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Play for Profit Podcast
🎙️ Play for Profit is the podcast for neurodiverse entrepreneurs, creatives, and multi-passionate misfits who are done with the hustle-and-grind blueprint. Hosted by Najela Carter, a creative business coach and school psychologist, this show helps you build a business that feels like play—without burning out or boxing yourself in. Whether you're dreaming up your next big idea or redefining success on your own terms, you'll find tools, mindset shifts, and playful strategies to profit from your passions your way.
✨ It’s time to ditch the rules, follow your curiosity, and build a business that actually feels good.
Play for Profit Podcast
Finding Your Voice in the Digital World with Emma Givens
Emma Givens shares powerful insights on how authors can develop effective brand messaging and connect with readers through a common language based on shared values and communication styles.
• Finding your unique author brand by identifying areas where your values overlap with your ideal readers
• Speaking your audience's language by researching how they communicate on social media
• Avoiding the mistake of talking too much about yourself instead of focusing on your readers
• Using the AIDA formula (Attention, Interest, Desire, Action) to create engaging content
• Building an email list as your most valuable platform-building asset
• Choosing social media platforms strategically based on where your ideal readers spend time
• Creating content style guidelines to maintain a consistent author voice
• Applying copywriting techniques to craft compelling book blurbs
We need your stories and your unique voice. People need to feel understood, and I wouldn't be the person I am today without books. In an age where everyone is consuming video content, please keep writing - it's an incredible gift.
Hey there. This is Nigella Carter this podcast was originally for my first podcast, wayward Writers, back when I was a book coach. You may hear references to books and writing and authors in this, but there's still some good lessons as far as business and branding and copywriting. I just wanted to let you know this was repurposed from my book podcast from about four years ago, but I still think it was pretty relevant to share with you All.
Speaker 3:right on to the interview. What is your name and what do you do?
Speaker 2:Hi, my name is Emma Givens. I am a brand messaging strategist, copywriter and writing coach for entrepreneurs. I help people get in. Touchist copywriter and writing coach for entrepreneurs. I help people get in touch with the common language they have between themselves and their ideal audience of readers, connecting on an emotional level so that way you can take that relationship to the next level. Whether it's book sales or it's just getting someone in your email list, it's all really important to speak in a way they understand when you say speak a common language.
Speaker 3:How do you define that? How can authors take advantage of speaking the common language?
Speaker 2:Start with your values. Look at the values or psychographics of your ideal reader, then figure out where they overlap so you have common ground. What are the things you place priority on? What kind of stories do we prioritize in our own lives? If anyone is familiar with the hero's journey, you can think of it like that. Who are these archetypal characters that show up in your life over and over again? What archetype do you embody? This is used in business, like brand marketing. Why are your ideal people attracted to that?
Speaker 2:Dig deep into your values. Who are you in the way you show up. Do the same for your ideal people. Pay attention to the way they speak. Follow them on social media and see what kinds of things they follow and how they talk. What kind of words are comfortable for them? Do they use spiritual language? Are they scientific? Do they use slang? Are they Gen Z, an adult writing for a young adult or preteen audience? You can find ways that still sound like you to also be understood by your ideal people, combining your values and your voice with the values and voices of your ideal people.
Speaker 3:Authors need to consider branding and content voice.
Speaker 2:Brand and brand messaging in particular. They're so important for authors because nowadays we need to be responsible for building our own platforms. The bigger an audience you have, the more likely you are to get a publishing deal. Or, if you want to be a self-published author, the more successful you'll be with an audience already built behind you. That audience needs to be in love with you. They want to follow you from book to book. That's what you want in terms of a community and relationship with them. Maybe they find you through a book, but wouldn't it be better if they resonate with you as a human being? They know the way you tell stories or the kinds of characters you create. They could be that person. They will follow you through your career if you have a strong author brand beyond any single book. What?
Speaker 3:mistakes. Do you see around branding?
