Matt: Welcome back everyone. This is episode 85 of Publish & Prosper. 

Lauren: Sure is. 

Matt: Sometimes it seems like it's been 85 episodes and sometimes it seems like it's been a lot less. For some reason today it feels like it's been 85. 

Lauren: Yeah, I think you're right about that. Yeah. 

Matt: I wonder if it has to do with the topics. Like – 

Lauren: I do actually, I do feel like you might be right about that. It feels like it's been 85 epi, epi – It feels like it's been 85 episodes when I can't speak or get words out of my mouth.

Matt: Understandable.

Lauren: It feels like it's been 85 episodes when I'm, I have to go through our whole list of episodes before to make sure that we haven't already talked about a topic that I want to talk about. 

Matt: It seems like there's a tool you could use for that. 

Lauren: You know what, didn't work as well as I wanted it to actually. I tried that this weekend. 

Matt: Oh my gosh. It's so basic. Just take your spreadsheet, dump it in a ChatGPT and say, have I covered this topic already? 

Lauren: Yeah. I asked it to give me some new ideas based on the episode topics we've already done and it gave me a bunch of repeats. 

Matt: Well, yeah, no. You come up with the ideas, just use AI how to make sure it's not a repeat of what we've already done. 

Lauren: We were brainstorming. I was using it – 

Matt: I'm paying for your brain. 

Lauren: I was using it as a brainstorming tool.

Matt: It's kind of weak as a brainstorming tool. 

Lauren: It's a sounding – we've done a whole episode about this.

Matt: I know. 

Lauren: About using it as a sounding board and using it as somebody to bounce your ideas off. 

Matt: It's not good as a creative genesis tool. 

Lauren: I wasn't using it that way. 

Matt: That's a brainstorming is. Sounding board, sure. Would this topic resonate with these audiences?

Lauren: I was using it as a tool to help me as I was brainstorming. 

Matt: I don't like it. 

Lauren: Okay. Well, it's fired.

Matt: I feel very antagonistic today. 

Lauren: Okay. You did eat lunch before this recording, right?

Matt: I did, yeah, but not a great lunch. Yeah. 

Lauren: I'm sorry. 

Matt: That's part of the problem. You fired AI, is that what you're saying? You fired ChatGPT? 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: You should use Matt GPT and see what happens. 

Lauren: Oh boy. 

Matt: I mean, other than the occasional F-bomb in references to Disney, it should be okay.

Lauren: Yeah, but I get that in real time. I don't need that. I don't need an AI version of that. 

Matt: Touche. Touche. 

Lauren: I can already hear that in my head as I'm doing all the brainstorming that I'm doing. 

Matt: Understood. How was your weekend? 

Lauren: It was good. It was not as productive as I wanted it to be. I had a lot of projects that I wanted to do this weekend and did not really get through them. 

Matt: I'm just curious, like what's an example of a project on your list? One that you can talk about. 

Lauren: Oh, I mean, the range of them is absolutely insane. First of all, I think that's really important to clarify. Like, literally the projects on this weekend included everything from map out my travel plans for the next four months, do high level budget planning for all of that within that. 

Matt: Okay. 

Lauren: Dye a pillowcase that I've been meaning to dye for, I'm not kidding, 15 years. 

Matt: Dye it? 

Lauren: Yep. 

Matt: Why? 

Lauren: Because it was orange and green stripes. 

Matt: Ew, what do you - 

Lauren: Yeah, I didn't buy it for myself. 

Matt: What are you gonna dye it? 

Lauren: Black. 

Matt: Why don't you just throw it away and buy a black one?

Lauren: Because it is a – 

Matt: Do you know how cheap pillowcases are? 

Lauren: Well, it is a pillowcase for a down pillow that my grandmother bought me in Germany. So it is a European pillowcase size. It's actually a 30 inch by 30 inch square. And I've spent the last month trying to find appropriately sized pillowcases like that online. And all of them that I have been able to find have first of all been way more expensive than I would want to spend on a pillowcase. But second of all, all been like a linen or velvet couch cushion pillowcase cover. And this is like a pillow on my bed. So I just wanted like a plain cotton pillowcase. And I finally was like, never mind, I'm just going to dye the one that I already have. So wide range of projects on my to do list. And spoiler alert of those three options, the one that I did was dyeing the pillowcase.

Matt: Oh, my God. 

Lauren: Came out great. Solid black. 

Matt: How much of the rest of your house did you dye black? And is it gonna bleed through to your sheets? 

Lauren: No. I mean I've washed it like twice since then. 

Matt: You know, I'll be in Germany in October. I could just find you – 

Lauren: If this goes wrong in the next month or two I'll let you know. 

Matt: If you come in with the whole side of your face like this off shade of like, blackish gray Then we'll know what happened. 

Lauren: I don't think I'll be coming in that day if that's case – 

Matt: You better not call out sick because you got dye on your face.

Lauren: No, I know how to get that stuff off. I'm not clean or neat when it comes to craft projects, so I know how to clean up after myself when I'm done. 

Matt: Okay. 

Lauren: Yeah. What'd you do this weekend? 

Matt: Oh, I took my kids to this place out by where we live. It's called Fantasy Lake, but it's like… It's like an old rock quarry that they, once it was kind of hollowed out, they flooded it and turned it into like a place with all these inflatable obstacle courses on the water. 

Lauren: Oh, I’ve heard of this. 

Matt: You can go like scuba diving. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: They sunk like a bus and an airplane down there so you can, and then they have cliff diving. 

Lauren: How was it? 

Matt: Okay. I definitely feel fifty after spending a few hours there and my daughter broke her pinky toe. 

Lauren: Oh no. 

Matt: I mean that place. Yeah, like you run out there like you think you're fifteen and you know within ten minutes of climbing those obstacles as inflatables and it's pretty wild. It was fun. 

Lauren: I feel that. 

Matt: I'm still feeling it. 

