Book Marketing Tips and Author Success Podcast
Ready to supercharge your author journey? Join bestselling author and book marketing maven Penny Sansevieri and savvy publishing insider Amy Cornell for lively, no-nonsense conversations filled with smart strategies, creative inspiration, and publishing know-how you can actually use.
Whether you’re self-published, traditionally published, or somewhere in between, this podcast delivers real-world advice to help you sell more books, build your platform, and thrive in the ever-evolving publishing landscape. From clever promo hacks to critical industry insights, each episode is designed to move the needle on your success.
Fresh ideas. Actionable tips. Unfiltered talk.
If you’re serious about your author career, hit subscribe and tune in—your next big breakthrough could be one episode away.
Book Marketing Tips and Author Success Podcast
Stop Guessing, Start Selling: Positioning Your Book for Real Traction
Tired of shouting into the void with a book you believe in? We unpack a simple, proven path to clarity that makes every marketing move easier and cheaper: find your shelf, define your reader, and deliver the payoff your genre promises. Penny Sansevieri and Amy Cornell pull back the curtain on what actually drives sales velocity for authors—clear positioning, focused targeting, and small, high-impact pivots that align your book with how readers shop.
We start by grounding your work with “shelf neighbors,” those three to five titles your ideal readers already love. From there, we build a one-sentence reader statement that communicates value at a glance and respects genre expectations. You’ll hear how a smart subgenre pivot turned a stalled romance into a winner, why “my book is for everyone” is the most expensive mistake in publishing, and how to turn your unique elements into crisp marketing hooks that get clicks, not shrugs.
For nonfiction writers, we dig into articulating outcome-driven benefits that media and influencers can immediately pass on to their audiences. For fiction authors, we show how to pair familiarity with freshness—a recognizable promise with a distinct twist—using comps that do the heavy lifting on retail pages, ads, and pitches. Throughout, we emphasize that marketing can sharpen and amplify, but it can’t invent a market where none exists. That’s liberating: focus on fit first, then flourish with confident messaging, right-sized keywords, and cover cues that signal the right story to the right people.
Ready to stop guessing and start gaining traction? Listen now, craft your one-sentence reader statement, and text us your top targeting question. If this episode helps you refocus your book’s positioning, share it with an author friend, subscribe for more practical strategies, and leave a quick review so we can reach more writers who need it.
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Hello and welcome back to the book marketing tips and author success podcast. This is Penny Sanseveri. And Amy Cornell. And happy day after Thanksgiving. We all hope we hope that you all had a really great holiday and you're sitting around. Um, if you're me, you're putting up your tree because that's like the first thing that I do. And Thanksgiving, boom, the turkeys, the turkey's all in the fridge, leftover turkeys in the fridge, tree goes up. Um, but we hope that you had a really good, really good holiday and you got a little bit of free time. And so we thought this show, unless of course you're at Black Friday sales, but we thought this show might be really helpful because um even with all of the information out there, I realized that, and Amy and I have many conversations about this, sometimes figuring out who your reader is is still pretty challenging, right? So we thought that we would kind of break this show down in terms of um how to find your reader and also, you know, um how to target them a little bit better. Because when you have a better, when you when you're when you're more focused on exactly who your reader is, actually targeting comes easier and everything, all of your marketing is easier and also cheaper because you're not spending a lot of time marketing to the wrong people. But first, before we dive into the show, I wanted to mention uh text us your ideas, your thoughts, your show feedback, all the other stuff. We have a texting line set up and it's crazy popular. So get on the train. Text the word podcast to 888-402-8940. We would love your show feedback, uh, show ideas, all the things. We love hearing from y'all directly through that, um, through our new podcast line. Amy, um we're okay. So I'm just gonna put you on the spot here for a second. What do you? I mean, when an author comes to you, because you're like our first line when somebody comes into the into the company inquiring about services, and somebody doesn't really know their market, like, and maybe they haven't really told you, like they haven't said, well, I'm not really sure why I wrote this before. Is there some kind of a telltale sign that you spot when somebody sends you an email? If that does that make sense?
