In this milestone 30th episode, I'm thrilled to share expert strategies for mastering self-publishing with you. Let’s dive into the critical marketing tactics every author should know to elevate their book's journey to success. We kick off by exploring the journey of self-publishing for professionals, focusing on common pitfalls. From neglecting early marketing efforts to spreading yourself too thin across platforms, we cover it all. 

We delve into the importance of building anticipation three to four months before your release, using strategies like behind-the-scenes content, live readings, and podcast interviews. I also guide you through crafting a 90-day pre-launch timeline to ensure your book hits the ground running.

Social media can be overwhelming, but it doesn't have to be. Learn how to identify key platforms like YouTube, Substack, and Blue Sky where your audience is most engaged, and why focusing your efforts here can lead to higher interaction and better results. Personal engagement is crucial—it's not something you want to delegate!

Remember, the journey to self-publishing success is a marathon, not a sprint. By strategically planning your marketing efforts and leveraging the right tools and platforms, you can build a sustainable and impactful authorial career.

00:01 - Lynn (Host)

Ready to elevate your career with a professionally published book? Are you simply not sure where to start? Have you been searching down the internet rabbit hole for a self-publishing resource worth your time? Your search ends here, my friend. Let's walk the publishing path together and bring your book to life. With the Publishing for Professionals podcast, I'm here to coach thought leaders, executives and speakers on how to successfully self-publish your book while avoiding common pitfalls. I'm Lynn “Elikqitie” Smargis, chief ghostwriter, editor and founder of Unicorn Publishing Company, and have stood by the sides of many professionals just like you to walk them through the publishing process and successfully launching their book. Every industry pioneer faces the same daunting challenges how to convert your hard-earned wisdom into a book that builds legacy, with a voice that reflects your personal and professional brand. Join me each week to acquire practical wisdom and proven strategies and find out what the traditional publishing companies simply don't want you to know. Let's work together to tell your story with a book. This is more than just a podcast. It's your roadmap to becoming a published author. Get ready to write your blueprint for book publishing success with the Publishing for Professionals podcast.

01:02

Hi, friends and future authors, this is Lynn “Elikqitie” Smargis with another episode of Publishing for Professionals. We are at episode 30. I can't believe I started this in January and I'm already at episode 30. It's crazy. This is not the first podcast I have professionally produced for my company, but it's like crazy how fast the episodes go by and if you are a person that is looking to create your own podcast and you don't know who to turn to, I have several amazing professionals in the field that have been doing it for years. They're not fly-by-night people. They will help you get your podcast launched and off to a great start.

01:41

A really quick bit of housekeeping before we jump into today's episode, just so you know. Moving forward, our cadence is going to be every other week instead of every week, just because I am putting out a lot of information and I'm also developing a really fabulous virtual writing retreat, a membership and a 14 day writing masterclass all in the same year. So I'm hoping to get a lot of these wrapped up by the end of summer. The writing retreat will be in September and because I'm developing all these other things, I don't have the time to do every week right now. It may switch back to every week in the future, but for right now I'm going to go to every other week until I have these projects and these new things that I'm adding to my repertoire of what I offer for anyone who is looking to write and publish their book and is a professional doing it. Just so you guys know, moving forward, it's going to be every other week, but it's still going to be tons of content. There's lots of back episodes you can also listen to if you've just joined me, and everything is geared towards professionals who don't write for a living and everything is geared towards professionals who don't write for a living but are looking to write and publish a book to enhance their platform, to be seen as an expert and a thought leader in their space.

02:52

So this week's topic is going to be the top four marketing mistakes professionals make when publishing their book. Now, this is always because, typically a lot of professionals this is the first time they're obviously publishing the book. They've never done self-publishing before. So if you're one of these people and you have made some of these marketing mistakes, don't kick yourself in the butt really hard Because, honestly, my friend, I have made some of these mistakes too when I first started marketing and, honestly, marketing is the one thing people usually typically don't put a lot of time and effort into.

