Lauren: Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of Publish & Prosper. This is episode 84, and today we're going to be talking about reader personas and how to use reader personas throughout pretty much every step of your publishing journey, starting from literally day zero. 

Matt: Day zero?

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: What exactly is day zero? 

Lauren: When you're still just thinking about the idea of what you're going to write –

Matt: Mmm, gotcha.

Lauren: – before you even start writing.

Matt: Well, let's back up a second. 

Lauren: Sure. 

Matt: Sounds like you had a pretty fun weekend. How was your weekend? 

Lauren: It was great. Actually I spent it with my two best friends that are the – I'm not going to say the biggest book nerds that I know, because I do know a lot, but – 

Matt: You wouldn't say those are the biggest book nerds that you know? 

Lauren: No. 

Matt: No? 

Lauren: No. No. 

Matt: Okay. But they’ve both worked in the book industry, right? 

Lauren: They both worked in the book industry. One of them still does. And we all met each other working in the book industry. So. 

Matt: I mean on, on nerd level from one to ten, that's pretty high up there. 

Lauren: Yeah, it is. 

Matt: But they're still not the biggest. 

Lauren: No. 

Matt: Okay. Where would I rate on your scale of book nerd from one to ten? 

Lauren: Higher than you'd like to think.

Matt: Yeah, but you're assuming that would bother me. 

Lauren: That's true. 

Matt: I'm just curious. I'd probably wear it as a badge of honor. 

Lauren: That's true. I mean – 

Matt: In fact, I'd probably be a little disappointed if I'm anywhere below a seven, to be honest with you. 

Lauren: I was going to say seven or an eight. 

Matt: Okay. I’m happy with that. 

Lauren: Because –

Matt: I think I have some work to do to get to a ten. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: I don't think anybody needs to be like, a full scale ten nerd about anything. There reaches a point where you're insufferable in your nerddom. And I say that as a long time nerd.

Matt: I think it starts before you hit a ten. 

Lauren: I think so too. 

Matt: Anything eventful happened this weekend, while you were hanging out with your friends? 

Lauren: Are you taking another opportunity to make fun of me for losing my wallet? 

Matt: I mean, you know, it's giving you an opportunity to tell your story. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: To publicly thank whoever it was that returned it to its rightful place. 

Lauren: That's so true. I did, amongst my adventures with my friends this weekend, lost my wallet and couldn't quite figure out where it was. Retraced my steps forever, multiple back and forths between the place where I knew I last had it and the place where I realized it was gone. And the next day we went back to search again. And at some point somebody had turned it in to the Barnes & Noble that was –

Matt: That you did not go to, right? 

Lauren: That was there, that we did not go to. So it was not – we never stepped foot in the actual store. 

Matt: Which is surprising.

Lauren: Well, our plan was to go there after dinner. 

Matt: Gotcha. 

Lauren: And it was when I was going to pay for – 

Matt: Oh. 

Lauren: – my dinner –

Matt: Ohhh. 

Lauren: –  that I realized my wallet was gone. 

Matt: Did your friends think you were pulling a stunt? 

Lauren: No, no, no, they know me. 

Matt: Oh. 

Lauren: The point is that my wallet was found in the best and most logical place possible for me and my two book nerd friends. And that was in a bookstore. So shout out to whoever found my wallet and returned it, and shout out to the cashier in Barnes & Noble who moved so fast when I came in there and said, ‘hey, did you find a wallet’ that I had to like, shout my last name at her as she was already bustling away from the register to go get it, which told me that she's been there before and understood. So shout out to her. 

Matt: Also, she probably looked in there, saw that there was a Barnes & Noble card inside the wallet, and that you were friend, not foe. 

Lauren: Yes. 

Matt: And wanted to make sure you got it quickly. 

Lauren: Oh yeah. 

Matt: Okay. 

Lauren: So it was an eventful weekend in many ways. 

Matt: Sounds like fun. 

Lauren: It was. Well, it was anxiety inducing and panic attack inspiring until it was then fine and fun. And I did immediately walk out of the Barnes & Noble and into the Apple store that was three storefronts down and buy a new air tag. 

Matt: For your wallet? 

Lauren: Yes. 

Matt: Wow. Okay. I mean, it's not a bad idea. I'm sure a lot of people do that. 

Lauren: I mean, I have air tags on my – 

Matt: Right. 

Lauren: My work – 

Matt: – luggage and stuff like that. 

Lauren: Yeah. My work backpack and the three main suitcases that I use all have air tags on them. Yeah. 

Matt: Okay. 

Lauren: Yep. 

Matt: Do you think you'd be more upset at losing your wallet or losing your phone? 

Lauren: So in this particular case, I'm going to say absolutely for sure the wallet. Not necessarily because of any…technically there was nothing irreplaceable in either of the things. I didn't have – I don't carry cash on me. I also don't carry my debit card on me. So the only things in that wallet were credit cards that I could freeze or cancel immediately. 

Matt: Right. 

Lauren: And my ID that would have been a pain to replace, but ultimately still replaceable. But the wallet itself is actually a fairly new purchase, which is kind of a big deal for me. I buy a new wallet like, I think the last one I bought was like eight years ago. This one was a wallet that I bought in the Louis Vuitton store on the Champs-Elysees when we were in Paris earlier this spring. So it was part functional wallet, part souvenir. 

Matt: Gotcha. 

Lauren: And had a lot of like sentimental value. 

Matt: Got it. 

Lauren: So that part was just like the extra kick in the teeth. 