Speaker 2:The biggest mistake is talking about ourselves, using the word. I be super wary of that. For example, on an about page, they write about themselves, which is part of it, but actually your about page is really about your ideal reader. Frame it in terms of what matters to them. Start with you. You might have landed here because of this. Have you ever been in this situation? Maybe it's something you've been through and so you can transition to. I've been there too, and here's my story. But we always want to be framing things through the eyes of our ideal people, and that is across the board Authors, entrepreneurs, everyday humans. Oftentimes we try not to presume too much. We just share from our experience. But I think it's really important, when you're trying to create a brand that other people resonate with, to get to know them so well that you can say, hey, I get you, I know where you're at, you're in the right place. It's our job to put them front and center to be successful.
Speaker 3:How do you help your clients find their voice? Do you think the copywriting voice differs from an author's writing style, or is it better to have them blend together?
Speaker 2:That is such a good question. I think there is overlap and specific moments where they can differentiate with copywriting and content marketing, like social media captions and writing a blog post for your author website. Those are more content and we essentially are using our own voice. So if you go into a specific voice maybe a character, a narrator's voice in your books, if I'm the author, emma, I will speak like everyday. Emma, you want to specifically online sound, casual, use contractions, sound like you're speaking to a friend.
Speaker 2:As authors, you have flexibility. Maybe once a week, craft a little piece of writing if you find that enjoyable. If you also write poems, maybe your caption is more in the style of a poem or maybe it's an excerpt from your book. You can use a bit of that more artistic, creative writing from time to time. But you want them to know you as a human behind a book. So, but you want them to know you as a human behind the book. So just using your authentic voice, obviously, like we said, in a way that's easy for them to understand, using terms they would use. That does come through being aware of how to speak online in a way. That is audience building. What is that common brand voice. As long as you know that common brand voices, then you can just fall back on that every single time.
Speaker 3:One of the things on your website that I found interesting was increasing visibility and repurposing content. How do you think authors can use those principles for their work?
Speaker 2:Authors are uniquely positioned to do it in an easier way than other people that I work with. When I talk about visibility, essentially that is about being consistent. You don't have to be on every single platform, especially if you're just starting to build an audience. Pick your one or two ideal platforms. I recommend a website, maybe just focus on Instagram, or maybe you're really focused on TikTok or LinkedIn. Just pick whatever you prefer and show up consistently. The more consistent you are, the more you build trust and top of mind awareness. So people, they're thinking about you. It helps you in terms of the algorithm. The more that someone is consistently able to engage with you, the more it's going to show to other people. Just be aware of consistency.
Speaker 2:The best way is to repurpose what you already have. Let's say, you put effort into writing a strong author website, you've written an about page that's really about your ideal reader and you've also got blog posts. That one blog post maybe five paragraphs could stand alone as anecdotes, or your value statement could be its own caption. You can pick a quote that stands out to you and make that sort of the visual graphic and maybe there's a little bit of additional thoughts underneath it. So you can take a blog post and repurpose it time and time again. As authors, you have this body of work published, working on or in a drawer. You can use that and maybe the graphic is an excerpt from my latest book and copy and paste what that excerpt is or a bonus deleted scene. Let it speak for you. Let's say you wanted to be on Instagram four times a week. If you repurposed a piece of your website once, showed an excerpt another day, and then another day. The third day, you focus on engagement, just asking a question to your audience to get them commenting back and building a relationship. And then another day, the third day, you focus on engagement, just asking a question to your audience to get them commenting back and building a relationship. And maybe the fourth day you explicitly tell them to sign up for your email list. Like that is half of that you didn't really do. You did it at some point in the past and you're letting it work for you. People aren't going to remember what you posted in October. By April Pick up Evergreen excerpts from your book with a different graphic or maybe not. If they enjoyed it the first time, they'll enjoy it the second time and it will reinforce that you are their go-to person for that poetry. I thought about this book, but now my friend's birthday is coming up, perfect time for me to buy it. That consistency can be really easy and supportive to building that top of mind awareness.
Speaker 2:Engaging social media content is about being intentional. You want to be consistent, but you don't have to be there a ridiculous number of hours. Let's say you do four posts a week. Make sure each one is purposeful. One of them could be some sort of call to action to get on your newsletter or maybe even buy your book. You also want to focus on engaging with them, with at least one of the other posts Asking a question, starting a conversation. With the third one, you might share a piece of your book. The fourth one could be a review. Each one of them is different. Each is unique, creating interest and propelling them to take your relationship further.