Lauren: I completely understand. 

Matt: That is why I was curious like, what your project lists look like. Mine as a fifty year old is like, oh, I gotta cut the grass today. And oh, by the way, I need to paint the trim around the garage. I wish I was your age, late twenties, no kids. Like what does that project list look like? And apparently – 

Lauren: Once again. 

Matt: – apparently it's just as boring. You're dyeing German pillowcases. 

Lauren: First of all, I appreciate the projection of my age there, but I am thirty-six. 

Matt: I always forget that. Okay. Thirty-six. 

Lauren: No, definitely, there were a bunch of household projects on there. I actually, you weren't on this homeroom, but a couple of weeks ago during homeroom, one of the Stranger Things prints that I have, one of the Butcher Billy Stranger Things prints that I have, fell off the wall. Those prints are on the gallery wall that I have going up my spiral staircase. So the frame fell off the wall and clattered down the entire spiral staircase. It was terrifying. 

Matt: That sucks. 

Lauren: So that was on my to do list that I didn't get done this weekend was to repair that gallery wall and repair the couple of spots of damage on that. So definitely like, household chores and tasks on there too. 

Matt: Alright/ 

Lauren: You know, I like to have a range of fun craft projects, life projects, household projects. 

Matt: That's good. You should. 

Lauren: And work. So, you know, it was a lot of – 

Matt: And work. 

Lauren: – a lot of stuff on the list. 

Matt: Yeah. Alright. 

Lauren: But I'm going out of town this weekend too. So I had to, I kind of forgot about that. So I have to do some prep for that too.

Matt: Nobody's surprised by that. 

Lauren: No, nor should they be. 

[7:10]

Matt: Well, today we're going to talk about extending the sales cycle of your book, which I'm sure everybody's going be interested in hearing about. 

Lauren: I think so. 

Matt: Hopefully. 

Lauren: I feel like, that's pretty important, or it should be pretty important for anybody listening. 

Matt: Yeah. I mean, the goal is to sell books, so. 

Lauren: I think this is something that we've actually referenced a lot throughout other episodes. That idea of kind of losing steam on your book launch. I think that even the people that are really so gung-ho about their book launch and do everything right. They're doing all their pre-launch stuff. They're not, you know, waiting until the last minute. They're putting in all the effort. They have a plan. They have a strategy. There still reaches a point where you kind of just treading water and going now what? 

Matt: Yeah, or you know, you've already moved on to the next thing. But yeah, I guess that treading water point just comes sooner for a lot of other, for a lot of people versus others. So yeah, same thing. You just kind of get to that point where you're like, I already got to move on to the next thing or, you know, at this point, it should be able to handle momentum on its own, which is not true. So. 

Lauren: Right. 

Matt: Which is the point of this episode. 

Lauren: Right. 

Matt: I think that if we look at data here at Lulu, or with Tilt Publishing, the hybrid services imprint that we have, the average sales cycle is about three months. And it doesn't change much. Three months from when you launch, you can see it pretty steadily in the data, sales look pretty decent for most authors. And then they just kind of drop off a cliff. Typically that's also around the same time that authors tend to take their foot off the gas when it comes to marketing and promo or things like that. And like you said, it's just, you feel like you hit that wall. So.

Lauren: Yeah. And it is something…to a certain extent that is natural. 

Matt: Sure.

Lauren: That is just the natural sales cycle of a book. Books are not just perpetual sellers. 

Matt: That’s right. 

Lauren: They do have kind of a finite sales cycle. 

Matt: I think for traditional books, if I'm not mistaken, and we can look this up again, but I'm almost positive the stat I read is that they barely make it to six months. So I think what I read was the sale cycle for a traditionally published book that you might find, you know, in a Barnes & Noble or whatever, is around six months. So for a self-published indie author, you're not far off that mark necessarily. A traditional published book is getting maybe twice the amount of sales cycle or lifetime there, but they also have a much bigger sales engine behind them, right? They have a whole sales team at whatever publisher it is trying to make that money back that they advanced or do whatever. So three months is the average that we see right now in the data, but it doesn't have to be. And that's what we're going to talk about today.

Lauren: Right. We're also not talking about injecting so much new life into this sales cycle that it is going to jump back up to launch day numbers or something like that. We're just talking about how to kind of extend and prolong that momentum. And then also what you can be doing, not just with your sales, because this isn't just talking about sales, but also what you can be doing to continue the momentum of your brand growth and your professional growth as a part of this initial book launch. 

Matt: Right. So we'll start with a few things at the top end of this. When we talk about extending the sales cycle, the life cycle of your book, we're also going to kind of start past launch, obviously. And so some of the things that we're going to make assumptions on here, you know, we're going to assume that you've already launched, that you had a go-to-market strategy. And we're going to say, also, that if part of that launch strategy or that go-to-market strategy included staggered releases, then great, good for you. That's really one of the first things you want to do to be able to try and extend that sales cycle, is stagger your format releases. There are episodes we've already done around these topics that you can go and listen to. The idea is that you launch a one format first and maybe on one or two channels first. And then, you know, in about thirty days you launch the next format. So maybe you start with print, which is oftentimes like, I don't know about you, but I've talked about this before. I get so aggravated that when the new book is coming out by my favorite author, one of my favorite authors, the minute it hits Barnes & Noble, it's only hardcover for like thirty or sixty days. I don't want the hardcover. Give me that paperback. Stop being a jerk. But they don't. They don't release the paperback for like thirty or sixty days. 

Lauren: Okay, well, now hold on, because now you're contradicting yourself because that is the sales cycle that the traditional publishing industry is using. 

Matt: That's what I just said.

Lauren: But that’s – 

Matt: I hate it. 

Lauren: Okay. You can hate it. 

Matt: Yeah, cause – 

Lauren: That is how they are prolonging their sales cycle. And it's also more like six to twelve months for a hardcover book in trad pub. The initial hardcover release comes first and then it's six to twelve months before the paperback is released. 

