This month, Janet joins JP and Crys for another book club, this time reading Your Book, Your Brand by Dana Kaye. They discuss hot takes, useful advice, and how they will incorporate this book’s lessons into their author business.
Question of the week: What were your hot takes from Your Book, Your Brand by Dana Kaye? Share your answer here!
Don’t miss our weekly check in on Patreon (it’s public!) where we talk about what we’re currently learning, any thoughts we missed in last week’s episode, and our plans for this week!
Show Notes
Your Book, Your Brand by Dana Kaye
The Emotional Craft of Fiction by Donald Maass
Transcript
Crys: Hello friends. Welcome to the Write Away Podcast, episode 69. It is Wednesday, November 10th, as we are recording this, and it is book club. This month we read Your Book, Your Brand by Dana Kaye. And JP and I actually had the pleasure of interviewing Dana and that will be next week’s episode. So if you are tired of branding, I’m sorry, we’re still deep in the thick of it.
This week, we are small, but mighty, with myself, Crys Cain, my cohost…
JP: JP Rindfleisch.
Crys: And special guest…
Janet: Me, Janet Kitto.
Crys: Indeed. This is just the time of the year when everything goes up in the air. And so we are missing Lon, Christine, Marianne, and we’re sending all our love to you guys.
So let us jump in to Your Book, Your Brand. Quick description of it: it’s a book on marketing. It is a book about marketing books, which I don’t feel like there’s as many out there. There are books on branding and marketing in general. But what sets this one apart is it as specifically about branding yourself as an author and your books. Would you guys agree?
JP: A hundred percent.
Crys: What are some initial thoughts that you guys have had?
Janet: I didn’t nod loud enough. Sorry.
JP: I really liked this book. I felt like there was a lot of actionable steps, which I’ve seen that in some of the craft books that we’ve read but having this as like a branding book and using those actionable steps at the end of each chapter to figure out who you are along the way, I found extremely useful. Especially since it’s geared directly towards authors. So I don’t have to postulate what this would mean for an author. This is steps for an author to figure out your brand.
Crys: Janet, as someone who doesn’t have much published yet, did you find that those actual steps were still helpful with the things that you have in progress?
Janet: Yes, but that’s an extended answer I have to give you. I can’t tell you how many times I highlighted in this book, the importance of knowing your audience. I love that that’s a message that regardless of what she’s talking about, whether it’s about the content, or your platform, or in person, that message is always there. Knowing your audience and are you reaching your audience.
I think that when I look at the steps that are in there, and this is the thing, I don’t think anyone who’s at my point starting off is going to want to fully commit to creating a media list, creating a social media strategy, identifying other marketing efforts that I can make. But it didn’t matter because I just went back to that initial message that was throughout the book of: are you reaching your target audience?
Crys: Yeah, I haven’t gone through the steps yet, also because I haven’t had much brain space for thinking in the last four months. But the first thing that Dana suggests you do, well, the first thing she says is write your book if you haven’t.
So if you’re a newbie author and you haven’t written your book, that’s step one. For someone who is coming at this when they have three plus books in the game or three works in progress. And you’re looking to see what is the commonality that pops up naturally for you, and as an author that’s going to be your brand.
And so she gives some good steps on how to, I think it was like write a paragraph or two about each book and then go through and highlight the things, do this for each book and then go through and highlight the things that come up over and over again. And that’s going to be like the centerpiece of your brands. Because those are the things that you’re going to, I want to say drift, but that’s not the right word, but like I’m gonna use it because my brains off, drift toward writing every time.
JP: Yeah. It’s basically coming up with your theme. That kind of permeates through every piece or every story. And even though those stories may have their own themes, like you, as a person seem to have their own theme.
When I did this, like I have stories that fall within like paranormal comedy, like straight up urban fantasy, epic fantasy, but I’m still finding these common themes. These various different subjects that I hit on that are very similar and I’m like, oh, luckily the three words that I came up with early on are still holding true to what I want to say as an author.
