It’s our very first live podcast AND the very first installment of our “Business of Being an Author” series, held at the lovely Jan’s Bookstore in downtown Beaverton. Emily talks to three women who work with authors on the reg—marketing/PR professionals Mary Bisbee-Beek and Tara Lehmann, and graphic designer Courtney Clarke. They chat about the importance of keeping your branding consistent across your website and social media, smart ways to invest your marketing dollars that actually sell books, and how you can devise and execute a social media plan while keeping your day job. They also talk about what authors should NOT do: argue with reviewers who didn’t like your book, make a book trailer, neglect to hire an editor.

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All right, welcome to the hybrid hub Scout podcast. My

name is Emily einlander, and we are recording live from Jan's in

Beaverton, Oregon. Everybody say,

yay.

So today's panel is going to be about the business of being an

author is our series, and we'll be doing more of these,

hopefully. And this is about branding yourself as an author.

And we have three very accomplished, knowledgeable

people here who are going to talk about branding in general,

and then branding as an author, what you should be doing, you

know, if you want your master of your own destiny. So first at

the end of the table here we have Mary Bisbee beak. Mary has

worked in book publishing for over 35 years, both as a staff

member at independent presses on the West Coast and at the

University of Michigan Press from 1992 through 2003 she was

the owner and director of Bixby books, a full service publicity

and marketing consulting office in 2010 a move to the West Coast

precipitated the opening of a new independent office. Read

with an exclamation point. That's why I said it like that,

a unique perspective covering the areas of publicity,

marketing and foreign rights work and in 2016

publishing Sherpa was added to help writers move from

manuscript to book. The Read. Publishing Sherpa offices are in

Portland, Oregon, and their working territory is worldwide.

Say, Hi, Mary. Hi everybody. Alright. Next we have Courtney

Clark. Courtney has been in the creative business all her life,

and in the creative business, branding business for almost

three years, and is a natural creative type who received a

degree in art with a focus on painting. She is a graphic

designer and social media manager with a focus on helping

small to medium sized businesses be seen. Brand development and

social media communication is where she thrives. Hi, hello.

Alright, and then we have Tara Lehman. Tara graduated from

Portland State University with a Masters of Science in writing,

specializing in marketing and editing in book publishing, with

a concentration in children's publishing in 2013

Her work has progressed through sales, marketing, editing,

design and event coordinating. She currently works as marketing

and publicity associate at oni press. Hi,

hello, we're sharing a mic today.

All right. All right. Well, let's get started, and I think

that we know a little bit about each other already. So let's

just jump right into the branding side of things, because

I feel like we could talk about this forever. So Mary, start us

off what what is a brand? Let's not even author brand. What's a

brand? Well, you know, it's really funny, because when you

asked me to

participate tonight, I started thinking about branding. And

when I think about branding, I actually immediately go

backwards and I think about marketing. So I for authors, I

think about when you write a book, when you think about

marketing, who is your audience, and how are how do you want to

sell to that audience, and how do you want to appeal to that

audience? Or maybe appeal comes before selling. So how are you?

How are you shouting yourself out? That's kind of branding,

and a lot of that is about

how you how you want your book to look, and the decision of

design, the decision of your website,

whether you're self publishing or publishing through a hybrid

situation or through a traditional situation, and all

of those components are going to have you thinking about this

differently. In a traditional setting, you're probably going

to have more help and people kind of guiding you. In a hybrid

situation, you're going to have a little bit of help, and in a

self publishing situation, you're pretty much on your own.

So that's how I kind of see the idea of branding,

all right. Courtney, when I say branding

with the business that you are in. It's a little bit outside of

books as well, right? Yes, it is, all right. So what is your

take on the idea of branding? So I work with mostly like small to

medium sized businesses and establishing, really a look and

feel for their business, really a lot of all those visual

aspects that come.

Come into play for a business. So I mean, I see an author as a

small business and or medium or even large, depending on on

their books, but

I so I mean really establishing the look and feel and and

everything visual that goes along with that, to make sure

things are flowing through. And when somebody sees something

that represents you, they go, Oh, that's so and so I know

that's you. So that's really how I see it great. I like the I see

you. I know that's you.

That's what I would take away from it. Tara,

well, I feel like they pretty much covered most everything,

but going off of what Courtney said, branding isn't just what

you yourself do, but it's also the impression others get about

you. So think about your favorite brands that you use in

the kitchen or in the home or even in the office. You know,

you think about your favorites, I don't know, aluminum foil. Do

you use Reynolds? Do you use something else? Why do you use

it? Is it because you've always used it, or is it because of the

way that they come across in their marketing and in their

branding? When you think about the authors that you like to

read, is it because their book is just so fantastic, which it

entirely might be. It also might be because of the way they come

across in their day to day life, because that's a lot of what

happens nowadays when it comes to publishing, we have to take

into consideration how we present ourselves to our

readership. So

when you are lost my train of thought there for a second, as

far as the branding goes for yourself, you don't want to just

think about the outward appearance of what you are

portraying. You've got to think about who you want your base to

think or what you want your base to think about. When they think

about you, do they want you? Do you want them to think about you

as someone who provides a lot of comfort or a lot of information,

or someone who provides a an escapist moment during the day,

you know. So when you think about the branding for yourself,

it's important to take into consideration, of course, the

marketing and the appearance of things, but the appearance of

things, not just as in the visual appearance, but the

appearance of things as far as like, what somebody will think

about when they think about you. So you're saying that your own

personal personality plays a part in this as well. Yes, I

would agree with that. I would also say that when it comes to

branding, and this might be going a little bit too far into

it, but can't help myself. Don't worry, I'm here when you're

thank God for that,

when you are figuring out the branding for yourself. Ideally,

what I would recommend is that you have the outward facing

persona, as well as if you need to have social media for your

interior facing self, more personal aspects, like you have

a Facebook page, but you've got an author page, but you also

have your personal page.

You are getting a little bit ahead, a little bit so I pushed

me

okay.

Think whatever you want.

