Giving Your Writing Momentum Tip #4: Building Your Audience NOW

Gena: 00:00:00

How do you build an audience for your writing?

Christopher: 00:00:02

We can help with that.

Christopher: 00:00:07

Hello and welcome to the Writing Momentum Podcast.

Christopher: 00:00:09

I'm Christopher Maselli.

Christopher: 00:00:10

I'm here with my wife, Gena.

Christopher: 00:00:12

How are you doing, Gena?

Gena: 00:00:12

I'm doing good.

Gena: 00:00:13

How are you?

Christopher: 00:00:14

I'm doing good.

Christopher: 00:00:15

We're going to talk about a topic that we like today a lot.

Gena: 00:00:18

We like it a lot.

Gena: 00:00:19

We're continuing our series about how to give your writing momentum.

Gena: 00:00:22

And today we're talking about building your audience now.

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And here's the key before.

Gena: 00:00:30

You even have your book written before you have a following start laying the

Gena: 00:00:36

groundwork for building your audience now.

Christopher: 00:00:39

Okay, so let's let's back up Why in the world

Christopher: 00:00:42

do I even want an audience?

Christopher: 00:00:44

What does that mean?

Gena: 00:00:45

Well, it does not matter whether you are traditionally published or

Gena: 00:00:49

independently published or hybrid published, you want to have people

Gena: 00:00:54

who are ready to hear from you when your book hits the streets.

Gena: 00:00:58

When your book is ready to be published, you want to have people who are

Gena: 00:01:02

already, they know who you are and they're excited about your project.

Christopher: 00:01:07

Yeah.

Christopher: 00:01:07

If you have any question at all, whether there are people out there excited about

Christopher: 00:01:11

what you're doing, know that there are, I mean, this is a big world, right?

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And we are in a unique time where we can find each other.

Christopher: 00:01:19

So if there is some specific topic that you're writing on, all you have

Christopher: 00:01:23

to do is just let it be out there in the world and the people who like

Christopher: 00:01:27

that same thing that you're writing about, they'll find you, but you have

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to put yourself out there, right?

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You can't just expect them to find you without letting

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them know that it's available.

Gena: 00:01:38

Yeah.

Gena: 00:01:38

You know, there's that old Field of Dreams movie that said, you know,

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if you build it, they will come.

Gena: 00:01:44

That is not the way it works.

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You need to build it, but you need to lay that foundation.

Gena: 00:01:49

Like what I was talking about, in order for people to find you, to already kind

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of be familiar with who you are as an author and be excited about your project.

Gena: 00:02:00

You want to start building that foundation now regardless of whether

Gena: 00:02:04

you have anything published, uh, just so that you're ready when that happens.

Gena: 00:02:09

And, and here's the thing, Chris, I wanted to point out is that I

Gena: 00:02:13

think sometimes we can get, captured by these big numbers, right?

Gena: 00:02:18

We think about, oh well, I, who cares about me?

Gena: 00:02:22

I don't know anything.

Gena: 00:02:24

They don't know me.

Gena: 00:02:25

Who's gonna even want me?

Gena: 00:02:27

I don't have huge numbers on my social media.

Gena: 00:02:30

I don't have a huge newsletter following.

Christopher: 00:02:33

Yeah, I need thousands of people following me.

Gena: 00:02:34

I need thousands of people following me.

Gena: 00:02:36

That's not really true.

Gena: 00:02:38

That's not necessarily true.

Gena: 00:02:39

It's great if you have a large following, if they are actually fans and care about

Gena: 00:02:44

your work, now if they're just freebie kind of followers who are following

Gena: 00:02:49

everybody or somewhere along the way, you offered some giveaway and they

Gena: 00:02:54

clicked a like button and they don't really know, they're not really invested,

Gena: 00:02:59

that, that's not what you're wanting.

Gena: 00:03:01

It would be better for you to have a smaller number of followers than to have

Gena: 00:03:06

a huge number of people who don't, who follow you, but they don't really care.