SPEAKER_00:If yeah, yeah. Like, do I have a sense of whether who they wrote it for?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. I mean, do you have a sense of whether they actually have a defined market? I mean, is it something that shows up, is it very apparent when somebody contacts you?
SPEAKER_00:Well, and yeah, that's interesting. It it's definitely different between published versus not published, because you know, I think we've talked about this a lot in different shows too, that everything is your brand and everything should reflect who you're writing for. So if the book's already out, you know, obviously I look at the cover, I look at, you know, read the description. There's so many other things that kind of, and maybe not everything is spot on, and it may not be reflecting who the author really wants to target, but either way, your book is already saying something, whether you want it to or not, right? Yeah, for sure. But if the book isn't published yet, then it's really interesting. It it kind of, yes, there are ways to tell that they're unsure based on what they focus on when they when they're introducing us to their book. And and it's and it's not necessarily a bad thing. There are ways to figure out who you wrote for, even if you didn't have a really clear idea at the beginning. There are ways to, you know, figure it out, and that's what we're here for. But yeah, I think it's in how it's presented. You know, if it's presented in a way that is very personal and emotional and maybe rooted in something that happened earlier in their life, and these are all wonderful, beautiful motivations, but it doesn't actually focus on who the reader is. So I think it's really more of okay, so when they're explaining the book to us when they first contact us, if there's nothing rooted in any sort of, you know, genre tropes or topic appropriate um pain points and things like that that are very much kind of a solidified, concrete, yes, they know who they wrote for, they had a vision for this from the get-go. You kind of have to figure that this is going to be a process that we'll go through with them to kind of figure this out so we could message everything appropriately, you know?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, exactly. And I think that it's a um the myth is that if I wrote a book, someone out there will want it. Right. Right. And that's that's a big myth. The thing about it is, though, too. So before we go too far down the rabbit hole, I think it's also worth mentioning that um we do come across authors who literally have no market for their book. Like there's literally no reader audience, which which sounds devastating, but it's not common. So what we hope to do with this show is literally maybe help you um pivot to figure out exactly where you're because we have had authors, so I so the here's an example. So I worked with an author, we worked with an author, and she had her romance novel in erotic romance, and it was not an erotic romance novel. So when we worked with her, we pivoted the book to contemporary romance, and the book did so much better. So sometimes it's literally just a pivot. But one of the things, so Amy and I were, we were in the green room, we were sort of talking about talking through the notes of the podcast, and the term reverse engineering came up, right? So when I think about reverse engineering, I think about you're literally reverse engineering yourself into success, right? So you want to figure out like how something was made. And so you, and a lot of things, a lot of tools that we use were all what all went through the reverse engineer process. But a lot of times what happens when authors reverse engineer their book is they create a mashup of, let's say, romance, sci-fi thriller, fantasy, maybe throwing a little bit of poetry in there or something, I don't know. And then they try to reverse engineer the market for this multi-genre book, which that's where we start to get into problems. And in terms of nonfiction, so sharing a personal experience is great. If you've been through it, you know, like what worked for me kind of thing, and wanting to put that in the book, because I know that we and we've worked with authors who are very, very passionate about stuff. I went through whatever it was, right? And I want to write this nonfiction book to help other people. But writing the book before checking to see if there are readers that are actively looking for that kind of content is a mistake because in many cases, what you can do is you can literally just maybe flip the script a little bit. So, okay, so you take your experience, but you put it in a bigger bucket of something that readers are actually looking for, and then you create something that actually works. I mean, does that make sense, Amy?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, absolutely. I think that the fiction example was really great because that I mean, and I think that happens a lot, Penny, with what ends up going and it's a huge market, which is challenging, but I think we see that a lot with books that end up as literary fiction because they've got essence of quite a few different things, but not enough to fit into a very specific genre fiction bucket, if that makes sense. And I think that gets really challenging. I mean, we've worked for with some wonderful books with beautiful covers, and it just takes it's a longer runway, you know, to use, you know, your example, that sometimes if you really don't exactly fit what the market, as you said, is actively looking for, it takes a little while to find your people. And I think that's something to remember too, that the more specific you are about your market, the quicker you can potentially build momentum because you know you have what those people are looking for, you deliver it in a great package, boom, you're good. You know? So if it's not as spot on as that, it doesn't mean you can't still find your people. But a lot, you know, a lot of what we talk about is being realistic. It also means being realistic about the kind of marketing strategies you need to use and how long it's realistically going to take to find those people and make a good impression on them.