Don't ask me, I like it. I like it. We'll get back to it. I'm

just saying I want to, I want to hear more about what you how you

think the personal side of someone plays into this author

branding, Mary, you look like you are ready to jump in this. I

was going to get off the tin foil idea. And certain

publishers have certain looks like, if you read anything by

Algonquin, there's usually a specific kind of trim size

that's a little different, or the covers are white with very

clear graphics. Or

the books just pop in a different kind of way. And you

can walk up to a book and you think, as you're approaching it,

you think, I bet that's an Algonquin book Chronicle has the

same kind of thing,

where they have a very clear identity about how the books are

going to look and so does that determine that you want to own

every chronicle book or every Algonquin book? Probably not,

but if you have a really good experience with one or two of

those books, you're going to gravitate back in that

direction,

having worked as a bookseller for a very brief period of time,

people would come in at the end of the day after hearing Terry

Gross on fresh air, and they'd say, I can't remember the name

of the author that was just interviewed, but it was kind of

about and we could, you know, we'd sort of immediately know,

or, gee, there was a book here yesterday sitting on this table.

I don't remember the author or the title, but it was read

that was always my favorite.

So branding kind of speaks to all of these things.

What.

And what appeals to your own eye and what will correspond with

your story. So it almost sounds like you're saying that you have

to think about where you belong when you're thinking of how you

want to brand yourself. Yeah, a few years ago, romance novels

had very similar covers. It was always the back of a woman in a

pastel dress with a lot of shoulder blade showing shoulder

blade. And I can remember a friend of mine saying, I can't

wait till these women start turning around again.

Courtney, what do you think the first thing someone should ask

themselves, is, when they're trying to create their own

brand?

Oh, the first thing,

I mean, I think a good question to ask yourself is, what sets

you apart, what makes you different? Because that's what's

going to differentiate, differentiate, if I can speak,

differentiate yourself and your brand from everyone else out

there. So you do really have to look at what is going to make

you different. And just going back to the kind of personal

aspect with this day and age of social media, people do want to

know what's behind a book, what's behind a brand, the

realness behind it. So I mean, it's also very it can become

very important to be able to share some of that behind the

scenes and the personal aspect of that book, the person behind

the book, I think, is very important as well.

All right, so when you're thinking about the person behind

the book, you're also thinking about like, who cares? You know,

who cares about who you are when you're trying to fit into these

spaces? Can you elaborate a little bit more on, like, how

someone can find that audience when they're putting their

personal

personality, their personal personality, across? Yeah,

definitely. I mean, it's also, again, like said, finding what

makes you different and what, what your passions are, I mean,

and how,

and how your, you know, career sets you apart from everyone

else out there. So just looking at it,

and it doesn't have to be perfect. Everything doesn't have

to be perfect anymore. It can be real. It

can be a real. I mean being real with the people who follow you

and who want to know you. So having a realness to your brand

is, I think, important as well.

Tara

authenticity is important, but I would be careful about using it

excessively, because if you are angling for your brand to be

considered authentic, there is kind of an uncanny valley

perspective to that, where you can lean so hard into the

authenticity, where it no longer Is you yourself talking, but

this persona, the Instagram effect. The Instagram effect,

exactly. So I think something that should be considered is, to

what degree are you willing to share yourself that you want to

keep authentic to your brand, and to what degree do you want

to keep part of yourself to yourself because your followers,

your readers, anybody who's interested in your brands, you

may feel like you owe them something, but you don't owe

them everything.

Yeah? Yeah. I do agree with that. I mean, you definitely

want to have limits on on what you are willing to share.

So yeah, I do agree with limiting yourself, but still

being able to have some sort of realness and authenticity. Let's

come back to drawing those lines, those boundaries. But

first, let's talk about nitty gritty. Okay, so like, what are

the material things that people need in their career to express

their brands. I'm talking like social media newsletters, etc,

and like, you know, how do they bring that together cohesively?

Baseline, I'd say probably a website. If you're not a social

media person, that's fine. People look for social media,

but if you don't feel comfortable doing it, it could

probably be more of a hindrance for you yourself than a benefit.

But baseline, a website, you need somebody. You need a place,

a safe place for people to land when they're searching for you.

And if they don't have that, they don't have an easy access

to find out, say, whatever book that you're writing or whatever

product that you were producing or promoting, then they're going

to forget about it, and they might go somewhere else,

I agree, some sort of online presence. Because, I mean, we're

in the day and age where somebody's going to Google you,

so making sure you.

To have some sort of online presence that people can find

out information about what you're doing is really important

and about your work.

So what I always tell authors is a good website, and then we talk

about the reality of budget.

So I've right now I'm working with these two women who are who

wrote, co wrote a mystery together, and it's very spare.

It's elegantly written. It's it's a little creepy, it's a

good story.

And they excuse me, they have literally poured every penny

that they could possibly have into buying their way to the top

in some ways. So they did it three Instagram tours,

where we'd send books to people who were interested, and each

was about 20 or 25 books. So the publisher donated those books,

and they

got pictures of the cover and usually some form of

regurgitation of our press release.

I don't know how many of these people actually read the book,

so that's one thing that was like an immediate kind of bing,

bing, bing, bing, for me about is this money well spent.

But a lot of these Instagrammers then would invite them to come

and give talks in their homes. So it was like book club

possibilities and sort of Salon esque possibilities. I mean,

it's kind of kind of cool, kind of different. I've never heard

of that. An Instagram tour, yeah, you pay for it,

and you pay at a different level for depending on how much you

want. And there are a couple of different services that around

the country that organize these and administrate them. That's

interesting, yeah, and you can do it, you know, just social

media tour, and it can be Facebook or Twitter, but

Instagram is the hot new thing I'm interested in. You've been

doing this a really long time compared to us, and I would love

to know how you've seen it change over time, and how what

you think of that qualitatively? I think that if an author has

some money, and basically it is a big dollars and cents

situation at this point,

that it makes them feel very proactive, and depending on the

personality of the author that can be extremely important.

These two people really need to feel like absolutely no stone

has been left unturned.

They've given away hundreds of books, some of which the

publishers donated, some of which they've purchased at cost

to give away good reads. Library thing

again, the Instagram,

they're doing something called,

I think it's like Subway giveaway, where they leave books

on the subway in New York, and then people take pictures after

they've picked up the book and and they can, like, leave the

book on the subway, and someone else can have it or or they take

a book with them. I haven't found out if that how that's

gone yet. They've doing something right now with BookBub

and I have a special Kindle offer for the holidays.

And you know, a 99 cent book is beguiling in some ways, but I

always go back to, you know,

does that really equate with your creative and intellectual

property? Do you want to be known as the 99 cent author?

Hmm, yeah, that's a big question. It's a huge it's a

huge question. I think it's, you know, there's some ethics

involved and well, that has a lot to do with what you're

saying about where you decide to fit in somewhere. Right, right.