03:23

And I understand why. It's because when you're writing a book, you have a lot of stuff going on on your plate, right, like you've got like your regular business. You're trying to run, and then you have, you know, if you're doing consulting or clients or you're working with corporate, and then you are writing this book on top of it, right, so that doesn't leave a lot of space for other things in your life. And then you've got to do the work, life balance with family and all these other things. And then on top of that, right now you have done writing your book and people are like, phew, I'm done, and it's really hard to get keep going with the marketing part, right.

03:57

So I always suggest to people to get hire somebody for your book marketing and I can make a recommendation for that. I do help people with basic book marketing, but that's not my main thing. I do recommend other people who are book marketing experts to help you with that. Even if you go at their basic package, right, it's really helpful. Or you have a VA, help you, whatever it is, get some assistance in book marketing. You're going to need it because it's really hard to market a book properly unless you really have some assistance, whether that's a VA or someone who specializes in book marketing. I wanted to read a client testimonial.

04:32

One of the elements sorry I always recommend for people is that they have an author website. Now I know I recommend it and I'm the car mechanic on this one, so to speak. I don't have my author website up yet and that's because I've just been dealing a lot with health issues for the past couple years, which I finally have resolved and I'm finally feeling better, and now I am developing all these other services and products for you guys to help you with your publishing journey. So I am going to get my author website up and running, probably next year. One of the things I have helped other people with is their author website, and this review is from Rick Fordyce, who he has a Christian podcast or a Christian blog that he puts out. He recently has published a book and his review was.

05:20

Lynn assisted me with setting up my author website. She did a great job, not only setting it up, but also teaching me how to manage it. I would highly recommend Lynn to anybody who is looking to build and publish an author website and get it up and running. So, rick, thank you so much for that. That is one of the kind of side offerings that I do. I don't do that a lot and I typically do it for clients. I will do it just independently. So if you're looking for an author website, let's talk and jump on my website, writeforyoume, and hit me up on my contact form.

05:50

Okay, now we'll jump into the topic for today, which is the top four marketing mistakes professional authors make. Now, again, if you've made one of these, don't kick yourself in the butt really hard, because these are so common, right, and we have so many things on our plate that it's really hard. Because these are so common, right, and we have so many things on our plate that it's really hard to do all the things all the time. I mean, even I don't know, I'm a professional, so, but keep these in mind so that if there's one on here, you see like, oh, I know I can avoid that one, just make sure to avoid it. But I did want to do this episode because I want you to avoid any of the pitfalls that can cost you unnecessary time and money. Okay, so there's a difference in the investment in writing, editing and building your platform, right, that's good money spent. But if you're making mistakes and spending money, right, we don't want to waste our money on things that are not pushing us forward. Right, when we invest our money in things and in activities and tasks and different elements of our business, we're trying to build that moves us forward. Right, when we invest our money in things and in activities and tasks and different elements of our business, we're trying to build that moves us forward. So we want to make sure we're always doing things to move the needle forward, and making mistakes constantly will not do that.

06:55

So this is the focus today's episode is the most damaging marketing mistakes professional authors make and how to avoid them. We should say professionals make when becoming an author, and this matters because, obviously, but like I said before, it wastes time, marketing, dollars and effort and while you are the brilliant thought leader and your expertise, right, a lot of people just struggle with marketing in general, and that's not a big deal, because that's one of the really biggest pain points of you know getting yourself out there and promoting yourself. There's a lot of different reasons people don't like to or don't want to do that, but that's a whole, nother episode. So today we're just going to talk about a cleared roadmap to avoid these costly pitfalls.

07:35

So mistake number one waiting until your publication to start marketing. This is one of the things I recently advised my client on and she said when should I start marketing? And I said you can start marketing now, even though we don't have your book published, and ideally you want to start marketing three to four months ahead of time. Typically what people do is when their books publishes they start marketing. But what I tell people is, once you have your rough draft done, start marketing your book, because you can market for three to four or five months and really build up that platform, that excitement about your book, no matter if it's nonfiction or fiction, the field of dreams fallacy it's not going to be. You're going to build it and they're going to come. You can be an author and launch with zero audience. So you don't have to wait to have an audience to start your social platforms. Just start them and start marketing on them and start putting out content, because you have to put out content to get an audience and it's not going to happen overnight. If you have a platform already built, that's fantastic, because you already have a built in social, whatever it is you know, sub stack, youtube, your website, your blog marketing platform.