Matt: I was at a conference one time, a marketing conference, years ago, it was a Google one, in New York at the Google offices. And one of the people speaking, I completely forgot what their session was about. All I ever remember was this statistic. It was wild. And they basically said that according to some recent study survey, the average time it takes people to report a lost or stolen purse or wallet – at the time, he said, you know, 27, 28 hours would elapse between the time you found something to be missing. For a phone, it was three hours. 

Lauren: I believe that. 

Matt: A clear indication that people much, much more greatly value their phones and what it's become for us versus your wallet. Which, you know, ten years ago, would be the opposite. Maybe twelve, fifteen years ago, I'm dating myself, I guess. But yeah, I mean, for me, if I lost my phone, I'm freaking out even more than if I lost my wallet, just because if I think about all the stuff that I do with my phone, that I have on my phone, including credit card numbers, things like that, like, you know, my Apple pay and whatever, and how easily people can crack your logins these days – 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: It’s…yeah, I would be much more terrified if I lost my phone. 

Lauren: I think that's fair. I think you're probably right about that. But I think that for me, it would have been a lot less panic in that moment, and a lot more… Like,  I don't think I would have thought twice about it actually, especially because I literally lost it at the mall, and it was like 8:40, and the mall was closing at nine o'clock. I think I would have just walked directly into the Apple store and been like, hey, can you guys log into like, if I log into my account, can we do Find My Phone from here? And if we can't, how quickly can you turn that into a brick and bring me out a brand new one? And I'm going to leave the store right now with a new – like I don't think I would have – 

Matt: Sadly they would have said ma'am, do you have an appointment? Cause otherwise we're going to need you to get in line. And with twenty minutes to go, you're probably not going to able to – 

Lauren: They’ve always actually been very helpful to me in that Apple store. I appreciate the – 

Matt: Which? 

Lauren: – people at – 

Matt: Which Apple store are we?

Lauren: At Southpoint.

Matt: Oh, okay. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: Okay.

Lauren: Yeah. But um.

[7:30] - Creating Lauren’s Reader Persona

Matt: If somebody was to find your lost wallet or phone, could they create a reader persona from it? From the information they would find on it or in it? 

Lauren: That's a great question. 

Matt: I'd be willing to bet they could.

Lauren: That is a great question. Because there are not a ton of things in that wallet. Like, I usually have it pretty consolidated. 

Matt: There's definitely a Fall Out Boy fan club card in there. There is definitely a Barnes & Noble book club card in there. 

Lauren: There's not a Fall Out Boy – 

Matt: Tell me there's not a Disney credit card in there. 

Lauren: Well, that's – so those are the two things that they would be able to tell about me immediately, from the very few things that are in there. Number one, of the limited things that are in there, my Barnes & Noble membership card is one of them and is important enough that I have that in there. 

Matt: So avid reader that shops at bookstores. 

Lauren: Yep. And number two, I only have two credit cards and one of them is the Disney Visa.

Matt: So Disney adult based – 

Lauren: Yep. 

Matt: – on the age on your ID and the fact that you have a Disney credit card. 

Lauren: Yep. 

Matt: Avid reader that shops in store – 

Lauren: Yep. 

Matt: – at bookstores and probably online as well. That's a good start. 

Lauren: It is a good start. 

Matt: Female. 

Lauren: Yep. 

Matt: Assuming by the ID. 

Lauren: Yep. 

Matt: If I was trying to create a reader persona from your wallet, I think I would be wrong in assuming that this person was pretty bougie. Again, I would wrongly assume that whatever I priced my book at, you could afford it.

Lauren: That's true. 

Matt: Cause you had a Louis Vuitton wallet. 

Lauren: That's true. And a Delta Amex Skymiles card in there. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: That's another one that you could assume. Well, depending on what kind of reader persona you were trying to create, if you're trying to identify a fiction or a nonfiction reader, if you're working on a persona for a nonfiction –

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: – reader, you could look at the fact that the two credit cards that I prioritize having are – 

Matt: Disney and travel. 

Lauren: A Disney and a Delta travel card.

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: So clearly I'm somebody who likes to travel and or travels often, so. Yeah, I guess actually if you think about it for the limited amount of stuff that's in there you could probably identify at least a few significant things about me. 

Matt: I bet if I was able to go into that Barnes & Noble and talk that person into pulling up your Barnes & Noble account, I could then find all the cheesy romance books you bought. Thus completing the circle of the reader persona I was trying to build on this mystery person whose wallet I found.

Lauren: You could probably do that. 

Matt: I love it. 

Lauren: You could probably do that. 

[9:45] Understanding Target Audiences, Segments, and Personas

Matt: Do you want to get started? Now that we spent 15 minutes… 

Lauren: I thought we already did. 

Matt: Oh, well yeah. Okay. As Lauren said at the intro, we're talking about building reader personas today and how you'll use those personas throughout your entire publishing journey. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: Okay. 

Lauren: Before we dive too far into this, do we need to do any groundwork to clarify and identify what reader personas are or why they're valuable? Or do you want to just dive right in and talk through the step by step of them? 

Matt: No, I think it's – yeah, that's a great point. We often assume that people already know all these things that we're talking about and that's probably the wrong way to go about it, because otherwise why would we even be here? But a reader persona, for all intents and purposes, is nothing different or short of what we would call a customer persona or a buyer persona in marketing and sales, right? Understanding who your ideal candidate is, who's the person that you're talking to within what would be a broader target audience. So I think more importantly, yes, describing what a reader persona is, which again is kind of what we just walked through is understanding the characteristics, the demographics and the makeup of a very specific type of reader, but also understanding that they are – a reader persona is different than a target audience, right? 