Courtney, will you talk a little bit about the nuts and bolts of

building a brand on social media. A little bit, yeah, I

mean,

I work a lot with Instagram, with the clients I work with,

and so it is a visual platform, so making sure that you really

have a clear, concise, I mean, essentially, you want to set

out, like a branding plan, monthly or weekly, about what

you want to cover on social media, and make sure you have

the visual aspects to match that. So, I mean, there is a bit

of planning involved and making sure you're saying the things

you want to say on there. So really, and that can be very.

Time consuming. So that's why brands will hire me to help them

with that, because it can be time consuming to put that all

together. And where I really strive is with the visual

aspects, and where an author would really come in, great

would be with the communication and the writing aspects on

social media. So so I could see working with an author to be a

lot of fun because they would have the writing background, or

I have more of the visual background,

but yeah, it is a very visual platform. So thinking about when

somebody's scrolling through Instagram, what's going to stop

them and make them want to interact with your post, it's

also all about engagement on there. So how are you engaging

with that audience on in there? Are you asking them questions?

Are you using your stories to engage with your audience? So

really, Instagram wants people to stay on their app as long as

possible. So the longer you're keeping people on that app, the

higher rank your posts are gonna go. So that's really kind of the

nuts and bolts of it, I guess.

So. Granted, I haven't worked in the industry nearly as long as

Mary and granted I don't have I'm older than dirt.

No, no, no, you just have a wealth of experience. We don't

want to navel gaze here, so we need you just have a wealth of

experience that I am honored to be on a panel with, because it's

kind of mind boggling, and I also don't quite have the

social media integration experience. Courtney, however, I

will say that in my God, it's been a decade,

which for me is a long time.

But in my time in working in publishing, I've come to realize

that, especially for people who are just starting out their

debuts, they're kind of left with the whole Okay, I have a

book, I have a book, and I'm trying to get it out to people.

Do I need a lot of money? The answer is, No, you don't

necessarily need a lot of money if you want to put money towards

something marketing wise, PR wise, that's a great investment.

However, there's a lot of things that you can do to help push the

needle

that you may not necessarily need to spend a enormous amount

of money

on working within your writing. Community is a big thing. They

will be your number one fan. They will push the envelope as

far as you your name, your brand, your title, what have

you. Also you can work within community to do giveaways. You

can do podcast interviews with people that you know. So you're

saying, when you when you're saying, work within your

community. You're saying, if you have other friends who have

written books, have other friends giveaways on their

pages. Them do giveaways on their pages. Have them help you

out. Because I guarantee you, when it's their turn, they're

going to turn to you too and ask for your help.

I will say that at the end of the day, with all the marketing

and PR, the biggest thing is, how is it going to help your

sales? Because with the flashiest marketing and the

flashiest PR, it will look really good on paper, but you

got to think forward. How is it going to push sales? Mary, so

there are a couple of things. When an author talks about going

on Goodreads and being active on Goodreads, I suggest that they

be generous. And it's not all about them or about their book.

And largesse goes a long way in this industry, on both sides,

with publishers and with authors and with readers. And if you are

on Goodreads and you talk about a great book that you just read

and not mention your own book, it's actually a really, a really

good thing. The other thing, there are at least two

booksellers in the room. And my question is

to Jane is, does anyone come into the store and say, Hey, I

just saw this great book on Instagram. Do you have it?

Because, you know, to go back to the idea of a publicist or a

marketing director doesn't want to give an author busy work. You

know, when an author says, oh, what can I do? How can I help?

What should I be doing? You start to, you know, almost

inventing things just so that they'll leave you alone and let

you do your job.

And I don't mean that in a mean spirited way,

but, but there is, there is a point where you just, you know

you have to be patient and you have to let things work.

Granted, we all say there are no guarantees and there aren't but

you don't want busy work, but you do want them to feel like

they're participating, and they've spent a lot of time

sitting in isolation, right?

This book. And some people are really honest and say, you know,

I'm not social. I can't do this, or I can. I'm good for four or

five readings, and then I'm done. And so you make the most

of that, because this is a business of introverts, so you

kind of have to ration energy. I would think,

unless you're marketing your peer, I'm talking about the

authors. The authors are definitely a business. You have

to be happy all the time. Yeah, going off of what Mary said,

900% agree with you is that there's a lot of stuff happening

on the back end in a publishing company, whether it's

traditional or hybrid, there's a lot of stuff that we do. So you

may see us at the surface, but we're like that duck with the

feet just kind of going, going, going. So there's a lot of stuff

that's going to be happening on the back end that may not

interest you, because it is quite literally the nuts and

bolts, the hard, ugly tasks that we have to do to sell books, to

get them into the stores, to get people to buy them. So like the

NPR thing and the newsletter thing from Barnes and Noble and

things like that. That's stuff that the publisher would be

doing, that your your in house publicist would probably be any

in house marketing director would probably be doing the fun

stuff, like the social media giveaways that you can do

yourself, like reaching out to

this branded audience that you have created for yourself,

things like that that you can do help, because at the end of the

day, the number one marketing tactic that we all know is word

of mouth. You are going to take into account any books or any TV

shows or any movies that your friends tell you that they love,

and then you yourself will nine times out of 10 go and check it

out, because your friends loved it. And it's just, unless you're

contrary like me, unless you're contrary like Emily, but it's a

snowball effect, and that's how a lot of the big names that we

love and we know came to be so popular. It all started with

word of mouth. I want to hear a little bit from Courtney about

about that actual jump from marketing yourself

authentically, just as a personal brand, to actually

selling things. So what advice would you give authors or anyone

who's selling anything in general

to kind of like cross that barrier from, yes, you're my

friend. Like, let's have a conversation. To, please buy

this thing. Please buy my book. Well

on social media, I mean, it's a fine balance of selling and kind

of letting people into your world. So you can't be selling

in every post. It's about letting people get to know you,

and get to know your work and and love you, and then you can

sell to them, essentially. So it's kind of selling yourself

first and then bringing the product afterwards. A lot of

times with the social media, also with social media, I think

the demographic is a more online based. People want to buy

ebooks. People want to buy things online. They don't

necessarily want I know we're sitting in a bookstore. I'm

sorry, Lori, but

people on Instagram don't want to go out to the store and buy

something they're looking to buy online. So yeah, Laurie earlier

was saying that

because this wasn't picked up by the mic, but Laurie was saying

earlier that the people who find things on Instagram tend to buy

ebooks, and then people who buy print tend to be reached out

through newsletters and appearances on podcasts, radio

shows, whatnot. I didn't actually know that. I think

that's really interesting. So your specialty is more the

online, like ebooks, it's etc, yeah, definitely, yeah. So it

sounds like you're saying these, these people are a little more

digitally literate and and know what's going on. They don't have

to be tricked. Yes, yes.

