Sell Your Book Without Selling Your Soul, with Emily Enger
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(You can find Seven Marketing Activities You Can Stop Doing Right Now on her home page!)
Good Enough Book Marketing Substack
Sell Your Book Without Selling Your Soul, with Emily Enger [Full Transcript]
Intro:
Well, hey there, Writer. Welcome to the Resilient Writers Radio Show. I'm your host, Rhonda Douglas, and this is the podcast for writers who want to create and sustain a writing life they love. Because let's face it, the writing life has its ups and downs, and we want to not just write, but also to be able to enjoy the process so that we'll spend more time with our butt-in-chair getting those words on the page.
This podcast is for writers who love books and everything that goes into the making of them. For writers who want to learn and grow in their craft and improve their writing skills, writers who want to finish their books and get them out into the world so their ideal readers can enjoy them.
Writers who want to spend more time in that flow, state writers who want to connect with other writers to celebrate and be in community in this crazy roller coaster ride we call the writing life. We are resilient writers. We're riding for the rest of our lives and we're having a good time doing it. So welcome, Writer. I'm so glad you're here. Let's jump right into today's show.
Rhonda:
Well, hey there, Writer. Welcome back to another episode of The Resilient Writers Radio Show. We are talking about book marketing today and I have Emily Enger with me. She's a book marketing and publicity coach. She teaches poets, fiction and creative nonfiction authors how to incorporate minimalist marketing strategies into their creative process so they can become successful without feeling overwhelmed.
She's worked in the marketing and PR field for over 10 years and she's worked as an assistant editor and communications director, and she's been at this for a long time. She holds a BA in English, also a minor in music. Love that, and a certificate in publishing, and she's a certified content marketer. We were just talking about the fact that we have the same weather in Minnesota, so you can find her on Instagram @emilyenger. Welcome, Emily. I'm so glad you're here.
Emily:
Well, hi, Rhonda. Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to be here today and to talk about book marketing with you and your audience.
Rhonda:
Yeah, this is great. So you're a writer as well?
Emily:
I am unpublished except for short form. Most of my work in the publishing field has been on the business industry side, so marketing. But yes, I do still write essays, short stories and stuff like that as well first.
Rhonda:
Oh fun. Okay, great. Good. I love that. So I wanted to get started with just unpacking this term, minimalist marketing, because you and I were saying before we hit record that this is very much a line for me. It's the way that I teach marketing in my First Book Finish program. What does it mean to you, minimalist marketing?
Emily:
Yeah. I think when we think of the term minimalist as a design term, we think of uncluttered. You think of a home that uses minimalist decor and decorations as somebody who just has a few key pieces of what they need in their kitchen or their living room, but they don't have a lot of other stuff, a lot of extra decor, and that's kind of how I think about your time.
When you're marketing, the things you need should be there. You need the couch. You need some chairs for people to sit, maybe a rug on the floor so your feet don't get cold if you live where you and I live, but you don't necessarily need 14 pictures hanging on your wall. You maybe just want one or two.
And so minimalist just means a pace. You can handle the things you need at a pace that makes sense to you and that aligns with your schedule and your time. And for me, it's really important that the authors know that they get to be artists first before they are business people.
Rhonda:
Thank you.
Emily:
So I called my business the Good Enough Book Marketing because I wanted authors to know that yes, you have to market your book and you don't want to be lazy about it, but you want to do it. You want to do it good enough, but you do not have to be an expert marketer. You don't have to have all the credentials that I have and that other people who are professional marketers have.
You are an artist, and that hat has to come first and the marketing hat gets to come second. And so a minimalist marketing schedule can fit into the schedule you already have as a writer.
Rhonda:
Oh, gosh. Yeah. No, I love that. I think talking to writers, friends of mine and just even myself over the years, we just have this thing about we kind of don't even want to do the book marketing. We're like, really? Do I have to do that? Do I have to be dancing in reels? Do I have to be doing all the things? And so you are saying no to be successful at marketing your book, you don't have to be everywhere doing all the things.
Emily:
No, and especially with the TikTok videos, Instagram Reels videos for example, some people are just not comfortable with that, but the people who have had great success, and so a lot of writers feel like, well, in order to be successful, I have to do what that author over there did.