SPEAKER_01:Well, and the other piece of it too, and and and I'm so thrilled that I get to say this because I think it's something that is worth repeating throughout the show. A marketing company, marketing team, can we can refine and we can sharpen and we can amplify, but we cannot invent a market where none exists. And that's whether you hire a marketing firm or not, that is something that you should, I mean, mount that, put that on your wall. Like because that is something that I think is really um that's really challenging, is that when authors show up to the marketplace with a book that has no clear shelf space, um it markets just cannot be pulled out of thin air. So let's so now that we've kind of expanded on the problem and unpacked the problem, Amy, do you want to take the first part of how to how to sort of how to better identify your market? Because it's really, I know this sounds very kind of heady, it's like, oh wow, what a nice day after Thanksgiving podcast, but it's actually much easier than than you might think.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, we've really broken this down into some pretty simple steps. And it's actually a great exercise that, and because what you're going to uncover doing all of this is going to influence your marketing long term too. So this is not just a one time because Penny and Amy said you have to do this homework. This is insight that you're going to be able to use over and over and over again. So it's it's that important, but that simple. So identify your shelf neighbors. So you could go to a bookstore physically, which is kind of fun. Like treat yourself, maybe not this weekend, if you're actually listening to this when it comes out, because bless you for going out in that mess. You can also do this from the privacy of your home. You can go on Amazon, but find three to five books that are most like yours, you know, genre, tone, audience positioning. I love looking at bestseller lists, not because not, I mean, yes, it's aspirational, sure, but it's such a great way to see what people are buying. You know, whether you like it or not, that's what people are gravitating towards and that's what they're purchasing. You know, so I think that's another big piece of this too, Penny, is that like you may think one thing or you may want people to want your book, but the reality is they're out there shopping, they're making decisions and being objective to some degree and saying, okay, what I think doesn't actually matter all that much, what does matter is how people are shopping and the books they're gravitating towards. And that's the train I want to get on.
SPEAKER_01:Right, right, exactly. I think I love the shelves, I I love the bookstore shelf space. And I think is actually, I mean, if you live in your bio book store, which is awesome, um, and you have the opportunity to go in and take a look and see where your book might be shelved. I mean, listen, if your book can't be shelved in an obvious place that exists, whether online or in in person, you're lit, you're not going to be able to find. I mean, it impacts not just the shelf, you know, your virtual or in-person shelf space, but it also impacts everything. I mean, whether you're when you're doing Amazon ads. But if you cannot, and if you cannot identify a one-sentence reader statement, like my book is for readers who love insert, right? And want like insert, a specific experience or an outcome. We did a show on elevator pitches, I want to say a few weeks ago, maybe it may have been a month ago, but go back to that show and start to work on your elevator pitch. Because your elevator pitches, so your one sentence reader statement and elevator pitch are kind of sort of the same thing. You have to really be able to define my reader wants, let's say, my let's say, for example, my reader really wants a, so we're in the holiday season now, right? A cozy holiday small town romance. Um, my book is for readers who love a cozy holiday, small town romance, who want to feel good with a happy, happy ever after, right? That is exactly who your reader is. If your book doesn't fit that. So let's say, for example, you don't give them a happily ever after, for example, right? That's a big no-no in romance, by the way. We had an author one time, this a couple of years ago, and she's like, Yeah, so I film that book in romance, but nobody really ends up with each other. And I'm like, um, that's a problem.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_01:Right. Exactly. Genres, you know, and I know I've cited romance a couple of times, but regardless of the genre, people have specific expectations. Even if you've written a book on poetry or if you've written a memoir, it doesn't matter. People have expectations about the outcome.
SPEAKER_00:Right. And I think this is also combined with number one, with identifying your shelf neighbors, really take that to heart because you should also be able to say confidently that, and I think this is a great like headspace to get into. My reader already has these books on their bookshelf.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:You know what I mean? And that's a really great way to figure out where you belong and determine if you've clearly defined where you fit into the market. Because if your answer is like, well, there's no other books like mine, it's like, well, you know, A plus for creativity, but it's going to be very hard to convince readers that you have something that they're looking for. Yeah, exactly. You know, so you really want to be able to say, you know, my readers already love these authors, or my readers already have these books on their shelf because they're looking to solve this problem or learn this.