I think 75% of the books sold in the US are sold through Amazon.

So that's print, that's electronic,

maybe even audio, too, at some point, oh, I'm sure, yeah,

Amazon is not so much the elephant in the room as is the

norm in our life now in days. So it's something to take into

account, like a necessary evil, like a necessary evil. So when

you are promoting yourself, when you're promoting your book, it's

always a good practice to on your website, for instance,

include not just links to Amazon, but also links to Barnes

and Noble, to Books a Million to indie bound. Indie bound

collects the information for independent bookstores across

the United States. It's also really good to do a shout out to

your local neighborhood independent like Powell's, or if

you're or Jan's, or if you're in Denver, tatter cover, or if in

you're in New York, you know the strand, or brooks of wonder or

something, or Parnassus in Nashville. So.

It's, it's always good to give a little bit of love to the people

in your neighborhood who are going to give you a little bit

of love. Well, I want to kind of pull the

people who are here tonight. So if you are, how many of you are

writing books?

Everybody? Okay, how many of you are thinking of traditional

publishing as the route that you want to

go. Okay? So, so we have a lot of Self Publishers, you Okay, so

we got hybrid, we got self publishing. So I'm imagining

there's probably a lot of digital marketing, a lot of a

lot of Amazon involvement. So that's kind of a different

animal in the way that you would present yourself, at least from

what I'm hearing from everybody. Are

you guys all overwhelmed by all the stuff? Well, you're not.

Yeah,

all right. Well, I want to jump into a Q and A soon, because it

sounds like you all know what you want,

mostly. But I would like to ask first, because I think this

might be kind of a fun question, what should authors avoid at all

costs when they are building their brand?

Only because this. This came up on this has been coming up on

Twitter quite frequently in the past, like year, if you are, if

you are published, and you have developed a reader base, and the

reader base comes out and says, This book does not work for XYZ

reasons, please don't fight back. Don't Don't argue with the

reviewer. Don't argue with the reader. Disengage also, please.

Just it's never healthy to look up reviews of your book. Avoid

at all costs, That way lies madness. You will not enjoy that

path.

Mary,

I agree with not spending an abundant amount of time combing

through reviews. And

I will say that the number that your book is on Amazon does not

correspond to sales. It's the number of times that people hit

on your site and look at the book.

So that's a really good thing to keep in mind,

interesting. And the numbers shouldn't bum you out, because

there are so many books published in the world

every year. I mean, I think the US is 250,000

books a year, and you

got to take into consideration that that number has, what

quadrupled, quintupled in the last 510, years alone, with the

inclusion of the popularity of self publishing and hybrid

publishing. No, that's including. That's including,

yeah. I mean, the number keeps expanding rapidly as we continue

in this publishing y'all keep writing those books well as

great as a curmudgeon.

Oh, Mary, in the publishing world, it's true. I don't want a

curmudgeon competition between you two, so play nice. I will

say that I don't feel that technology has done a huge

favor,

because everybody that wants to write should write, and not

every book that's written needs to be published, I don't think,

and that's why we have gatekeepers. And technology has

created a situation where there are not fewer gate people

gatekeepers, but fewer people who feel they need gatekeepers.

And so they do it themselves, and they're not getting good

editing, and they're not working with good designers, and, you

know, they're publishing printing books with crappy

paper, and they don't look very good. So if we're let's, let's

work under the assumption that there are a lot of us want to

Self Publish. How do you not fall into the trap of being

completely myopic and thinking everything you do is great,

like, how do you get help without having to spend a whole

bunch of money? And how do you get, like, that good feedback

that will make your book worth people reading? Well, it's not

about how much you spend necessarily. It's where you put

your money, I think. And I think a good edit is a very good

investment,

and really working at it and listening to the people that

you've hired to help you with the edit. And then the next

thing would be talking to some book designers about a nice

cover, and then, and then, you know, you can upload your files,

and you can print through create space, or ingramspark, or

whatever it is, and put it up on Amazon. And then working with a

publicist, or having some clear idea, having had asked someone

to for help, and making a.

Marketing plan that maybe you can fulfill yourself or get help

with it. Okay, that's money well spent. I agree with that. I

would also go one step further and say, before you go to the

editor, and I agree that you should absolutely put money into

a decent editor, and please do your research before you hire

one, because there are a lot of charlatans out there. Yes, yes,

yes. I would say, talk to if you have one your Writers Group, and

get critique partners, get beta readers, get people who may not

necessarily be in the writing community to read your work,

people whose opinion that you trust. Also, if there are

sensitive topics in your book, get people who are aware or who

have lived those situations. Have them read it as well. Just

to go back to the authenticity thing, just to make sure that

you're dotting your I's and you're crossing your T's, and

you can get the best experience out of the gate when your book

finally does come into its own.

Courtney, what would you say about if you are doing

everything yourself, like, how would you manage that marketing,

social media side of things, if you can't find someone to do the

photos for you, for instance, or you can't afford it, like, how

do you maximize doing a good job without, you know, making

yourself maybe to detriment of your book, I Think definitely

take on what you think you can handle. Don't feel like you need

to have a Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, website, all of it.

Focus on one or two of those that you know you can do. Well

also, I mean, when it comes to photos, I mean, a lot of our

phones do take really great photos. And when, if someone's

looking at your Instagram and seeing a photo for a second or

two. I mean, sometimes those photos can be good enough to

use. So there's a lot of editing apps and a lot of all sorts of

apps you can use to edit photos on your phone. I mean, you could

do it all from your phone. So really focusing on one or two

things that you know you can do well and not trying to take it

all on, and you'll be more effective in that regard, versus

trying to take everything on and doing it all poorly. That's

great advice. Yeah,

that stuff can be overwhelming.

All right, you do we have questions. Let's move on to the

Q and A.

Okay, so we're saying Goodreads. So

when you're an author and you're rating on Goodreads, you're

asking how that may affect the way that other people see you as

an author.