Lauren: Right. I would say a more narrowed in focus of a target audience. I also do want to clarify, that assuming that I don't cut 75% of the first fifteen minutes of this episode - 

Matt: Why would you do that? 

Lauren: Oh, I don't know. I like to, I like to cover my bases, just in case. But we did say that we were going to talk about reader personas and how they can be valuable from the beginning of your journey. But they're also something that can add value at any step of the publishing game. So if you're listening to this and you're like, well, can't relate, can't use any of this because my book's already in the editing process, or I'm already working on my go to market strategy, or my book has already launched and I was listening to this podcast for some more ideas on how to boost my post launch sales… All of those things are possible. 

Matt: That's right. 

Lauren: So hang out with us for a little while. 

Matt: The idea that, you know, it's only good for a certain part of the journey. It couldn't be more wrong. You're going to use it every step of the way. So you're going to use it at the very beginning. Like I use them when I'm creating content and trying to better understand the tone and style I want to use. Again, in the example we were doing with you and trying to peg you as a reader persona, if I was creating content that's relative to travel and Disney world and things like that, that's an ideal persona. Like, these are things I want to know like, about my target group of people. And so do I have a set of readers, a reader persona that fits this to a T? That does like to travel, is not adverse to spending money on good experiences, especially Disney-related things and clearly based on the wallet itself, but in general, you know, where would they fall in terms of average annual spend on Disney-related things? And so if I'm writing a book on travel at Disney World or how to get the most out of a three day trip to Disney World or how to do Disney on a budget or not how to do Disney without a budget. 

Lauren: Oh man. 

Matt: These are all things that could – yeah, right? These are all things that would be good to know. So, and these are things that are, are niched down from my target audience. My target audience for my, my audience is just maybe for this particular example, just people who like Disney or travel to Disney. But again, if I want to go deeper, if I really want to make sure I'm hitting the mark and really getting my book in the hands of the people that I'm truly speaking to, I need to know some of these things, so. 

Lauren: Yeah. So this is all stuff that we've talked about so many times in different types of episodes, where we've talked about how important it is to understand your target audience and how important it is to recognize and appreciate that your book is not for everybody. There is no book in the world that is written for everybody universally. There shouldn't be. There has to be some kind of target audience for you. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: And we've also talked about the value of the more you can niche down in your target audience, the more likely you are to find a qualified audience of readers that find your content relevant. 

Matt: Yeah. 

And this is how you do that by identifying paths, just the target audience and really digging into specific segments and personas within that audience. 

Matt: Yeah. And again, this is Marketing 101. It's being applied to the world of authorship, readers, writing. This stuff's really important from the beginning to the end. It's ultra important in your marketing, developing your marketing copy, all of those things. But I think we'll have a little bit of fun with this and try to better understand just how you would create these personas and then how you would actually use them. 

Lauren: Yeah. And it's also something that is, I just said that nothing is universally relevant to everybody. And I was immediately about to use the phrase, this is something that's universally relevant. So, okay. No, but this is something that is applicable in a variety of different ways. Like Matt just said, this is marketing concept applied to specifically like, publishing and book marketing. But it's also something even a step further into that, this is absolutely applicable to fiction and nonfiction. 

Matt: Yes. 

Lauren: No matter what genre you're writing. 

Matt: It's critical. 

Lauren: Absolutely. 

Matt: For nonfiction, sure. 

Lauren: For sure. Yeah. I mean, Matt and I are both fiction readers. We read very different fiction. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: So if you're saying that your target audience is people that read fiction books. You got to go a little deeper than that. 

Matt: Yeah, so. You have a good example in our outline where you kind of help break down, we'll kill two birds with one stone here. Going from target audience to an audience segment to an actual reader persona. The example you've built out, which I think is really good to help everybody understand is: your target audience sits at the top. That's romance readers. 

Lauren: Right. 

Matt: Right? So for you would be romance readers, I'm guessing. Then your audience segment or, you know, audience segments. You could have a couple of audience segments within that target audience, but let's say an audience segment would be contemporary romance readers. I don't know what contemporary romance is, but I like where you're going with this. 

Lauren: Mmkay. 

Matt: And then you niche all the way down to a reader persona within, and so that would be contemporary romance readers, age 20 to 35, that read book recommendations that they get off TikTok, mostly on their Kindle. Boo to all of that. But nonetheless, I think the example was very fitting. It's how you go from high level or high funnel, mid level, middle of the funnel, bottom, you know, niche down. This is your core. These are your core core readers. 
Lauren: Right. And it's also important to understand that while it is a funnel, yes, absolutely, you're not narrowing down to just one – 

Matt: Correct 

Lauren: – persona. So if you're listening to that, and you're saying romance readers as your target audience, contemporary romance readers as, as one of your segments within that there are other personas that would fit into the contemporary – 

Matt: Yes.

Lauren: – that your book would still apply to. It's not saying that your book can only apply to this one specific reader persona, but it's going to help you with your targeting efforts along the way to try to identify what groups of people you are speaking to. 

Matt: That's right. And the theory is that, you know, if you can get that far down into the funnel and make sure you hit those core readers, again, the ones you definitely want to make sure you market to appropriately, then of course, going back up, you're going to hit all of the rest of them anyways.

Lauren: Yeah. 

[16:57] What Do You Need to Know About Your Audience? 

Matt: So what are some of the things you need to know about your audience? 

Lauren: I think obviously one of the most important things that you could know about your audience is what are you helping them with? What are you doing for them? And whether that is… there's some kind of goal that they want to achieve. Getting their ADHD under control by habit building or habit tracking, or maybe they want to eat cleaner for a little while and you're going to help them with a health and fitness guide or – 

Matt: What about fiction?