Matt: I'm going to disagree. 

Lauren: Okay. 

Matt: Cause I've waited out the sixty days and got the paperback on many occasions. 

Lauren: Okay. 

Matt: But what we're talking about is again, you might go to Barnes & Noble, see a hardcover on the shelf, look for the paperback. It's not there. You're going to have to wait for the paperback to be released. It's a staggered format release. They may or may not have also – probably if it's romance, they've already released the ebook. But maybe the audiobook's not going to come for another thirty, sixty, ninety days. So staggering your formats is a great way to extend your sales cycle. And when you look at people… We've talked about Justin Moore and several others on this podcast before, people who've had really good launches, who've had really good post-launch momentum and who still have really good sales cycle left in their books. It's because they've done things like that. So this episode is not about staggered releases or, you know, developing a good launch plan or go to market strategy. For all that stuff, go find episode 35, listen to 56 as well, and maybe a few others. 

Lauren: Yeah, well, so 35 is gonna talk about how to design your go-to-market strategy, which is where we're gonna talk about the format releases and stuff like that. Episode 56 is the one that we did on going wide with your book distribution.

Matt: Yes. 

Lauren: Which is the other thing that we're gonna talk about here just briefly if you haven't already done this – 

Matt: That’s right. 

Lauren: – as part of extending your sales cycle. If you started by just launching on one channel, hopefully it was direct. 

Matt: Yes. 

Lauren: Hopefully your choice was to start by exclusively selling your book direct. If you have not already done so, a great way to extend that sales cycle is to go wide with your distribution. So you're going to add in additional channels online. You might even add in some things like social media integrations for selling directly from Instagram or TikTok or something like that. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: Distributing through Ingram Content Group, whatever. If you haven't already reached out to any local brick and mortar stores, whether that's a bookstore or if your book lends itself to something that isn't a bookstore, maybe you can also do that. 

Matt: What do you mean by that? 

Lauren: So like if you did a if you're a travel creator – 

Matt: Oh, yeah, yeah.

Lauren: – and you did the best restaurants in the city, you might want to reach out to those restaurants and say – 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: – hey, you want to do you have a gift shop? Do you want to sell my book there? But bookstores always a great option too. We did also do an episode on how to get your book into indie bookstores. So if you want to explore different avenues for going wide with your book distro and your book options there, you can listen to episode number 56 just in general about going wide with your book distribution. And if you want to look more specifically into how to reach out to local bookstores or other stores in your area that might carry your book. We did do an episode on that a while back. It's episode 37, how to get your book into indie bookstores. So I will link all three of those in the show notes. If you want to explore those areas more, if you have not tried those options yet for extending your sales cycle, if you have not tried releasing multiple formats of your book and going wide with your book distribution, those are your first two steps. 

Definitely. That's where you start. Again, hopefully that was part of your go to market strategy. But those are the easiest places to start for sure. 

Lauren: Yes. 

Matt: Yeah.

[14:57]

Matt: By the way, the main areas we're going to discuss in this episode of how to extend the sales cycle, how to keep that momentum going, is going to be going after more earned promo opportunities. We're to talk about reinforcing your relationship with your readers or building your audience up. We're going to talk about investing in yourself as an author and as a brand. So continuing to invest in yourself and your expertise. And then there's always the possibility after you've been doing this for three months, six months, nine months, wherever you're at post-launch, you've probably got a decent amount of data. Hopefully even if you've only been selling on Amazon, there's probably some data markers you can get your hands on that might help you understand what's been going on. And so taking the opportunity to look back now at your sales, at what you've been doing, your back – 

Lauren: At feedback. 

Matt: That's right. At your approach, holistically take everything you can and try to build a new picture post launch of what's been going on that might help inform how you continue moving forward either as an author, as a brand, as a product. So we'll talk about that last. good. 

Lauren: Sounds good. 

Matt: The first one really is again, the one that I think is the easiest, which is earn promo opportunities. And so, you know, we talk a lot about how to market yourself and how to do things like try to get yourself on podcasts. That's one of the most popular ones right now is podcasts, podcast advertising, getting interviews, getting people to talk about your book on podcasts, but you've never exhausted all those opportunities, right? So any opportunity to be able to get more ears, more eyes, more listens, continue looking for new outlets. 

Lauren: I think it's important to recognize that it's not that you've never, that you've never exhausted them. It's that some of them don't even open up to you until you're at a certain stage of publishing, of marketing your book – 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: – of building your brand, whatever. So not that you have an exhausted ones, cause you should have already tried. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: You should have been doing this since pre-launch. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: For sure. 

Matt: But if you haven’t, that’s okay.

Lauren: But it’s a never ending supply of them, maybe. Yeah. 

Matt: And along those lines, you know, there may have been some podcasts that you did reach out to that declined, because either of that reason or maybe some other reason they'd never heard of you or whatever that might be. But if you've got a decent amount of traction, it's kind of easy to go back to them just say, hey, I know three, four months ago when we first spoke about this, you really weren't interested, but just want to let you know, like. I've had X amount of book sales, I've done this, I've done that. You might want to revisit or reconsider potentially having me as a guest on your podcast. I think I could bring some value to your listeners in this way. So, yeah. Revisiting certain things are opportunities that potentially were closed off to you in the beginning.

Lauren: Yeah, there are a lot of great ways now that you've actually put some of this stuff into practice that you can turn around to people and say, hey, you know, I – initially this might not have been a good fit for your brand before. Or you might not have been willing to take the chance on like a relatively unknown creator or author, but now I have empirical evidence that this book resonated really well with people. I've got a bunch of other appearances or other testimonials from readers – 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: – or whatever the case may be. There are ways that you can turn around and say like, I know why this didn't work out earlier, but maybe reconsider. 