All right, so what do we think is that a good idea? I don't

think it's a bad idea. I mean,

you know, I think that you have to consider Goodreads is not,

you know, it's not the New York Times, it's not,

it's new, it's sort of nouveau

reviewing. And

so someone sent me a book the other day, and they asked me if

they if I thought it had legs to be sold overseas into different

languages, and I looked at the author's website, and without

reading anything, it just did a quick assessment. And none of

her reviews are through newspapers or magazines, and

it's all Goodreads or Amazon reviews, and these don't

actually count in the eyes of editors that are looking to buy

properties for for foreign for foreign rights, but they will

sell books, and they will look at the sales numbers. So I don't

see this as a bad thing. When you look at books reviewed in

the New York Times, probably 80, maybe 90% of the reviewers are

authors. So you know, you're just you're kind of fitting into

that new niche, and I don't see it as a bad thing. Also, good

reads is basically an opinion aggregator, so you would not be

the first author to review books

or review them in a, you know, very strict manner,

I will say that a lot of people, unless they are hardcore fans of

an author, generally, don't jump on Goodreads, track down the

author and glance through everything that they've ever

read.

That's, that's, that's a level of obsession that I think I'd be

a little bit worried about, honestly. Um, so I think you

will be fine as long as you don't like harshly call anything

out in particular exactly, and you would not be the first

person to say, I really appreciate the attempt. However,

this was not for me. I was not the audience for this. They're

they probably have quite a few reviews like that. I mean, has

anybody ever seen those lists like, one star reviews? And

somebody is like, reviewing, I don't know, line Witch and the

Wardrobe. And they're like, the line wasn't funny, the wardrobe

was only there for a page. I don't understand this, like

you would be

exactly.

Honestly. I mean, if Stephen King can get a one star review

for being scary, I think you're

okay. Anyone else? Yes.

Where does genre fit in with branding? Where does genre fit

in with branding? Thoughts or needs for clarification, or it's

a really good question, and I think that genre would probably

drive the branding, and you would look and see what other

people in that area are doing. And again, we're going to go

back. A lot of it all starts with a website. So your website,

you're going to use the cover of your book as the graphic. You're

going to have pull quotes from people who are blurring your

book, and that's going to help determine how you take the

direction of your branding. I would also think, and this is

just me, I'm not a publicist, but like if you are, think about

comps. I used to do kind of acquisition stuff. When you when

you are writing in a particular genre, you have the benefit of

actually knowing who your audience is.

Think about what your audience reads like if they're reading a

certain thing. Go find the books that they read and the books

that are doing well, and see how those look and how the authors

are carrying themselves, and what they're you know, how

they're engaging with their communities, optics, that sort

of thing. Just find other people that you think are in your

circle of what you're doing, and that does have a lot to do with

genre.

I'd also say it really, in my opinion, would help you kind of

establish your target market thinking about genre. So I mean,

that's kind of where you have to start with a brand, is

establishing your target market, and then moving from there and

how you market to those people.

I have nothing to add, except that it really bouncing off what

they say. It sets the tone for what you do moving forward. So

if you jump genres, you know it's something to keep in mind

that if you say write cozy mysteries right now, but you

down the line are going to write a romance. Something to take

into consideration is changing, making sure that your website is

tonally middle of the road, kind of so that you don't or even

like creating a pen name for another genre, creating a pen

name for another genre, something to that effect, that

way you know you can market to either equally to both, if you

have A pen name or that you your website landing page is just for

you as an author, and then you could have individual pages for

your books in the various series.

Yes. So how do

generational differences

play in the brand? So how do generational differences play

into branding?

I would argue it depends on what genre you're writing,

because if you're writing ya versus if you're writing cozy

mysteries, your target audience is going to be very different,

and how you approach them is also going to be very different.

So if you're taught, you're talking about whether

what age group the romance itself is best for. Like, are we

working under the assumption that you have it in your brain,

that you know who it's for?

Brier, do you want to answer this question? Wait, come here.

Extra panelist. Bri, okay, sorry about this. I have been self

publishing for three years. I make a I make a living at it.

Primarily. I write romance and so and I work with a lot of

romance authors. I used to be an editor for them. And what I

would say for romance is it depends on what niche romance

you are, because typically the older generations will gravitate

towards the cleaner romance such as Westerns or historical,

though historical can get pretty steamy. So what I would say is

actually depends on the heat level. But then again, one of my

biggest fans is about 57 and she's like, and I write steamy,

so she sucks them up. So all depends. Oh, I did not mean to

say that

we were all 12 years old. So I would say it depends on what

subgenre of romance, and you need to dial that down, because

each subgenre of romance has their own branding, and so you

have to look at those covers. You have to see what those

groups on Facebook are doing to attract what generation of

readers.

You're getting.

Thank you.

There's also something to be said for kind of breaking the

mold,

you know, for the most part, running across all the

traditional tropes for whatever genre, subgenre that you're

working within. But if you wanted to write a contemporary

romance with a more mature protagonist, there would be an

audience for that. You doesn't always need to be millennials.

Alternately, if you wanted to write, I'm reading a bear

Shapeshifter romance right now, like there's something for

everybody. We're selling a honey badger Shapeshifter romance at

pals right now. That's very popular lid for rupaugh people.

What is it? Okay, yeah, of course you would know.

Yeah, she is the new, little more mainstream then,

but I love honey badgers first and foremost. Before you can do

any marketing or PR for your book, you need to write it so,

you know, you know it doesn't.

It is about branding. But I mean, full disclosure, I'm also

a writer, so like I get it. So say we all, so, say we all. So,

say we all. But you know for yourself, Mary's The one

exception, correct. Corinne, yeah.

Okay, so I'm the only panelist.

I'm not the host. Emily, Don't roll your eyes

at me, as you sure only

as the only so called panelist who is also a writer on this

thing. You know, when you start writing something, you have a

general idea of where something's gonna go, but you

won't know until it's polished. So I say, write the book. Figure

out where the story takes. You determine from there what your

target demographics are, and that'll dictate what your genre

and subgenre are. So if you have an idea for that mature

contemporary rom com, write the mature contemporary rom com,

there will be an audience for it. It may just be an avenue

that hasn't been tapped yet, and in which case it will explode,

and the marketing be very easy.