Lauren: Fiction is totally, I mean, the problem that you're solving is that they're bored and they want new content to read. You're providing – 

Matt: Entertainment. 

Lauren: Yeah, you're providing entertainment. You're providing storytelling. You are – even if, depending on how granular you want to get with understanding what those problems or pain points are, let's say going back to that contemporary romance, your target audience is a contemporary romance audience. But one specific pain point that you're solving is that your book is a really good beach read. Your book's perfect kind of fluffy summer contemporary love story that would be perfect for anybody that wants just something lighthearted and entertaining to read on the beach. 

Matt: Okay. 

Lauren: And so one of your reader personas is somebody who is getting ready for a vacation or somebody who's looking for a last minute book idea. So absolutely there are goals and pain points that you can solve whether you are writing fiction or nonfiction. 

Matt: That's a great place to start when you're writing, understanding that – what kinds of content do they already read or watch or listen to, I think is another thing that you want to try to suss out when you're building a reader persona for obvious reasons. But another important one is how do they consume their content? 

Lauren: Right. 

Matt: Are they print only like me? Are they a mix, like you? Are they digital ebook only? So understanding that I think is also extremely helpful. Maybe not so much in the beginning when you're creating the content but definitely at the marketing and selling stage of what you're doing.

Lauren: Well, I actually, I'm going to disagree with you on that a little bit. And I think you're going to like this because this is a nonfiction take. 

Matt: Okay. 

Lauren: I think that it's also important to know how they consume not just the books that they read, but how they consume content that they're interested in in general. If you're talking to somebody, if you are writing a book for a specific nonfiction audience, and you know that most of the people that are interested in that subject area like long form video content or long podcast episodes, you know you might be able to get away with a little bit of a longer book, a book that dives a little bit deeper into like the really nitty gritty of whatever it is that you're talking about.

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: If you know that you're talking to an audience of people who primarily are engaging with your content or engaging with other kinds of content that is more bite sized, shorter videos, even shorter podcast episodes or blog posts that are under a certain length or whatever, then you know, okay, maybe we want to keep it to a shorter book that kind of cuts right to the point and keep my content a little bit more focused like that. 

Matt: Okay. I'll give you that. 

Lauren: I'll take it.

Matt: I could see that. 

Lauren: All right.

[20:02] How to Find Information About Your Ideal Readers

Matt: So it's easy enough to pontificate like what types of information do I need?

Lauren: Yep. 

Matt: How do we actually go about finding it, I think, is probably the bigger question for a lot of people. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: Cause it's not like you can just Google some of these things, so. 

Lauren: Maybe.

Matt: Some of them you can, but not all of them. What do you think would be the first way you would want to go find some of this information? 

Lauren: Ask. 

Matt: Yeah. Ask who, how? 

Lauren: Ask your target audience. If you are somebody who is doing this research while you already have your own audience. Fantastic.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: Ask them, start with them, ask them however you want. We just did an episode with Laurie, our Email Marketing Manager, where we talked about asking your email subscribers, doing polls in your emails, just one to two questions, even asking people to just respond directly to your emails when you're talking to them. Asking them for reviews, whether that's public review or like a testimonial or something like that. But also just on social media, say, hey, what do you guys want to learn more about? What is something that I can do for you here? Post the same –
Matt: Or go even deeper and instead of – 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: – literally just pose them as just random questions that they're not so random to you, but it does give you that opportunity to engage with your community and it gives you the information back that you need. So you can ask random questions like, Hey, how many people are a member of a book club at a particular bookstore? 

Lauren: Yep. 

Matt: Right? You don't have to tell them why you're asking or, know, just, Hey, curious, how many people? Or hey, how many people happen to use this American Express Delta travel card? Just curious. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: It doesn't always have to be this well laid plan of getting this information, but I think the best part about just asking, like you said, is it kills two birds with one stone. Again, you're, you're able to engage with your fans, readers, community, however large that might be, or small. And that's always a struggle for some people, is continually coming up with ways to engage. But then you're hopefully getting some helpful content back, or answers, that can help you build personas for the book that you're currently working on and how you want to market and sell that book, so.

Lauren: Yep. 

Matt: I like that. 

Lauren: But it's also something that if you are still working on building out your audience, if you're doing all this work because you don't yet have an audience of readers or fans or whatever, and you're still working on that. You should already know what communities and what social media spaces or wherever those people are spending time. Hopefully you are a member of those…

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: – audiences and communities. So you can still ask in there, be conscientious of it. You know, you're not turning somebody else's Circle community into your specific market research mine. 

Matt: Yeah But, Think more like Reddits – 

Lauren: Right.  

Matt: – things like that, yeah. 

Lauren: Right.

Matt: You can also go out there and just look at what's available publicly in terms of other book spaces and things like that. So it doesn't always have to be your community or specific communities, but you can go on things like Goodreads and other places like that, review sites, look at comments that people are leaving for specific types of books that might sort of fall in line with what you're writing or creating. Again, just being out there and looking at what people are saying, understanding their opinions, their takes on things can really help inform, kind of, how you're developing reader personas around some specific types of readers and buyers for your book. And then lastly, we'll talk about the It That Shall Not Be Named with a lot of creators and writers, but that is generative AI tools like ChatGPT, where these things are getting better and better at doing stuff like this.

Lauren: Yes.

Matt: And we're always advocates of using these tools strictly for things like this productivity hacks, things that are going to save you more time in the long run that you could be spending on creating more content or walking your cat. I guess you don't want cats, do you? Do you walk your cat? 

Lauren: I don't, but not for lack of trying. 

Matt: Oh, okay.