08:44

But if you don't, don't wait, just start, and what I always recommend is to try to have the same handle for everything. So, like for me, it's right for you ghostwriting or it's under my brand publishing for professionals. So you'll see a lot of my links are either one of those two, and I keep it to those two to make it simple, so you can use your first and last name. That's always a really easy one to put on any platform, because that will also. I typically recommend for people to use their first and last name for their author website. If you have a really common first and last name, you can also add your middle name in there, or you can add something to the end of it as well, like I could say, lynn Smarge's author.

09:22

90-day minimum pre-launch timeline okay, so 90 days out, you want to announce the book and start building anticipation. 60 days or two months out, begin sharing behind the scenes content. What I usually recommend to my clients is that take paragraphs of your book right and read them on lives, or read them on videos, post them on your socials and start telling people. Hey, if you want more information. Make sure you get on my email list so you know when the first thing is dropping or subscribe, so you know when I'm publishing and dropping my book. And that's really helpful because it gives people a little blurb into what your book is about. And it doesn't have to be perfect, right, you can summarize it, and your book doesn't have to be grammar edited and perfect for you to do this. You just need a rough draft of your book, which is really helpful. So don't worry about making mistakes, right, just get out there and do it. Okay. Begin sharing behind the scenes content 60 days out, then 30 days out.

10:15

Ramp up your promotional activities and secure launch support. So you could be looking at Amazon ads. There's many different things to look at and, again, I'm not the book marketing expert, but there are a lot of different things you can do to ramp up your promotional activities. You can do newsletter swaps. You can do podcast interviews. If you're going to do that, I would highly recommend a podcast platform called Podmatch. Sign up for the Podmatch platform. That's like $35 a month and get to pitch podcasters on coming on their show, and you can do that ahead of time, before you publish your book Launch day. Activate your warmed up audience and say, hey, you can now buy my book. All right, building an audience before you need them. So this is really important.

10:55

Like I said, I just recommended a client do this email list building strategies. So one of the things you want to do is have an email list right? Email lists by far is the most effective marketing material, even if, even though there's social and everything else, I get more response from my email list than anything else that I post on, except for Substack. Substack, I get responses on too. The point is is that you need an email list, and I always recommend Kit, or Convert Kit, as they used to be called, and there's a free plan. You can get one landing page and an email list and that's enough to start you off. So you want a landing page, which is basically you've seen them. There's pop-up forms that say, hey, join our email list. And you can say, hey, subscribe now to find out all the details on when my book is dropping, so you can be one of the first people to buy it on if you want to do a special price or however you want to market it, but you do need that email list, I always recommend ConvertKit. It's easy to use. They give you a free subscription price and once you get past whatever the 1,000 or 1,500 subscribers, it's $49 a month. Or if you want to build out your email list and tag people and have other features, it's $49 a month. I think it is, and I have the paid version because I like to do a more thorough marketing campaign.

12:08

So social media content that creates book anticipation. So you can take your book and what I always recommend to people is take the content in your book and then just rewrite it for social, make little social blurbs out of it. That's really easy to do because you already have the content written. You can't take social blurbs and create book content. So one of my clients tried to do that and I kept telling her this doesn't work. Social blurbs are social blurbs. They are those little sound bites. You can't take sound bites and make them into a book, but you can take your book content and make them into sound bites. So that's really easy to do by breaking it down, and I always recommend to people keep your work on a document or in Google Drive. I keep all my stuff in Drive and very well organized so I can go back and my VA can pull it and post it for me, or however that's going to work for you, ok, so make sure you keep it organized in a place you know where it's at.

13:00

Okay, networking and relationship building with your target readers Okay, goodreads is a great platform to do this. On Speaking opportunities that introduce your upcoming books so if you have speaking opportunities, whether they're virtual or in person, that is also helpful if your book isn't published or if you're working on publishing your book or if it's already published. So if you have early marketing, the more marketing you do. Obviously it's going to compound the effect and you can really make your marketing work for you, because more people that know about your book, the more people that are going to share it, and more of those people are going to share your book to other people, and so on and so forth. All right, let's go on to mistake number two focusing only on book sales instead of business goals.

