085: Marketing Your Book Should Be Fun with Janine Coombes

What if marketing your book didn't have to feel like a chore? Janine Coombes is a marketing strategist who helps coach-shaped people position their services as obvious must-haves for their ideal clients. She's also the author of "The Easy Yes," a micro book packed with practical wisdom on turning maybes into heartfelt yeses. In this episode, Janine shares the backstory of how a dense workshop became a book, what her live book launch felt like (spoiler: it reminded her of her wedding day), and the Amazon shenanigans that nearly derailed her plans for getting copies into readers' hands.

Janine is also known for bringing humor into everything she does, and her book marketing was no exception. From a now-classic spoof video where she kept "casually" showing off her book on a mock Zoom call to carrying copies in her bag wherever she goes, Janine proves that when you make marketing fun, you actually do more of it. She also opens up about what's next, including a potential second book tackling the Friend Zone from her Easy Yes model. Whether you're about to launch your first book or looking for fresh energy around one that's already out in the world, this conversation will leave you with a smile and a whole new perspective on getting your book noticed.

• Janine Coombes: linkedin.com/in/janinecoombes

• Gillian Whitney: linkedin.com/in/gillianwhitney
• For more information checkout EasyPeasyBooks.com

Transcript

And welcome back, everybody, to another edition of the Easy Peasy Books podcast. And I have a friend from across the pond today who I feel like I've known her forever. And we're actually just meeting for the first time face to face on this podcast appearance. And it just goes to show you the testimonial of video because video actually makes you feel like you've known somebody for years, even though you're just kind of swimming in similar ponds. So, Janine, can you please introduce yourself, let people know who you are and what you do, and then we'll get stuck in.

Yeah. Thank you for having me on. So if you have never met me before, I'm Janine Coombs and I help coaches and consultants position their services so they're obvious must haves to your ideal clients. So I'm talking messaging, positioning, pricing, all of that good stuff. And I'm an author and a speaker.

I love that. I love that. And it's always good. I always love people that like, whip out their book, they have it ready. Because that's the whole point.

That's the whole point. And I do have the Kindle copy here available. And I love it. And I love it, and I love the colors and I love the title. And I have to say I'm partial to the word easy, as in easy peasy, because everything I do is easy peasy.

And it's the name of the podcast. So why don't we start with that? Easy. So tell us the backstory of your book. What?

First of all, tell us what it's about and then let's talk about how that book baby got born. Yeah. Well, I don't know if this is a typical book story, but I did a workshop webinar a couple of years ago based on something, a little resource I put together for a client. And I thought, oh, this might be really useful to share. And it, it just is a model I made up myself which combine two buyer decision making journeys.

Because when somebody's working out whether they want to work with you or not, that process of getting to know like and trust you doesn't necessarily coincide with them being ready to buy or ready to take action on whatever change that they want in their life, business, health, whatever you're helping them with. Those two journeys don't happen simultaneously. So you might get in this situation where somebody thinks you're amazing, they think they're amazing, and they're making all the right noises and they're saying, oh, I love your content. I always watch your videos and I've read your book and all this, but they never buy from you. And it might be that they're just not aware of the problem or any desire to change in their life or again, what you help them with.

Alternatively, they could be in the market for something that you do, but they don't know you well enough yet. They don't trust you well enough yet. Maybe they're not even aware that you exist yet. Like they are not, they cannot buy from you if they're not aware that you exist, obviously. So when those two things combine, when they're ready to buy and they know who you are and they trust you and you get in front of them with the right messaging, with the right positioning of offer, that becomes an easy yes.

And it sounds really obvious, but when I looked out for this model, this, this combination of the byer decision making journeys, I hadn't seen those two things combined. So I thought, well, I'll share this in a, in a workshop. And I mean I'm a, I'm a sucker for putting too much information. Like this workshop was the most dense thing you have ever come across. And I thought maybe this is too much information for one workshop.