Matt: The key is just to make sure – yeah, you're right – that you're not just saying, hey, can I be on your podcast, right? And we do cover this in previous episodes where we talk about this, but it's up to you to tell them why you think you might be able to add value to their listener base. 

Lauren: Right. 

Matt: Otherwise they've got no interest. People publish books every day, but why are you and potentially your book going to be of interest to their readership or their listenership? And that's, that's on you to explain that. So again, if you were a pass last time, maybe because you didn't have any experience, you didn't have any clips from previous podcasts that they could check out to make sure that you would be a great guest. If you have those now, that's really a great help to you. And so again, you know, empirical evidence, data, whatever you've got, you can send it back and oftentimes they'll feel more comfortable and then want to have you on if it's a good fit. 

Lauren: Yeah. And of course this is relevant to not just podcasts. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: Guest blog appearances, articles in local newspapers appearances on TV spots or TV segments. 

Matt: Sure. 

Lauren: Something like that. Even book reviews, you know, we've debated in the past the value of promotional book reviews, not reader reviews – 

Matt: Right. 

Lauren: – but PR reviews and neither here nor there maybe, but still technically something that you can repitch yourself for at this point in time if you want to. 

Matt: Yeah. I think reviews in that context are a great idea. Like, Publishers Weekly will do reviews of indie books. They have a whole section for that. 

Lauren: Yes. And that is actually something I can't remember if we talked about this in the episode that we did on book reviews – 

Matt: I think we did. 

Lauren: – but when it comes to review outlets like that, they have very specific guidelines for when you can pitch a book to them. Traditionally published books, more often than not, they will only review them before the publication date. But for self-published titles, a lot of them won't review pre-launch books. They will only accept them after they've been published. So you might have had some of those that you looked into during your pre-launch promo efforts and they were not open to you and now they are. 

Matt: That’s a good point. 

Lauren: Now is the time to go back and revisit those. You also might want to consider some of these outlets. You have a new angle that you can approach them with depending on the relevancy of your book. If you think that your book would be a really good fit for an end of year gift guide, but your book came out in July, when you were originally pitching your book for promo back in June and July people weren't doing end of year holiday wrap ups, gift guides, anything like that yet. But now maybe it's September and it's time to say, hey, you're getting those gift guides ready now, my book would still be a really good fit. Plus I've got this evidence that suggests that it resonated really well with this audience of people that matches your audience of people. So don't you want to talk about it? 

Matt: Yeah. Or things like, you know, our friend Allison wrote that book about grief and loss, right? Losing parents – 

Lauren: Yep. 

Matt: – specifically. Mother's Day, you know, or Father's Day. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: That's a time where you would like to pitch yourself as a guest or as, somebody who has written a book on the topic of loss of a parent. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: And those are times where depending on the podcast or whatever the outlet is, it's not just a podcast. That could be an extremely relevant time to resurface your book. So yeah, any holidays, times of the year, special events, if your book is historical fiction and it, you know, has something to do with a, I don't know, whatever, some warship that's being decommissioned in Connecticut. Now's the time to resurface your book. Again, just finding calendar-appropriate, seasonally-appropriate, however you want to phrase that, ways to resurface your content in a relevant way, I think are really important. 

Lauren: Yeah. Yeah. I think there's also kind of hand in hand with that the opportunity to reframe how you're pitching yourself and your expertise and your brand to whoever it is that you're talking to or reaching out to. There may have been something that came up along the process of you launching your book that you now suddenly have a new perspective –

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: – or a new thing to talk about with your audience or about your content. Maybe something came up and people are now, your book has sparked some kind of discussion or debate within communities. And, you know, you can't at this time go back and revise the book to speak to that discussion, but you can pitch yourself to be on a couple of podcasts or write some guest blog posts or whatever to say, hey, let me talk about this thing. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: Let me talk about like kind of how this has all played out what I've learned from this, whatever, even something like, you know, we talked about this in the episode that we did on Justin Moore and his book launch. We both joked about how he should, his second book now should be on how to successfully launch a book. That is something that he did that whole pre-launch promo tour where he reached out to a bunch of people and said, can I be on your podcast? And in that scenario, he was probably talking to those audiences about the content of his book. He could now, if he wanted to, do a whole second promo tour that is, let me tell you my experience of how I successfully launched a book. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: There are new opportunities that are gonna show up for you that you can kind of not just revisit the same people that you've already pitched to, but reframe the content that you're pitching for what you can talk about. 

Matt: Yeah, you just have to be looking for those opportunities, yeah. Which sometimes means you need to stop and take a step back and again, assess everything from like that 30,000 foot view. 

Lauren: Yes. 

Matt: Yeah. Cause sometimes you get so into it and you have your blinders on, you might miss some of those opportunities. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

[23:34]

Matt: All right. The next one we're going to talk about is going back in and reinforcing your relationships with your readers, but also sort of recentering, refocusing on your readers in your audience. Writing, launching, marketing a book post-launch, it takes a lot of time, effort, resources are usually spent by the end of the day. It's understandable that in all of that promo and all of that talking about your book and really marketing and pushing your book, you kind of lose track of like what your normal sort of approach to engaging with your audience might be, how you would normally communicate with them, whether it's in a community you have or on social media or via email newsletters or things like that, because you're in promo and launch mode. So getting back to this idea that you have this audience, you have these readers and finding ways to re-engage with them, I think is really important. You don't want them to feel like they're only there to buy your book and the only time you're going to talk to them is when you have another book you need to sell. So I think that's a really…I think that's a tough one for people to do sometimes, but I think it's also one of the most important ones. So I think there's a of cool things you can do with that.

Lauren: I think so too. I really liked the way you said that with re-center and refocus your audience. I think that's a really good way of looking at it and kind of framing it and getting that understanding of like… If you're doing this right, then you've built up an audience of people or you're in the process of building up an audience of people that are interested in your brand.

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: Your brand is not your book. Your book is a product in your brand. 

Matt: That's right. 

