost bouncing off of other authors as well. With other businesses, you see, especially technology, you see a lot of SEO practices, search engine optimization for people who don't know, like keywords and web searches around. Oh, if you're looking for Hootsuite, then other alternatives would be buffer. And it's an article on buffer telling you how amazing buffer is. And it's like they're leveraging their competitors brand. But actually in the writing world, what we should see more, and what we do see a little of already, is that authors are working together, they're bouncing off of each other, they're collaborating, that there's more sense of community in the industry. There's opportunities for authors to collaborate in ways like, oh, well, if you like my books, then you'll like this person's book. And building those relationships between authors is a really special and unique opportunity that you don't get in other industries.
Emily:Yeah, it's kind of cool. It's kind of cool because if you think about it, readers can read so much faster than we can write. And so there's automatically, you cannot be the only person that somebody reads. And so there's a massive opportunity there, like you just said, to do a lot of collaboration with people who write similar things. I'd never thought about it like that, and I really love the collaboration and community that's just built into that concept and that idea. Like, we're not competing with each other because we cannot actually fulfill our readers entire needs. Right. All of their reading needs, yeah.
Erica Birtles:And it's a way of retaining readers as well. I think when we start to look at a kind of a business or an author and what their goals are to, we really should be thinking of their marketing and their business as what are the core objectives that you'd like to achieve? And a lot of the time, it's, I want new readers. Okay, but what about retaining your current readers? How do you offer them additional value in a way that keeps them looped into your world? That means that they keep coming back for more because returning customers are your loyal customers. They're the ones that you should be really giving value to. And actually, I've been doing a lot of kind of reading around what is loyalty? Because we see a lot about reader loyalty and building those relationships. And actually, there's different types of loyalty. You have kind of passive loyalty, which is, oh, if someone sees your book, they'll probably buy it, but they won't tell anyone else about it. And then you have active loyalty, readers and followers who are people who will read about, read your books every time that they're published, they'll probably pre order it. They'll probably go and tell their friends about it. They'll probably post it on their instagram. So really looking at building those relationships. Yes. Of reaching out and finding new authors, readers. Sorry. But then also, how do you retain and then keep those readers that are your loyal fans?
Rachel:Yeah, I'm really glad we're talking about this. I've definitely found all of this to be true. My first book came out in April, and so I've been doing a lot of book marketing since then and have definitely felt that in the regular, in a corporate marketing world, like we were talking about, it is about differentiating yourself from the competition as if there is exclusivity. Like you want to exclusively get a customer or take them away from another business and hold on to them, and they're your customer, they're nobody else customer. But in book marketing, it's not like that. It literally is like, this is why tropes marketing exists, is like, I am similar to this other person. This is why you should read my book. And like, that is really where my marketing has been the most successful is when I have engaged with the similarities of my genre, my characters. I do think there's a uniqueness to like how you show up on social media, but at that point, you're not competing with another author, you're competing with the algorithm. You know, you're competing with the platform so that it will give you the views that you want. But in the marketing community, it really is like, let's capitalize on what's already been established by other authors and how you can make people feel the same way they feel when they read, you know, their favorite.
Erica Birtles:And it goes back to, you know, as a reader yourself who enjoys, because likely, if you're writing of a certain genre and type that you also read that. And if you're not, then you should be reading more. But if you are writing and reading the same type of book, then why is it as a reader that you like to read those books? What is it that gets you addicted to reading those books and capitalizing on that feeling, and that also is an exercise as part of your writing process, is a great place to start anyway. So just simply by asking yourself that question of, as a reader, what do I find most enchanting, most addicting in these types of books? Then you start to set out what readers expectations are and what are their expectations on social media as well? And what are their expectations of what they'll find on your website. Understanding that is, like, the core of your business as an author is understanding your reader. It's not trying to promote your book, and it's actually, how do you connect with your reader on an emotional level?
Emily:Yeah, that's so helpful.