Maybe I'll put it in a book and be able to expand on the themes and put my ip. It appeared that this was a new thing that I'd stumbled on or you know, a helpful thing. And I wanted to get it down into a book as quickly as possible. So it's, it's small but beautifully formed. And that is the reason I wrote the book, to get it in there and share it with as many people as possible.

I love that. I love that. And I, I always feel that that's like all of a sudden it does just dawn on you. It's like, I have, I wonder if this would be a book and then you just put it in. And then I think you did such a clear job of defining your ideal reader and speaking to that ideal reader.

And I think to your credit, I think marketers really know how to nail that because if you're not speaking to that one specific person and you're like, oh, my book's for everybody, then my book's for nobody. So can you sort of say who your book is for? Who is your book for? Yeah, so I love working with coach shaped people. So that is who the book is for.

It's for coaches and people who sell highly relational services. I love working with coaches because they tend to be very self aware and there's a specific combination of things to Think about when you're selling coaching services that is different than if you're selling web design services, VA services, design services, copywriting services. Like it feels like they should be similar but they're not in certain ways. And I like, I like the specific problems that coaches present. I love working with them on that.

So it was for coach like people because that's my ideal client and it is not written for total newbies. I'd be interested to know if, if a completely new coach read it, what they would think because it's not aimed at them. I think it's assuming a bit of knowledge about content marketing and marketing itself. So yeah, so I have, I have been quite specific about who, who the book is for. All of the examples are coaches.

Arguably the model could be used for anyone selling high ticket services, but it's, I'm using coaching language throughout. I love that and I, I just have to say, where did you come up the phrase coach shaped person? Because that's just that, that was just like, that is so unique. I love it. So how did that come up?

I think it's because there are quite a few people helping coaches with marketing type stuff and the people serving pure coaches that, that seems quite well served and it seems to be the profile of person who's a coach themselves. They've had to build up a coaching business themselves and they've had to work out how to market their business and work out how to run their business, make sales, all of that stuff. So it felt like that niche is well served and sometimes those people only work with accredited coaches who have been accredited by certain types of organizations, that kind of thing. And I'm a little bit more loosey goosey than that. I, you know, if you've been working in house as a coach for 20 years but you don't have an accreditation, I will work with you.

Right. I'm not precious about the word coach. I think there's a lot of coaches who've paid good money and spent a lot of time and energy getting accredited and more power to them. But for better or for worse, the coaching industry is not regulated. So anyone can call themselves a coach, which I know is really hurtful to a lot of coaches because there are cowboys out there.

But if you want to call yourself a coach because you use a coaching approach and you mix that with consultancy and mentoring, that is what I mean by a coach shaped person. And some of my clients are accredited up to the idols, but they also offer consultancy or they mix in all these other modalities that's to the point where you can't really call it coaching anymore. So that's what I mean by coach, shape, person. I love that. That's, that's so broad and yet so specific.

Specific all at the same time. So that's really great. So take us back to when, you know, you put together the workshop. So much content, you said, okay, I'm going to turn it into a book. What was your process?

Did you, you know, was it like, okay, structured, Was it just bang it out or what was your process? My process was to hire a.

So, you know, I love, again, why I love working with coaches is because partly I love being coached. I can feel the power in it. I think coaches are changing the world and if in doubt, I hire a coach. So I had followed this woman, Vicky Quinn Fraser, for a while and she was talking about micro books. And I thought, yes, that's the kind of book I can write. A very, very thin book.

And that's going to be an easy read and there's no waffle and we get straight to the point. So I signed up to her program and got her to lead me through it so that I didn't have to second guess or I just knew if I did it on my own, I'd make loads of mistakes and it would take 10 times as long and I probably wouldn't get to the end. So I'm, I'm a very, I'm a very good starter. I'm not a very good finisher. So I think that decision was made from a place of awareness as well.