Lauren: So hopefully these people, these loyal fans, followers, buyers, readers, audience, whatever, are interested in you, your brand, your content, and your book is a part of that. And while it's totally understandable that while you're in this big launch phase where you're really excited about this new product that you're launching, that is going to be your main focus. You definitely don't want to alienate those people that came there for you. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: And not just your book. And I do think that's a really important shift and also probably good for you in general as just like a…gets exhausting to be just shouting from the rooftops about buy my book, buy my book, buy my book. 

Matt: Yeah. I think it also gives you opportunity to expand whatever community you have built. Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: Right? So maybe you've been building this audience on the normal day to day things that you might engage your fans and readers with. And a lot of that is also hype leading up to the launch of a book. And then now that the book is out, it's an opportunity to expand that community. Maybe actually build a community on something like Circle or Discord or whatever that might be. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: But having this new thing now, this new product, like you said, this new reason to potentially engage, to weave that back into your normal day-to-day cadence of how you would speak to your authors, or your audience and your fans and readers, I think is really important too. 

Lauren: I think it's also worth acknowledging that the opposite is certainly possible and certainly something that happens for a lot of people. Where you did kind of launch your book first and the audience came as a result of – 

Matt: Sure

Lauren: – them finding your book. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: And now you find yourself standing in front of a room full of people who are all looking at you waiting to see what you're going to do next. 

Matt: Yep. 

Lauren: And this is your opportunity. This is the point where they either sit down and stay for the long haul or they get up and leave and go on to the next room and the next author and the next stage –

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: – and go see what they're going to do next. 

Matt: That's right. 

Lauren: So this is that time where you sit there and say, okay, I've got all these people here now, how do I keep them around? How do I continue to provide value for them? How do I establish some kind of content cadence platform, whatever it is and continue to foster and grow those relationships? 

Matt: Yeah. And the way that that actually extends the sales cycle of your book, by the way, I know we just spent a few minutes talking about reinforcing your relationship with your readers, the assumptions they've already bought your book, but by continuing to foster those relationships, what you're doing is inadvertently and subconsciously, if not explicitly, encouraging them to…word of mouth, tell their friends, tell their family about the book, speak to coworkers about the book. The more they feel sort of, for lack of a better word, a part of your world, your product portfolio, the things that you write about, whether it's fiction or nonfiction or not, the more inclined they're going to be to go out there and just proactively talk about you and your product, your book, whatever it is you've written. To leave reviews, you know, oftentimes unsolicited. They may come across a forum that's, I don't know, related to a particular topic that's relevant to your book. And then just out of the blue, decide to leave a comment like, hey, I read this book by this person, it was great. You might find some value in it too. So by continuing to foster these relationships and really focus and recenter yourself, I think that you are extending the sale cycle of that book, of that product. 

Lauren: Absolutely you are. I think there's never, there's never a bad time to kind of reinforce those relationships with your audience, but especially if – if you wrote and published a book with the intention of using it to grow your brand, whether that's because you are some kind of content entrepreneur or content creator and your book is leveling up your existing content brand, or you are a fiction author and you're going to build your brand around continuing to publish more books, this is an incredibly important time – 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: – to make sure that you're securing these relationships with people and make sure that you're making it clear that you're not just one and done, like, thanks for buying my book, I'm never gonna talk to you again, you're never gonna see me again. You want to really solidify these connections with your audience. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: And this is the time to do that. 

Matt: Yeah, I mean, if nothing else, think about any other brand and their product, you know what I mean? They don't just come out with a product and then stop talking about it. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: Even if they develop multiple products per year, like they don't stop talking about their other ones. So as an author, you should not stop talking about your product or products. You should always be talking about them. You're just going to be finding different ways to talk about them, depending on who you're talking to. And so again, when you're talking to your audience, the fans and people that you've worked really hard to kind of bring into your community, your fold, right? Your ecosystem, you're going to talk about your books a certain way while also trying to maintain a little bit more of a…again, for lack of a better term, personal sort of approach to it. But you know, in the previous one, we were talking about with earned media, you're going to talk about your book in a slightly different way, right? Because you're, you're potentially talking to new readers, people you hope are going to come buy your book. So yeah, it's going to be a slight bit more salesy or depending on who you're talking to, it's going to change depending on who you're talking to, but you should never not be talking about it. 

Lauren: This is also, this is where you are setting yourself up for your audience to be your passive promotion for you –

Matt: Right. 

Lauren: – after you are not talking about this book anymore. Because this is something that – 

Matt: Or not talking about it as much. 

Lauren: Not talking about it as much, yes, good point. We've talked about backlist book marketing and eventually as part of the life cycle of any book, eventually this book will slip into your backlist –

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: – and it will not be your primary product anymore, whether it's replaced by another book or a different product. 

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: But your audience, your loyal readers are going to be the people that are going to keep that backlist title alive and keep talking about it. And that can take you far, honestly. 

Matt: Yeah. You never know when a backlist title is going to take off. And by the way, traditional publishers don't really market their backlist. They leave it to fans and readers to do that. So it's no different than what they're doing. And when you look at things like BookTok and other places where somebody stumbles on a book that's eight years old, but they loved it. They go talk about it on TikTok for whatever reason it goes viral. Boom. You know what I mean? It's user generated backlist marketing. So same for you. The more you can solidify and strengthen relationships with your readers, the more prone they're going to be to want to read anything you've written and go out there and probably be your mouthpiece for your backlist, so that you don't have to spend so much time trying to market and talk about your backlist. You can keep thinking forward to whatever new things you're going to write and create. So that's a great point too.

Lauren: Yep. 

Matt: Yeah. 

[31:48]

Matt: Okay. The next section we want to talk about, which is continuing to invest in yourself and your expertise. Right? 

Lauren: Yes. We've focused on our audience. We focused on our readers, but I also don't want you to lose yourself within that too. It is important to take the time to invest in yourself – 

Matt: That’s right. 