Rachel:Yeah, I saw a. I think this applies really well. I did this little class on TikTok marketing, and one of the things that the instructor pointed out was, like, the themes are very common, but, like, the feelings are not. The feelings that you're trying to sell are not common. And so in, like, the specific ways that you're trying to market, pull quotes or pull situations or pull moments that, like, from your book that make people feel a certain way and, like, that's what you want to market. That's the feeling that you're trying to do. I think some people approach the, oh, well, it's about good and evil. You know, let's talk about good and evil. Yeah, that's great. But, like, show me the moment where we felt the push and pull between good and evil. And, like, that's a feeling you can market. You can market the conflict or from the romance side of things, like, show me the moment leading up to the first kiss. Like, that's the, you know, we want to feel the I'm for people who can't see. I'm like gesturing to my chest, like the rising, like, oh, I want it. Like, oh, it's coming. The kiss moment is coming. I don't know that sit forward moment.
Erica Birtles:Yes.
Rachel:The anticipation. Yeah. And so, like, when you're looking at your product, because a book is a product, so when you're looking at your product as a whole, you laser in on those moments where you're trying to evoke feeling to the reader and then market those moments. And I found it really helpful to like follow other authors and be like, oh, this reel totally got me. I'm gonna go read their book. Let me do a reel very similar to that and like, I'll explore if this works for me.
Erica Birtles:Yeah. And I think, you know, taking inspiration from other people is absolutely no issue. There are some challenges with copying people when it feels inauthentic to your brand. And I think there is a separate conversation about author branding because when you talk about marketing, it's really broad. I think marketing is generally the mechanisms with which you do marketing, that you try to attract people's attention. And actually author branding and author brand equity, which is another thing entirely as well, is that author branding is more than just your logo. It's more than just promoting the book. It's that authenticity of who you are and what you write about. And it goes beyond a little bit just the book that you're trying to promote. And when you start to talk about author brand equity, that's also a really interesting concept because it's actually the perceived value of your brand. So it's not what you think the value is, it's what your audience thinks the value is of your brand and your books and what you're doing. So I guess my point is, is that author brand is almost the who you are, the essence of your books. You know, what's the common denominator of all of your books across the board, not just the one. And what makes people recognize you for being you and what makes you stand out. Because I guess there's an element of this where you're saying, okay, be similar enough to everyone else, but also have something that makes you slightly different and unique in a way that people can relate to you. And then, as I say, just building that brand around that story is. And building those marketing mechanisms of, oh, so I now have a website and now I have a newsletter. And I think also recognizing that there's a journey that people go on, you know, we talk a lot in book marketing about the front end of it, which is the social media and the website. But then, you know, what's that journey from social media? What's the role of social media in your marketing? Is it to build awareness? Is it to attract new readers? Which is probably the likelihood, the likely scenario in that situation. And in which case, how much of your brand and your value were you giving away that early? Because what you're really trying to do is you're trying to build that channel from awareness into interest into engaging with your brand. Maybe it's they buy the book, maybe they just sign up to your newsletter. But how do you transact that value? How do you reward them for doing things that you want them to do? So I was having a really fascinating conversation with, I can't remember his name now, Chris. Chris Green, I think his name was. And what we were saying was actually about giving books away as a marketing mechanism. And for fiction, you say, oh, but that's my product. Why am I giving it away but actually doing things that are slightly out of the box and giving a little bit of value away to kind of reward a certain type of behavior. Now, it doesn't have to be a full book, but maybe it's a full chapter or maybe it's a. So how can you give things away for free? How can you give value to your audience when they've completed an action? Say they've visited your website and you go, oh, great. So here's all of my books. Here's my blog. Oh, but you know, before you do that, have a look at my newsletter. And if you join my newsletter letter, I'll give you the first chapter for free. Or I'll give you a code to buy my book for 99 p or whatever it is. So it's about thinking about, yes, there's that outreach on social media. Yes, you have a website that's a landing page. But how do you take the customer, which is a reader is a customer through that journey from awareness through into buying your book, but then also being an active, engaged, loyal reader as part of your community.