Self awareness. No, that's, that's a good way to go. And I think sometimes, to be honest with you, the micro books, they're easy, but at the same time you have to make a decision of scope creep. And you want to make sure that it's like, oh, maybe I'll do this. And you start thinking and you're just like, no, it's got to solve one problem and you know, just move along, make another book.

You know, if you have too many ideas, make another book. So there's a lot of discipline there. But at the same time I think it's actually easier to make those micro books and it's just they serve one person, they serve one problem and get them out in the world. So they're, you know, doing their thing. So I think that's really good.

So are you using your book now that it's out? Because you've been out what, a year now? Just about a year. Yeah. Yeah.

Good. Memory. Yep. Yep. So are you using this, like, are you finding this is a great marketing asset where if you perhaps have some clients, like, I know right now you're in the midst of doing some workshops right now, and if you have somebody who's like kind of on the fence, do you use this and say, go, go read this book.

And then that's your homework come back to me. Like, how are you using this as a marketing asset since you're a marketer? Yeah, I mean, I have actually said that to some people I've met, met them, and they've said stuff that makes it sound like maybe they would, might want to work with me. And I, I have given them the book and I said, read the book, see what you think, especially focus on this section. You know, whatever's relevant to them.

And it has been a useful asset from that point of view. I, Whenever I, in fact, wherever I go, I will have a few copies of my book in my bag, which again is useful that it's quite a small book because I can just have it in any bag that I'm carrying. Any conferences I go to, just anywhere, I always have a copy of my book that I can give away. I spoke at an event in January and the organizer, a few, a few of the speakers were authors. So she put a little section of tables where in the breaks we can sell our books and sign copies of the books, which was brilliant.

So I got to sell a bunch of books at that, which was a lovely way to sort of take people from having seen me talk to having something to take home and engage with. Had a sales call this very morning from somebody who, I've never, never heard of the woman before, and she was like, I've just read your book and I knew I needed speak to you. So, yes, it's, I think because I've self published, I, I must admit I haven't made the most, I haven't sold it the most I possibly could do. So I think it's taken longer for me to feel the traction than maybe other people who've got a whole marketing machine that they've, they focused on selling the book. But it's, it's, it's drip, drip, drip from lots of different avenues and I think it sort of builds up over time as well.

Sometimes I felt the, the energy of after I've just launched was something and it gave people a reason to talk about me. People were spontaneously taking photos of themselves with the book and posting them on LinkedIn. Like, you just don't get that from a service, do you? Certainly not. You know, this was spontaneous.

I didn't ask people to do it. And they were like, oh, look, I've just got this book. And they'd be taking photos with it. So there was an initial burst, and then it died off for a bit. And now I feel like it's.

It's getting out there and I'm starting to feel the. The rivers flowing back. I love that. And, you know, I've always felt that books kind of have a life of their own. They take a while to get their legs, you know, because you do have the initial launch and everybody's making a fuss of it, and then it feels like a month later, everybody forgot you even wrote the book.
You're just, like, reminding them over and over again, but. And the same toke. And it's like it slowly does its thing. It gets out in the world, and you're on this show or that show, and it kind of comes up in conversation, and it. You feel like. It's like you said, you can carry it around in your bag. It's almost like, to me, it's almost like a business card on stereos. That's what I think of some of my books. Because if you have the right book for the right person at the right moment, it can, like, just magically unlock so many, you know, different doors for people. So I think having books are just brilliant.

I. I'm addicted to them. I can't stop making them. I just love them. So. So let's go back to your book launch, because it's always interesting in that that's where everybody.

Well, not everybody, but a lot of authors trip up. They. They love writing their book. They go through all the growing pains of, you know, bringing that book baby into the world. And it's like, oh, self publishing, and, you know, all the journeys that go with it and Amazon and, you know, this, that, and everything else.

So then it comes time for book launch, and it's just kind of like, you know, that's where people get the pit in their stomach. And it's like, marketing is hard. I, you know, I just. I want to hire somebody else to market my book, but we have to do it ourselves. You know, sales and marketing is.