And the truth is, you can actually find a different path that works for you instead if that's too uncomfortable or you can do reels without you dancing in them that are of other things. It doesn't have to be you doing the fancy dance on the camera if that's not in your comfort zone.
Rhonda:
It's definitely not in my comfort zone. I find that even I'll watch people that I follow doing it and I'm like, I have lost respect for you in this moment right here. Yeah. I did not follow you to watch you do the Macarena and pointed things. This is so silly. Yeah.
Emily:
Well, and most writers, not all, but a lot of writers, we get into this. First we're readers. Probably we were first and you fell in love with stories, maybe literature. And so the attitude of the social media dance isn't really the vibe or the culture that made you fall in love with books in the first place.
Rhonda:
It's so true. And for me, it eats away at the energy that I have for writing, not just the time I have for writing, because maybe putting up a real just takes five minutes, but just, and there's a lot of research on what extended screen time extended social media does to the brain and how it eats away at our focus, but for me, it eats away at the energy that I have for writing for some reason.
If I am scrolling on Instagram, which I do scroll, scroll, scroll, I won't put the phone down and then go write. I need to write first and then go to Instagram. Do you know what I mean?
Emily:
I do. And that gets back to that term minimalist marketing, right? Because it's about being cluttered and your mind can be too cluttered to have any creativity left if you are putting on the business hat first every morning. If you're marketing first, you do need to sell books.
Obviously, you're trying to make a living at this in some manner, but if you put on that marketing hat first, it's going to take all your creative energy and then you have no energy left for the actual meat of what you do in your books. And that mindset, that mind space has to matter and be factored into how your day looks.
Rhonda:
Yeah, so I always love that quote, create before you consume, but I'm hearing you say create before you market.
Emily:
Yes. Yes.
Rhonda:
Okay, love that. So why don't we, let's take a pretend author who's just about to, let's say they're going to self-publish, and they're about three months out from publishing their three to six months out from hitting the publish button on their cozy mystery. How would we develop a minimalist marketing strategy for that person?
Maybe they've got their friends and family on Facebook. They got 200 people who are writer friends and other friends and family on Instagram, and they kind of have thought about TikTok, but they're not really into it. Maybe they were on Twitter at one point, but a lot of writers kind of gave it up. Maybe they're on Threads. I don't know.
They could be everywhere, but just more in a, they've been doing it for fun, they've been doing it to connect with friends and family. That seems to be the more typical thing that I see. And now all of a sudden they're like, oh no, I got to grow up and become a marketing person. So if I've got six months before I hit publish on my cozy mystery novel, where would you suggest I start in terms of thinking about a strategy?
Emily:
So I would start with what brings you joy in terms of all the different options out there. So if you like social media, great, but then which of the platforms on social media do you like the most?
Certainly we want to think about which platform has the reach for you, but honestly, if TikTok has the best reach right now, but if TikTok sucks your soul dry, don't do it right then you won't do something that doesn't bring you joy. So then actually it's going to have less reach for you.
So if Facebook is better, if you're more comfortable on Facebook, go there. If it's Instagram threads, whatever. So we start with which one do you just like the best? If it's social media at all, it could be a newsletter, it could be something else, but then we have to talk about those friends and family that are following you on Facebook. Do you want to take them with you or do you want to start over and create a professional page at zero.
Rhonda:
Zero? Oh, okay. And what would you recommend?
Emily:
So I don't have a recommendation because, so I just go over the pros and cons because I've had authors comfortable and not comfortable with both. There's so many variables.
The obvious one being you've already started your personal page, you already have followers, but they're not your ideal audience. They're just your friends, right? They're not necessarily going to buy your book, maybe a few high school, although
Rhonda:
I will say that for the first book, friends and family turn out and buy the book, I find, right? That's probably your only time – they're like, oh, I already did it. I'm not saying they're going to read it, right? They're going to find it. It's going to be in a garage sale somewhere. I'm not saying they're going to read it, but often they will show up and buy the book when it's the first book. So who knows?