Emily:Yeah, I love that emphasis on really engaging with those loyal folks. It's like once they buy your book, the last thing you should do is write them off. Right. And stop focusing on them. They are your loyal customer and they're the ones who are going to talk about it right, to everybody else and spread the word. I love that. So I have a question, because I think, especially when I was starting out, right, marketing feels like this big nebulous thing and we use words like value and brand, and I think it can be extra hard because what you're really selling is yourself and a lot of people. Right. Because your stories are a part of you. And I think that that can make it really hard to be like, well, who am I? Right? Like, who am I? What is my book about? I don't know how it makes people feel. Right. I feel like I can sometimes see authors start to shut down when we ask them to do that, because it's like we're asking you to look at yourself the way that other people look at you, not necessarily the way you look at yourself. And so that requires some introspection. It requires, like, some just, like, self belief and self trust. And so I'm curious, like, do you have any tangible first steps for people who are like, I have no idea what my brand is. I don't know what my value is. Like, what are some things that people can do to start to figure out those things that feel very vague and nebulous?
Erica Birtles:Yeah, I think we've already briefly touched on one, which is asking yourself, why do I like reading this book? I think that's always a great place to start. And to your point, I think, though, it is a scary, almost overwhelming thing to think about, is that you can go back and change at any point. I've been running businesses for a few years. We have changed our value proposition, which is, you know, the job that we do for people about five or six times per brand, it just changes. The book tribe has shifted. It just, that's the nature of understanding your business is that actually sometimes you don't get it right first time, and it's okay to get it wrong. So, you know, just to caveat just to start with that, but asking yourself, you know, why do I like reading these books? What do I like to expect if I'm, if I'm on social media? What do I like to see? What makes what, what happens when I read these books in terms of my emotions and what keeps me. So that's a great place to start. I also think that when it comes to, when it comes to understanding how to do marketing as well, because I think it's not just the, oh, who am I? And, you know, why do I write? Which is a big question. And if you've not already done that in the writing process, then it's kind of a trial and error. You know, with a lot of marketing campaigns for businesses, we do a 90 day campaign, and so we trial things for 90 days, and we go back and assess the metrics and the success of those campaigns. And if they don't quite work, we go, okay, so why didn't they work? But I think in terms, well, let me just go back actually, just a little, because one of the things that businesses don't do in marketing enough, which authors can do pretty much straight away, is talk to their reader, talk to their customer. Because with a lot of businesses, what you find that they do is they go, oh, especially with software companies. I don't know what it is with software companies. They seem to think that just bye. Explaining all the reasons that their product is amazing by the features that they have is a way that people are going to just instantly buy their product. I don't understand.
Rachel:They're all features, no benefits. All features, no benefits.
Erica Birtles:It goes back to they don't understand ordinarily what the problem is that they're trying to solve. And so if you're not sure what problem it is that you're trying to solve or what your reader expects, ask them. There are so many influences on Bookstagram. There are so many reading groups, groups local to you. There are so many ways to reach out to readers, to say, hey, I'm writing this book, or I write this kind of novel. I'm interested to know what it is that captivates you. What is it that you enjoy seeing? And you could be specific about the actual book itself and the narrative and the journey. Or maybe you ask specifically about marketing. What is it that catches your attention? What do you like to see? And I think that doesn't happen enough. Even for myself with the book tribe, I've not spoken to enough authors. You know, it takes time. And I think that in itself, of getting out of your comfort zone and talking to people that you've not met before, I think is a big challenge that, you know, mindset wise to accept. I am an author, and then I have to then go out and reach out to people can be quite scary. But I think reaching out and talking to your audience, to your readers is so important. I've been thinking about how I can bring that into the book tribe, but I've just not found a way to do that yet. And then when it comes to, as I was saying earlier, the mechanisms of marketing just don't overcomplicate it. I think marketing, there are just so many different aspects to it. You've got to go back to where your reader lives and how they like to engage with you as well, because it could be that they're in Facebook groups, in which case, why are you on Instagram? It could be that if you're writing historical fiction, there are local groups, historical societies that focus on your area, the time period in which you've been writing. So why wouldn't you go to them? You just got to consider, where are your readers living? Where are they finding books? And it's, I think, becoming less and less popular now to just Google or go to the bookshop. There is. Sadly, I don't particularly like social media. I don't know about you guys, but it's an absolute bane of my life, and yet it's a necessary evil. And the reality is that I think I was reading statistics somewhere, that 34% of readers in the US alone were getting book recommendations from social media. They weren't getting them from anywhere else. So I would say that a social media presence somewhere would be useful. But I think the most important mechanisms, if we start to talk about, okay, so what are the things that authors absolutely need is a landing page or a website. There is a slight difference between the two, but a place where your audience can land and see your brand and see what products you have, what books you have, and then a newsletter. I cannot stress building a newsletter list and capturing emails more because it's so incredibly important. So, yeah, those, I'd say, would be the two biggest marketing mechanisms that I think authors need. And if you feel you need a social media, then sure. But there are probably more direct ways, as I say, of connecting with your readers through local groups or Facebook groups or just. That does take a bit of research to understand where they are.