Is the thing that authors have to take on. Now you have a penchant for making marketing very, very fun. And before we went live today on the podcast, I was talking about how Jan got to know you through your videos. When I first came out on LinkedIn, like, I don't know, 2018, 20, 19. Somewhere around there.

Somewhere. Prior to Covid. Prior to Covid. It's all blur now. And I remember seeing just so many of your.

Your marketing videos, and they were fun. And I just said, I want to be like her when I grow up, because I wasn't even doing video back then. I was just, like, you know, sitting, being the introvert and the. The wallflower introvert, going, maybe one day. But anyways, I really loved how you did your marketing.

You did a lot of unique things. I want to start with your marketing video, because to me, that's an absolute classic. I talked about it in a master class. I did recently have how you did this mock Zoom call where you were. You were just kind of.

Are you noticing my book? So can you tell us about that video and how you even came up with that? Was that just natural, or did you, like, come to you in the middle of the night and said, I'll make a video, so can you tell us about that story? Oh, gosh, I wish I could remember. I mean, I think the key to anything humorous is to just go for it.

And don't worry about what people think. Like, it's really hard not to worry about what people will think if it's the first time you've done something like that. But that is. That is the key to any of my funny things. If I think it's funny, I just don't worry about what.

What other people think. Like, if it's not their sense of humor, there's some people that will still see my videos and think, oh, my gosh, this is not a serious person, and I want nothing to do with her, and I just don't care. I don't care. And the video, I. I think I just had caught myself, like, any call I was having on Zoom, whether it was a sales call or a chat with a friend or a networking call, I'd be like, oh, yeah, I have written a book. How did you know?

And I. I caught myself just constantly going, oh, yes, look, isn't it lovely? And just wanting to talk to everyone about it. So I thought I'd do a spoof. I've got stacks of books. And I'm like, yeah.

Oh, yeah. Gosh, yeah. It just came to me because it felt true. So a lot of funny things are true, aren't they? Oh, they are. They are. And I think that's really what humor is. Is. It's just. It's exaggerating reality.

And I know, like, one of favorite comedians is Jerry Seinfeld. I'VE always loved Jerry Seinfeld, and he's just talking about stuff that's real. And you're just like, well, yeah, when you come to think of it, that is hysterical. And you laugh. And I know I have been on zoom calls with people where literally they weren't trying to be funny, but it's like they've got the book in the background.

They've got, like, the book is like a virtual background, and it's like, it might as well have arrows at it. You know, it's like, I. I feel like, you know, there should be scan here. Buy it now. There should be running out of books. You know, you just see two more copies left.
Like, it's like the Home Shopping Channel, and you're just like. It's like a little bit bizarre, but it. It does make you laugh. And the fun thing is, is that when you have fun with marketing, it makes people smile. And like, I recently.

I recently launched a book two weeks ago or something like that, and I decided I'd use AI and I made, like, little docs and videos, and I just, you know, I just was having fun because I have fun making AI videos. Much more fun than if I just sit and record myself. So. And I've done that before, but for this one, I thought, I'm gonna do something different. So I was putting all these prompts into SORA and I was making these docs and videos, and people were loving them, and they were making them smile.

And at the end of the day, did it help sell more books? I don't know. But I had so much fun. It took the ick out of, hey, I've launched my sixth book. People are kind of getting tired of hearing me launching my books, but it made it fun.

And I think that's the important thing, is just make it fun. And if nobody else has fun with it, if you do, you won. Yeah, right? Yeah. If you.

If you think it's fun, you'll do more of it, won't you? And some of it, partly, it's. It is volume. If you create a hundred fun videos, then 10 will be not funny. But it doesn't matter because you've got 90 funny ones.

Yeah, I remember one I did, and it was really bad, and I thought it was funny, and I put it out there, and nobody thought. I got really bad reach. Nobody engaged with it. And my husband was like, that is really embarrassing. That's bad.