Emily:
Yes. And especially if you hope your mom and your grandma are at least going to support that. But what happens is through your marketing journey, you're going to be pointing people to that social media. So pretty soon, that same page that was just high school friends and family is going to have strangers on it. So then it's like, are you still going to post pictures of your kids or do you start to feel uncomfortable with that?
But then grandma doesn't get to see pictures of her great grandkids anymore because you're paring back because you're trying to be just professional. You don't want creepy Joe that you've never met from across the country to see pictures of your kids.
So these are non-business, but personal decisions you have to think through before you go because you want to know where you're going to point people right away because you want to start pointing people right away. So you have to decide at the beginning, where is my professional place going to land?
Rhonda:
And I guess it would be easier for writers writing under a pen name. That's easy. You get to really divide your space, your personalities even. But if you're writing under your own name, then that's where it gets. And so maybe people could create accounts that are like, if I have Rhonda Douglas, maybe I get Rhonda Douglas author or something like that.
Emily:
And you hope maybe grandma and mom still follow you over to the new page, but all of your random high school friends that you've curated for years, they probably aren't going to. So you have to weigh that, but that's where you start. But then what you need to do is you need to tap into other people's networks to find readers. So you have to somehow cross pollinate.
Rhonda:
Okay, let's talk about that. What are the options for that? I always feel like there's so many options.
Emily:
There are. So first of all, partnering with other authors who have bigger platforms than you, any kind of group event you can do where you are alongside another author, either speaking or teaching or contributing your writing to their blog, something like that that'll get you in front of their audience.
The other thing is you elevating another author as a form of generosity also becomes good for you. So if you interview your favorite author on your Facebook page and go live, her audience is also seeing you, right? So you're kind of growing your audience that way too. And then
Rhonda:
I love that because it's like there's this spirit of generosity and community building that is driving your marketing in that case.
Emily:
Yes. And it's beneficial for everybody. Obviously you want to have a few followers before you do that because author X isn't going to want to come on your page if you're at zero. You have to have something to offer that author.
But when you are first starting out, you are wanting to enter in a spirit of generosity and learning more than being the expert. And that actually has a benefit. It really does, because as you do this, you're going to be building relationships. You're going to be cross-pollinating your audiences, and it really is a great way to grow.
Rhonda:
Right? Can we talk about email and newsletters? If I have a limited amount of time and I love writing and I like connecting with people, am I better to put the hour and a half I have every week or two hours I have every week to building an email list and a newsletter, or am I better off doing a post that can go up on Instagram and also go to Facebook? What's the trade off there and what should I do? I know what I would do, but I'm curious what you think.
Emily:
So it really depends. I do think it depends on the genre. First of all, I think different genres play better with the audiences just prefer different things. A year ago, newsletters, email marketing were all the rage, and it still is. I do still think newsletters have a better conversion rate than social media. So I would still look at your newsletter, but I would just caution you that a year ago was the pinnacle of newsletter conversion, and it's going down because people are weary. Once newsletters took off, then people's inboxes got as flooded as their social media was.
And so there's no perfect strategy. There's no home run. I do still think newsletters are doing better, and so I would love to see authors put some effort into that more. It's less exhausting to do a newsletter, in my opinion, than social media because you don't have to feed the beast as often for your social media, for posts to get seen by all of the people who follow you. You have to be posting content at least three times a week, more if you can. Seven days a week is not too much for the algorithm. I think it's too much for your soul,
But you can do it once a month or twice a month. And so the time aspect is also better for authors.
Rhonda:
I love, there's an author I follow who has an email newsletter and in it, I really feel like I'm getting to know her. She shares, this is what I've been reading, these are the conversations in the literary world, in the writing world that I'm following. Here's links out to somebody talking about this scandal that happened this week, and here's my thoughts on it, and here's the really great, well-written television I've been watching. Here's the book I'm reading, and here's what's going on in my own writing life.
It's maybe 500 words with links out to different places on the internet. She sends it once a month. I love it. It's like I open it, I see it come in, she's got a title for her newsletter. I see it come in my inbox. I open it every damn time. And I think the thing is, newsletters are the place where I'm likely to click and buy as opposed to, I might hear about a book on Instagram or Facebook and think, oh yeah, that sounds interesting, but I'm more likely to click and buy in the email. So yeah,
Emily:
Absolutely. In fact, when you get into even social media advertising, one of the things I don't really recommend is social media advertising for book sales. It can be a great thing if your goal for the ad isn't sales, if your goal is viewers or followers, but for that exact reason, when people are on social media, they're looking to be social, and so they are not necessarily ready to buy.