Crys: I definitely got overwhelmed when we get into the later things that Janet was mentioning, of the more advanced things that you can do for marketing and figuring out your different outlets that you can reach to and stretching beyond what you think of by default. And a lot of that has been because I’ve been up until this point, I’ve been someone who publishes fast, and the publishing fast has been my marketing. The idea of adding any extra onto what I was already doing with newsletter, some small Facebook presence, and just publishing the books, was just absolutely insane. That wouldn’t have been possible.
But for an author who writes two, three, one book a year, it becomes more important to put time into that outreach because you’re not relying on the avalanche of quick releases. And a lot of people just aren’t naturally quick writers. Their genre doesn’t necessarily lend themselves to quick readers. And there’s nothing wrong with that. And there’s nothing wrong with being a fast writer. And there’s nothing wrong with being a fast writer who could do all of these things, but I’m going to suspect you’re on drugs, performance, drugs, just saying.
JP: That was a leap, but yeah, I would disagree.
Crys: I’m just saying there’s gotta be some speed in there somewhere. Either that or massive ADHD.
JP: Very advantageous.
Crys: Yeah.
Janet: Okay. I was thinking when, what you were saying, Crys, you were talking about the writing and something that stood out for me in this book was she says authors are expected to be public figures and engage with their followers online, offline, and we’re supposed to let them into our personal lives.
No, not every detail, but whatever voice we’re going to have as our author, we want to have those followers identifying with us. And so I think sometimes as authors, we talk about marketing and we get very caught up in writing and are we producing something that we’re going to keep having people follow us because we’ve got new material all the time or something else.
And this was like, I didn’t want to face it. I don’t want to be a public figure. But it’s just part of it. It’s something we have to talk about too.
JP: Yeah. I struggle with that a lot. Because like with the podcast and then now promoting the Vella, I find that a lot of my posts are just like promotional things. And I’m like, oh, but I need to do this like public figure, and how do I get that part out? Because when I think about the people that I follow, they don’t always post, here’s the new podcast episode here’s the new this. They’re posting pictures of either an event they go to, which I stay in my attic so you’ll get different corners of my attic throughout the day, or like different things that kind of follow along with their brand. And that’s the part that I struggle with. I know I need to do it. It’s the part that I’m like, how do I, where do I have time and brain space to do this part?
Crys: Yeah. And at The Career Author Summit, when Dana gave her speech, I think it was during the Q and A, she said it is possible to have a career without a social media presence, but you are definitely making it more difficult on yourself.
And I think that those of us who are not in it for just the pure dollars, who are in it for sustainable success, that’s one of the things that we keep weighing. Like how much of myself am I willing to give that? And at which point does it actually become a negative marker of my success?
JP: Definitely, like even when I think about what I need to put on social media, I ensure that it does not impact certain times. And especially having the day job, you have to keep that time for writing as the most important thing. And then all of this other stuff is just the leftovers. So it’s the stuff that, if you’re like me and you write in the mornings, this is the stuff at the end of the day where you don’t have that brain space to really do the writing, but you still want to do something for the career.
So in that sense, like that’s where I try to put these pieces. But, yeah, it’s just trying to figure that out. And another thing that Dana said that I really liked was that you don’t have to be on every platform. It’s good to grab a name on the platform, just so that in the future if you ever want to grab onto it, but that it’s better to be more present on less platforms than to be not present, but on multiple platforms.
And I think that’s pretty key for me and focusing in on where my audience is. Because if I’m writing urban fantasy and some YA, is my audience on Facebook? Probably not. So I can get off of Facebook. Is my audience on Pinterest? I’m not sure. Those are the ways of thinking, like where would the most impact be? Where is the audience that I want to reach? And make sure that you’re there and that’s where you start, and then you branch out when you have that mind space and availability.
Janet: I’d love for Dana, you’re having her on next week, I’d love for her to be able to tell me what’s important now, because this book I was looking and it was written five years ago.