I was like, oh, well, I won't reshare that one. Then you just go with that. You Got that? So, okay, so that was your fun part of your, of your book launch, but you did some serious stuff and you did serious stuff that I've never done. So I'm going to just ask you about.
You did a live book launch. How did that go for you? Like, like I've never done that. I've only done things virtually to go and do something live. Well, first of all, I'm traveling, so I'm never anywhere where I could, you know, plan because I don't know enough people wherever I am.

So you did a live book launch. So can you, can you kind of walk us through that? Yeah.
Why did I do it? I think it was because I think it is, is the curse of the marketer. You're like, oh, what else could I do? What else could I do? I really need to do a book launch.

So it wasn't the biggest book launch in the world because I, I did it local to me, what I didn't want to do. Like, I'm, I'm in the sticks, I live in a village, so there's not a huge, it's not very accessible to a lot of people. And I, but I didn't want to do it in London because it just felt like it would be onerous and harder to enjoy. Harder to enjoy. So I did something quite small, local, a reason to get people together, a reason to have a videographer come along and film people buying my book and me signing my book and, you know, reason to have a buzz around an event that I was turning up live to.

And it was so lovely. Like, I don't know whether I imagined it being as enjoyable as it was because when all the people turned up, it felt like a wedding. It felt like my wedding. Because when I remember when I turned up to my wedding, it's like, oh my God, I know you, I know you, I know you. And they're like, yeah, because you invited us and it's your event.

And it was exactly the same thing. So it was really enjoyable, but at the same time nerve wracking and exhausting, but I'm glad I did it. And I think those are, I think those are accentuating the celebration we feel when we become a marketer. Sorry, not when we become an author. Because to me, it's like I likened it to like when I became mother for the first time, where all of a sudden it was like one day I was pregnant and I was just like this human being going through life, you know, and then I was pregnant and then the next day I Became a mother.

And I went, I have changed as a person. Like my whole identity had changed because now this little human in my hands was going to be running my life for the next 20 years and I would have to take a backseat. This little person's gonna have to come first. But I knew that no matter what, all of a sudden I wasn't the same person I was the day before. And I think the same happens when you become an author because we, you know, we grow up reading books, most of us.

If you're like me, loving books and then one day when you kind of like part of the club, you know, it, it is an amazing thing. So I love that you had the in person event because I think you're right, it's like a milestone in your life. So yeah, having people share that with you, that's like a memory you'll lock in forever. So love that. I love that.

It was lovely. Yeah. So did you have any. I remember seeing a post where you had some Amazon shenanigans prior to your book launch. Was that just getting author copies or what?

What, what sort of shenanigans did Janine have? Well, maybe this is a cautionary tale people can learn from. I had all these shoulds, I had all these. Oh, well, obviously I had it in my head that the book launch should be the same day as when it was available to buy. I don't know what I was thinking.

So I'd gone to an event and I think I was meant to have. It was a conference and the organizer said, oh, I could share, I could bring some copies of my book. And I hadn't got it ready in time. It wasn't ready in time. And I had this as a deadline and I was stressing out so hard trying to hit this deadline of having books for that conference and I missed it and I was really kicking myself.

And then I didn't have. I felt like I wasn't going to get enough books ready. I wasn't get going to be able to get my hands on the author copies for my live launch event, which would have been a complete disaster because no photos, no video, video with stacks of books in it. And I ended up. I had a client at the time who was a book coach, a writing coach, and she had some contacts for a print on demand publisher, not publisher, printer nearby.

So I went through them to get a bunch of books printed up because Amazon couldn't get it through to me quickly enough. Wow, just what a circus. And all because of the shoulds. I put on myself. Like I realized now nobody else does that.

Everybody else gets it published, gets it available for sale, make sure it's okay, orders a bunch and then they work out what events they're going to take it to. Like I was trying to, I don't know, trying to do it all at once and it did not work very well. You're not alone. You're not alone. I know so many people that fall into that trap of they feel like it's all got to be like tada.

