The AmWritingFantasy Podcast: Episode 22 – What can a new author do to build an audience?

The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast

When you first starting out as an author it can be incredibly difficult to market yourself and build an audience.
You don’t have a large list of books to promote. You only have one. On top of that, you have no experience and probably no idea on where to begin. So, what can a new author do to build an audience?

Learn the one thing that is more important than anything else.

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Read the full transcript below. (Please note that it's automatically generated and while the AI is super cool, it isn't perfect. There may be misspellings or incorrect words on occasion).

Jesper (1s):
When you first start out as an author, it can be incredibly difficult to market yourself and build an audience. You don't have a large list of books to promote. You only have one on top of that. You have no experience and probably no idea on where to begin. Let's put you on the right track today. If you're a fantasy author, then you've come to the right place.

Jesper (36s):
My name is Jesper and together with Autumn we've published more than 20 novels. Our aim is to use our experience to help you with writing marketing and selling books to fans all over the world. First of all, allow me to just take a brief moment to thank most beard for joining us on Patrion. Your amwritingfantasy bookmark is already in the process and maybe already received it by now.

Jesper (1m 7s):
Together with the handwritten message. We made a list of some extremely useful rewards for Patrick on supporters and we offered to review a patron supporters well building their Amazon pages discounted access to our premium courses and there's also a Christmas gift each year and we even offering to create a professional looking fantasy map for your novel or even writing your book description.

Jesper (1m 40s):
As you can hear, it's important for us to really give back to those who support us. So check out our Patrion page for the detailed. There's a link right here below this video or if you're listening on podcast and just check out the show notes. All right, let's get going with today's topic. Every author, and that's not only the new ones, wants to build an audience who loves their writing and helps to sell books by telling their friends and family about the author's work.

Jesper (2m 13s):
That's sort of a given and what we're all aiming for. However, when you only have one book and absolutely no fans, one of the first questions quickly becomes, what can you do here and now to start building an audience of readers? Many starts wondering if they should start something like a Facebook group for readers. Oh, and by the way, for those of you who hate Facebook, just think of what I'm about to say as an analogy.

Jesper (2m 48s):
For any kind of group on any type of platform, I'm just talking about an online community where you are the owner of the group. It could also be something, a Slack channel or, yeah, I dunno, some other alternative than Facebook you just don't have a critical mass yet. So something like a Facebook group will be a waste of time, otherwise there won't be enough interaction and activity inside the group. And even if you do get some people in there, the excitement will quickly sort of sizzle out because in today's quick and fast moving online environments, no one feels excitement about a Facebook group with 20 people in it at at least not in the context we're talking about here.

Jesper (3m 37s):
You know, sort of a a fan group context. Indeed, you might acquire a few hardcore fans and, and that's great. The new rider would say that's better than nothing and it is better than nothing. However, you are now also obligated as the Facebook group owner to at least pay attention to what's going on in the group. I'd almost bet you that there isn't much going on in that group at all, but this then generates the need for you to stop making something happen and you are now spending time coming up with things to post about and worry if these new few fans you do have, we'll leave the group.

Jesper (4m 21s):
Awesome. Anything like that. You see how this is not going to help you very much.

Old McGrumpy (4m 28s):
Can I offer some advice?

Jesper (4m 31s):
Hi, all my grumpy as our resident AI cohost, you can indeed offer advice, but please do. Remember I, I won't tolerate any of your negative inputs. Are our audience here once useful tips.

Old McGrumpy (4m 45s):
Of course you worthless humans, never understand what is best for you.

Jesper (4m 51s):
Mmm, I, you're going to share anything useful you guys. All right. What is it then?

Old McGrumpy (4m 57s):
Do not worry about building an audience. Spend time writing another book instead.

Jesper (5m 3s):
While that is common advice and I actually agree with you all my grumpy writing. Another book is the best way in which you can get more opportunities for readers to discover you. However, I also know that our audience here would like something specific that they can take home here and do something about right now.

Old McGrumpy (5m 26s):
Then be strategic with your time. Do not to jump on every interview or marketing opportunity that comes your way. There is no reason to burden yourself out. Testing every tactic out there.

Jesper (5m 39s):
That's also true and I like it, but I feel like you're sort of missing the point a bit old. My grumpy.

Old McGrumpy (5m 47s):
No, you are missing the point. Worthless. Fuman

Jesper (5m 51s):
alright, okay. Get angry if you must, but there's nothing wrong with what you said. Oh, okay. Then he goes, all right. I would still say to keep those things that all my grumpy mentioned in mind, but I want to take it in a different direction. What I want you to focus on is your email list. I placed a link here on the screen. For those of you watching on YouTube and for those podcast listeners out there, you want to go back to episode eight where autumn and I talked about acquiring your first 1000 email subscribers.

Jesper (6m 29s):
So I'm not going to cover any of that stuff again, but what I will say is that while your email list will be small at first, you should encourage those on it to talk to you in your emails. Ask them questions that will prompt replies. The thing is that we buy from those we trust and we only trust those with whom we are building a relationship. That's why you will want to have a conversation with your email subscribers on an ongoing basis just because you have only one book out.

Jesper (7m 6s):
Heck, even if you have no books published yet, you should still start an email list. It's never too early. Honestly, one-on-one communication isn't excellent relationship builder and that's something specific and new author can start doing right here and right now. Another thing is that if you're ever going to go to any conferences, I mean just as a regular participant, you know, trying to see if you can host a meet up with not only your emails list subscribers, but also with those who follow you on social media.

Jesper (7m 43s):
If just a few people are going to the same conference with you, why not take the opportunity to meet them face to face? What this does is that it allows for those people to connect over you, the author, and find that they all agree that your books are worth reading. I'm not saying that you in any way need to sort of force the agenda to be about you, but it will come naturally because they're all there in the meetup because of you and your work.

Jesper (8m 14s):
What else should they use as an icebreaker when talking to each other? You see, while you're writing more books, builds up your catalog of products at the best you can do is to interact with your audience. As your fan base grows, you can then start to look into things like the Facebook groups or Slack groups or something of that nature. Having your fans talk to each other over shared interest and shared beliefs is what will strengthen the sense of a community and deliver you those super fans who will just buy everything you write and also promote your work without you even asking point and that's just awesome.

Jesper (8m 57s):
That's what we really want as authors. That's sort of the the dream of every author, but do understand that I'm, I'm talking about building genuine relationships, even if it's only online. I'm not saying that you should engage with people only because they will then someday buy something from you. Right? That that's, that's the wrong path to go on because if that's how you come at all of this, you'll need to rethink your priorities. As I just said, people buy from those they trust and ask yourself this, would you trust someone who are only talking to you because there is a hidden agenda to lower you into buying a book at a later date?

Jesper (9m 41s):
I know I wouldn't, and I'm sure you wouldn't either. Be genuine, be honest and be a real human being with your email subscribers, not a salesperson. I know this stuff is hard and it's, it's not the quick fix that you might have hoped for for this, uh, episode here. But the thing is that there is no quick fix. It's instead a grind that takes time and built slowly as time goes by. In fact, click the video here on the screen if you want to learn about what it takes to become a full time author.

Jesper (10m 16s):
For, for those listening on the podcast, you want to go to episode number five and here you will learn some constructive truth that no one ever tells you. Stay safe out there and see you next Monday.