Speaker 2:Be thoughtful about the structure of that caption. There's a classic copywriting formula that is really useful still to this day. It's from the 1890s but it's still very useful, and it's called AIDA or A-I-D-A. And if you were to follow A for attention, interest, desire and the final A to call them to action, like sign up for an email list. You will have a purposeful caption. I've created a freebie for your listeners If they want to download one that's specific for how authors use AIDA. You can get that at emmagibbonscom slash authors. But yeah, we can just totally dive in right here, right now.
Speaker 3:That was my next question on how authors can use AIDA. Let's start with content.
Speaker 2:Classic way. Think of it as the first line of an email or Instagram post. Use specifics, for example. Five easy tips to make your character more relatable, speaking to aspiring authors. Use urgency like last chance for the pre-order and get a signed edition. Use bold claims, like this book will change your perspective on mental health. Typically specifics, urgency, bold claims and then ask a question. People psychologically want to answer, so grip their attention by asking for it. As an author, the first line of your book is meant and usually it's the thing that gets weird in the most and the last line and you want it to pack a punch. It's not going to last in time the way a book will, but you still want it to be, maybe drawing on emotion, or maybe you actually start with some dialogue. There's so many different ways to grab someone's attention that you know is an author. Feel free to play around with that. Next, we have interest. You have eight seconds to convince them to stay On social media. It's between three and five seconds. It seems like it's getting shorter, but grab their attention. Work hard at that. Get them to stay with you. The ways that we often do that are we show that we understand either their pain points or where they're dissatisfied.
Speaker 2:You can ask more questions. You can share a review. In the case of an author, you can go straight into sharing a story, especially if you picked an excerpt from your book for the first line, maybe a thoughtful excerpt, that's action-packed Dialogue, straight into the action. People can't resist. But read on and you'll know that better than anyone else as a reader, yourself as an author. So I've also thought of an example where your book is about someone who studies abroad in college and their life turns upside down. Ask what could happen if you studied abroad. Then go into a little excerpt. They can imagine themselves in it Because you've positioned it that way. Ask a question and you say what if you did this? You've got them psychologically to think of themselves with that main character. They're just going to be so incredibly intrigued.
Speaker 3:I've never actually thought about ask the question what if you were in this situation to build empathy and interest? The next one is d correct, yes, d for desire with desire.
Speaker 2:share how they'll get what they know they already want, what they would be comfortable telling anyone they wanted. Maybe they're comfortable saying they want a good book or to study abroad for the last five years. They can live your ideal person. But you hint at their secret dreams that are coming true. So maybe it's something they wanted to study abroad because they've always loved Dutch men. So they're going to the Netherlands and for the chance they'll meet their Dutch soulmate or something like that you want them to, on both like a really intellectual level and an emotional level. Something really satisfying on both like a really intellectual level and an emotional level, something really satisfying.
Speaker 2:I enjoy when you position it that way, asking them questions the things like their main character and develop empathy. What would they want to experience? Finally, we have action in AIDA. Ask them to take one next step comment for the newsletter, sign up for an event by your book. As long as you just make it one, then you're bound to start to see a huge increase in engagement, because how could you not after you created such a really riveting post.
Speaker 3:Okay, one of the things that come up is an email list. How do you feel about that and how do you see authors using their email lists?
Speaker 2:Good question. I think email lists are still essential because we've seen people Instagram get their profile reported and Instagram takes it down, so they lose their entire audience. You put all this effort into building an engaged audience that only can find you there because you don't own it. It can get taken away from you at any moment and there's sometimes no way of getting it back. That's why it's important to have your own email list. There's no one making sure that administratively, it's all under control. Once you've built that email list, you have their permission to reach out directly to them.
Speaker 2:No matter what happens, you have a way of getting in touch with your people. Instagram goes down, you can email your people and tell them you have a new account, closer relationship, because you don't just invite anyone into your email inbox. We're savvy as consumers, good at unsubscribing from things that don't feel good. It's a further step in the relationship, a good place to ask them to buy something or come to your live virtual launch party. You can really nurture that relationship in a way that even the algorithm itself whether it's YouTube or Instagram you can't control who sees it, but if they want an email, building an email list is really important.
Speaker 3:What are some other things authors can use to get people on their email list?