Lauren: – as much as you're investing in your readers. 

Matt: Yeah. Obviously publishing a book is one of the best ways, if not the best way to establish yourself as an expert in your field. Again, I this sounds very nonfiction-ish and to a degree it is, but even in the world of fiction, getting a couple of books on your belt with a lot of happy readers, some good reviews, in a way that is establishing yourself as an expert, as somebody who's great at writing…hockey romance, whatever it might be, right? But you need to stay that way. You need to stay up there. You need to stay in the forefront. When people talk about hockey romance, your name needs to be mentioned all the time. 

Lauren: This is actually a really good, like – you are inadvertently giving me a runway for an example.

Matt: Oh boy. 

Lauren: Within the hockey romance genre, there is one author who, within her niche, having your book compared to hers is like, man, oh my God, that's it. Like I got on a rec list of like, if you loved this book, you're going to love this. 

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: Oh my God, like I won, I won here. But one of the things that she's really good at is that despite the fact her book series I think has six books in it. And the most recent one was still published a few years ago. So none of them are what I would call brand new, but she is still very active in the community space. She is still publishing, but she's publishing other books. She's still very active in that space. She's still actively engaging within the community. She still does blurbs for new authors and will promote and recommend new authors. But she also just recently repackaged her entire series, which I thought was a very savvy move on her part. Because the original publishing of the series all has real people on the covers and it was all real photos of real people. And I did mention in the last episode how current opinion is that that's really cringy, to have real people on the covers. And the really popular trend in romance for the last few years has been illustrated covers. And I thought it was a very savvy move on her part to repackage her popular series with illustrated covers. 

Matt: So is that all she did, was she just new cover variants? That’s it? 

Lauren: Yep. And new format. I think the original versions were mass market and now they are trade paper. So yeah, no content edits, just repackaging the cover. And I think that was a really savvy move on her part. It  was showing that she is still keeping an eye on the pulse of her industry and understanding what trends are and what she needs to do to stay relevant within it. And so to circle this all the way back here, it is absolutely relevant for fiction authors to stay an expert in their field, even after they've published a book that establishes them as one. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: Because if you were an expert five years ago, if you were considered the big name in this fiction genre, sub-genre, five years ago, it's really easy for someone else to come in and replace you if you are not staying up to date. 

Matt: That's right. Yeah, it's great opportunities for book revisions. 

Lauren: Yes. 

Matt: Whether it's fiction and you're just going to do some cover variants because the market's not so accepting of real people on the cover anymore and they want illustrations. Or maybe you wrote a book that is AI focused and obviously it's already out of date the minute you publish it. So six months later, because you're keeping up with what's going on in the industry, you're going to do a revision. Yeah, I mean, again, making sure that you're staying on top of whatever your area of expertise or field is or what you're known for is 100% top of the list. But also as a side note, anytime somebody says savvy, I implore you to not think about Captain Jack Sparrow. 

Lauren: No. 

Matt: I can't. That's all – any time somebody says the word savvy – 

Lauren: Why would you not want to think about Captain Jack Sparrow? 

Matt: No, that's my point.

Lauren: Oh, yeah.

Matt: That's all I can think about. So I miss the next ten things you said, because the minute you said savvy, which you said it twice, all I think about is Captain Jack Sparrow. And I'm like, oh, I want to go to Pirates of the Caribbean. 

Lauren: Well, you're going to be there in like a week, right? Two weeks?

Matt: Two weeks, something like that. Yeah. 

Lauren: To make that long-winded example also not totally a sidebar, there were other things in there that I mentioned that I think are important to consider too, as you are staying on top of your expertise. Pay attention to what other books are coming out in your field. Who's writing those books? Who's not writing books, but just kind of appearing? Who's new on the scene? Who is somebody – whether that's because you're keeping an eye out for competition or because you're keeping an eye out for potential new networking opportunities. I think it's really important to stay involved in that. 

Matt: Yeah. Going to events is another one. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: Not always as an author on a panel or a speaker or something like that, but oftentimes just as an attendee. So even in our day jobs as marketers, there are times where we go to conferences or events where we're not there as a sponsor, like, you know, as Lulu, whatever we're there as attendees, as marketers to learn new things, what's going on in the market, what's happening, what's the new stuff that's happening out there that we need to stay on top of. So events are great. It's a really good place, at least in my opinion, to learn. I think that oftentimes, obviously we try to stay up on trends and topics when we're at home in our office doing whatever. But you're also doing five other things and you're trying to multitask with being an author, continuing to promote your book and do all these other things. But when you, when you can get away and get to an event or a conference, you can kind of just really be there in the moment and focus on those things, I think they're a great help. I've always appreciated events and conferences. I'm very much a in-person event type of believer, even though I'm fairly well introverted, so. 

Lauren: I mean, we've done a whole episode talking about how much we love events. We've done several episodes on the value that we find in events. And I stand by all of those. But I do think that that is something that I wanted to emphasize that here, and really highlight that here. Because again, in the same way that we talked about, you might have spent a little bit too much time lately focusing on promoting your book sales and kind of letting your regular content and your regular relationships with your audience slide a little bit. You might be doing the same thing with events and things like that. Where you might have been spending so much time lately focusing on using them as an opportunity to get up and be a guest author there, have a signing table there, try to secure a speaking session there. Which are all good things and all things that you should still be doing. That might've been the whole point of you writing your book in the first place. But also take some opportunities every now and then to take a step back and just say, let me attend this as an attendee. Let me do this to reinforce my connections with the other creators or the other people in my field that I've networked with in the past. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: You might also see some other or some new networking opportunities at events or in other places. We see all the time people are like, oh, I didn't, you know, I got invited as an author. I got invited to something or there's a group of people here that are specifically authors, specifically people that have published a book. I got invited to a writer's retreat – 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: – that I wouldn't have qualified for in the past, but now I do. And now this is a new opportunity that's opened up for me. So. 

