Thread by @ZoeYorkWrites

I went to Milwaukee last month and, for the first time ever, gave a library presentation. (Just saying, if any library closer to London, ON wanted me to come and do something, I'd be game). The talk went well! But I didn't get a chance to touch on audiences (cold vs warm etc.).

So let's do that now! Here's a little mini thread on audiences and what authors should know about them before they tackle a marketing plan.

(I literally yelled at the end of the presentation, "AW CRAP, I DIDN'T GET TO WARM VS COLD AUDIENCES! THERE'S SO MUCH MORE TO TALK ABOUT." Really, I'm a super professional speaker, please invite me everywhere.)

And technically I have given workshops inside libraries before, but always organized by external groups, not librarians themselves. I am a sucker for the librarian love.

Not the point, Zoe. GET TO THE AUDIENCE STUFF. Right.

Cold audiences: new to you in every way.
Warm audiences: aware of you, possibly interested in your product.
Hot audiences: they've already pre-ordered, but need love and attention. *see also, fandoms

When you start out your warm audience is your best friend, your Uncle Matt, and a couple of people who randomly happen to find your books in the magical way we want a LOT of people to find out books (but that usually doesn't happen). It's very normal to have a warm audience of 5.

First myth to bust here: If you have a warm audience of five, if you have a newsletter of sixty people, if you put a book up for pre-order and...crickets...you're some kind of failure.

You're not. You're me, in fact! Hey, buddy, I've been there.

Second myth: Once you sell a lot of books (I've done that! More than once!), you've got a "big audience" and they buy all your books.

LOL. I wish. (To my readers: I LOVE YOU. I love you just as much if you've only bought one of my books, and aren't sure about the others.)

One big takeaway I wish I could teach other authors is that "your audience", your mailing list, your FB page, your Twitter followers--is full of people who have not read all of your books. Or even most of them.

That's normal, too.

Fandoms are often specific to a single series. There are many, many points in a career where we need to start over for a lot of different reasons. At that point, our previously hot audience might be warm or even cool.

So we have a writer. Often an introvert, often lost in their stories, who from time to time lifts up their head and goes--oh shit, I should market my books.

* sends a newsletter
* books a promo blast
* discounts a title (or their publisher does it, maybe taking them by surprise)

We do these things because other people tell us to do them. Try FB ads, they say. Get a BookBub featured deal, Zoe says. (I do, it's true, but it's more complicated than that!!!!)

What they don't say is, know who you're targeting. And how. And why.

Side note on FB ads: I don't really do them. I boosted a post today for the first time in months. It's for a permafree I wrote seven years ago, a pretty known quantity for me to promote, and I still screwed up the ad copy.

FB ads are an art. I am not that artist. That's normal!

But let's stay with FB ads for a moment. They can be used to target cold audiences, or warm audiences. The campaigns would look quite different.

Know what your goal is, and work back from there.

Or pick something else that achieves the same goal.

But if you're going to do that kind of ad campaign, to a cold audience, to find new-to-you readers, you want ad copy that is about the customer, not you. Not even your books. Why this book is what they need, for their reasons. And the book? Either free or full-price. Never 99c.

Does anyone know why?

The math doesn't work on a 99 cent book. There is almost no way to make a 99 cent product that you earn maybe 35 cents on (or less if you're with a publisher) profitable using a cost-per-click ad model.

The people who do it are making the money elsewhere.

Sure, some people can get that CPC down to a glorious <10 cents, but then 1/3 clicks must convert to a sale to break even, and that's not great odds. The ROI is dodgy as heck.

And sometimes the success of an ad campaign like that is less about cold audiences, and more about name recognition. (Not always! But sometimes).

So if you're starting something new: a new name, a new series--that's not the time to be betting the farm on a cold audience appeal.

(My husband just gave me the nod that the kids are in bed, and it's time for Saturday night cocktails, so I may leave this as part one, TBC...)

BUT ZOE, YOU CANNOT LEAVE THEM HANGING. HOW ELSE CAN WE ACHIEVE THE GOAL OF FINDING NEW READERS?

Let's loop back to the baby author with a fanbase of five people, or the one with a newsletter of sixty subscribers.

I know, don't shout at me, but:

1. write more books.

I'm going to drink a cocktail in five minutes, I don't care if that's not what you wanted to hear. ;)

Write more books in that series. WRITE A LONG SERIES. (I have a whole book coming out in December about this. It can be the difference between writing being a dream and writing being a career.)

And start a new series. Start over, but don't drift far. Write YOUR THING, again.

Those five people will turn into ten, then twenty, then fifty.

I know. Fifty fans do not pay the bills. But don't abandon them, and their numbers will grow.

That's step 1. That's not all.

2. Find people who write similar things to you. Do some things together.

Like what?
a. Write a short story or a novella each, and bundle them together for a limited time anthology that would appeal to all of your readers.
b. Offer each others' first books to your core readers.

3. Once you have a bunch of books out, especially in a series, make the first one free.

MAKE. THE. FIRST. ONE. FREE.

If you are making nothing on a series right now, if you have one and it's dead--make the first book free. What's the worst that could happen?

4. Get systematic in how you think about your product lineup. I've got a set of podcast episodes about this on The Sistercast (@thesistercast ), and my RWA presentation in NYC this summer was one the topic as well--the recording is available to members.

@thesistercast 5. When you find new readers through a new release, a cross promotion, a sale: introduce them to your backlist.

Options here:
* cycle your backlist through your social media in an appropriate way
* mailing list on boarding sequences
* backmatter in your books

@thesistercast Yay! 5 things you can do that don't cost a lot of money, that find new readers and expose them to your backlist. That's a good place to pause for cocktails. Tomorrow I'll talk more about luke-warm audiences, because I have a book to finish and I am Miss Procrastination.

@thesistercast Oh, a quick note on this. CLEAR AND TRANSPARENT GOALS MATTER. If everyone involved isn't interested in sharing their audiences, then they aren't the people for this kind of action.

https://twitter.com/ZoeYorkWrites/status/1170525203568504834?s=20

@thesistercast But really, if you take any takeaway from today, let it be this, a random comment in Slack earlier today that sparked this thread.