Speaker 2:Absolutely Urgency, specifics, emotion questions, big, bold claims. You can have things that are exclusive, like not just an exclusive excerpt, but maybe the first people who get signed copies. You have to be on the email list to get a signed copy of the next book. Exclusive behind the scenes there was this wonderful author when I was 12. Her name is Caroline Lawrence and she did the Roman Mysteries series. She had her own website and we could send her emails and she would respond.
Speaker 2:What was cool about that is it felt like we were really seen and had such a cool relationship. So if you invite them into respond to the email, you'll be able to start a conversation there. So, basically, I would just consider ways that you can make it a little bit exclusive, that they'll be the first to know things and to consistently surprise and delight that email list. They weren't expecting a sneak peek of your friend's new book. Maybe you have a relationship with another author and agree to give each other's audiences sneak peeks. You can go to Instagram and tell people I just shared with my email list this new preview. If you want to send on the next one, sign up today. Think of ways it's a benefit to them to not have to look for things, to be the only people in the know to feel really special so like a vip list?
Speaker 3:yeah, one of the things I was interested in seeing is how you create content style guidelines for your client. How can an author do that for themselves? I know we discussed speaking to your audience, but sometimes we slip into that old voice. I work in schools all day. My jargon is geared towards the professional realm. When I switch to author, it's hard to shift into that voice. I think one of the things that would help would be a content style guide. How can authors make that for themselves?
Speaker 2:I create brand voice guides for my clients, even entrepreneurs. Some of the things I like to do are the resource I go to is called Archetypes and Branding books about Jungian archetypes or the hero's journey, the writer's journey, for example, that is by Vogler. Those are good ways to see what identifies with you. Who do you most embody out of these archetypes the rebel, the sage? Then you'll have clear words and even storytelling techniques that you can go back to time and time again. So, for example, my main archetype as a human, author and entrepreneur is the sage. I'm focused on education and teaching and also have to do it in a way where I share a piece of wisdom but I don't get preachy. So it's something to watch out for. That I've learned through that. What I can do is use words like wisdom academic. That could turn off some people, but my ideal people come to me because I am the sage. It can be fun to get to know that. If you're interested in archetypes and systems for getting to know characters better, see how that resonates for you. Okay, I'm putting on my sage hat now as I'm going into author mode, I'm going onto social media. I am the sage. At this moment. There's a list of brand voice guidelines that I like to give people. I'm going to pull it up and chat through a few of them. Think about where you fall on one side or the other With the brand voice guardrail.
Speaker 2:One of the first things I always have conversation with my clients is do you lean towards casual or formal language? Formal language is probably where you naturally go after you finish a day at work, most likely, especially if we're talking about the online world. We want to be casual with our ideal readers. We want that feeling of closeness. When I'm in author mode, I speak casually. That includes things like contraction, so can't instead of cannot, bruise instead of hematoma, that sort of thing. Next, decide am I polite or use colorful language? Maybe you're polite all the time because your job requires you to be, but really the way that you would naturally express yourself. Maybe it's more colorful. Some people are going to be really attracted to it and then other people aren't, but that lets you get closer to the people who follow you. Maybe you're casual and colorful.
Speaker 2:Do you share personal anecdotes or share lessons learned? One of my earliest writing mentors told me this and then you could go into an anecdote to explain it, but it's nice to know what you're going to focus on. Are you focusing on anecdotes? Are you focusing more on reporting almost a little bit more subjective versus objective?
Speaker 2:Speaking to an audience, you are always speaking to someone who's you right. Are you speaking to you singular? Are you speaking to just this one person who needs to hear your voice, or are you going to be open about the fact that you have a massive audience? Is it hey folks, or everyone? And both of those are valid. They both have their benefits. Traditionally, with copywriting, we always want to speak as if we're only speaking to one person, but you have to figure out what comes out naturally. If you are good at going on Instagram stories or TikTok and you cannot say hey, everybody, then just embrace it and do it consistently. You have those choices in front of you. This is the way I always do it and, of course, you can revisit it, but it's nice to settle back into it. Just like you said, you can transition more easily into your author platform building experience.
Speaker 3:How do you feel, yeah, about having an editorial calendar for authors. Is that something that you feel is essential to staying on track, or do you think it depends on the author? We spoke about visibility, and the way to stay visible is to be consistent. Do you feel authors would benefit from an editorial calendar, or should they focus on writing and delegate that or be more free-flowing?