Lauren: I did try during the pandemic. I was bored, and I tried to put her on a leash and see if she would go for walks outside with me. I'm just saying for how, for how needy of a cat she is, her quality of life would be so much better if she would be either like a leash cat or a backpack cat. 

Matt: Backpack. Cat. 

Lauren: She wants to be attached to me at all times when I'm home and she gets so mad when I have the audacity to like, clean instead of sitting on the couch. 

Matt: I mean, that is rude. 

Lauren: Or walk on the treadmill instead of sitting on the couch. And like, she could have the best of both worlds if she would just chill in like a little papoose or something. 

Matt: Okay. I'm still stuck on backpack cat. All right. 

Lauren: But yeah, yeah, I, do think that there is some really… There's some really interesting ways that you can use generative AI tools to help you create reader personas, or to help you better understand, or even just to do some of that more intensive market research for you, to help you think about some things that you might not even have thought about on your own. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: We did actually talk about this a decent amount in episode…78, I think, is the one. I'm going to plug that one – 

Matt: Good memory there. 

Lauren: I think that's correct. But we just did one, whichever one it is, I'll link it in the show notes, but we talked a lot about that in there. So I'd go check that one out. 

Matt: Yeah. The cool thing about creating these is that once you've done it, they're there, but they're not set in stone, right? 

Lauren: Right. 

Matt: You can always go in and update them. You'll always find new information somewhere along the way. After sales start coming in, sometimes you get more information that you didn't have prior to launching and selling the book. Understanding that these things are fluid, like a lot of other things that you do when writing a book and selling a book. I think it's important to put some attention there and understand that once you've created it, you don't just set it there and then that's it, and it never changes. 

Lauren: Right. 

Matt: Like, you can go back and update these things. You can go back and add new things that you've found out and figured out, so. 

Lauren: You can, and you should. Because that is absolutely like – and I wanted to make sure we got this in before we started talking about how this is valuable through the different stages of publishing. Because absolutely when you're starting out, especially if you're starting from scratch, if you're somebody that is starting the writing process from scratch in the sense that you are not already a content creator with an audience following you. If you're somebody that is an established content creator or content entrepreneur and you're turning your content into a book, then you probably do have a good idea of who your audience is already. But if you're somebody that is building this all from the ground up, a lot of your theories on who your target audience is, it's theory, it's hypothetical and theoretical. These are who you're hoping will find your book, like your book, get value from your book, buy more of your books in the future. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: But you don't actually have that proof of concept yet. Once you do, once you've built that audience, once you've built your online presence, your readers, your customer list, whatever it is, you might find some information in there that you didn't include in your original versions of this. And it's important to factor that in and continue to evolve your personas and your audience segments. 

Matt: Yeah. And I love the little note that you've put here that they can't see – 

Lauren: I thought you might. 

Matt: I love to tie everything back to this, but the best way to get this information is to sell direct. 

Lauren: Yes, it is. 

Matt: Right? So a lot of this information you won't actually get unless you are selling direct in one way or another. 

Lauren: Right. 

Matt: Because if you're relying solely on third party retail channels for your sales, you're not getting any of that customer information. So there's no way to necessarily validate these personas that you've built. There's no way to come back through and update them with new information based on sales demographics, things like that. When we talk to people about the importance of selling direct because of that customer data, this is just another one of those notches in the belt or feathers in the cap for selling direct. Information is power when you're trying to build a business and sell more books and book more consultations or do whatever you're trying to do with your content. So I love the fact that you remember to plug this in here. And I think it's a great argument for selling direct. 

Lauren: No notes. 

Matt: Yeah. 

[28:01] Using Reader Personas to Influence Your Writing and Editing

Matt: So reader personas, the way that I use them, the only way I really use them, to be honest, is because what I'm writing right now is nonfiction and it could be a very broad topic, potentially, and apply to a broad group of people. I did feel like I needed a way to speak to a more narrow group at the bottom of that funnel, people that I thought would really get the most value from what I was writing about. And then work my way back up to the top of the funnel for people who were just kind of exploring or scratching the surface of print-on-demand and maybe weren't super interested yet, but just curious. So it was important for me to try and put together some personas, of which I really only built two. And I think that was pretty much all I needed. But nonetheless, for me at the start of a writing project is where I find myself really using them. And then I'm sure they will come in to play a lot more heavily at the back end there, where it's time to really turn on the marketing and the sales tactics, but I'm finding them very helpful in the beginning. So knowing who I'm writing for, again, helps me figure out what tone I want to use. Like, how many F bombs am I going to drop in the introduction versus the sixth chapter versus the conclusion. 

Lauren: Have you been rationing out – 

Matt: I have. 

Lauren: – your F bombs? 

Matt: Yes.

Lauren: Like the, the way that I ration out exclamation marks in emails to people? Cause I'm like, all right, don't, don't be excessive. 

Matt: Yes. 

Lauren: Okay, great. 

Matt: So I've had to ration F bombs and other unsavory words, as well as I'm notorious for using ellipses to end almost everything. I don't know why. 

Lauren: This is true. 

Matt: I'm so used to texting and I don't know, I just, I don't know. And so I had to get really, really good about that. The flip side of that is, you know, one of the personas has an age demographic for the book I'm writing that's like 18 to 35. So I also need to include some of those things though, because the way people read these days is the way that they talk. If I'm trying to be relevant with 18 to 35 year olds, creative 18 to 35 year olds who I'm trying to help them use print-on-demand to build a business, I need to be able to speak in a way where they're comfortable. They fully understand it and they, you know what I mean? They can relate. So again, those reader personas really help with that. 