And so is it still true what’s been said about social media management tools and like what platform should I be on? I feel the same way about Facebook. Like maybe I shouldn’t be on there because that’s not going to be where my target audience is going to be. Do I stick with what I can do this week and I can wrap my head around some kind of marketing strategy on Instagram or do I go somewhere else? I think this book lays out a lot of great things step-by-step of what I can do, but how much do I need to think about putting my toe into TikTok?
Crys: Yeah. If I can echo what she said from Career Author, because we already recorded with her last week. And it was something along the lines of, you don’t have to jump onto whatever seems to be working for everybody, you have to find the ones that you’re comfortable with. And it’s that combo of comfort for you plus where your audience is. And, yeah, I’m just sitting here thinking if I’m a Facebook person, but like I’m writing for, I don’t know, 20 somethings and they’re not on Facebook. I think what my answer is for myself there is that you figure out what portion of your audience is on Facebook and market to them there, because that’s the one you’re comfortable with and that’s the one that you know how to use. But then maybe try and dip your toes into whatever one is where much of your audience is present and see if you’re comfortable with it. I think that’s how I would answer that.
I know Dana ends the book with this and I think she started it with that. You have to know what your metric of success is to be able to determine if you are actually being successful. So if your metric of success is you want to be on the New York Times list, like then you know what you have to do that, and whether you’re successful or not. If your metrics of success is, I have more time in my day because I freed up X amount of money that comes in through passive income through books, then you’re going to be doing different things than you would for the New York Times and you’d be able to measure your success differently.
JP: One thing too I really liked about her approach with social media was having a rotation of personal, promotional, and interactive. I still, like I said, I need to wrap my head around what that means, but that makes it very actionable for me to be like, okay, these are the three things that I maybe need to hit. So then trying to figure out what that would look like. Before I read this, I had no idea. I was like, do I just post pictures of my dog and question mark? But here I have something that makes a little bit more sense and it has a little bit more umph to it in my opinion.
Janet: Yeah, and one of the notes that I made too was that she talks about pinning down your content. So her example was, if you write cozy mysteries and you include a craft, then consider posting one of those crafts on your blog and pinning your blog posts to the board. Like having everything have a purpose. And I know that seems so obvious, but when we want to put a picture and include something from our lives, we have to take that extra step and think like, how can I link that back?
Crys: I think the thing that we have talked about a lot on this podcast in general, that I think we really connected with in Dana’s book, is that she shows us how to make marketing a system that works for us as authors specifically.
JP: Agreed. And even like the marketing and pitching process, which it’s interesting because she dives into each of the different pieces all the way from like traditional publications to online and when would be a good time, at least for the time this was published, to reach out to those sources. And that makes it a very actionable thing to do when trying to launch your book and figuring out like when is a good time to reach out to all of these outlets so that by the time your book releases, those reviews and those articles and whatever you reached out to, all are roughly released around the same time to garner that attention. I found that super helpful because that’s something I have no idea what to do for. So that was useful.
Crys: That’s something I’ve actively avoided throughout my current, and I said a lot of that’s just because adding anything on top of my previous publishing schedule was just insanity. And I chose specifically not to attempt to do those things because for what I was doing, it was more stress than it was worth. So that was like, knowing what my success metric was for sure.
JP: Yeah. And I like too, that she brought up that think about your audience. That was a key throughout this whole thing. Because does your audience even read the newspaper? Well, if the answer is no, then why are you going on the newspaper? Think about where your level of comfort is. And I can’t remember if she explicitly says this, but there’s a difference between finding your level of comfort and listing out all of the different opportunities for you, figuring out where your audience is, and then what you’re comfortable doing. And I think that hitting all of those three key pieces will let you know what outlets to reach out to, if you want to go that route of marketing.
Janet: Yeah. And I’ll just add to that too. And I love that she says, don’t just make it about pitching your book because depending on which media you’re talking about, they may not want to cover your book review, but if you’re talking about a subject, then you can always link that back to your book and your audience.