13:43

Now, this is a big one, and one of the things I always tell my clients is and my ghostwriting client specifically is if you're ghostwriting a book, what is the purpose of your book? Okay, so the purpose of your book is to make a million dollars. That's most likely not going to happen. It can happen I'm not saying it doesn't but unless you're an A-lister and you have an insane following, it's really hard to make millions of dollars off your book. Now can your book be a nice residual side income? Yes, it can. Can it pay for maybe some of your marketing efforts and or repay the book itself? If you've paid for ghostwriting or book editing? Yes, it can. But you also need to put effort into that marketing. And this is where this comes in. Even though you have book sales, you can also focus on business goals Even if your book sales aren't doing what you want them to do, and I don't know anybody's book sales that have done that. That's really rare because we all want more than we're getting right. But understanding different success metrics other than book sales are like thought leadership.

14:40

Okay, did you get media mentions or speaking invitations or industry recognition because you've published your book? That's really important. Business development how about did you get any new client inquiries or consultation requests or partnership opportunities because of your book? And if you're a speaker, having a book is really great to help you get event bookings, keynote fees, bureau representation and also for your business again consulting growth, such as premium pricing, justification and referral quality improvement. So you're getting better leads from your book because they've already read it and your book is such a great lead magnet for your business. So you have to take that into consideration. Is that if people read your book and they call you, they're already a warm lead? Right, this is not a cold lead, this is not a prospect. This is a warm lead. Who understands your business perspective and what you service and who you service, and they are calling you because they want to work with you, and that's really important.

15:36

The professional author's ROI calculation is direct revenue book sales, royalties, licensing okay. Indirect revenue speaking fees, consulting contracts, course sales, intangible value and this is really important because it's very hard to measure intangible value your credibility, your authority, your door opening opportunities. I mean, when I tell people I'm a 4X author, some people don't know what that means and that's okay. But what it does mean is that I have published four books and that gives me credibility, like personally, right, that doesn't count, like the dozen or so books I've helped other clients with, and that's just in ghostwriting. And then I have book editing and then I have consultations and all these other things I've helped people with with their book.

16:20

You need to take that into consideration as well. How to track business impact beyond book sales. Okay, so you have their CRM systems for tracking book generated leads, which you can use attribution methods for new business and measuring speaking fee increases and opportunity quality, right? So how much were you getting paid for your speaking before your book came out and what is the percent increase you're getting paid for your speaking after your book came out? You want to set up measurement systems before launch. Of course, you can set them up after launch, but it's going to be harder and have your VA do that. If they can do that. That is a really fabulous thing for your VA to do. Just set up even just a simple Google Sheet, right? You don't need an actual CRM. If you don't want one or you don't want to pay for one, use a Google Sheet. I use Google Sheets for lots of things and they're great.

17:09

All right, my friends, we are going to take a quick break right here, but when we come back, we are going to talk about the book marketing mistakes you want to avoid. So hang tight and we'll be back in just a minute. Hey, friends and future authors. I know what it's like to sit alone back in just a minute. Find other professionals who truly understand your struggles and celebrate your victories A circle which offers genuine support and a place where fellow thought leaders gather. The road to authorship is better traveled together. Come and join an alliance who speaks your language, who recognizes that your book isn't simply just a page with words. It's the process of creating your forever legacy. Join the Publishing for Professionals circle at wwwwriteforyoume and click on community. Use the signup form. Professionals circle at wwwwriteforyoume and click on community. Use the signup form and register today to gain confidence alongside others who now share your journey towards authorship. Hi, this is Lynn, a Liquidy Smart. Just back with another.

18:19

The second half of the top four book marketing mistakes busy professionals make. So make sure, if you are listening to this, that you definitely want to hop on my website, writeforyoume, or you can click on the show notes below, whether you're on YouTube or a audio podcast listening device, and sign up for my free virtual writer's workshop. I'm super excited to offer this. It's in September, but sign up soon because there is limited amount of workshops or, excuse me, attendees that can attend the workshop, and it's going to be great. So not only is it a virtual writing workshop and this is meant specifically for busy professionals who are writing their book and need assistance so we're going to be writing our books, but not only writing our books I'm going to have a Q&A session and I'm going to have a networking session, and this is all free for anyone who is listening to this podcast on YouTube or audio players. So definitely sign up. It's going to be in the show notes below, or you can go to writeforyoume and click on the events page. Okay, so let's jump into the second half.