Christopher: 00:03:11

Have you ever driven through your town and seen some of these niche

Christopher: 00:03:15

stores that are, you know, they got little storefronts and you think how

Christopher: 00:03:19

in the world do they stay in business?

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Like there are not enough people in my town to keep

Christopher: 00:03:23

that place in business, right?

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I've thought of that often with several places that we pass, but

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here's what they have discovered.

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A lot of those stores have discovered that all they need are a certain amount of

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loyal people to keep them in business and to keep them healthy and growing, right?

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So they, be sure that they cater to those people, offer what those people

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want, and then the store can thrive.

Christopher: 00:03:49

Well, it's the same way with your book.

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If you have a certain topic that you're talking about, You don't need

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to have tens of thousands of followers.

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We know people who have very small mailing lists of very small

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audiences, but they're very loyal.

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And because of that loyalty, they're willing to buy every

Christopher: 00:04:04

book that that author puts out.

Christopher: 00:04:06

And that's what keeps them going.

Gena: 00:04:07

Exactly.

Gena: 00:04:08

Exactly.

Gena: 00:04:09

So let's talk about, uh, we've talked about why you want your audience,

Gena: 00:04:14

why you want to find an audience.

Gena: 00:04:15

You want people who are excited when your book finally hits the shelves.

Gena: 00:04:19

But let's identify who your audience is.

Christopher: 00:04:22

Well, so this is something you have to figure out, right?

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You have to ask yourself who would buy your book and too often our answer

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is everyone would love it, right?

Christopher: 00:04:32

I'm writing a picture book and I know that kids will like it, like young kids.

Christopher: 00:04:36

I know that older kids will like it.

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I know that teenagers would love reading, even adults would love reading this book.

Christopher: 00:04:42

It's so fabulous.

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And you know what?

Christopher: 00:04:44

You're probably right.

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But what you've got to do is you've got to find out who's the

Christopher: 00:04:49

exact audience for that book?

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Who would truly be buying your book?

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What are they interested in?

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Because then once you find out who they are, then you can locate them.

Christopher: 00:05:00

So for in my example for the picture book, who's the true audience?

Christopher: 00:05:04

You might say, well, it would be four to six year olds, right?

Christopher: 00:05:07

What good is that to me?

Christopher: 00:05:07

No, no.

Christopher: 00:05:08

Four to six year olds don't buy books.

Christopher: 00:05:10

Four to six year olds are given books.

Christopher: 00:05:12

Right

Christopher: 00:05:13

So, who's your true audience?

Christopher: 00:05:15

It's probably the mother of that 4 to 6 year old, or a grandmother of that 4 to 6

Christopher: 00:05:20

year old that would be buying that book.

Christopher: 00:05:22

And once you're able to identify that, then you can say, okay, what's their age?

Christopher: 00:05:26

What's their gender?

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What's their location?

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What's their interest?

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What are their pain points?

Christopher: 00:05:31

And that's the audience for your book.

Gena: 00:05:34

Exactly, exactly.

Gena: 00:05:36

And there are, you know, Chris talked about mothers and grandmothers.

Gena: 00:05:40

There are those outliers.

Gena: 00:05:41

You are also speaking to fathers and grandfathers, aunts and uncles.

Gena: 00:05:45

But those are the outliers.

Gena: 00:05:47

You want to focus and really get really targeted on who it is that

Gena: 00:05:51

is the buyer for your book and find out where they hang out.

Gena: 00:05:56

Find out what interests them.

Gena: 00:05:58

And then these outliers will find you if they're kind of hanging around you.

Gena: 00:06:04

If you've got a dad who's looking for books that he can read to his kids at

Gena: 00:06:09

night, Then He's going to find you.

Gena: 00:06:11

He's going to know that he's going to have to go to those sites where mainly

Gena: 00:06:15

moms and grandmoms hang out, but he's going to, he's going to do that work

Gena: 00:06:21

to find that book, or he's going to be talking to other people in his office or

Gena: 00:06:27

in his family or wherever who are going to be able to direct him, but you're

Gena: 00:06:31

not going to go and search for him.