Speaker 2:That is a good question and I think to a certain extent it does depend on the person. Like if you're the person who lays out every chapter of your book in detail before writing, maybe an editorial calendar is second nature to you. Or if you're a pantser and you find yourself halfway through and realize, okay, I need to figure out how I bring myself to write the climax, it may be difficult to create an editorial calendar and, that being said, I do think that having some outline of a calendar can be really helpful. So if you at least make the choice okay, I show up four times a week then you can consider do I do better if I batch it all at once? If it's four times a week, then you can consider do I do better if I batch it all at once?
Speaker 2:If it's four times a week, that's 16 posts a month. Maybe I can write 16 posts, especially because I'm repurposing about half of them On a Saturday at the top of the month. I can schedule them in or delegate to somebody you don't have to be there at all times Having at least a guideline for yourself around what is important to you, how often to show up the types of posts you're going to put out every week. It will help you in the long run to be more visible and get hyper detail.
Speaker 3:Every author would benefit from that level of a system where do you think some good social media platforms that work for authors? Do you have a specific?
Speaker 2:one. It depends on where your ideal people are. If you write young adult fiction at this point, 2021, you probably want to be on TikTok. That's where your people are right. That's where they enjoy being. If your ideal person is a woman in her 50s or 60s who loves mystery novels, they're likely in Facebook groups. Figure that out first. Who are your people and where would they be? The second thing is what works for you, Because some people have aversions to specific social media.
Speaker 2:Like, I can't be on Twitter. I just don't feel good on Twitter, and I know people feel that way about video. So they don't go to TikTok and they don't put themselves on YouTube. Instead, maybe they're okay with Instagram. So I think that second piece is finding where you can be comfortable. For a lot of authors, that's going to be where they can lean onto words. Instagram is trying to become a video platform, but you can build an audience using strong captions and nice visuals. Linkedin is an interesting platform at this moment, especially if your ideal reader is of an age where they're using LinkedIn. I would say that it's worth building a platform there. Maybe not fiction authors as much, but I'm thinking of big authors like Brene Brown, and they've built meaningful platforms there, so it's worth considering. If your people like to work or use it more as a social platform they follow thought leaders then you want to be a thought leader on that platform to ultimately pick somewhere that you're not going to hate, because you're going to be there a lot.
Speaker 3:Yes, some early gurus were like oh, you need to be everywhere or give the illusion of being everywhere. There's so many platforms out there. If you're not working with a certain audience, it's in vain. Feels like you're giving kind of permission to be like there's one place and the place that you enjoy being.
Speaker 2:And you can grow, there's nothing to say that in a year's time you can't add a second one in, but I think you want it to be somewhere that you feel you enjoy it and that you know it's worth your while. The last thing you want is to feel like you're doing something in. It will take the wind out of your sails in copywriting.
Speaker 3:I want to jump back to the aida formula. One of the biggest things that kind of gets people reading is the blurb for the back of the book. I know you covered social media content, but how can writers use that formula for the blurb? Everybody says you shouldn't judge a book by its cover. You do some of those standard gorgeous covers. When I was going to barnes and noble looking at the covers, getting your attention, then you flip it over to the back and that's where the blurb is. The blurb is interesting. Then I'll go ahead and maybe go on bias um off. Use that formula to enhance the blurb or breathe fresh life into it If it's already written.
Speaker 2:Writing to sell is 100% in the realm of copywriting. It will serve you super well to do that. I would say that attention piece is the most important, that first sentence. If you lean into the emotion and the big, bold claim option, I think that's going to do well. Say something surprising. They looked at the cover, had no idea this character was so odd or this world has this very upsetting component. That's when you might want to evoke oh, this would be horrible. This is fascinating to the person who likes dystopian. Surprising them and getting on an emotional level with them immediately the moment they flip it over is going to do so.
Speaker 2:Well, when we speak about attention, it's not really the place necessarily where you're going to go to specifics like numbers, unless it's historical fiction, um and urgency, unless sandra had, uh, 48 hours of mindy-gripping. Focus on that more than anything. Focus on the attention. People are going to be more likely to buy the book With the ADA in the case of a book blurb, you're not going to tell them at the end buy the book. You might tell them this is going to change your life forever, but you're not signing off with that final.