Emily:Yeah, I love this distinction of really thinking about where your readers are, because I think a lot of authors come to us and they're like, well, I guess I just need an Instagram. And it's like, well, let's give it a second of thought. Is that where your people are? And if it is great and if it's nothing. Yeah. Then that's not where you should go.
Erica Birtles:Yeah. And you see this a lot with businesses. So I actually just did a podcast with Harry Evans, who runs an SEO agency, and he was saying that for his brand, they don't post anything on Instagram and Facebook. And it's because they are targeting, obviously, the business to business market, and their audience is probably not on Facebook and TikTok and Instagram trying to find SEO services, you know, so it's just being really decisive about, okay, where does my audience live and how can I reach them and what would they be interested in? You know, what content would they most likely engage with? And there is a bit of a process and a best practice as to how you go through that order. And when it comes to value, I guess value is a really interesting one because, as I say, it comes down to the perceived value that they have of you. And it can be a bit of a brain twister. But I think having those conversations with readers, perhaps readers that are already in your mailing list, but also more directly with others about, with your readers, specifically with your community, about, what did you like about this book and, you know, what drew you to read it, and what was the journey like for you? How did you discover this book and my books and having those conversations with people? Honestly, sometimes it just comes down to simply having a conversation with your customer, and then you can actually start to figure all of those bits out.
Emily:Yeah, I love that.
Erica Birtles:Yeah.
Rachel:And I think, too, like, this is work you would do. We just recently did an episode on reviews, and your ideal reader, and this is who your reader is, is your ideal reader. So if you already have done the work of understanding, this is how I want to make them feel. This is why my, this is why I'm writing to this specific ideal reader. Like, that. That is your customer. That's the person that you're marketing to. And, like, my ideal reader loves angst and wants action and, like, is wanting to be taken for a ride and likes twists and turns. And so my marketing markets to that. My marketing doesn't market to someone who wants, like, an easygoing contemporary romance that is all happy. Like, mine's gonna have some pain in it and you're gonna like it. But I know that's the reader that I'm writing to, and so that's also the reader that I'm marketing to. They're the same person.
Erica Birtles:Yeah. That's why I say, you know, this kind of comes into the writing process, and I think if you do all of the setup and use those kinds of tools in your writing process, you're already answering your marketing questions. So the more work you do at the beginning, the less work you kind of have to do at the end. And then marketing kind of becomes mechanism, an activity, and then hopefully, you don't have to worry too much about it because, you know, you've kind of hacked it by going through that process already.