Gena: 00:06:34

You're going to be focused on the group that you know will be truly

Gena: 00:06:39

interested, and that's the moms and the grandmoms, and the others will find them.

Christopher: 00:06:44

So how do you then, once you identify who your audience is, so

Christopher: 00:06:48

let's say we know that our audience are 34 year old moms, right, who are in,

Christopher: 00:06:55

um, typically in America or Europe, and they are very interested in, I don't

Christopher: 00:07:02

know, what's it, how about helping their kids not be scared at night, okay?

Christopher: 00:07:07

Because that's what your book's about.

Christopher: 00:07:08

So if that's what the pain point is, then how do you find that audience?

Gena: 00:07:15

Well, that audience is probably going to have some kind of social

Gena: 00:07:18

media group associated with it.

Gena: 00:07:21

You're going to be able to reach out to social media, uh, groups and um, also

Gena: 00:07:29

on other online groups that are going to be talking about Facebook groups.

Gena: 00:07:35

You're going to be able to find those people who are interested

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in reaching children of that age group with that message.

Gena: 00:07:43

So start looking, thinking about where are those people.

Gena: 00:07:46

Maybe they're at your local library.

Gena: 00:07:48

Maybe there's a mom's group there.

Gena: 00:07:50

Maybe it's a MOPs group, mothers of preschoolers that you're

Gena: 00:07:53

going to be able to connect with.

Gena: 00:07:56

Look and think about where are my people hanging out either online or in person.

Christopher: 00:08:02

And then what you want to do is you want to

Christopher: 00:08:04

go hang out with them, right?

Christopher: 00:08:05

So if you find out that there's an online group or an in person group of people

Christopher: 00:08:10

who are interested in that very thing, then go ahead and join that online group.

Christopher: 00:08:14

Start making posts, not, not posts of promotion.

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Posts where you're contributing to the group, respond to people's questions,

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respond to people's thoughts in the book and get conversations going.

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And as you do, you become an authority in that group, right?

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You become someone that people know they can trust, people who, someone

Christopher: 00:08:35

who people know has valuable opinion.

Christopher: 00:08:37

And once you become that kind of person, then when you come out with that book, And

Christopher: 00:08:44

they find out that that book is out there, they're just going to want to buy it.

Christopher: 00:08:47

That's how this works.

Christopher: 00:08:48

It's all about relationships.

Christopher: 00:08:49

Marketing.

Christopher: 00:08:50

We've talked about this many times on our podcast.

Christopher: 00:08:53

Marketing is about relationships.

Christopher: 00:08:54

It's not just about throwing a bunch of promotions out there.

Christopher: 00:08:57

It's about relationships.

Gena: 00:08:58

It is.

Gena: 00:08:58

It is.

Gena: 00:08:59

So you want to be like Chris said, you want to be active in them.

Gena: 00:09:03

You want to start talking about the issues that those people

Gena: 00:09:07

care about in your own posts.

Gena: 00:09:10

You also want to maybe start a newsletter.

Gena: 00:09:13

Even if your newsletter starts with 10 people, you want to have that there.

Gena: 00:09:18

You can also, in your social media, your um,

Christopher: 00:09:23

your property

Gena: 00:09:24

Your property, and you know, where there's the information

Gena: 00:09:27

about you or you have your favorite links, things like that.

Gena: 00:09:31

Put that information there so that people can find, if they see you posting on

Gena: 00:09:35

a certain topic that's of interest to them, they're going to click on your

Gena: 00:09:39

name to go and read about you, read your description about what you're

Gena: 00:09:42

interested in, who are you, why did you, why does this topic matter to you?

Gena: 00:09:48

And that can lead them then to your website that will, then hopefully you'll

Gena: 00:09:54

have a lead magnet and a way for them to join your newsletter and so that then

Gena: 00:09:59

you can start talking to them directly.

Christopher: 00:10:01

Yeah, so we've talked a lot about email newsletters

Christopher: 00:10:03

and lead magnets on this podcast as early as episode number 14.

Christopher: 00:10:07

So go check that out if you want to learn more about that.