Lauren: And it's also, it's a good way to get buy-in from your audience. I've seen a lot of, especially with nonfiction, but sometimes the fiction too, I've seen a lot of authors fall into the trap of that, ‘how do you do fellow kids?’ kind of thing, where it’s like – 

Matt: The Steve Buscemi –

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: Where like, you know, they're coming in and they're so clearly trying to relate to this audience that they don't actually fully understand and don't connect with. So I think that when you know who you're writing to and you know how to actually authentically connect with them, it does kind of subconsciously build that rapport already where you're, you're reading it and you're like, oh, this person like this person made a reference that is an inside baseball reference. Like, this is not something that they had to look up on Google popular phrases to use –

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: – in here, or whatever. And it kind of immediately gives you some like, authority check. And if you do that from the jump, if you do that from the beginning, you don't have to try to go shoehorn these things in later when you're at the editing phase. 

Matt: Yeah, I think that is important. I mean, that's the difference between again, how my introduction starts with my book versus me coming out of the gate with like, what's up my fellow rizzlers, time to talk about some super sigma, you know, information, no cap here. Like…

Lauren: No. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: No. 

Matt: Wouldn't work, right? 
Lauren: I would close the book so fast and so hard. Oh my God. I might even throw it across the room just to get it away from me. 

Matt: Yeah, well at that point I would have already gotten your 18.99, so I'd be all right. 

Lauren: Oh, that's a good point. 

Matt: But again, talking to 18 - 35 year olds, they might use some of that language every day. I know my 15 year olds do, but I'm not going to write that way. I need to understand that, you know, there is a fine line. So again, having these reader personas, knowing who they are, what circles they move in, where they may be more or less inclined to rely on technology for certain things versus something else was important for this book. Right up and through into the editing phase. So you asked about what I was doing this past weekend. I was actually going back through my manuscript that I'd gotten back from the editor, and it became clear to me after looking through the comments, the changes, the suggestions, they all started getting heavier about halfway through the manuscript. And I realized the pattern was that I was getting away from my reader persona. And as that happened throughout the manuscript, those comments from the editor started to be more heavy. That red ink started to be a lot more prevalent. The changes I was having to go in and accept or reject became a lot more frequent. And so that's what happened. I had kind of gotten away from the personas that I was using at beginning of that manuscript, which I think were the right ones and the right thing to do. But I didn't continue to keep those personas front of mind as I got halfway through, and then towards the end of the manuscript. So going back through the edited version and thinking back to my personas again, in conjunction with what the editor returned, was like, oh yeah, okay. I get it. This is, this is why she, she did this, or this is why she flagged this. And here's what I need to do to get back on track, right? So it was really helpful in that instance as well, or is really helpful as I'm still working through some of those. 

Lauren: Yeah, I think that's a really good point. And actually something that just occurred to me as you were saying that was that it's also something that if you understand who you're writing to, that might influence what kind of editor you hire or when you're looking for… If you're writing something super technical and you're writing, you know that your reader personas are all people that are at the intermediate to advanced level of whatever it is you're talking about, then you might want to look for somebody as an editor who has experience in the field or subject that you're talking about so that they're not leaving, they're not wasting your time and their time by leaving comments and they're saying you didn't explain what this thing is. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: It can also be in reverse the same way. You might be then looking for somebody that if you are writing an introductory level book – 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: – and you're looking for somebody that you say, I want somebody that has no idea what this subject is. So that if there are things in here that they say, you're supposed to be explaining this to somebody who has no experience with it. And I have no idea what you're talking about. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: You forgot to explain this one thing, or I didn't understand this concept that you brought up in chapter two until I read this other concept in chapter five, and developmentally we might want to move these things around. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: So if you have a better understanding of who you're writing to, that can even go so far as to influence what kind of people you choose to work with in the editing process. For sure. 

Matt: Yeah, that's a good point. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

[34:44] Using Reader Personas to Influence Your Formatting, Design, and Go-to-Market Strategy

Matt: I have not gotten to this point necessarily just yet, but continuing on through the chronology of how you would do this. You've written the manuscript, or you're writing the manuscript, and then in conjunction or in parallel, you are typically also looking at things like cover design and formatting, and depending on how you're going about this, you might be working with somebody to help you with those things. But it's another place where these personas can help out. 

Lauren: Yes. And it's another place where it's very important for you to understand what the audience that you're writing towards is interested in, what they're looking for and also what they're not looking for. There's been discourse online recently in the romance writing, not writing community, romance reader community, but also just kind of in general in the publishing industry, about cover design and cover art for books. And we've seen in the last few years a significant trend in illustrated covers for romance very specifically. And it's so it's become such the standard and the norm that book covers that have real people on the cover of them are – I refuse to say the word cringe, so – cringy. People are –

Matt: I got nothing to offer to this conversation. 

Lauren: Well, but this is – this is a conversation that is happening like in real time right now where people are saying, like, if I see a book cover that has real people on the cover, I'm immediately kind of like, this is an amateur, or this is somebody that is kind of outdated in their thinking of how to appeal to this audience or whatever. And so that is something that if you are trying to break out as a debut author in a specific genre, you want to make sure that you're not alienating your potential readers by giving them a cover that they're going to completely disregard. 

Matt: Yeah. That makes sense. 

Lauren: You know, it's important to know who you're targeting – 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: – with that kind of content. 

Matt: That will also help inform other things –

Lauren: Yes. 

Matt: – like whether or not you use blurbs on your cover, how you're going to craft your elevator pitch to pitch and talk and market and sell your book. 

Lauren: What USPs you're going to include. 

Matt: Right. 