SPEAKER_01:Right.
SPEAKER_00:You know, and if you can do that, you're on the right track.
SPEAKER_01:Right, exactly. Exactly. And I think that um, you want to take the next one, the the Yeah, this is very cool.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, so highlight what makes your book special. So now that we've said like you need to be like everybody else. So, like we're back in middle school, we all want to be the same. Now you have to work on what makes your book special because there is a point to this. So, three unique aspects fiction, this could be your setting, your protagonist's unusual traits, your spin on a genre trope for nonfiction, this is a specific method you developed, a perspective not commonly addressed, or maybe a very, you know, a problem that you are solving in a different way. Again, this is why knowing what your readers currently read and what they've gravitated toward in the past, this is also draw on that to determine what makes you special. But this, so what this does, it's like, okay, I've determined this is where I belong. But then again, you don't want to get lost in the crowd. So once you determine you have a place there, then you need to determine what makes you unique because this becomes your marketing hooks, how you pitch yourself, how you make yourself stand out. So I know you'll all you already love books like these. And this is why my book is going to add to your experience in the genre, or why my book is going to change your perspective on this topic, or why my book is going to finally solve that problem you've been looking to answer.
SPEAKER_01:Well, and that's the thing that that is where, so okay, so like as Amy said, you know, back in middle school, we all kind of fit in, we fit on this, we fit on the same shelf. But then there are the characteristics that that set you apart from the other books, right? Um, and these unique elements are also something that you're going to use in in all of your in all of your copies. So your your your description on your Amazon retail page, your website copy, in your pitching. Um, and your book does have to, you you do have to tell the reader how your book is different. I find this a problematic a lot of times for our nonfiction authors. So I will, when I get on the phone with a nonfiction author, I will always say, All right, so tell me what your book's about. And they tell me, and I'm like, okay, so how is your book different from the 9,000 books that were published on the same topic last month? And I'm just throwing that number out there, right? And a lot of times they don't really know. And they're coming to a marketing firm to help them to determine that, determine how their book is different, which is fair, right? And that's something that you and I both love to do. Like we love giving books that their standout statement. We love that. But as authors out there doing your thing and beating the bushes and finding readers and everything, you really have to figure this out. You know, you cannot lead with, because otherwise your book is just gonna look just like every other book on the bookshelf, right? Um so and then I think along with that, what's the what's the reader's payoff? And this is really, I'm telling you, as consumers, we buy for emotional, intellectual, um for anything, right? Not just because we like the premise, right? Not just because, well, look, there's a book on, you know, how to do yoga, but there are five billion other books on there on how to do yoga. Or there's another book on, you know, that's kind of a thriller. Like I I listen to a lot of thrillers, I listen to a lot of audiobooks. I'm really particular about the kind of thrillers that I listen to when I'm on my hikes, right? Um what is, you know, after reading my book, a reader will feel what or know what, right? Um and every author has to really build their particular, you know, build their particular niche in terms of what where their focus is. And that's also part of your brand. And you can go back to some of our branding shows and and get the, you know, get the deep dive on that if you have some time this weekend too.
SPEAKER_00:Right. And that's so important, Penny. Like you said, what are they going to get out of it? Because if you're pitching your book to influencers, you know what I mean, to the media, anything like that, that's really important because, and we've mentioned this in our media shows before, but and it's it sounds simple, but it's so easy to forget that you and whoever you are pitching are trying to please the same audience. They have a mission too. They have a goal as well. They are providing content, you know what I mean, that is designed to make those people happy and have them coming back for more. So you really have to drill down into that because that is their goal as well. They are trying to serve an audience. And the better you can align with that by saying this is what they are going to get out of it, the better. That that and that clicks with them and they go, okay, that's what I know my audience is looking for. This person, this author, clearly understands that, and that's what they're offering. So I'm intrigued, right?