Matt: Yeah, that's a good one. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: Yeah.I think that second part is really important too, is again, events are a great place to expand relationships with other creators and authors. And so not just a learning opportunity depending on what the conference or the event is, but again, great place to meet other creators, authors, entrepreneurs, depending on whatever space you're in. Even as an introvert I've met some really great people at events that have continued to be relationships that I lean on going forward. So yeah, a hundred percent. 

[39:35]

Matt: Something we didn't necessarily call out, but it goes back to one of the first things we spoke about here and under investing yourself is again, just making sure that you're paying attention to, you know, market trends, things that are going on. I, for one, sometimes find it a little hard to weed through the white noise that's out there when it comes to trends. And for us, particularly we're multi-focused, right? So we're marketers first and foremost. We're also book lovers. We also work in publishing. You know, there's all these different trends that we're looking at and watching and trying to pay attention to, to make decisions for various different reasons. But what I will say on this, and then we can move on, is find whatever your North Star is for trends, whatever your source of information might be for, for what's going on out there. And so this goes beyond just staying an expert in your field or making sure you're – understanding market trends really speaks to how you can stay relevant. It speaks to again, spotting those opportunities that might come up to inject some more sales into the life of one of your books. Something could be emerging that you weren't aware of. And maybe you wrote a book five years ago that's really relevant. You could drop a new revision in the next thirty to sixty days and really capitalize on a trend that's starting to come up that again is relevant to something you wrote about in the past. So understanding how to spot the trends, where to look for those, and just making sure that you're actually doing that is really important. And events can help with that as well. 

Lauren: Yeah, yes. I also think that understanding market trends and paying attention to that, it's not just an opportunity for you to modify or repackage your content. So like in the example that I gave, I'm not saying that you should be repackaging your books every single time there's a new trending cover design. That would be insane. Like, please don't do that. That would be terrible for everybody involved. But rather see how, see if the market shifts in a way that is favorable towards your book, you don't want to let that opportunity pass you by. So if there is something…if you wrote a book that was kind of ahead of its time six months ago when it was published and now there's, there's suddenly a shift where all these people are suddenly really interested in how to start a side hustle specifically on TikTok. And you're like, oh, hey, I wrote that book six months ago. It like, now suddenly people are interested in this, I was a little bit ahead of the game on here. Now is the time that you want to be able to revitalize your promo efforts for that book and say, hey, you guys are all looking for content about this.

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: I've already done it. Here you go. Not necessarily saying that you should pay attention to market trends so that you can modify your content, but rather so that you can promote your content within that. 

Matt: I think that's fair. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: Another example would be the last couple of years, really the last probably 24 months, manga and anime has seen an explosion in the US, right? 

Lauren: Yep. 

Matt: It's pretty much the norm in a lot of other countries and areas, but in the US, it's really been having its heyday. If you, let's say you write science fiction, fantasy, something like that, and you've got a particular story where a book or a series of books or whatever that might be where it could actually be translated or turned into anime or manga fairly easily be illustrated and be re-released as a graphic novel or an anime or a manga. That's a pretty cool idea. That's something to try out, I think. And that's only something that you would really stumble upon if you were watching trends. 

Lauren: You know, that's something that I don't think we've ever really talked about in all the times that we've talked about doing different formats and editions for your book. That is actually something that is very popular to do in YA fiction, is to have graphic novels, have very popular books turned into – 

Matt: Adaptions or something like that. 

Lauren: Yeah, graphic novel adaptations. Obviously not all books lend themselves to that. 

Matt: That’s right. 

Lauren: And obviously it is something that either you have to kind of be doubling as author and illustrator, or you have to contract an illustrator or work closely with an illustrator – 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: – that can help you with that. But that is something to consider if your content lends itself to that. 

Matt: Yeah. Again, if your content lends itself to that's the key there. But you know, the point is you would know that unless you were watching those trends and understanding like this is becoming a big thing in the States. And still, you know right now anime and manga I mean to the average person doesn't read it you might not realize that, but it's still growing, you know in terms of momentum, those categories of books. And so if you have a book, if you've got a series that would lend itself nicely to it, to a graphic novel adaptation, or anime, or manga, you should consider that. 

Lauren: Also if you don't already know this, that's not limited to fiction or, especially not YA fiction, but it's not limited. Two of the greatest graphic novels that I've ever read were graphic memoirs. 

Matt: What would those be or one of them? I don’t –

Lauren: Maus is phenomenal and Fun Home – did you read that? 

Matt: No. 

Lauren: Oh.

Matt: Fun Home?

Lauren: Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's the title. Hold on. 

Matt: Okay while she's looking that up for me lastly under investing in yourself and your expertise, it's just remembering why you were doing this to begin with what were your long-term goals for writing this content or continuing to write or wanting to become an author. Why did you want to publish a book in the first place? Sometimes you lose sight of that and remembering why, remembering your why can often give you that little spark of reinvigoration that you need to go out and do these things to extend that sales cycle of that book or those books. Because sometimes again, you hit that wall and it's just like, ugh. I don't want to create another post talking about my book or, you know, hey, this holiday is coming up and blah, blah, blah. So sometimes just remembering why you're doing this could be a big help and reaching down and finding some more of that motivation. 

Lauren: Also a good refocus on what, what you're passionate about, what you're invested in, in doing this and like, how that's relevant to everything that you're doing here. Kind of similar to how we were talking about in the last episode with the reader personas where you were saying that, you know, you kind of realized as you were editing your book that along the writing process you kind of stopped writing to your original… 

Matt: Yep. 

Lauren: Intended audience. That can happen if you get lost in your book marketing and all of a sudden you realize that you've kind of shifted away from your original goal or your original mission or your original audience even remembering what that original intent was. Could be the good opportunity for you to turn around and say, oh, right. I kind of got lost in the sauce here and I should go back and speak to these people, or I should circle back to the whole point of it being this whatever. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: Fun Home, yes, is the name of the book. It's a memoir by Alison Bechdel, and it's about her experience growing up with her family. And it's, I mean, it's a lot about her, like her childhood or her family relationships, but she grew up in a funeral home. So that's why it's called Fun Home. 