Rachel:Yeah. And as you've said, like, you change and you shift and you adapt as you learn. Like, I feel like it took me probably six months of marketing pre book before I figured out, oh, this is how I really like to talk. And, like, these are the people that I want to talk to and like I at that point had found a readership and was able to ask them questions. And then I adapted and I updated website copy and I did this little exercise to come up with my author brand tagline, which is passion, action, powerful heroines. And those are my books. And I came up with a list of words of what do I write about? What are my books going to be? What is this author branding? And I actually think for me to go back to what Emily said a little bit earlier, I don't try to market me intentionally. I do think that I have built a separation between who I am and the brand that I have now. I think it's a very authentic brand that reflects a lot of who I am. But then marketing doesn't feel so scary because it's not me. I'm not selling myself. I'm selling a book. And like I love my book and I am an authentic author that shows up under an authentic brand. But like, I'm not, I don't want to sell me, I want to sell this product that I know people are going to love and like I want to get to know them and I want to engage with them in an authentic way because I like doing that and I love my readers and I love talking to them. But doing like branding work to kind of create a separation between me and the brand was really helpful to allow, allow that exploration, I think allow the play, allow people get so nervous about marketing as if one post is going to make or break your career and like it doesn't need to be, it doesn't need to be that big of a deal. Like it really doesn't need to be. It's just like, I don't know, post something. If you don't like it, delete it, make it private, try something else or make a new account somewhere else. I think people.
Erica Birtles:Yeah.
Rachel:Growing.
Erica Birtles:Yeah. And it's whatever you're comfortable with as well. I think some people are quite happy to post personal posts on their author stuff and that's perfectly fine. But I guess with all of this is that I don't think it necessarily, as you say, I don't think it necessarily matters what you post. I just think people want to know that you're not a faceless, nameless person. Because I think when it comes to businesses nowadays, if we talk about kind of the business to business world as well, what's selling business is people. It's not business selling products and it's actually the people within the business who are selling it. So now we're actually seeing more relationship based selling happening across the b two B space. And actually, it's the same across all businesses now because I think if you have, it's why things like email marketing and why these kind of Google Ads and things aren't working is because people like to think that they're investing in a person. So I think just making sure that your brand doesn't come across as impersonal and that you're still, maybe you have just one introduction post with your face and you're like, hey, my name's just to say I'm a real person. I'm not. Because I think we're also living in an age with AI of being in danger of, is this a real person or is this just an AI bot or someone's just so. I think this authenticity of brand is so incredibly important, and people or, you know, businesses who don't do it are going to be left in the dust. But, you know, building that personal connection is still important. But I think, Rachel, you're right in that, you know, it really depends on what you're comfortable with. You don't have to reveal every part of yourself. And I think, you know, by emphasizing those key words that you were saying about, you know, passion or whatever, you're kind of tapping as an authorization. That is you. That is your passion, that's your writing. And your writing itself is giving away a piece of you. So you are still giving a piece of your work, that piece of yourself away to people. But it's not exposure.
Rachel:Right. Writing is so raw. Writing is so raw as it is and so vulnerable as it is, that if you can capture the authenticity of that, but without making every single post feel, like, so vulnerable, you're gonna be torn to shreds. Like, there, there's a gray area between those things. Like, there's a middle ground between being authentic but not thinking of marketing as, like, if this doesn't succeed, I'm a failure of a human being.
Emily:Yeah.
Erica Birtles:And there's also things to say about metrics. Sorry, Emily. Which is that, you know, we often, when we talk about social media and we talk about even website performance, we look at metrics. And metrics in themselves don't always give us the full explanation of what's happening. We can only take some estimation of what people's behaviors are. And, you know, do they actually like our content? Who are they? What are they interested in? So by looking at metrics, take them with a pinch of salt. You know, when it comes to how many followers have I got this. You know, it doesn't necessarily matter if you're not reaching the right people and the, you know, the right people aren't following you because you can have, you know, millions of followers, and yet they might know, I'm going to go back on that figure. You can have thousands, hundreds of thousands of followers. And, yeah, not all of those people will buy your books. So just because you have a thousand followers, just because you have 50 followers, the point is, are those followers the people that you want to be writing, reading, not writing, reading your book? And I think we can't get too stuck on the metrics. As you've quite rightly pointed out, the algorithm itself sucks. I myself am, like, pulling my hair out with trying to figure out what does the algorithm want me to do now? Because you're constantly fighting against what I. Social media platforms like Instagram have this, oh, we're a community platform. No, they're not. They're about consumers. They're very rarely working for the creators. So, you know, it's about understanding your audience first. And this is a conversation that I had with Harry, and he goes into much more detail about audience first SEO strategy, because SEO is now spreading across social media and search engines like Google. But looking at what it is that your audience sees as value on those platforms, and the algorithms are generally now moving towards an audience first value based algorithm. So by focusing on value, then hopefully things will start to, in terms of your follower counts and things, you'll start to see the right people engaging with your content, liking and commenting and, you know, following. But just don't get too hung up on it because they're just numbers.