So it might be a great way to raise awareness, but not what we call conversion, which is actually them buying the book. Whereas your email, your newsletter, yes, people are more likely to buy from now,
Rhonda:
I will confess to having bought books via an ad on social media. Oh yeah, it happens. My books every way, every which way. But I remember a particular Cozy mystery series, Ooh, yum. Grab, grab. But it was rare. And also there was a promotion behind it. It was a 3 99 book, that kind of thing. So I think it really depends, as you say, who you are, your genre. So can we talk about some of the differences that you see in genres then? Like romance versus sci-fi, romantic versus literary, women's fiction versus horror?
Emily:
So literary, I see a lot more literary fiction tends to convert better with newsletters, but there does seem to be a good community, but more on Facebook, which might be just because Facebook tends to, this is stereotyping, but it tends to be an older demographic, and those tend to be the ones interested in the literary fiction, which I mean, I am too, to be honest. But that is kind of where it kind of tends to fall for that one.
Rhonda:
You feel like maybe they migrated or just what is up with Twitter? Are people still on Twitter?
Emily:
No, I mean, people are on Twitter. I have one author who will not get off Twitter. He says it's doing well for him. And I'm like, Hey, if it's not broke, don't get off then fix it if it ain't broke. But every other author I've worked with is like, Twitter does nothing for me.
Obviously there's the political controversy around Twitter, but even before that as a platform, it just wasn't as useful for authors. I don't think.
Rhonda:
I used Twitter to follow scandals and outrage in the literary world. I'm like, what crazy person did something stupid today? That's what I went to Twitter for, but I didn't go to Twitter to find out, I wonder who's got a new historical fiction release coming out for that.
I'm all about the Bookstagram. I love finding about new books on Bookstagram because I can't do the TikTok. When I got into TikTok, even TikTok was sending me videos saying, maybe it's time to get off TikTok. I just, isn't that crazy? They're like, maybe you should take a break. Oh my God, so bad.
Emily:
Well, Twitter, that makes sense that you, because it's great for news articles, right? It's the headline thing because it's such a short snippet. And so the news media did really well with Twitter. My husband was a journalist for 10 years, and Twitter was nice and easy. Here's a snippet of a snippet of the story. Click for more.
But yeah, I'm all about the Bookstagram too. I love Instagram. When I first tried to get on TikTok just as a user, not professionally, I closed it down right away. It was so overstimulating. It was just like video and boom, here's another video, and boom, here's another video. And I was just like, ah. I was overwhelmed.
Rhonda:
I also find there is a thing, it happens a little bit on Instagram, but it's more on BookTok, which is trash talking books. Can I get your view on that? If I'm trying to build, let's say I write romance and I'm trying to get people to follow me and buy my books, what do you think of this thing where people go on and say, oh, these kinds of books are not well written or whatever. You know what I mean? Right?
Emily:
Gosh, that's a big loaded topic. It is heartbreaking. I mean, in the same way that the Good Reads controversy when people were down reviewing books was heartbreaking. And now on Instagram you see there's these videos where you can do, now I'm losing the name, where they call it where you respond in video to another person's video, and they're almost all stitch. I think that's what they call, and they're almost all negative. They don't have to be, but they just seem to be a lot of..
Rhonda:
Negative ones. I disagree with what this person says.
Emily:
Yes. And I certainly want there to be a place where we can have some standards and where we can say, Hey, this book wasn't as good as another book. Reviews have always been a thing, and literary magazines, book reviewers could be harsh critics, but we'd like to be a community that's encouraging.
And the thing about social media and why it did so well at the beginning is because community positive community was built around a love of certain books, and it was this proof, you could kind of say to the industry gatekeepers, you said this book wasn't good. A hundred thousand people just bought it. And the reason they bought it is they saw it on book talk or on Instagram or on the community building platforms.