Lauren: Not even just USPs, but we've also talked about this a lot recently, the rise of trope marketing in the fiction publishing industry, which I know you love – 

Matt: My favorite. 

Lauren: – so much, but it is something that is actually like – 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: – becoming increasingly more relevant. And knowing your reader personas, knowing your target audience, if you're writing a book that you're targeting towards Matt, you're probably not going to want to pitch it to him by saying, this is a grumpy sunshine enemies to lovers romance. 

Matt: Yeah. You definitely don't want to pitch it that way. 

Lauren: No, probably not. 

Matt: No.

Lauren: But if you're talking to me… I got some suggestions for exactly what kind of…

Matt: I’m sure you do. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: Let's move along a little bit. 

Lauren: Sure. 

Matt: So, you know, let's get past the creation of the book itself and let's talk about some of the marketing and other ways you would use these personas to get us a little further along here. Starting at pre-launch, not everybody does it, but a lot of people will do pre-order campaigns and things like that. Pre-order campaigns, I think, really thrive on understanding who some of these target audiences are. But if you can go deeper and have actual reader personas to help you sort of understand who you might want to go to first with these pre-order campaigns. You may only offer it to certain reader personas, target audiences, and not others, as a way to better gauge reception of this particular title, topic, whatever that might be. It's gonna help you understand what influencers you're gonna try to reach out to, other content creators you might want to partner with on your pre-launch marketing, what channels, things like that. 

Lauren: Who you want to reach out to as your like, top, number one, this is – if I can only have a guest appearance on one podcast, this is my like, absolute dream guest podcast appearance.

Matt: Yeah.  

Lauren: This is the one that's going to launch me directly into my target audience. 

Matt: Because this is the one that a lot of the reader persona that I'm targeting listens to. 

Lauren: Right. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: Right. 

Matt: That's perfect. 

Lauren: I actually want to go back to the pre-order thing for a second though, because I think there's a lot of different ways that your reader persona can influence that or can influence that decision. 

Matt: Sure. 

Lauren: Even as simple as deciding, and this is kind of getting ahead of myself a little bit, but as simple as deciding where you're going to conduct your pre-launch campaign and your book sales in general. I have an author right now, one of my favorite authors of the last year or two, I've read everything she's written, including ten page novellas that you can only get from BookFunnel from signing up from her email subscription. Worked for me. She's got a new book coming out this fall. I'm super excited for it. Genuinely can't wait. She's pushing preorders for it online right now and I have not preordered it yet. And do you know why? 

Matt: Because it's not about Disney? 

Lauren: Because she's only selling it right now on Amazon. 

Matt: Oh, yeah. 

Lauren: And I will not preorder it. I will wait until – because she has said that it will be available on other platforms. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: I will not preorder it from Amazon. I will wait until it's available somewhere else. But I would have preordered it two months ago if she had it, a pre-order available somewhere else. 

Matt: Yeah. And you said she's using BookFunnel, right? Yeah, I mean, come on. 

Lauren: Yeah. So, but that's something to think about. And that's something that you need to know your target audience. You know your readers. And if you know…maybe you are writing a book that is most of your readers are going to be KDP readers. A lot of your reader personas are Kindle Unlimited subscribers. Then yeah. Okay. Maybe an Amazon pre-order is the best place for you to do that. But it depends. 

Matt: Yeah. 

You have to know who you're marketing to before you can make that kind of decision. 

Matt: Yeah. 

[40:19] Using Reader Personas to Focus Your Post-Launch Marketing Efforts

Matt: Another area where I think they become really helpful is post-launch. That's where most people actually end up taking their foot off the gas. They think they've written the book, they've published the book, they've done the pre-orders, they've done the launch. Now it's time to sit back and relax and count their money. And that's the biggest mistake that most people make, nonfiction and fiction, across the board. I mean, we've seen marketers who were great marketers that wrote a great book and still didn't put in the marketing and time post launch. Right? And so there are ways post launch where we've seen people use personas. And certainly we could talk about there are some ways where these personas would help you post launch. 

Lauren: Yeah, absolutely. I think we failed to set this one up a little bit, because we didn't really talk about how you can also use your reader personas to help you go-to-market strategy in terms of what formats you're going to release, whether or not you're going to stagger the release on them. If you are going to stagger them, what order you're going to release them in. So if your reader personas are mostly Kindle readers or mostly audiobook readers or whatever, you might want to launch that first. You might want to say I'm doing…I'm doing an Audible exclusive, for anybody that is an audiobook-first type of girlie, you can get this book on Audible a month sooner than anybody else can get it anywhere else, and concentrate all of your marketing efforts on that, and then launch an ebook and print book version after that. So, you know, if you have set yourself up that way where you're doing any kind of specific staggered release strategy, now that we've reached a point where you're in that post launch phase where all of that stuff is out, how do you go through that? And then say, okay, now what, what did I miss? What did I not do? And I think one of the top things that reader personas are super helpful for is going back to what we said at the – not the beginning, the middle, I guess – of this, and saying that you should revise and update your reader personas. If you did all this pre-launch marketing, strategizing, and planning, and execution based on the reader personas that you identified, and now you're in that post-launch space and you're looking at who actually bought your book and you say, okay, how do I bridge the gap between these two types of people? 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: How do you bridge the gap? What can you do? That's your boosted sales right there. There's something there that you can do to get your books into those missing spaces. 

Matt: Yeah. It's potentially a really good way to do that for sure. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: But again, some of that work would need to be set up on the front end. And again, you really need to be selling direct to do that. 

Lauren: Yes. 