Emily:Yeah, absolutely. This is such a great conversation. I'm so excited for folks to listen to this. I have two more burning questions for you before we let you go. So the first one is you mentioned earlier that newsletters are incredibly important. And then you also mentioned that email marketing is one of the things that is impersonal and moving away. So can you talk to us about the difference between the two? Because I know there's a difference, but I would love to hear you explain to folks kind of the difference between the two. And then also I hear a lot of writers express sort of apprehension about starting a newsletter. Cause they're worried they don't have enough to say. It's like, well, I wrote this book, what do I say? And so I'm curious if you have any advice on how folks can use newsletters to their advantage.
Erica Birtles:Yeah, absolutely. So difference between email marketing and newsletters okay. So I see newsletters as a community activity. I don't see it as anything else, really. Well, if you look at email marketing, traditionally, email marketing is almost like a cold call. You tend to get somehow some email off of somebody and you reach out, and it's often salesy, it's often you have this problem. Here's how we solve it. Get in touch and there's a call to action. And there's no real relationship already there in order to encourage that person to buy or to sell. I think the difference with newsletters is that it's about, yes, collecting the emails, because you're much better off selling in any scenario, whether you're an author, whether you're a business, to actually have that email first and to have a reason to be reaching out to them. And newsletters, I think, are really interesting because it's a way of reminding people that you're there. They've already given you their email address, they're interested in what you have to say, and it's a way of just maintaining that relationship via email. But you can share anything through a newsletter, you can share a video, you can share an article. There's really anything content wise that you can share for authors, I think when it comes to, oh, I don't think I've got enough to say. You have. You have. But just be conscious of what it is that readers would like to hear. And this kind of goes across marketing in general in terms of social media and website is someone was telling me that a lot of authors market to other authors, so they talk about their writing process and talk about things that writers would like to know. And it's like, but what would readers like to know? So I'd just be conscious of that overall. But when it comes to the characters of your story, maybe you can start to tell the story of how you came up with that character, what inspired it. Maybe you can share a snippet of an upcoming scene from an upcoming book. Maybe you can collaborate with other authors and say, you know, here's a short, you know, here's a short scene from this person's book, and, you know, I really love their stuff and here's a treat. And so it's little things like that and you don't even have to be super regular about it. I think there's a real pressure to write something every week, and that's fine if you want to and you feel like you can. But I think at the end of the day, don't just write a newsletter for the sake of writing. Just make sure that in that newsletter, there's a value that you're bringing to your reader that they won't be getting elsewhere. It could be that when they sign up, you send a video of yourself saying, hi, my name, thank you for registering to my newsletter and tell them a bit about yourself in the video. Honestly, a lot that you could talk about. You could celebrate women's equality day with a story on one of your fictional characters and why you think that they're such a great role model. So there's things in the calendar throughout the year that you can lean into, characters that inspired you or books that you've read that you think are really good and you'd like to share with your audience. So honestly, Emily, there's so much, and it's really, again, just leaning on what would your reader like to hear and what is it that you can give them that is thanking them for being a part of your community and keeping them engaged?
Emily:Yeah, I love that. And another way you could flip that on its head is what would you want to hear from some of your favorite authors? What would you like to, what glimpses into their process or their story or their life would you want to see? You know, expect that your readers do want to hear about that from you because they signed up.