Speaker 1:A.
Speaker 2:Focus on attention and I think you'll see a huge change.
Speaker 3:So you like to read books. What kind of books do you like to read? You have a specific genre you're interested in, or I love historical fiction.
Speaker 2:I don't read fiction as much as I would love to. I've been reading non-fiction, getting to know my craft better, content marketing, all that kind of stuff but I really always have loved, honestly, like young adult historical fiction, which goes back to Caroline Lawrence saying the Roman Mysteries is a young adult mystery series set around Pompeii, you know, 79 AD. There's a really cool series here. I like the American Girl series, canada we have Dear Canada, which is hilarious. I'm looking at them on my shelf now. They have ribbons that come out of that just like an old-timey journal, and they're based off of real girls' stories from some of them were coming, the ones that came back up from the US when the revolution happened and you wanted to settle in Canada, or some of the first Chinese settlers in BC, and like super, super cool books. A lot of them are young adult fiction. There's something about merging history and reality with creative nonfiction. It's fun to read and I'm actually putting on their shoes I didn't even register.
Speaker 3:Canada would have their own. There's a Dear America one I used to read as a kid during the Civil War, civil Rights Movement or different points in history. I was really big into those. You mentioned some nonfiction. Do you gravitate as far as nonfiction?
Speaker 2:Recently I've been reading about writing. I haven't finished it yet, but Save the Cat, Write the Novel. Do you know that? Yes, I do. I've been working through that one. We'll have Building a Story brand by donald miller around entrepreneurial writing, but useful to authors building a personal brand too. I have the imagineering workout from disney.
Speaker 3:It's like creating a problem solving these are all on my to read list I don't want to read the imagineering one or creativity ink by the Pixar people. Everyone knows Pixar movies. You're going to go into those movies like crying or something like, or feeling some kind of way. I want to read how they engineer that, where it doesn't feel contrived but still tugs on all the right heartstrings, so to speak.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. It always reminds me and I'd be so curious to see what they actually share in that book. But for me it feels like that hero's journey, universal stories that you'll have time and time again. They are part of our, whatever you want to think of it. Like the collective unconscious, carl Jung described it, they never feel old. They always feel relevant, as long as they have a unique character. I'd be so curious if they admit they use it or say they have another system. It'd be cool to get that insight Because I have a new perspective on life after you were two. I love it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, definitely. They're timeless. That's one reason Disney has survived so long. Other things borrow Disney formula to speak. Kids are still into those things. I'm not gonna put a number because they know how old I am. You mentioned reading save the cat writes a novel is because you're trying to write your own novel or build that into reading about writing can help.
Speaker 2:As a writing coach, I have the idea of writing a novel, a, a creative nonfiction novel about the year that I lived in Spain, the first year I lived in Spain, because it's my real life. I have struggled for years 2014, 2015. And I am still trying to figure out what structure will support me in telling that story Like where does? The story end. It's always in the back of my mind when I read these books about writing craft and structure.
Speaker 3:Do you find that novel to be helpful? Or doing that having a structure, because it is the creative non-fiction. I double majored in psychology and creative writing. We're all trying to write the great American novel and we have non-fiction. What if your life is bored? I haven't really done anything interesting up until that point. How do I make something engaging for people to read? Sounding preachy, this is my life and you can do it too. How does it end? We're all still alive, so it doesn't. Yeah, do you find that novel helpful for setting up that structure?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I feel like St Pic cat is like the hero's journey been able to map out those important points that happened along my story all the way up until I'm pretty much just trying to figure out where I can call it a day and where the next book could start. Um, I might have to start writing and figure it out along the way. I'm thinking about doing NaNoWriMo this year. That might be a good way of at least getting into it, and then maybe the ending will reveal itself, especially because I'm going to embellish and explore a bit. So maybe something that didn't even happen Wow, it took on to a close. Maybe it'll be cool. I don't know. I'm super open to it. I just gave plenty of books when I was a kid, but this will be the first book as an adult. I'm really excited about it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that would be exciting. Are you thinking of traditional publishing or self-publishing?
