🥇🥈🥉October prize-giving
A round up of the best book marketing advice I've found on the internet this month, plus a chance to peek behind the paywall of the Too Much Instagram membership
Hello, and welcome to a round up of the best pieces of book-marketing advice I’ve read this month, plus some other bits because I like them 😉
If you’re a free subscriber to this newsletter, I’ve also selected some pieces to release from their paywall until Monday 4th November, when I’ll be putting them back in their boxes 😉. Scroll down to access those now.
If you’d like expert support and guidance with how to use Instagram to get more readers, click the button below to upgrade your membership:
First of all a little update…
This month I hit a milestone of 2k followers on Instagram, and 800 subscribers here on Substack, and while IT IS NOT ABOUT THE NUMBERS, what those numbers *represent* to me is that I hadn’t lost my mind almost two years ago when I did some market research of exactly four (FOUR!) authors to see if Instagram support was something there was a demand for 🙈 😂
I just want to say thank you for being here, for interacting with my posts and sharing them with your friends, for buying tickets to my workshops and subscriptions to my membership, for the kind words you send me and the way you support each other. I love this work I do and the people I get to do it with ✌🏻❤️
🥇 First prize goes to for her tips on how to make ‘networking’ less weird
I talk often about how important it is for writers and authors to build a network of ‘digital surrogates’ around you - that is, a group of people who will amplify your book on your behalf, online and beyond - but I also find it tricky to talk about as there’s a danger it starts to sound transactional.
It’s important when we’re developing our networks that we don’t fall into the trap of thinking, ‘If I do abc for them, they’ll do xyz for me’ and Jo’s essay articulates an alternative framing really clearly. Lots of the suggestions she makes about networking in real life, will also work online.
<psst, quick aside>
Reading Jo Elvin’s piece felt extra-serendipitous as the importance of personal networks was something authors
, and mentioned in their interviews with me this month.🎁 Both of these interviews are free to watch until Monday and then they’ll be available for TMI members only, so watch them before they go behind the paywall.
🥈 Second prize goes to this essay from because some of us have to work harder than others to get over the personal branding ick
Personal, or to be more specific to you, author branding is basically what you’re doing when you show up online to talk about the things you care about that you also write about. By positioning yourself as someone who talks about specific topics, you can make it easier to connect with potential readers of your book, and to secure PR coverage such as relevant interviews, quotes in articles, op-eds, or podcast interviews.
If you can get past the icky idea of ‘branding’ your whole human self this essay contains some great places to start with this process, including my favourite, ‘Don’t admire quietly’.
🥉 Third prize goes to who I believe is the originator of the term ‘digital surrogate’ that I used earlier in this round up, for this Substack newsletter about the part Substack newsletters have to play in book promotion (how meta)
Making a list of Substack publications that have an audience packed full of your ideal readers* (remember a smaller, but more relevant, niche audience is better than a massive but broad one), and pitching to write them an article, or appear as a guest interview, is a fantastic way to get in front of potential readers. The owner of the publication gets a great piece of content that they don’t have to spend hours creating, and you get to sit in front of their audience’s eyeballs for a few minutes.
*ahem
if this exercise exposes a flaw in your plan because you don’t know who your ideal reader is, fear not…
On Weds 6th Nov at 6pm BST/ 1pm EST/ 10am PST I’m running a 1 hour workshop called DEFINE YOUR IDEAL READER TO ELEVATE YOUR BOOK MARKETING.
I will guide you through a series of exercises and tasks to define your ideal reader so you walk away with a clear idea of who you’re trying to attract with your promotional activity. You can then use this information to inform every decision you make about how you promote your book, from what you post to your social media, to which podcasts you pitch yourself to. Step one of effective book marketing, UNLOCKED ✅
Tickets are £25 OR upgrade your subscription to become a member of TOO MUCH INSTAGRAM for £12 per month and you’ll get access to the workshop as part of your membership.
🎁 A reward for reading to the end of the newsletter
Especially for you, I’ve also made this bank of post ideas free to read until Monday 4th November. It usually sits behind the paywall for the members of TOO MUCH INSTAGRAM so get it before it goes again!
These banks of Instagram ideas, curated especially for writers, are one of the benefits of joining TOO MUCH INSTAGRAM, so please consider upgrading your membership if you think it would be useful to you.