You know, like it, it's de, it's like going on Broadway or something. Like it's got to be first night, nobody's seen it. And you know, and, and that's, that's a huge stress for people, especially when they say, well, and it has to be this date and they don't realize that it's like, well you can have that date in your head but that's not necessarily going to work for Amazon. And, and people have no idea how long those darn author copies take to show up. And you're just like, wasn't it two days?

And it's like, no, not author copies. They can be sometimes weeks. And no, that's, that's a major stressor. But I think people, that's one of the realities of the publishing, the self publishing world is it's going to take a lot longer than you think. And also too, it can't always be that ta da.

Everything on the same day. It just, it's so much stress. So much stress. Yeah, I remember one of the, one of the shenanigans with the Amazon was that in their guidelines they said the book has to be a certain width to fit your name and title on the spine. Right.

Mine was fine. It was fitting in with the parameters and I really wanted the name and the book on the, the information on the spine because it looks better and it looks like a proper book then. And I tried and tried and then I googled it and sure enough somebody said, oh, they say that these are the parameters but actually they're like 10 pages smaller than that. So yeah, that'll be why. And it just was one of these wormholes I'd fallen into.
And so I do now for all of my books that I carry around with me and I give away for free and I sell bundles of. I've done it through my printer because my printer has no problem putting the information on the spine.

I love that, I love that, I love that. That's great. That's a, that's a good thing to know, but it's like, and it's interesting because it's also too like the, the, the, the paper. If the paper is thicker, that can make the spine thicker, you know, and Amazon uses thinner paper, but if you use color, it could be the thicker paper. And then there's Ingram Spark and yada, yada, yada.

And there's just so many things and you're just like, so, so that's cool. So you still have the printer that you get other copies made with, ones with spines. Yeah, yeah. So if you see me out and about and it's, it's better quality, it's better quality through the printer. I have to say I think the color's slightly more vibrant.

You got, you got to be on it. Yep, yep. Well, and I, I think that, you know, in all honesty, I think Amazon is pro trying to go from the mass, you know, out to the masses. So they're, they're printing everything at sort of the cheapest possible quality. Because I know I've actually tried Ingram Spark with one of my books and it was totally different, but the cost was insane.

So it's like by time I price my book, I think it would make 38 cents a book, like if I used Ingram Spark versus Amazon. So there's just so much that you don't know that you don't know and start down this journey. So you start down this journey. So I want to ask you, what's next for you? So, so you've done one book.

Would you do another one? Is this like. No, I'm busy with other things in my life. Just sort of like what does, what, what's next for you?

I am definitely considering another book. I'm not putting a timeline on it, but there's an, there's an area of the easiest model that I call the Friend Zone, which most readers resonate with. And they're like, oh yeah, I'm definitely stuck in the Friend zone. Oh, how do I get out of the friend zone? And we all know that reference from Friends.

Well, people who've watched Friends. Not many people haven't watched Friends. Even the younger people, they're catching up. So it's, that interests me. I think that would make for a very good follow up book.

And what's next for me? I'd love to get more speaking gigs because I did a. The talk I did in January was based on the Friend Zone and I would love to do more of that. I spoke for a bit and then I hid for a few years and I'm out again. I'm here and I've written a book and I've got a lovely brand new talk.

So that's what I'd like to do more of now. That's super. That's super. Well, that's awesome. I wish you all the great success.

And I think that book is needed out there because that's something that a lot of people I know, they deal with this clients and they also go. Then there's a whole pricing, you know, the. It's like the friends. Right. You know, like, can be a bit of a whole boondoggle.
So just, it's a needed book. So please, I'm, I'm glad. I want to. I want to hear if it comes, you know, so. That's great.

That's great. So, Janine, thank you so much for being here today and sharing your wisdom. Thank you. And your fun with marketing. And with that, we'll say goodbye to everybody today and we'll see you back next time on another edition of the Easy Peasy Books podcast.

Bye, everybody.