Speaker 2:First. We're getting the book done is step one, but I'd love to give traditional publishing a try. I have built a platform as an entrepreneur, as a writing coach, but I might want to keep those somewhat separate. I haven't decided yet. Do I want to be a personal brand where I do all these different types of things, or do I want to show up in different ways, depending on the place? It's worth giving it a shot. With traditional publishing, you're left to do a lot on your own. Even you have to make a choice. Is the contact potential and validation that traditional publishing gives you really worth it in the end? I still have my mind open to it for now yeah, finishing novels in first.
Speaker 3:I keep going back and forth traditional publishing or should I do self-publishing? I know there's benefits to both. You mentioned just getting your foot in the door. It's not the end-all, be-all like you have to do traditional publishing for the rest of your life or self-publishing for life. There's a middle ground. Getting your foot in the door it's not the end-all be-all like you have to do traditional publishing for the rest of your life or self-publishing for life. There's a middle ground. So you said you're a writing coach. What do you coach writers on?
Speaker 2:Yeah, as a writing coach, I mostly focus on entrepreneurs, people who need to create their website content, marketing emails, sales pages, all that kind of stuff. A lot of the time, the people who come into writing coaching feel like pretty good writers, even though they're not authors. They still enjoy writing and want to maintain ownership instead of outsourcing it to a copywriter like me. I give them templates, we have strategy sessions. We always do things through Google Docs because you can simultaneously work on the same version and revise together. Ultimately, they learn to be better writers, storytellers and write for the online world, for audience building. Some of them go off on their own and can use it, and others just really like having the accountability and that second eye. I'm happy to do that too.
Speaker 3:What does a strategy session look like? What kind of things do you cover in your strategy sessions?
Speaker 2:A lot of my writing. Coaching clients come after VIP day, where we go in depth on their brand voice and create that brand voice guide for them. So the strategy sessions typically end up being okay. What are our milestones for the next quarter? What is the main thing you're focusing on selling or building over the next three months? Let's create a work back plan that includes the editorial calendar. If you haven't written your yet, what are the most important pages to write? We can map them week by week. I can always change them, but I find that having that makes sure that people get things done.
Speaker 3:You can have a knee there.
Speaker 2:Make them more accountable.
Speaker 2:You can really go through milestones and then workshop something. If they want to make their blog posts seo friendly, then we can spend 40 minutes or so going through that. We can figure out what their best key phrases are. How do you integrate it in a way that actually doesn't change the quality of your post so it doesn't read strange. We're pots and pans over and over again. It's still valuable, but also searchable. I have a version of AIDA called Armada, more nuanced than AIDA, and so that's one of the things that sometimes we will introduce to them and we'll workshop it. We focus on platform building and what to prioritize in a strategy session.
Speaker 3:What do you think the authors need to prioritize when they consider formability?
Speaker 2:That is a really good question. I think that authors would be best served by having a home base. So what I mean by that is just accepting the fact that you're going to want a website. That's the home base for everything, where people sign up email list. Once you have that, you can post on media and say sign up for my email list the foundation of everything. I would say, if you're really new and you're not sure about the brand voice piece, getting clear on that, having conversations with your ideal people, start there. Focus on building your website home base. So there's two answers, depending on what experience level you're at.
Speaker 3:Okay, is there anything else you want to share as we start wrapping up? I loved our conversation.
Speaker 2:We've covered a lot and I'm happy if anyone wants to reach out. Find me on Instagram and Emma Givens writer. You can also go download the AIDA for authors work that is emmagivenscom slash authors. But yeah, I think just honestly, just please keep writing everybody. We need your stories, your unique voice. People need to feel understood and I wouldn't be the person I am today without all of the books, especially as a kid. But even now, all the books they've helped me build a career, feel confident and feel like I'm not alone in the world. Now, in an age where everyone is always reading video content, please keep writing.
Speaker 3:I think that's an incredible gift Authors. It's such a solitary feel just writing your book. It's good to hear you can make an impact with your words. You did give your socials and I will put those in the show notes. Anything else before we wrap up.
Speaker 2:No, I think that's everything. Pick one thing we talked about and try it. I think you'll walk away more confident as an author, building a platform.
Speaker 3:Thank you for your time. Sure, thank you for having me. All right, I will go ahead and pause this.