And that's why self-publishing started doing so well because self-published authors at the beginning were not great. And then suddenly self-published authors and indie authors started creating a community around their books, and they started doing better sometimes than traditionally published authors. And it was proof that just because the negative book reviewer or the agent that said this wasn't good enough said something, didn't mean the audience for that book still thought that.
And so we need to, I think, remember those roots sometimes and remember that just because a book isn't good for you or you didn't like the writing…
Rhonda:
It's subjective.
Emily:
It's art, it's subjective. There's an audience somewhere else for that book.
Rhonda:
Right? Right. Yeah, thank you for that. And I just think, don't you just feel better about your life coming from a spirit of generosity and supporting other writers? What kind of life are you living if you just feel constantly like somebody else's success is a problem for you?
So I wanted to ask you about, so going back to the minimalist idea, what do you think is the true, what's my bottom line here? How little can I get away with what's the minimum I have to do? I'm thinking about, let's say I get a traditional publishing deal. It's going to come out two years from now, so I've got two years to build up my marketing. What do you think is the minimum I can do and be effective?
Emily:
So if you're a traditionally published author, obviously we have to acknowledge that there might be some things you have to do per your contract that is beyond what I'm going to say. So obviously anything that your publisher is requiring has to be done.
But if you've already gotten the deal with the traditional publisher, then they already looked at all your platforms and we're satisfied. Now they might expect you to still promote and still push and still grow, but they know that in two years you're not going to suddenly have a million more followers. They made that calculation when they bought the book, so I don't think you have to be posting five times a day and have a massive newsletter and start a podcast that publishes every week and all the things you can do.
I would do a couple things a week, so I would start posting on social media. I would start a newsletter if you don't have one, but it doesn't have to be a business type newsletter.
So a lot of times authors will feel like, well, I'm two years out, or I haven't even gotten a deal yet. What do I even say in a newsletter? Who am I to have a newsletter? Why would anyone want to read mine? Why would anyone want to follow me? Well, at that point, when you're still that far out from publication, your newsletter can be about you and your journey, and it can be a beautiful essay. That's what I describe newsletters as for creative writers. If you're writing a business book, that's a different story.
But my audience of fiction and poets and creative nonfiction, you guys are beautiful wordsmiths, and a newsletter is a great space for you to write your observations of life. And you had shared about that author you follow, and sometimes she'll have links right to some things that she loves. Maybe you put that at the bottom. It doesn't have to be all about your book at that moment, although you should certainly be hinting and talking about the fact that you have a book coming out, the meat of what you are saying. It can be once a month and it can be about life and you and just beautiful writing.
And you might want to look into some of the stuff I said earlier about partnering with other authors and maybe doing a podcast tour. So you can start talking about your book in that manner, assuming again that your publisher has greenlit your ability to start sharing about the book.
Rhonda:
I'm involved with the Writer's Festival, the Ottawa International Writers Festival. I do hosting for them, and I know a few publishers and so on, and I often ask them, what is it that sells books? What is it that makes a book take off?
And they say it's a few things, but it was interesting to me, Sean Wilson, who's the Artistic Director of the Ottawa International Writers Festival, he and I were talking once, and there's something about whether or not when, let's say there's a panel of authors or you hear an author interviewed on the radio or some kind of podcast tour that you were mentioning, if the reader feels that the author is a nice person, they're more likely to buy the book. Isn't that crazy? I mean, I love it, right? But there's something about just readers getting to know you and who you are as an individual that makes them more likely to go, oh, I think I'd like to buy that person's book.
Emily:
Oh my gosh, I can't believe you said that because coincidentally, I am working right now on a draft of my own newsletter titled something, kind of working title about how the nice guy doesn't finish last anymore.
Rhonda:
Yeah, totally.
Emily:
And that's exactly what I'm talking about is when the audience is given a rapport with the author and gets to know them, I always encourage authors I work with, when you have a book signing, stay as long as you can after it's done visiting with the people who came just chat. Just be friendly because that's amazing. Be personal on the stage when they ask you questions. Be willing to share a little bit about your life if you can, and your struggles and your, that's again where social media became popular because we got to connect with the author behind the book that I loved.
And gosh, a lot of my favorite writers, I love literature. I love American literature in particular. I love Walt Whitman. I love, actually, I love Canadian literature too. L Montgomery is my favorite author.