That's very optimistic. I have one other thing to add. I would

say, when you're marketing to multiple, multiple generations,

you may have a brand in place, but you just might have to

market in different places to reach those generations. So, I

mean, you're Yeah, so you just have to look at where your

marketing and where that generation is finding their

books. Yeah, yeah. You know, one of the things I would suggest

is, once your book is, you know, pretty much close to finished,

or you're comfortable in showing it to people, it's not just

people in your writing group, but feel comfortable with a

local bookseller or a librarian, and, you know, ask them to give

a beta read on it,

and it's really handy. Librarians are very, very to the

point about books. Yeah, they don't lie. They don't lie, no,

and they're, and they're not afraid to

not only be candid, but they're, they're very kind about it, but

in a no nonsense kind of way, generally, I will say my, my

Oma. She used to manage a bookstore for many years, and

she now volunteers at the library, but she reads a lot. If

you ever want an honest opinion, she has an honest opinion about

most books. She reads so

and you know, she's retired and reads that's pretty much what

she does. It will post her number on the website.

What could go wrong? Yeah, call Alma

Shelly. So you were

talking earlier. I think you about Mary, about, like, if you

have a limited budget, where to spend it. But you mentioned,

like, the editor of the cover and establishing a marketing

plan. Let's say you have a book that's already published, self

published, and then, like

so, I wrote a book. It came out about a year ago, a year and a

few months, nominated for the Oregon Book Award.

In what area, what Gen sorry, young adult, young adult. Okay.

But like, I have put almost zero money into marketing, and I

think the sales reflect that.

But like, I'm like, is it a good idea to spend like, 100 or

couple $100 on, like, a Goodreads giveaway or a Kirkus

review or, like, I guess I'm just.

Not sure your book is out, you're trying to figure out

whether, if an existing book that you have is worth investing

money in a marketing plan for. Is that,

I guess so, or if, I mean, I am working on another one, so maybe

planning better for that one, but not so much like focusing on

the cover or the book itself. But just like, where should I

put my energy in terms of marketing? Okay,

I would put your energy into finishing your next book, but,

but that's not the end of this book, because you can do things

for the first book when the second book is warming up that,

you know, they can get mentions and things like that. But if you

have a limited budget, I would be very cautious about

putting money into something that's already out, and it was

probably has a 2018 or 2019 early, 2019 copyright date,

2018

Yeah, that's Yeah. Unfortunately, people like

Kirkus and a lot of reviewers tend to be mostly forward

facing.

So save your money for the next book. Mary's, right?

Well, you don't necessarily have to pay, you don't necessarily

have to pay for a Kirk is gonna self publish the second book as

well. You can, you can still submit it to Kirkus even

Absolutely. The only thing about paid reviews is that they

guarantee you a review. They don't necessarily guarantee the

caliber review you can get. The same thing with Kirkus and a lot

of the other trade reviewers, if you don't necessarily pay for

them. I will say, though, that Publishers Weekly does give a

special shout out to self published books. That is a paid

thing, however, but if you want to go that route, PW does do

like inserts in their monthly magazines where they give shout

outs to self pub titles, and they also give like cover love

and things like that too, something to consider. Also be

wary, because a lot of the trade reviewers who are catering to

self published authors, they are charging a lot of money.

So it might be worthwhile to look at other reviewers, not

just trade reviewers, like community reviewers, people who

also review and read books similar to yours, so you can

kind of build a readership from them, too. The biggest thing is,

most reviewers work four to six months in advance, and they have

really good reasons why they need that amount of time. So

play with their schedule. You know, really play by the rules,

and you'll have a better chance at getting picked up for a

review in really bona fide magazines and

newspapers and blogs and radio. My first novel,

I was like, kind of on a deadline. I was like, I want it

out, and I didn't have anything before it came out. Because I

was like, Well, I don't have a

book yet, yeah, so,

but yeah, there's the first time for everything. So also future

sales or new books drive backlist sales, too. So the more

books that you write and the more books that you sell, will

boost the sales for your backlist titles, especially for

the fact that it was a Oregon Book Award finalist would help.

So, I mean, you've got, you've got things to your benefit. You

got a new book that's going to be coming out. You've got

another book that was, you know, state award nominated. Lot of

opportunity here. Did you create

a publishing name for yourself? Yeah, I would do that next time

around,

because then it's not about you, you know, you have this third

party. It's you creating your own Switzerland. It's a brand,

yeah, exactly, yeah, yeah, that thing that we're talking about,

yeah, publishing

name. Do you mean pen name? No, like you create a name for a

press

and, you know, it's like XYZ press or

teddy bear press, or, you know, whatever you want to and you

it's mythical, but it makes you become more bona fide in the

in the eyes of a reviewer or a bookseller, or everything's

mythical. Yeah, everything's made up. That's right, we deal

in fiction. I'm actually a co founder of a co founder of

oppressed but we actually accept submissions and pay people

just flash fiction. It's not like not publishing books yet.

Yet?

Yes,

I'm currently writing a book. I have a cover writing.

I mostly promote on Tumblr. I made a Twitter, but I'm very bad

at

you might not want to even

a lot happening. I have a full time job, and I'm moving, and I

have a lot going on. So how would you recommend balancing

branding and promoting yourself with writing and also branding

trying to also be do literally everything all the time. Yeah,

so we're asking how to balance one's life between a day job,

writing the actual work and marketing the work.

It's tough,

but, but if you have, like, a timeline and a plan in place, I

mean, really sitting down and taking some time to, you know,

put something into place on how you want things to roll out, I

think gives you a solid idea of what you should be doing day to

day,

and from there, it kind of, I think, helps clarify how to use

your time from day to day, and also, you're probably more

effective in your time, because you're like, I have one hour to

get this done, so it's got to be done in this hour, which is kind

of a nice part of being so busy, is you are able to get things

done more quickly and

and, yeah, in a better way, but yeah, I Think really putting a

plan in place with a timeline and being

and sticking to that and really choosing the things you want to

focus on. So like I said before, don't try to do everything.

Choose those things that you think are really going to have

the most effect for you. Would you suggest giving yourself more

time than you think you need.

Well, always, yeah, something I think is going to take me 30

minutes. I sit there for four hours because I'm like, Oh, I

don't have the inspiration for this. So, yeah, yeah, you always

probably need more time than you think that's a good point. And

you have to figure out, Is this a race for you, or is this a

process that you're going to enjoy

and you have to leave time to kind of recharge and refresh so

that you can bring a fresh perspective to the page and give

yourself breaks, yester breaks, tea is great. I would also

consider using software or applications that can help you

schedule things ahead. So like Hootsuite, if you don't already

use that is great they have a free account. Hootsuite, H, O,

O, T, S, U, I, T, E, like an owl in a hotel. Yes, exactly,

exactly, only far more wholesome and far more beneficial.

