Do You Make These Mistakes While Marketing Your Book?

EPISODE 6 of The Author's Guide to Simple Marketing

Hi friend, and welcome back to episode 6 of The Author’s Guide to Simple Marketing!

You know what the annoying thing about marketing is?

It’s that you can be working really hard with your marketing…

Posting consistently
Sharing updates
Talking about your book
Trying to show up even when you would rather be writing, reading, or staring dramatically out of a window

And still, something about it just doesn’t work.

It’s not because you’re bad at marketing. It’s not because your book isn’t interesting. It’s not because you have to become a whole new person online.

No, it’s the tiny mistakes that weaken the relationship between you and your reader.

I’ve seen the same mistakes come up over and over. And frustratingly enough, they all have a simple fix once you know what to look for.

So in this episode, we’re going through the 6 most common marketing mistakes I see writers make, and more importantly, what to do instead. Because knowing the mistake is only half of it. I want you to be able to actually fix it!

Okay, let’s jump right in!

Building relationships is the core of marketing

The time when marketing was just a one-way conversation for businesses to gain attention is over. And thankfully so, because building a real relationship is both more authentic and more meaningful.

What we need to understand is that gaining followers doesn’t mean building a community. That having followers doesn’t mean we’ll get likes and comments. And it doesn’t mean we’ll sell books.

Because a following is not anything of value, if all it is is just… well, followers. They can see our posts and forget about us in an instant.

What we want to build is a community.

You’ve probably heard that term hundreds of times, but without substance, so it probably doesn’t mean a lot. So let me say it in other words:

A group of people who are like-minded, and we have built a relationship with.

That makes more sense, right?

Because that is the whole premise of marketing. Growing a tribe of people we like to hang out with, who remember us, who care about our writing journey, and are excited about our books.

This is the purpose we lead everything back to when we pick and choose the strategies that make up our marketing effort.

Which leads us to the mistakes, because you’ll notice they’re all things that in one way or another break the chain of building that deep relationship with your followers that is so crucial if it’s supposed to grow into a community.

Mistake #1: Not replying to every comment

We’re starting off with something that feels easy but has a huge impact–replying to comments. This is the first point of building a relationship with your followers. You post something -> they answer with a comment -> you reply = one stone placed on the road of your relationship.

What happens when we don’t reply is that the commentator feels rejected. They made an effort, they gave us a piece of their energy, their time, and got nothing back. I don’t need to tell you that’s bad for building relationships.

The rule is to always reply to every comment!

Why would anybody continue engaging, replying, and talking to us if we don’t talk back? Nobody is interested in listening to us send out a message like a radio; they want conversations. They want their voice heard, and not in two days. Today.

Simply liking it does not count. If the conversation is over? If you’ve had a rude reply? If the comment consists of only one emoji? Yes, go ahead and give it a like. Otherwise, reply.

Steps of action:

• Set a rule to always reply to every comment you get

• Depending on how many comments you get, take 5-15 minutes once or twice a day to reply

Side note! If you get a lot of comments, replying to every one can become an enormous task. We should still try our best, but sometimes comments will slip through, and that’s ok. Prioritize the genuine ones, those with questions and conversation starters.