Matt: Got it.

Lauren: Great, great book, but it was a graphic memoir. So she illustrated the whole thing. 

Matt: I’ll have to find it. 

Lauren: I think you'd like it. 

Matt: Maybe. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: I'll let you know if I don't.

Lauren: Okay.  

[46:45]

Matt: And then the last section we'll talk about is again, this is a little more of a 30,000 foot view on what you're doing, but at this point we're going to assume that you've got thirty, sixty, ninety days under your belt of book sales somewhere in there. Maybe more, maybe a little bit less. And again, hopefully you're getting your hands on some sort of data and feedback and you know, some signals from the market about how your book is doing, or… I think the most important thing is that you take all of that and you holistically reevaluate what your presence looks like, right? As an author, as a brand, however you identify as a creator, an entrepreneur, it doesn't matter. But by now you should be receiving some pretty good data and signals. If you were selling direct, then you're receiving a lot of good data and signals, feedback and communities and through book reviews and things like that. So use that to really think about how you continue to market yourself and your books and or products going forward. Think about the copy on your website. Is it still relevant now, based on feedback you've received, book sales numbers, things like that? You know, you might want to revamp some of your lead generation pages or rethink your subscription model, if you have one, for your newsletter or stuff like that.

Lauren: Yeah, a lot of this stuff can be just like general housekeeping for your marketing efforts, I think. So just things as simple as does your bio say that you are an author now that you published a book? Does it have the book title in there? Does any kind of promotional material that you use, if you have a press kit that you send out as part of your pitch for different speaking opportunities or something, does that reflect your, your new book and your new details about your book in there? Have you gotten any really great book reviews or testimonials from readers that applied what they learned in your book or something like that? Have you put that in your press kit in your standard PR deck on your website? Do you have all that in there? Maybe you've learned from your readers over the couple of months since your book has come out that the things that you thought were really valuable USPs didn't really seal the deal for them, but there was something about your book that they, that's like, what they tell all their friends and they're saying, you have to read this book. It has this chapter on this that changed my life. And if you didn't realize that that chapter was as big as it was, but you've heard enough people tell you that –

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: – you might want to update your marketing copy to include that as, you know, one of the key details or key elements of your book. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: So I think this is a good time to do that because you've had, like Matt was saying, enough time to gather some data, gather some real world evidence from people. You're not just projecting and assuming based on your pre-launch efforts. But also you want to do it while the book is still fresh enough that you are making –

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: – new sales. So you don't want to do this a year down the line when it's just on your backlist. 

Matt: Yeah. Yup. That’s a good point. Well, anything else you want to add here? 

Lauren: There's another slide. 

Matt: Is there? 

Lauren: Okay, Matt's debating whether or not he cares about any of this, but I do. I think another thing that you can think about, that we have talked about in other episodes as you are processing what your book has done for your brand in general, is also figuring out how that works into your content strategy, or how that impacts your content strategy, if it does in any way. So we've talked about in the past, idea of maybe your book goes out and people really love it, but you get the same…seven people ask you the same question and you realize, oh, I kind of, I kind of didn't clarify this well enough in the book or I didn't really like, make this point, or I could have done more about this. And eventually you're going to write a book where you dive more into that, or maybe eventually you'll release an updated and expanded edition of this existing book where you're going to dive a little more into that. But in the meantime, can you create a blog post or a YouTube video that fills that gap? So that when people say, hey, I had a question about this, you can say, oh yeah, I'm so sorry. Here, let me actually send you this content that I've created just for you about that. Or maybe can you repurpose content from your book to create podcast episodes, short form videos, long form videos, an online course, a webinar? Depending on how you put your book together there's a chance that those things came in the opposite order where you published your book based on the content you've already had. But if the book came first, can you repurpose that content in a way that then also becomes passive promo for your book? As people come across that blog post, that is a section of your book, and then they say, oh, there's a whole book about this. I can go learn more about this by buying the book. There are some marketing and promo opportunities there. That's it. That's all I got. 

Matt: Okay. 

Lauren: I just thought that was important to add in there. 

Matt: Very good. 

Lauren: I wanted to include that.

Matt: You got it. 

Lauren: Thank you. 

Matt: It's there. 

Lauren: Thanks. 

Matt: They have it most importantly now. 

Lauren: Exactly. 

Matt: Yep. All right. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: That was a long one. 

Lauren: It was a long one. That's all right. 

Matt: If you're still with us – 

Lauren: Thank you. 

Matt: – like and subscribe. Thank you, yes. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: By the way, you can reach out to us. Podcast@lulu.com.

Lauren: Yes you can. 

Matt: If you have any questions, comments, suggestions, complaints. 

Lauren: You can also reach out to us on Lulu's social media. Leave us a comment on YouTube. I think you can leave comments on episodes on Spotify.

Matt: Oh yeah, I think you can. 

Lauren: I think you can. 

Matt: I think we have that turned on. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: I'll check. I'll check on that. 

Matt: Yep. 

Lauren: Also, if you're listening to this episode when it comes out, maybe you can come say hi to us at CEX next week. 

Matt: That'd be cool. 

Lauren: Yeah. Maybe we'll see you there. Let us know if we're to see you there. That'd be nice. I'd like to know that. 

Matt: She doesn't like surprises. 

Lauren: I don't. I really don't. 

Matt: Don’t run up behind her and yell surprise. 

Lauren: No, there's a 50% chance they'll get punched.

Matt: Or a 50% chance that she screams and falls to the ground like a fainting goat. 

Lauren: Both of those things can be true at the same time. 

Matt: All right. We'll see you next week. 

Lauren: Thanks for listening, everyone. 

Matt: Later.