19:17

Mistake number three is trying to be everywhere on social media. Now, there is a caveat to this and this is what I tell everyone. Okay, so it's hard to manage multiple platforms, but what you can do is and this is what I do right, you can post on a lot of platforms, like I post on Facebook, on YouTube, on Substack, on Instagram, on there's a couple other ones. I post on Blue Sky and something else. However, there's only certain platforms I'm really active on. So I'm active on YouTube, I'm active on Substack and I'm active on Blue Sky. So those are the places I'm going and responding to people, because those are also the places I get a lot of comments and a lot of activity. You can post everywhere and there's no problem with posting on YouTube if you're not active on it, right.

20:02

But you want to be active on the two or three platforms and respond to people and make sure you respond to people. This is not something I suggest handing off to your VA, because you're not going to remember if somebody says, hey, I love your response on blah blah blah and your VA did it and you don't know what it is. Okay, that's just unprofessional. So make sure that you are responding. Right, I have my VA posts, but then I respond to all the things and I create the post for her and she just pulls it out of Google Doc and post it for me. So make sure that you keep that in mind, that you can post everywhere, but don't try to be on all the platforms all the time responding to everyone.

20:39

Okay, so choose a couple platforms to try out and what I like to do is post it on all of them and then I look at every two or three months. I look at what platforms are performing the best and where I'm getting the best response from, and that's how I found out that Substack and YouTube are my two platforms I'm getting the best response from. So what I do is I make sure I focus my marketing efforts on those two platforms and that I know I'm on that and I'm responding to people and interacting with people on those two. So did that? Is that what I started out with? No, I actually started out with thinking I was going to get a lot on Instagram and another channel, and that did not happen. So I was like, well, heck, if I'm not getting a lot on there, then I'm going to change up my process. You know I'm interacting on the platforms that people are on the most and that are that are not just on the most but are interacting with me. Linkedin's another one I'm very active on. If you are a B2B professional and you work with executives and other B2B people, linkedin is a great channel. Twitter, also known as X, is good for thought leaders and industry commentators, although the platform's not really great lately, so I don't do anything on Twitter. Youtube is good for speakers and educators and anybody that's doing how to kind of thing, and Instagram is good for visual storytellers and lifestyle experts. You want to match your platform to your audience and strengths. So surveying your network about their platform preferences or just going on and seeing what your stats are. And you can always ask people what do you want to see on this platform and test it out and see what topics are doing better on what platform. And I found a lot of interesting things out about my marketing data from that. For instance, on YouTube, this is my first podcast that I am getting more watches and views on YouTube than I am on an audio player, so typically I get more downloads and watches on an audio player. For this one, it's flipped and I don't know why. I'm guessing there's just more professionals on YouTube looking for help, but I'm not sure why. And the demographic for this podcast, as opposed to all the other podcasts I have, is completely flipped. Instead of being 80-20 women, this is 80-20 more males watching this podcast and listening to it than females, and I'm not sure exactly why, but I know that's the stat, so I know that's my avatar that I am appealing to. All right, what type of content do you create and what type of content is getting the most views? Right, so focus on that type of content, okay. So make sure you're consistent. So what I do is I make sure I have. Mondays are my content creation days, where I get all the things out and post it and uploaded, and then the rest of the week goes like and I also have a couple people on my team that help me with the content, right, because it's really hard to do all the content on your own, but I make a lot of the content and then my team helps post it on all the places it needs to be, including podcasts, audio and YouTube. All right.

23:28

Mistake number four getting up too quickly when your initial sales are slow. Now, this happens a lot, right, like again, unless you're an A-lister, your initial sales are going to just start creeping up, creeping up, creeping up. Or, if you've done a lot of book marketing, you may get an explosion. At first, my first book I published was actually the best book I've sold so far and I sold 300 copies in the first week and then it got really slow. So again, right, just look at your numbers, but don't give up quickly. Okay, and doing this long-term really helps to build up your book success. There is definitely not a lot of overnight bestsellers. You know, most successful built books build momentum slowly and in mind there is a book life cycle. Okay, so your book life cycle might be three months, it might be a year, it might be two years, it just depends. There's a lot of factors and one of them is what genre is your book in, and is it nonfiction or fiction, and also like who's your avatar and how passionate they are about your subject and how niche your subject is.