JP: Yeah. I like that a lot too, as well. It reaffirmed some thoughts that I had that, yes, your book may be wonderful. It may be the greatest thing on earth. But that’s not the story that some of these outlets are interested in. The story that they’re interested in is you. It’s what do you bring to the table? What is your overarching theme and how can you tie that into either something that you do outside of writing or something that you do within the community? Or just a thing that you have to say about the current events or past events or whatever, something along those lines. If your book is some crazy sci-fi futuristic book and you are talking about a better world, now let’s talk about what does that mean for like climate change.
Okay. So now you have a topic that you can talk about and you can promote your book alongside that. So it’s ways of thinking outside of the box and not just being, this is my book, it’s amazing.
Crys: She has some great examples of authors who she’s done that with. So you’re not just being like, okay, that’s great, but I need to know what that looks like in real life. She shares what it looked like in real life with clients of hers.
JP: Yeah. I like that too a lot. That there was pretty much an example for everything that she stated. So it was very much backed by evidence that she had.
Crys: Any final thoughts?
Janet: This was going to be a question I was going to put to some of the other members who aren’t able to be here tonight for book club. Here’s a good time to say why, that’s for Marianne because that’s always her question. But I was going to ask the serial writers that we have in book club, is this any different? Because do you know your audience or are you writing to them as you’re building your audience then they start following you? That’s probably the same when I’m thinking about writing my first book going into my second book.
Is that changing for serial writers as you go week to week, that your audience is becoming something more than what you thought?
JP: Yeah. So with the Vella I have with Jeff, when I’m writing or editing it, I have a focus of the audience and really, it’s funny, because my audience is Jeff. And it’s because my intent is if I can get him to laugh or to find humor in what was written, because that’s the primary focus of it, then I’ve done my job. And then the rest of it is getting that audience to look at it. And that’s really, for me, that was defining the audience for me, was Jeff.
So I made it really easy because I didn’t have an external audience, but then we were putting it out there for other people to find. And really from there it just becomes this constant voice of either promoting like the next chapter, posing questions as to what comes next, but really getting that intrigue in for people to kind of hop on.
We’ve had a lot of positive comments, feedback, and like followers from it. Whatever we’re doing seems to be right. I can’t say that it’s like the best, it’s somewhere along the lines of being able to get the audience that we want.
Janet: Then it does come back to, you have a target reader. And then what’s great is there’s other people that come to it that you never expected. But that messaging reaches far more than your target reader.
JP: Yeah, definitely. And there’s a really strange, very strong communal aspect in Vella at the moment with other Vella authors.
And so when you announce a new release on an episode, like I’m getting several different Vella authors who are then spreading it to their followers. And it’s like this reverberating thing, so we’re doing the same thing. So the marketing, in terms of Vella, is very different than I would have imagined because it’s very much this group of authors that are sharing it with their audience and then really the conversations are being done on social media and less so on these other outlets.
Crys: I really do think that the strongest marketing angle most of us authors have, specifically indie authors, is the other authors whose audiences are like ours because readers want to have trusted recommendations. They have authors that they trust, and if those authors are our friends and they like our work, and they recommend it to their readers, that’s a really powerful boost.
JP: 100% agree.
Janet: I came across this today and I love this. The goal of marketing should be to make selling unnecessary. And where trust goes, the money flows. And so like totally what you just said, Crys, about the trust when we share it within our communities, our writing community, like it’s just so much easier to do the marketing.
Crys: Anything else you guys wanted to touch on?
JP: It was good. Go read it.
Janet: I really enjoyed reading this one.
Crys: Thanks so much everyone for joining us on this book club. I think we’re all in agreement that this is a super useful book for authors. It’s not a bad read if you are in the beginning stages of publishing, but you’ll definitely get more actionable content after you’ve had a couple books out. But it’s always good to have brand and marketing in mind as something that you will be figuring out along the way if you are in those beginning stages.
Next month for book club, we will be reading The Emotional Craft of Fiction by Donald Maass. And this is a book I’ve been wanting to read for a while and I’ve picked up and read bits of it. I do think it’s going to be a heavier read than some of the ones we’ve been reading. So just a warning on that. And if you would like to join us for that conversation, you can join our Patreon where we will post the live link for this recording next month. Thank you so much.
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