SPEAKER_01:Right, exactly. And that's part of things. So, so, like, for example, my reader's payoff when they when somebody buys one of my books is they are gonna have a very, you know, it's it's my books are very conversational. It's like we're sitting across the table from one another, just talking about book marketing. I'm not using complicated jargon. It's really just kind of laid out in a very easy to understand fashion. Not that my readers aren't all wildly intelligent, but let's face it, when you're learning a new thing, you don't want somebody throwing a bunch of terminology at you that you then have to spend time to go look up, right? Right. So my my core focus of my books is creating something that is very palatable for readers that they can literally, you know, that they not only that they can adapt and use, but they really want to. So it's also a little motivational, which is kind of sort of my MO just in general. But that's and you have to figure out, and so that then becomes kind of part of my brand, but you have to figure out what that is for you. And if that changes with every single book, that's a problem. Right. You know what I mean? That's that's then you may as well be writing, you know, you could still be writing in the same genre, but if every single book has a different payoff for the reader, that's a problem.
SPEAKER_00:Right, exactly.
SPEAKER_01:You know? Um, so the next one, this I love this one.
SPEAKER_00:I know. I I love this one too. Define your core reader. So again, these are all going back to some of these are just reiterating the importance of determining who your reader is and understanding who that person is from the jump because it'll save you a lot of grief. But defining your core reader means writing down a mini profile of your ideal reader, age, gender, lifestyle, like favorite books, hobbies, on and on and on. And you're probably thinking, well, that sounds like a lot of work, but stick with me here because it can actually be really fun. But again, we said a lot of this is going to pay off long term. So by defining your core reader and writing down a mini profile, you are also giving yourself ideas for how to connect with them on different levels. So not just selling your book, but making sure they understand that you know what they're looking for, you understand them. This is this is absolutely imperative if you plan on being on social media.
SPEAKER_01:Right. Exactly.
SPEAKER_00:You know, and it's also super, super helpful if you are have if you have a newsletter. You know, you want to know what these people are interested in above and beyond your book because you can't make a brand solely out of just selling something. Buy my stuff, buy my stuff, buy my stuff. You become white noise after a while. So you really have to offer more that says, I see you, I understand what you're looking for. I want to be that person that you can go to for all sorts of different kinds of content. Not just, yes, I know, you know, I know you want me to buy your book. I get it. You know, you really want to see. Think of who you follow online. Right. You know, like it's not just because you buy stuff from them, right? There's so many other reasons we follow people for their content or follow certain channels or watch certain shows or read certain magazines. You know what I mean? It's because you feel seen.
SPEAKER_01:Right, exactly. And the ideal reader, we actually have a reader profile and that we've had for years. We've updated it. We just actually updated it again this year. So you could get our reader profile um and actually, you know what? I'll make a note to put that also in the show notes. Because it is a great way. And and I will tell you so a little bit of backstory here. The reader profile that we have was actually born out of um the consumer profile that a friend of mine who worked for IBM back in the day, like a billion years ago when computers first sort of hit the market, which apparently is the Stone Age. Um, and IBM used to actually put, so in their T in their meetings, in their sales meetings, they would literally spend so much time defining on who, defining their ideal consumer. And they would go into the most intricate detail. And part of the reason for that was obviously computers were new at the time, but part of the reason for that is that the more focus that you can get on who's actually buying your books, slash in IBM's case, product, the the fewer mistakes that you're gonna make, the more that your brand will look um cohesive, right? The more that you will find language that really appeals to your market, which is part of the reason why the ideal reader um deep dive, and I actually put it in one of my books too the ideal reader deep dive is it takes a little bit of time, it sounds like super unsexy to do, bottom of your to-do list. Like I get it, but it will really, really benefit you. And it might also spark some ideas for your social media and other things that you could be doing to try and pull in more readers. Um, so the next one, the too broad trap. This one, and this has been kind of like a thing in the industry for years, where authors say, my book is really for everybody.
SPEAKER_00:So I hate that so much. Sorry. I know, I know.
SPEAKER_01:And everybody, you know, if you're looking, so you know, everybody is really it's an expensive target. Let me just put it that way. Right. Right. If you're targeting everybody, you're really targeting essentially no one.