Matt: You're not going to have that information. If you're not selling direct, some of these points are moot for you. They're not, they're not really anything you can put into practice. So I would encourage everybody to experiment with selling direct for some of these, but –

Lauren: Well, I still think there are ways to – I mean, yes, absolutely. You should be selling direct. I'm not disagreeing with that point at all, but I think there are ways to get a good feeling for who your audience is. Your book that you're working on right now, your primary demographic is 18 to 35?

Matt: 18 to 35. 

Lauren: 18 to 35. And then your secondary segment is 35 to 55. What if you find yourself looking at…I had a surprising spike in sales from 55 to 70 year olds. What can you do to help you kind of reconcile that unexpected shift and say, okay, is there something that I can do to create other content for these people? Do I think that these people bought this book because there wasn't anything in the market that was targeted to them, and this is the closest they could find? So maybe can I write another book now that is targeted specifically to them? 

Matt: Well, I would start the cycle over. 

Lauren: Yeah?

Matt: So in this example, A. I have to be selling direct to get this information. So if I do get this information that does show that there's another demographic that I didn't count on, and that is contributing significant sales numbers to my book, then absolutely what I do is I start at the beginning. And so now that I do have that customer data, it means I also have their emails on file now, because they bought directly from me. 

Lauren: True. 

Matt: And so like we said, at the top of the show, I just start over. I go and ask them what led you to buy this book? How did you find it? What is it that you're actually doing with this information? I start building a new persona based off of this new demographic, because I have this information at hand and I can go direct to the source and ask them. So I think that's the key with post-launch, and persona updates as well, is that you really have to be able to get that data and that information. 

Lauren: Right. 

Matt: You can't go back and update a persona if you're not getting that real time information. The only way you're getting that real time information is through selling those titles direct, or having some other direct way to come in contact with the buyers of your book. Because when you sell third party, again, it's fine. Sell everywhere you can. But when you're selling third party, you're not getting any of that information. So there's no way for you to reconnect with that buyer and ask those questions or truly understand if you were on the mark with your personas, you just kind of have to hope that you were. So yeah, in those examples, I think it's critical that you're selling direct, but that's what I would do. If I had that third persona emerge demographic, whatever that might be, that's what I would have to do. I'd have to go back and start over with that persona, which would be great, but now I have this new one and I can build off of that. And that injects a new life into my sales plan.

Lauren: I think it’s also super important point that even if you don't, even if you got it exactly right the first time around and the Venn diagram of your initial reader personas and who has actually bought your book is a perfect circle. Congratulations, you're omniscient. But even if that's the case, this is a cycle. 

Matt: Sure

Lauren: This is actually something that you should just continue to repeat the process from the beginning, especially if you're building your brand around this type of content. Whether you are building your brand as a fiction author and plan to write more books after your first one, or you're a content entrepreneur and you don't know if you're going to do another book after this one, but you are using your book as a brand growth tool, then this is still, it's still just a cycle. You've done this work. You've done every step of the reader persona identification, understanding them, using it to influence everything from your content to your sales strategy and everything in between. Now you start back over at the beginning. And now you say, okay, now I've truly identified this group of people. I've got their contact information. I understand what they want, what they're interested in. What can I give them next? 

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: Is it new podcast content? Is it new blog posts, email content, videos, a new book, a new course, a new product? Whatever it is, you start, take the information that you've learned from this and you bring it back to square one. You start all over again. 

Matt: Yeah, I like it. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

[47:10] Wrap Up

Matt: Well, that's fun.

Lauren: It was fun.

Matt: I can't think of anything else I would add to that. 

Lauren: No, actually. 

Matt: Now I feel like I need to go finish working on my manuscript. 

Lauren: That's the best kind of, that's the best kind of episode, honestly. Actually there have been a few of these episodes that as I've edited them or as I've been working on them, I'll be sitting at my desk going, man I can't wait to be done with this so that I can go pull up that Google doc or something. This, this really just like, inspired in a way that I wanted to keep going. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: So, you know, hopefully at least one or two people listening to this have felt inspired in some way or another during it. 

Matt: Well, maybe if not, maybe your bracelets will inspire them. What do they say today? 

Lauren: My bracelets say Bothered and Bewildered, Me and My Ghosts, and My Beloved Ghosts. 

Matt: It's a lot of ghosts. 

Lauren: Feeling a little spooky. 

Matt: I see that. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: Not too far off from Halloween. 

Lauren: Oh, no. I mean, it's – the day after my birthday is when Halloween starts. That's, that's how it goes. 

Matt: Wait, when's your birthday? February? 

Lauren: July 3rd. 

Matt: I'm just kidding. 

Lauren: My birthday is July 3rd. So I guess, well, I guess technically July 5th. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: Cause I do like the fireworks and celebrating Steve Rogers’ birthday. 

Matt: Okay. All right. 

Lauren: So July 5th, Halloween has started. We are officially in Halloween season. 

Matt: I can get on board with that. 

Lauren: I thought you might. 

Matt: All right. 

Lauren: All right. Well, if you've been inspired by this episode or any of our other episodes, please let us know. We'd love to hear about it. Leave us a comment on any of Lulu's social media posts. You can comment directly on the YouTube video for this episode. You can email us at podcast@lulu.com, like and subscribe, and leave us a review. If you have been inspired enough that you've created any kind of content, share it with us. We're book nerds. We'd love to know if somebody that listens to this podcast is working on a book or has published a book or anything like that. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: We would love that. 

Matt: Agreed.

Lauren: Let us know. And if not, we'll be back next week with hopefully something even more inspirational. 

Matt: Hopefully. 

Lauren: Who knows? Thanks for listening, everyone. 

Matt: Later.