Gena: 00:10:09

Yeah.

Christopher: 00:10:11

The biggest takeaway we want you to have from this is that

Christopher: 00:10:15

we want you to start doing this now.

Christopher: 00:10:18

And you say, why?

Christopher: 00:10:19

I don't, I don't have my book published yet.

Christopher: 00:10:21

No, now's the time to start.

Christopher: 00:10:23

Now's the time to start building those relationships and getting

Christopher: 00:10:26

people interested in what you're doing so that when your book comes

Christopher: 00:10:28

out, you have someone to sell it to.

Gena: 00:10:30

Yeah.

Gena: 00:10:31

I, there is nothing sadder to me for authors than when I hear that they have

Gena: 00:10:37

published a book and they publish it and they say, and you ask them, what is

Gena: 00:10:42

your, What is your marketing strategy?

Gena: 00:10:45

And they say, Oh, I don't know.

Gena: 00:10:47

I don't have one.

Gena: 00:10:48

And I just think, Oh my goodness, did you really just publish a book and lose

Gena: 00:10:53

that momentum that a new book brings by not having a strategy in place, by

Gena: 00:11:00

not having a strategy on your social media, by not already having a newsletter

Gena: 00:11:04

list, even if that newsletter list is small, by not already connecting with

Gena: 00:11:10

different people in your community.

Gena: 00:11:12

Um, you know, setting up, maybe you have a table at a book event at, in your

Gena: 00:11:18

local community or in a community nearby.

Gena: 00:11:22

When I hear that people have not done that kind of legwork and

Gena: 00:11:25

they've just released their book.

Gena: 00:11:27

I just hope that they don't get discouraged.

Christopher: 00:11:29

Yeah, yeah, because you know, this is what it

Christopher: 00:11:31

means to be an author today.

Christopher: 00:11:32

It also means to be a bit of a marketer, right?

Christopher: 00:11:35

Someone who's doing a little bit of networking, and those words can

Christopher: 00:11:39

sound very scary, but they're really not as bad as we might think, right?

Christopher: 00:11:43

A lot of times what it means is just starting to get active in

Christopher: 00:11:45

social media, make some social media posts, go ahead and, and give some

Christopher: 00:11:49

people something to download, just create an email newsletter, right?

Christopher: 00:11:52

These are, these are not, super tough things to do.

Christopher: 00:11:55

Once you, once you get over that barrier of understanding what it is,

Christopher: 00:11:59

it's actually not that bad to do.

Christopher: 00:12:01

And it's something that you can definitely do because, hey, if you've written a

Christopher: 00:12:04

book, you can for sure write a newsletter.

Gena: 00:12:06

Right.

Gena: 00:12:07

You've done the hard work.

Gena: 00:12:08

You finished the book.

Gena: 00:12:10

So we hope that you have enjoyed this podcast.

Gena: 00:12:13

We hope you'll tune in again and we hope that if this has been helpful

Gena: 00:12:17

to you, go ahead and subscribe.

Gena: 00:12:19

Go ahead and ring the bell.

Gena: 00:12:22

You know the powers that be know YouTube or your podcast platform.

Gena: 00:12:27

Let them know that you want to hear from us on a daily basis and also if

Gena: 00:12:31

you like this podcast would you give us a thumbs up or or click the like

Gena: 00:12:35

button or just It really helps us to hopefully get this message of just

Gena: 00:12:41

encouraging writers in their writing, their publishing, their author branding,

Gena: 00:12:46

and selling their books and their marketing, getting it out to the masses.

Gena: 00:12:50

So we hope you will just give us a hand with that.

Gena: 00:12:53

Help us out by subscribing, ringing the bell, or clicking

Gena: 00:12:58

the like button, whatever it is that your platform is requiring.

Christopher: 00:13:03

That's right, because we're not doing this alone.

Christopher: 00:13:05

You're doing it with us.

Christopher: 00:13:07

Because together,

Gena: 00:13:08

we have writing momentum.

Christopher: 00:13:10

Bye bye.