24:25

Book marketing is a professional long game, so make sure you're using evergreen marketing tools, not one-time products. You can repurpose your book marketing content. You don't have to use or remake and do new content all the time. Professional books gain credibility over time and you get the compounding effect when you're doing consistent marketing promotion. Okay, word of mouth marketing timeline so let's go over some timelines is about six to 18 months for organic growth. Speaking engagement is about a year to two years and industry recognition is about a year to two years. So keep these in mind.

25:02

Of course, it all depends on the vertical that you're in as well. These will, over time, help you with help increase your visibility, and it does, again, take time and consistency right, and those are the consistency is really hard to keep up with because you have so many things going on, which is why I always recommend people get a VA and and or some assistance with marketing help. So month one to three, you're going to do your initial sales, to network, to early adopters. Month four to 12, basically you wanna do organic discovery and referral-based growth, and then year two plus established credibility and ongoing benefits. All right, during slow periods you can do content repurposing, evergreen promotion, continuous audience building. Again, goodreads is really good for that platform for doing continuous audience building and speaking and media opportunities for visibility. One of the things you can also do, which one of my clients did, is she did put out a PR bulletin to her local news station and got on the local news station about her book Build a Better Podcast. So that's another thing you can do as well. If you have any questions or you would love to talk to me about this, definitely make sure you go to my website, which is wwwwriteforyoume, and then sign up for my discovery call. My discovery call is free. It's really easy to get a hold of me. And definitely, while you're on my website, hit the events page and sign up for our virtual writing retreat that's coming up this fall. Here is our wrap up, my friends.

26:33

Remember these four marketing mistakes can really hurt your book, including well, we're not going to talk about the book editing and writing part. They compound each other's inefficiency, and three steps you can take to avoid these traps is start building your audience at least 90 days before publication. If you do it 30 days, that's better than zero. Find and track your professional success metrics beyond just your book sales. Choose a primary platform and commit to consistency and excellence and just consistency in marketing. And remember you need to be patient because professional book success is a marathon, it's not a sprint. Make sure you have a marketing timeline and template and track your ROI. Your expertise deserves effective marketing. Don't make these mistakes. Or, if you do make these mistakes, don't let them derail your passion and excitement for your book that this has helped you. I hope this has been valuable for you and remember again I just want to invite you to my virtual book retreat. It's complimentary. You can meet other professionals. Go to writeforyoume and click on the events tab to fill out the form. Until next week.

27:39

My friends, this is Lynn “Eliqkitie,” reminding you to keep writing, keep dreaming and keep creating. Your book is waiting to be born. Hey, my friend, thanks for joining me on the Publishing for Professionals podcast. I hope this episode has equipped you with actionable strategies for your publishing journey. Remember, your expertise becomes truly valuable when it's transformed into a professionally published book that represents your unique brand. The insights we've covered today will hopefully give you another piece of your publishing blueprint. If you found today's discussion valuable, make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts so you get the next episode dropped right into your podcast player. Each week. We tackle another essential aspect designed specifically for busy professionals like you. Remember to start the dream of writing your book today, because your strategies could be the missing piece in someone else's success puzzle tomorrow.

28:28 - Announcement (Host)

The information in this podcast is for educational and informational purposes only. The content shared by the host, guest and any affiliates is not intended to substitute any professional or financial advice specific to your situation. Always seek the advice of a qualified professional with any questions you may have. The opinions expressed on the show by the host or guest are of the individuals. I do not necessarily use the views of Unicorn Publishing Company. Unicorn Publishing Company, the host, guests and affiliates are not responsible or liable for any decisions made by listeners or action taken here to based on the information discussed in this podcast. By listening to this podcast, you acknowledge and agree to release Unicorn Publishing Company, the host, affiliates and guests for any liability.