How to Write Non-Fiction: Book marketing basics and your author platform
“Everything you and your business does is marketing.”
—James Watt, Business for Punks
This book is about writing non-fiction, but the journey doesn’t end when you have a finished book in the world.
I learned this the hard way after I wrote and published my first non-fiction book in 2007. This was before print on demand and before the iPhone and the Kindle launched, which accelerated the adoption of ebooks and digital audio.
I printed two thousand books and as the boxes piled up in my living room, I was sure that they would change people’s lives and make me loads of money. A classic case of ‘if you build it, they will come.’
When I realised the books wouldn’t sell because no one knew I existed, I tried traditional marketing, getting press in national newspapers, radio, and TV. But I only sold a few books, and eventually the rest of them ended up at the dump.
This initial failure sparked my journey into learning about book marketing, focusing primarily on digital marketing to reach readers all over the world.
This section is just a taster and you can dive deeper in my book How to Market a Book. I also recommend Ricardo Fayet’s How to Market a Book: Overperform in a Crowded Market.
The marketing mindset
“Good marketers realise that [marketing] is an investment.”
—Seth Godin, What Every Good Marketer Knows
Many authors think that someone else will do marketing for them, or that somehow readers will discover their books purely because of the quality of the writing. But with millions of books published each year, and an ever-growing backlist available to order online, it’s a very crowded market. You need to take responsibility for marketing, however you choose to publish.
It helps if you reframe marketing as follows.
(1) Marketing is sharing what you love with people who will appreciate hearing about it
It’s not shouting ‘buy my book’ repeatedly on social media or accosting innocent readers in bookstores. It’s connecting with people around the topic you care about, and being useful, entertaining, or inspirational along the way.
(2) Marketing is a learnable skill and can be creative
You don’t need a degree in marketing to sell books, but you do need to learn new things, try them out, and adapt over time.
You can hire other people to help you, but if you up-skill yourself, the results will be cheaper, more authentic, and more effective, since no one knows your book as well as you do. You might even enjoy it!
(3) Marketing is more than a book launch, especially if you want to make a consistent living with your writing
The launch is just the start and if you can integrate marketing into your ongoing business processes, you can continue to sell books, products, and services for years to come, if you want to.
The two models of marketing
In my experience, non-fiction is easier to market than fiction because readers are specifically interested in a topic, they have a problem they are looking to solve, or they need an answer to a question.
Non-fiction readers can easily tell whether or not they want your book by the title and subtitle, so if you can get it in front of the right audience, they should want to buy.
Consider marketing from these two different angles.
Book-centred marketing is making sure the product itself is optimised for marketing.
This includes a search-optimised title, a branded cover that attracts readers in a genre, a clear target market, books in a series, online paid advertising, and other aspects. Readers often buy books without caring who the author is. They just want the solution or the transformation as promised.
Author-centred marketing is about building a personal brand and connecting with your target market over time in different ways.
Readers buy the book because they feel a connection to the author, maybe through watching their videos, seeing them speak in person, or listening to their podcast.
You can use both methods at the same time as I do. They work in different ways, and I’ll go into them in more detail in the next few chapters.
First, let’s cover the basics.
Won’t my publisher do all the marketing for me?
Even if you get a publishing deal, most traditional publishers expect the author to be engaged in marketing the book. In fact, many non-fiction authors start off with an audience first and then get a book deal later.
A publisher might assign a publicist or a marketing professional for the first few months of launch, but what about next year? Do you want to keep selling books long-term?
If yes, you will need to put some kind of marketing in place yourself.
Can I hire people to do marketing for me?
Yes, absolutely. If you have a budget for marketing and a clear idea of what you want, there are many professionals you can hire, as well as online tools that can do aspects of marketing for you.
But “marketing” is a broad term, so it’s best to break down exactly what you want, how much time you need, what you want to achieve with marketing, and then figure out what might be the best use of your time and money.
Here are two different aspects of marketing that you would need to find different people to help you with.