SPEAKER_00:Right. We have very oh, go ahead, Penny, sorry.
SPEAKER_01:No, um, no, go ahead.
SPEAKER_00:I was just gonna say, I we had a perfect example of this, a current client, and it was a great conversation, and she happens to write for uh younger people, but on Amazon her age range was six to sixteen. You know, and I I wrote her and I just said, and she was very receptive and she was like, Thank you for catching that. I absolutely agree. This is my butt you know, I said, somebody with a six-year-old is not going to buy something that is presented as appropriate for a 16-year-old and vice versa. Yeah. You know, and that's just a very like straightforward example, but for what it's worth, it really does, those things matter. You know, you are not going to sell to more parents by saying it's great for a six-year-old all the way up to a 16-year-old, because there is no parent in the world that is going to agree with you. And they will and they will move on.
unknown:Right.
SPEAKER_01:Right, exactly. And you know, too broad is a um not only is it an expensive target, uh it's a very expensive way to market your book, but it also feels, you know, we in this in this era where we get, I forget now what the number is. I really wanted to commit it to memory, but of course there's so much other stuff going on. We get like thousands of ads every single day targeting us. If the ad doesn't feel personal anymore, like if your pitch doesn't feel personal, it's actually kind of insulting, right? Like you really should stop wasting my time, kind of a thing. Um and we, you know, you do see this like in spam a lot, of course, like emails like, oh, I bet you'd like like we get this a lot. We I bet you'd like a mailing list of tire factories around the United States. I'm like, really? Like what? You know, uh when you get too unfocused and too broad in your um in your audience, nothing else seems, nothing else really works, right? Um and and that's where you have to, you know, really kind of whittle. This is something, again, Amy and I both love to do when we get on the phone with authors who start the conversation with, this book is really for everybody. It's like, I don't think that's a really true statement. Let's get some clarification and you know, asking them some questions. Clarity sells better than trying to sell something that's too universal, like the examples with the ads that aren't quite right or the crazy spam emails that you get that you're like, I don't understand why you would even target me. It's insulting. Narrowing is not only powerful, and you know, a lot of times authors, and I just want to, sorry, I want to stop by saying a lot of times the reason that authors go broad is because they feel the pressure to go broad in order to pull in more sales. It's a little bit of a fallacy. Actually, it's it's a big fallacy in the industry. The broader I go, the bigger my sales will be, right? It's kind of like casting your net wide. Like if I cast my net wide enough, I'm gonna pull in a whole lot of fish. Like replace the word fish with cash. That literally never works when you're selling. Right. Right. Narrowing is very powerful. It the clarity will help you to build your audience so much faster. So if you're, you know, if you're listening to this and you're like, you know, maybe that's the mistake that I made with my first book or my second book or whatever, go back and rework it. Because unless your topic has expired, like unless you wrote about something that now isn't really kind of a thing anymore, you probably there's probably an opportunity to have a second chance at, you know, at your market.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely. I love that idea. I think that is something that is, I mean, it it, yes, it's work, but you put so much into it the first time around.
SPEAKER_01:Well, that's the thing. And I know we have a show coming up on burnout, which I think the burnout rate is much higher for authors who aren't willing to go down the reader rabbit hole. Yeah. Because you're spending a lot of time throwing a lot of stuff, you know, the spray and pray theory, or spraying spraying a lot of stuff, throwing a lot of stuff, excuse me, up against the wall and hoping that some of it sticks. You know?
SPEAKER_00:And I like I like your mention about, you know, narrowing is powerful because it's a lot easier to build when you're getting positive results just mentally, you know, let alone your bottom line. But it's so much easier to. To build from something small that is working for you than it is to try to figure out how to prune and pull back and where do you do that? And you know what I mean? It's it's when you have a lot going on and nothing feels like it's working, it's a lot more challenging to figure out how to come back from that than it is to focus on a narrow market, do the right things, see, you know, results, see positive responses, see those reviews populating, things like that. Even when they're small wins, it's so much easier to go bigger from there than it is to pull back from a mess.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it really is. And you know, people so around this time of year, I'm like knee deep in in or waist deep in Hallmark. So good Hallmark Christmas movies. And um, and you know, people people like to joke about them like the plots are they have seven different plots and they basically recycle them through all these movies, and yet people still watch them. And people by people, I mean me. Hallmark has really found their market, right? When you think about it, they have narrowed their market. They know what they are, they know what they're not. They have tried in some with some movies to like deviate off of that. Like, well, maybe not every movie needs a happy ending. Oh no, yes, it does. That's why we're turning into Hallmark. Every movie has to have a happy ending, full stop.