Rachel:I think that's the biggest mindset shift that a lot of people can have is people are like, well, I don't want to bother. I don't want to email my reader and I don't want to bother them. And what do I say? And, like, they're not going to want to hear this. And it's like, in this day and age, giving away your email is a big deal. I mean, like, I hate doing it. So I will only give away my email for a purposeful reason. And the people that are on your email list, like, want to be there, so they want to hear from you. And if they didn't, then they wouldn't have signed up for your email list, or they'll unsubscribe and you both can move on and be happy never seeing each other again. And, like, who cares? So when you write that email, be like, oh, people want to hear this because it's me or because it's coming from my brand or because it's about my thing. People care about this.
Erica Birtles:Absolutely. And just to kind of tack onto that is that, you know, you can also set expectations when they sign up. You can put on your newsletter sign up form. You know, you can expect to receive an email in your inbox once every week or once every month about X, Y and Z. It could just be news updates, sneak peeks, behind the scenes, whatever it is you can set that expectation at when they sign up, so you're not exactly drawing them into a process that they don't know what they're going to get. And then you're just. And I think with all of this, with marketing and everything in general, just try not to sell too much. It sounds backwards, but generally people don't like to be sold to, especially in the UK, if I'm being strictly honest, we're not huge fans of being sold to. So I think when it comes to your social media, when it comes to your newsletter and building relationships with people they don't want to be sold to, they want to feel like huge, you value them. And also just going back to finding inspiration of content for newsletters or social media, I frequently use Gemini and chat, GPT and those kinds of AI tools just to give inspiration. If you're stuck for things to say or things to do, take some inspiration from, yes, what other people are doing, but also from AI, just say, I'm struggling to come up with something. Can you suggest what I can write for this newsletter? I think we've got to get used to. And this is not just authors, this is any business, any person, any mechanism, any role that AI can be such a great facilitator to humans, it's not to replace them. And there are some people who do use AI unethically. But I think for the case of process and for ideation, it can be an amazing tool. You've just got to kind of give it a go and see what it comes up with and if it's useful, then great. If it's not, you don't have to use it. So I just think just being open minded about AI and the role that it can play in your life as an author, especially around these activities that you don't want to do, you know, no writer wants to do marketing, no writer wants to do, you know, the strategy piece and come up with all the ideas, it can be really tiring. So I think. I think sometimes just acknowledging that AI can be a great tool for those kinds of activities to enhance your processes, it's not a bad place to start.
Rachel:Yeah, I know we're getting close to our time here, but I want to add on one more thought to what you're saying about people don't like to be sold to, they don't like to feel like they're being sold to. So everybody knows what this feels like. You go to an author's instagram page or you open up your email inbox and it's just all like, buy my book, buy my book. Buy my book. And it's, you can just look at it and be like, oh, I don't like that. That doesn't mean that marketing isn't about selling. Like, that's what marketing is. You're trying to sell a product. But when you market in the way we've been talking about on this call, such as you're evoking a feeling. You're going to meet a reader's need. You're going to make them happy because your book will make them feel the passion they want to feel or it will excite them or it will help them feel cozy and relaxed, or it will take them on a journey of intrigue. Like when you're selling in that way, it doesn't feel like selling because you're showing them, this is how my book will make you happy or this is how I will meet your need as a reader. That's not the feeling. So I don't want people to be like, oh, well, I don't want to. Like, marketing is selling things, but don't sell to them because it can be conflicting. But when you're, I just want people to know. Like, that is the act of marketing is you're trying to get a consumer, a customer to do something, and most of the time it's to buy your book. That doesn't mean you need to treat them as a commodity or treat them as like, buy my book, buy my book, buy my book, buy my book.
Emily:Yeah. When somebody signs up for your newsletter, they know you're going to sell to them. That's why they're there. They want you to sell to them. But there's a difference between like, oh, you're on my newsletter, buy my book, buy my book. Right. Versus, oh, you're on my newsletter. Hi, this is me. Who are you? You know, let's talk about our favorite books. Let's talk about, you know, the feelings that we want to feel when we read. And then also, hey, you might like my book, right? Like, that is selling. But it's, yeah, there's totally a distinction.