Rhonda:
Oh yes.
Emily:
Of course. But you know what I would give…
Rhonda:
Listeners can't see this, but this is a redhead talking to a redhead gables thing, the real thing.
Emily:
But what I would give if I could ever meet L.M. Montgomery, but if I couldn't meet her, I could subscribe to her newsletter and know what's going on in her life, not just her character's life. Oh gosh. I would give, I'd pay a lot of money for that.
Rhonda:
One of my favorite authors that I follow on Instagram just became a grandmother and shared that and was asking about what should her grandmother name be? And I, I can't believe that I get to comment on this person and be like, oh, well you could do this. This is crazy.
But I remember being at a writer's festival event, and I won't say names, but there were a couple of people on the panel. One woman was a New York Times bestseller and the other writer was a complete unknown, but he was funny and humble and just a really great talker, and she was, I am a New York Times bestseller. She was a diva. And she, by all, everything that made sense said to me that when there was the lineup after to have the book signed, which to me is a measure of how many books are being sold. That day, his lineup was out the door and she had maybe half a dozen people. People were like, I am not interested in buying that woman's book because I just can't stand her. And I thought that was fascinating.
Emily:
It also, it tells you a lot about some of these bestseller lists too, and how a lot of times you land them because of the weight of a big publisher behind you, not because you necessarily were the best seller, or if you did the, there's definitely an industry, almost a good old boys club, even though there are women in it, but the attitude of a good old boys club.
Yeah, there's a snobbery that goes on with that, and it doesn't land down downstream. It doesn't land with the audience very well at all. Because even if I think about TV and movies and other types of art, I'm not always looking for the best written TV shows. Sometimes I just want to laugh.
Rhonda:
I want to escape.
Emily:
I want to escape. I understand that Outlander is not super deep, but you know what I really like, it totally gets me unclicked for a second. And so this idea that we have to become highbrow and have the best kind of most literary thing is not necessarily what's selling books right now. People want to get to know you and they want to have fun reading your book.
Rhonda:
Yeah, totally. And there are a lot of books in the world and there are a lot of readers in the world, and so I really do believe that there are readers for every book.
Emily, I wanted to, before we close up, I just wanted, I'm going to put in the show notes how you can reach Emily, but you have a free resource called Seven Book Marketing Activities You Can Stop Doing Right Now, so I'll link to that. I think it's brilliant, but can you just give us a taste, give us one activity that we could stop doing right now?
Emily:
Yes. So one activity you can stop doing today, blogging. I think that blogging, here's the thing. Here's the thing. Remember, this is all subjective. There are people who've had great success blogging, and if you write a business book, you probably should blog because blogging is great for SEO, which is search engine optimization.
But if you're a creative writer and if you are not selling books on your website, if you are selling them somewhere else, you want to direct people to Amazon or your local bookstore or not your website, then a newsletter has the same content as a blog and you don't need the traffic to come to your website.
So you don't need to be putting out a bunch of effort in order to get SEO conversion that's not as important for you right now. Again, in some contexts it is important, but for the creative writer that is not selling their books directly on their website, you don't really need a blog. You'd be better served guest posting on other people's blogs to kind of tap into other networks and then pointing them to your newsletter
Rhonda:
Instead. Right. Love that. Okay. I love that because I feel like the instinct of every person, every author who goes to make a website is, and now I must have a blog and they can't keep it up, and then it's just an out of date blog which doesn't do anything to bring people to you and is taking all this time away from the next book. Exactly. Thanks for saying that.
Emily:
With a blog, I think of blogs in between social media and newsletters in terms of posting strategy. If you're not posting on your blog once a week or at least every other week, it's not really converting traffic for you anyway. So that's a big commitment and that's again why with a minimalist schedule, I wouldn't do it.
Rhonda:
Love it. Okay, great. Well, I'm going to post the link so people can get that download from you and see the six other book marketing things they can stop doing today, because taking things off your to-Do list is a brilliant way to find more time to write the next book. So thank you so much. Thanks for being with me today. I really appreciated the conversation.
Emily:
Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me. This was a lot of fun.
Outro:
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