SPEAKER_00:Especially this time of year, right?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. When when when Hallmark has deviated off of that, they you know, they're the the the movie or the show or whatever just falls flat. Yeah. There is something really, really powerful in narrowing your and narrowing your focus. So I know we spent a lot of time on that, but I just think it's it's super important.
SPEAKER_00:All right. It does. It saves you a lot of time and money. Next point. Yes, test with comparisons. And this, I I really like this too, because I will say, Penny, when we are helping our clients with their Amazon retail pages and using up all that amazing free space that Amazon gives you to connect with readers in different ways. And it it I love it anyway, we do this a lot. So in use different versions of it. But so essentially, and this kind of goes back to you know, figuring out which books you align with, figuring out which other authors, you know, your readers read, what are they gravitating toward? But describe your book as it's so you mention a book or an author meets another book, popular book or author. Again, what are your readers looking for? What are they already reading? What do they already love? But with, and then you insert what makes your book unique. So we're kind of pulling together a few of the different exercises that we've already talked about, right? So we talked about finding where your book fits on the shelf. We've talked about understanding what your reader is already reading, what do they already like, you know, know what those comps are, and then also figuring out what makes your book unique. So you're already basically connecting the dots for the reader. And this is also super helpful when you're pitching, because if you're pitching an influencer or the media, connecting the dots for them matters as well. They've got very little time to make a decision about whether they're interested or not. And this is this can really help them. So it's this author meets this author, but here's my unique twist. And again, these are just shorthand signals that both talk about the genre, the topic, and the unique value. And it puts it into a nice little compact package and it makes it easier for readers to connect the dots. And again, we do this a lot for our retail page work and we do a few different versions of this because you don't want to do a huge long list, right? That sounds a little too desperate. It's these top five authors in Thriller, all combined into one plus here's my unique twist. It's like, okay, clearly that's that's not focused, right? But you can do this in a in a couple clever clever ways. So if you have a political thriller, you know, maybe the first example you focus more on the thriller elements and who those authors are. And then in another example, you really zero in on authors that specifically focus on the on the political thriller market. You know what I mean? So there are ways to include multiple examples and be really smart about it. But again, you are telling that reader that is likely already reading those books or at least respects those authors in that space, going, okay, like if if you think you could stand up with them, I'm intrigued, right? I I want to read more. I may spend a little bit longer on your retail page.
SPEAKER_01:Right. Yeah, that's a that's that's exactly right. So I think that just to kind of um just to kind of bring this home when so two things. The more that you can articulate what makes your book unique, the easier it is going to be for you to build your audience, find your readers, etc. And figuring out exactly who your reader is, even if you made a mistake the first time, right? Because it's not about you don't want to be creating an audience. It and it you want to connect with the right existing audience. And that's not to say that sometimes there are, you know, we would not have, you know, 10 years ago, just an example, even five years ago, we weren't talking about Chat GPT as an example. That was a market that did not exist. There were no books dedicated to that market. If you had written a book five years ago, people would have been like, Chat, what? So markets do change. But if you are writing for a market that doesn't exist or an audience that doesn't exist, and you want to create it from scratch, maybe there is a market for that, but it's gonna cost you a whole lot of money to try and create that. And in most cases, it doesn't exist and it won't ever exist, if that makes sense.
SPEAKER_00:Yes. The confused mind doesn't buy, right, Penny? You've said that before many times.