Rachel:I love that readers want to buy books. Like, that's another thing that, like, in this conversation, I think authors forget readers want to read. They want to buy things. Like, I've never met a person who buys more individual products than a person who buys books. People that read buy so many things and, like, they want to and they enjoy it and they like doing it. They just don't want to be. They just don't want to feel as if they're being treated as, like I am a source of income.
Erica Birtles:Yeah.
Rachel:Like, that's not what they want. They want, like, to. They want to just enjoy their life. So show them how you can help them enjoy their life, and then they'll buy your stuff.
Erica Birtles:Couldn't agree more.
Emily:Gosh, we could talk to you forever. This has been such a good conversation. I have one last quick question, because I get this question all of the time. Every new writer who starts, they're starting their first draft of their first book. They're like, I'm learning how to write and all of this, and they start to worry about marketing, and they start to ask, when do I start? When do I start? How do I start? Do I need to finish my book first? And I'm just curious, what advice do you have about when folks should start marketing and what those first steps should be straight away?
Erica Birtles:I think you're better off starting straight away. I think you do some really creative things once you've published your book. Absolutely. But I think if you have an idea for your book and you think, yeah, I'm in the process of writing it, yes, this might be my first book, and maybe it's not going to be my best written book ever, but one of the biggest things that I see a problem with is nothing. Building community before you publish. For myself, you know, with the book tribe, I started off. I didn't really build community first. I launched it, and then crickets, it was just, you know, I started backwards. And now I'm really focusing on building that community. Because without. Without a community in which to release the book into, you're very unlikely going to have hundreds of people buy your first book the first time that it's published. So I would simply start with just now. You don't even have to have a social media page. I think that the whole point would be is setting yourself a goal, and goal setting is a whole other conversation, so I won't get into it. But if you set yourself the goal of while you're writing your book of each week, you're going to reach out to five people and you say to them, I'm bringing out my book. And, you know, this is what it's going to be about. I'd love to add you to my newsletter list just simply by setting yourself a really small, measurable goal and reaching out to five people each week or even a day, however you want to set yourself that goal, it doesn't have to be through social media. It could be that you go to a book club that's nearby you or you reach out to, I mean, you could reach out to people on social media through Instagram. You know, there's so many book influencers out there and you can find people who are reading your genre and you don't have to go to the book influencers who have, you know, tens of thousands of followers. You can go to the book influencers who have a thousand, you know, and they, they're probably more than happy to have a free book. I don't know anyone who's not going to have a free book. So maybe think about, you know, when you first publish it, how can you also offer in those kind of incentives of a free book or 1st, 100 readers get it for $0.99? So I think building that community first of reaching out to people, just letting them know that your book's coming out is a great place to start. If you want to have something more aggressive, then fine. If you want to have a TikTok and an Instagram and a website, then absolutely that is your choice. Reality is that if you don't do anything, you're very unlikely to sell that many books straight away. So by starting from day Dot, building that community, reaching out to, even if it's five readers a week or five readers a month, whatever, whatever goal you set yourself, it's a place to start.
Emily:Yeah, that's, that's brilliant. I love that. Oh, thank you so much. Erika, can you let folks know where they can find you? We've like barely scratched the surface of this, so I know folks will be wanting more. So how do we get more review?
Erica Birtles:Yeah, sure. So if anyone listening wants to find out, well, they can go to the booktribe dot co dot UK and they there will find links to register for our newsletter, our magazine, our podcast. And there's so many insights from people spanning the writing process, publishing choices, marketing, building a business, you know, things like bookkeeping, which people don't tend to think about. And we really try to simplify that down. So, yeah, they can just go there and they'll find it all laugh.
Emily:Amazing. Thank you so much.
Rachel:Thank you. Wonderful conversation. All right. If you want to build a successful, fulfilling and sustainable writing life that works for you, you've got to get on our email list.
Emily:Sign up now to get our free email course. The magic of character arcs. After seven days of email magic, you'll have the power to keep your readers flipping pages all through the night.
Rachel:Link in the show notes. We'll see you there.