So HootSuite as a free account holder, you can have up to, I

believe, three different social media platforms on there that

you can then input information schedule for whenever you want

it to go out, and it'll just disseminate automatically. Of

course, Facebook has scheduling options as well for your posts,

particularly if you have a page, if you don't already have one.

Having an author page on Facebook is a smart thing to

have.

Something to consider also is that if you are active on

Instagram, Hootsuite does not Instagram does not allow, in its

terms and conditions for you to schedule something and then

it'll push it out you. There are apps that you can use. You can

use Hootsuite, but you have to actively push the button to make

it do the thing. Does it integrate with Tumblr? Do you

know?

Yes, Tumblr is tricky, actually, so maybe we'll talk about that

more detailed. Tumblr is

a little tricky as far

as far as like publishing goes, we'll find some links and put

them on the website. So, you know, software management like

that can really help save you time, help you use your time

more effectively, and also ensure that you have everything

lined up. So if you make a plan and you know what you want to

say, you can go ahead and write it all down and plan it out and

it'll just be done for the week. So you can take an afternoon on

Sunday and just knock it out.

I think it's also important to have a day where you are not

doing all of these things and for yourself. So I mean setting

time aside, even if it's an afternoon like Sunday, yeah,

just where you're not doing something because you will wear

yourself out. So burnout is real, yeah, yep, it's real. Did

we see another question over here with Tumblr, you can queue

up post I've got three days. Oh, there you go. Oh, you do it

within the program. You queue it up on Tumblr, like Facebook.

Yeah, perfect, yeah. So if you spend an hour or two a week and

plan everything out, then it does make it easier.

I'm working with an author right now who she got an amazing offer

from a very, very big deal personality who's a friend of

her family too. He said, you know, send me.

Some tweets, and I'll put my social media people on it. He

has 2 million followers. That's nice. And so

we scrambled around, and we found the best person we could

possibly find to write five tweets for us, because none of

us, like the author, doesn't tweet, and I do a little bit of

tweeting, but I

don't consider myself a professional at social media.

And when the publisher said, you know, we should hire someone to

do this, I said, Great, I'll help manage that person and get

the, you know, tweets to the

benefactor, and they've been lovely to work with. I mean,

really quite wonderful. And so the first tweet went out today.

We're waiting to see how it works. Yeah. So all to say, ask

for help. You know, there might be someone in your circle of

friends or who work in social media or who can help you come

up with some really inventive things, and then it's fun and

it's social and or make recommendations. Or make

recommendations, yeah,

the the oldest form of social media

is our mouth. Word of mouth. It's huge. It's huge. Keep

talking about what you're doing, and people will pick up on it,

and they'll say, Oh, I met this woman the other night who's

writing a book, and tell your Lyft driver,

yeah, actually, they're pretty much paid to be chatty.

There's also the argument to be made when you are planning

everything out on your social media to kind of

schedule in a bit of a buffer time for yourself, so that if

something does come up on, say, Tumblr or Twitter or Facebook

that relates very closely to your brand or your book, that

you can pivot really quickly and just respond to it that way.

You're jumping onto the social train, so to speak, and bringing

your books along with you. So just

not scheduling yourself to within an inch of your life. So

just provide yourself a little bit of a buffer so that if

something does come along, you can be like, Yes, I can do that

too,

and you're not burned out. Do we have any more questions? Yes,

okay, I've

heard authors doing trailers like on YouTube.

I guess Courtney, you're the

social media expert. Can you give any advice or thoughts on

that?

So, thoughts on book trailers on YouTube? I don't know that I've

seen these on YouTube. So

authors ask me if they think a book trailer is worth it, and

book trailers can be made in so many different ways. You can

make a book trailer now with your iPhone

and and imagination and

patience, I it has to be under no more than two minutes.

It has you have to have a destination. Why are you doing

this? And who is your market? So when an author tells me they're

going to make a book trailer, I give them those guidelines, and

then I say, send it to me when you're ready. And there are a

couple of

publishing industry zines that you can send them to, and they

can, they'll put they might post them if they like it for free.

And so it might get 24 hours of potential book industry people

looking at it.

You can ask an independent bookstore if they will put it up

on their website to help promote your book,

you can say to a bookseller, you know, if you're if you've set up

an event, you can say, you can use My book trailer as a promo

for my event.

There you go.

Just make sure you have an idea of how you're going to put this

out into the world, and not just throwing it up on YouTube where

there are millions of Yeah, make sure you have a use for it.

Don't put all that time in and not have use. I think that is

also make sure that it's something that actually occurs

in your genre. So if you are writing a genre and you like,

say, Google book trailers for this comp title, and nothing

comes up, it's probably because there's really no need for it,

and because there's no need for it, it won't actually come up if

somebody searches for something. So book trailers in ya are kind

of ubiquitous. Book trailers in children's in general are kind

of ubiquitous. Romance. Yes, there's some really quirky and

cute stuff that that they do, but like westerns, that's not

really the demographic suspense, of course.

Trailers, thrillers, of course, trailers, you just kind of got

to be aware of your audience, and if a trailer is something

that would appeal to them, if it essentially is going to do

double duty, if it's going to appeal to them, if it's going to

pique their interest, then yes, if it's not something that comes

up a lot in that genre, I would probably say your time, your

energy, and potentially, your money, might be spent in a

different avenue.

Honestly, the cutest trailer I think I ever saw. I was working

with picture books, and this woman had written essentially

like

a of Old MacDonald type of book, only it was like the donkey let

all the animals out of the barn, and so the farmer had gone to

town and the animals got loose. So what she did was that she had

a bunch of, like, little plushies, essentially have a

conversation about the book that's adorable. It was stinking

cute. It was stupid cute. And it actually got not an excessive,

crazy amount of views, but it got enough views and enough

attention just from her sharing it and from other people sharing

it. And she had it at events and things like that, and her family

and her friends shared it too, and it got some good some nice

traction. But you know, something cute like that that's

appropriate to the genre really makes the biggest difference. So

the the book I was talking about earlier that there's these two

women co wrote, they made their own book trailer, and it was

very clever.