SPEAKER_01:The confused mind doesn't buy. Yeah, that's the other thing though, too, is that you really have to, you know, our minds kind of short circuit when we are forced to figure out what a book is about, right? When we are forced to figure out what the benefits are, you really have to, you have to kind of put those, all that on a platter and serve that up in a really nice way that it's very, very clear to your reader. Um, and this is where a lot of times authors writing their own pitches go wrong. And they, you know, they'll tell me all the time, they say, Well, you know, I pitched all these people and I never heard back. And I said, Well, you're like, how did you pitch them? So, well, I just sent it over and hope that they, you know, and just let them figure it out. Like, no, no, you really have to do the homework. You have to, you have to be extremely clear on how this book is going to benefit their audience, why it's perfect for their audience, and you do the same thing with your reader. And I know it sounds like a lot of work, but I'm telling you right now, you could be spending a whole lot of money targeting, just literally targeting the wrong people. And we see this all the time.
SPEAKER_00:100%. Yeah. You could waste a lot of your own time and money, and you can waste a lot of money expecting, you know, as Penny said in the beginning of the episode, expecting a marketing firm to magically create something that doesn't exist. If those are your expectations, you're not going to be happy. You know what I mean? Right. With the results. You really need to give them something to work with or expect to spend the time with your team, you know, through coaching, consulting, whatever it is, to figure out, you know, a lane that you're going to put yourself in that everybody's on the same page, because it really does matter.
SPEAKER_01:And if if you haven't listened to the episode that we did on elevator pitches, definitely go back because I think that layered on top of this episode will be will, you know, will really be helpful. If if you're feeling overwhelmed, if you're listening to this, you're like, oh, I'm just so overwhelmed. Sometimes really small changes can make a huge difference. So if you've targeted, you know, if you feel like you're you've your targeting is misaligned, your reader market is misaligned, you may have to update the cover and you may have to change up the book description and change out the keywords. But if the book itself is solid, that may be the only thing you need to do. And I know, like, oh my gosh, changing the cover has already sent half of the audience into a tailspin. It's really not that difficult. We've done it in the years that Amy and I have been working together, we've done this a ton with authors who are receptive. And the benefits of making these changes, of you know, taking a different direction with your book very much outweigh the amount of work that you have to do. And it always, it's always an improvement.
SPEAKER_00:It's always an impact. I can't think of one time penny where we've had an author that is really like committed to restarting where it didn't work out in their favor. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:You know. Yeah. And in some cases, just worked out like extremely well where there's like, oh my gosh, I don't know why I didn't do this years ago. So here's the thing. It sounds a little bit overwhelming. What I'd like if you're listening to this, you're like, oh my gosh, I think this is my problem. Maybe it's not with your current book, maybe it's a past book, whatever. Maybe it's a book that's still yet to come out. Start with one step this week. Start with the shelf, Amy talked about, right? Figure out who your shelf neighbors are, right? Or if you're so inclined, go back to the elevator pitch episode and create your, you know, your reader's, your one-sentence reader statement. Do one or those or both of those things. And I'm telling you, I promise you, this will, this will change the if you've been languishing and obscure, feel like you're languishing in obscurity, this will change the trajectory of everything for you. So um, all right. So we oh so Amy came up with Amy has all the best ideas, I swear. Amy came up with this really, really cool uh listener poll. So we would love it if you would take a moment. There'll be a link along with the reader profile. There will be a link to the reader poll in the show notes. So please, a listener poll, sorry, I said reader poll. We really want your feedback. We want your feedback on show length, show ideas, all the things. That's probably the reason why we have the podcast where we have the the uh text text us to the podcast. We really want to this, we're doing this for you guys. So we really want to know what you want to see more of, what you want to see less of, show length, everything, because we may be making some changes in the new year. And those changes are all going to be informed by the feedback that we get. Uh, once again, the podcast line is firing up. People are giving us all kinds of ideas all the time, and we love it. Text the word podcast to 888-402-8940. We may put the reader poll in the podcast, I'm not sure, but definitely take a look at the show notes because we'll have the what's I said reader poll again. I'm so focused on readers. What is wrong with me? Oh, that's right. I do book marketing. Thank you. I listen, we hope you we both hope you had a really, really great Thanksgiving. We will see you next week. We are gonna do um, we're we have a couple of really, really fun shows coming up. So a reader favorite shows, our favorite shows. Um, so we're gonna keep you very busy through the holiday season. Not that you wanted more homework in December, but thank you so much, and we'll see you next week. Bye bye.