And one of them is, well, both of them are very facile in

foreign languages. So I had them translated into German, French,

Italian and Spanish. And so when I was at the Frankfurt Book Fair

trying to sell foreign rights, I showed people the, you know, if

I was meeting with the Spanish agent, she got the Spanish

version and and the Italian agent adored it, and he said he

was gonna show it to the editors, you know, that he was

really sexy idea. Yeah, my marketing and PR brain is just

like bait. Yeah, right, exactly. It's been, it was fun.

That's awesome. And I, you know, I think they took an afternoon

for them to make it, and granted, one of them's husband

composed some music for it, and and they both did the

translation in the various languages that they were

proficient in. So, but you're also saying, don't, like, throw

a whole bunch of money at making a movie. No, not necessarily.

You can absolutely, like Mary and Courtney said, you can

absolutely do it on your phone. You can do it in the comfort of

your own home. It just kind of depends on the needs of the

video, what it's going to do, who it's going to reach, also,

like what your scope of planning for it is if you if it's

something that you want to invest in and you want to put

some money into, then it might be worth looking into a more

professional to help you out. But it's not strictly necessary.

I mean, the video I was talking about, she literally did it with

a like, I don't even know. She did it with a cell phone. I

think she did with a handheld camera

in an afternoon on her couch with like a book and two

plushies having a conversation. And the conver the people having

the conversation were her grandkids. No Stop it.

So it was just that, like, really young, kind of squeaky

voice, one for like a rabbit and one for like a donkey. It was,

it was like, is it ridiculously cute? So you do not have to put

a high production value in it, unless you absolutely want to.

But again, you got to consider, where is your money better

spent? Enough of this adorable filth,

and we one more. So I've noticed a lot of offers now on YouTube

and

using that as part of their brand. And I was wondering what

about that, because I've been considering starting YouTube.

All right, so what do we think? What do we think of using

YouTube as part of your brand, building as an author?

I have nothing to say about it. I have no idea whatsoever. I

mean, YouTube can be a great tool for for any brand, it's

just,

it's, again, you have to choose what avenue you want to go down

and make sure you're putting the most effort you can into it and

not half assing it. Otherwise it's not going to bring anything

for you. So, yeah, I mean, if that's something that you think

is going to work for you and you'll have an audience, then

yeah, it's worth, worth exploring and and working on.

Also, YouTube, like every other social media platform, is rather

saturated, so you got to consider, what are you bringing

to the table that's different? What are you bringing to the

table that's going to to appeal to your potential readership?

What are you going to do that is going to stand out. Um, yes, in

the back, Lori, you are going to also the youngest generation is

currently on to tick

tock, yes. So we're saying we've moved on from YouTube to tick

tock. What

social media platform you're going on to?

At that point,

and actually as because I my day job, I work with graphic novels

and comic books,

so I primarily work with a younger audience and a male

dominated audience,

but I have actually been reached out to by people on Tiktok

saying we really love this book. Is there any chance that I can

get a review copy and I will do a sketch of the characters based

on the cover? I'm like, Cool. That's a really cute, really

cool idea. Something like that stands out, especially on

Tiktok.

I've seen videos like that on YouTube, so just kind of seeing

what's already available and maybe giving it a spin, making

it a little bit different, or looking to different social

media avenues like tick tock, or what else is up and coming. I

don't even know. I think I'm too old for that, but that's the you

never know. Yeah,

yeah, well, you should get on it, because they have cats. I do

like cats really suckered in on there. It's, yeah, you can get

real suckered in on there. It's unfortunate. Oh, much time No,

yeah, it's better. Any of these, they have cats. There are a lot

of cats that is not videos, as many times come on cat videos,

where did the, where did the

that was tick tock. I love that video. Okay,

Mr. Sandman with the kitty cats. All right,

I will put that link. Mr. Sandman with kitty cats from

tick tock will be on the website. I am promising this

right now,

but there's so many, all these people tried to do it with their

own cats, and it was a disaster. You did it right?

Oh, you just like, Were you just never mind this cut.

Oh, you just sent it to me. Okay? Laurie

bone into this whole branding conversation. The best sales for

the last year was the Scottish grandmother, yep, reading walkie

talkie, yep. Okay, so these things that take your entire

conversation

to this

whole other level, if you have somebody with an accent that can

read your book, although, I will say a lot of publishers frown

upon having people read your book in its entirety, because it

could be copyright infringement.

She was giggling creative. Be creative with your marketing.

Read the book. She was laughing too hard take risks. Yes,

however, but not bad ones. I know a number of there are a

number of publishers who specifically have people troll

through the internet making sure that nobody is doing copyright

infringement, particularly on YouTube, because then they will

insist that the video gets taken down. And YouTube always does

it, and YouTube always does it. This is really annoying for

teachers and librarians. However,

it if you read like the first couple of pages, that's fine. If

you read the book in its entirety, there is the argument.

If I can sit here and watch this video, I will not. No one's

gonna buy this book.

I don't know, we all got brains right

ourselves.

We will take,

if you can bring me a Scott and read me the phone book, I will

buy that All right. Well, we're gonna take this conversation off

the podcast, because

I know where it's going.

I think that should be a wrap up there. Does anybody have any

pressing questions that they want answered? Left,

all right, well, I would ask you please, since everything is done

through word of mouth, I am going to pass around a piece of

paper, and if you could put your email address on it

and be part of the hybrid pub Scout community, it would be

awesome to have authors. We want more authors there contributing

to the conversation, getting editors, authors, agents,

publishers, everyone who booksellers, everyone who works

in publishing in books together to discuss the things that are

important to us. That's what hybrid pub scout is trying to

do. Laurie, with Jan's, is creating community in an active

like physical space, rather than online, although she does great

Instagram videos. So that's what we're doing here. We're creating

community. We're giving things to each other, that is the

general idea. So you can find us at hybrid pub Scout, on Twitter,

at hybrid pub Scout pod on Instagram, and then on Facebook,

hybrid pub scout. And I'll be sending you newsletters with all

the links, but only like every two weeks. I don't spam

anybody here. Have some.

Thing to close with, thanks for having us. Thanks for being

absolutely my podcast. This is Courtney's first podcast,

yay.

Best of luck in all of your publishing endeavors. Yes, we

know it's a hard road you will get there. Yeah. And thanks for

coming tonight, and thanks for giving a rip about books. You.

You.