Let’s say you want to do podcast interviews to promote your book. You hire someone to research and pitch shows on your behalf for three months. Your definition of success is getting on ten shows a month.
Or you want to run Amazon Ads on your book in the US and UK for the first six months after launch. Your definition of success is to remain high in the category charts while breaking even financially, as you will need to pay advertising costs as well as the marketer.
These examples are different aspects of marketing, and the people you need to hire for each would have quite different skills.
You could also choose to up-skill and do the pitching yourself while outsourcing Amazon Ads management, or vice versa. It’s all about what you can sustain for the long-term with your time and money and what you want to achieve with your marketing activities.
What is your author platform?
If you pitch an agent or a publisher, they will want to know about your author platform, and if you self-publish, you will certainly need one. But what is it?
Your author platform encompasses all the different ways you can reach readers, with the aim that at least some of them will buy your book.
The most important thing is your email list, since regardless of your publisher or the retailers you use, direct access to readers means you can always sell your books and products.
It could also include social media reach, podcast and video downloads, access to traditional media, as well as potential contacts like a speaking bureau, or your connections with others who have a platform.
If this is daunting, don’t worry!
We all start with nothing.
No words on the page. No emails on our list. No followers on social. No downloads on our podcast interviews and no views on our videos.
The good news is that you can build an audience and grow your author platform. It just takes directed effort over time.
Your author website
You need a home on the internet, a hub where you can list things like your author bio and photos, information about your books and links to the retailers, as well as content like a podcast, videos, articles, and social media.
It’s also a good idea to have a link to sign up for your email newsletter, and you might also include a shop if you want to sell direct.
Your website will usually be your name or your author brand name. I have JoannaPenn.com, which redirects to my main non-fiction site, TheCreativePenn.com. I also have JFPenn.com for my fiction and memoir.
You don’t need a web designer these days. Just use a template from the most widely used website platforms like WordPress, Wix, Squarespace, or Shopify if you want selling direct to be at the core of your site.
Start simple and you can always change the design later.
Build an email list
If you have an email list of people who have given you permission to contact them, you will always have a way to reach readers and fans when you have a new book or product out. This gives you more control over sales and income over time, and the ability to sell your books even if all the book retailers disappeared. Even if you’re traditionally published, an email list gives you a backup plan if your situation changes.
Email is more direct, targeted, and relational than social media, especially when organic reach is practically impossible in a pay-to-play world, and you can also build up a relationship with readers over time.
Every name on your email list is a person, so when you write your regular newsletters, think about connecting on a personal level. I include pictures of my travels and book research, my cats and other aspects of my life, as well as including recommended books and other useful content in my regular emails.
Get started with an email hosting platform that complies with anti-spam laws. There are many options, most of which have free tiers when you’re starting out and growing your list. I use and recommend Kit (previously ConvertKit) which you can find at www.TheCreativePenn.com/kit
You can just start with a basic link that says, “Sign up to my mailing list” at the back of your book and on your website and social media. But it’s best to offer something that your target market might want to download, often called a Reader Magnet, in exchange for giving their email address.
I have a free ebook, my Author Blueprint, as a reader magnet. You can sign up at www.TheCreativePenn.com/blueprint
I’ve rewritten, improved, and expanded the Blueprint many times since first releasing it in 2008, and there’s also an automated email sequence after signup.
Once subscribed, readers get my weekly update with podcast interviews, resources, book promotions, and more.
While you’re writing your book, consider what might be a good reader magnet for your audience. You could even set it up prior to publication so you have people to email on launch. It should relate to the content of your book and ideally be something that people are willing to give an email address for.
It could be a downloadable PDF, or links to private video or audio, or even access to regular webinars or event recordings.
Make sure you have a URL that is easy to remember and say out loud so you can use it in video and audio, as well as being easy to type so you can include it in the back of your book.
Once you start building an email list, you need to stay in touch, so make sure you have a plan for sending something out at least once a month. Sign up for other authors’ email lists if you need ideas, or check out the Newsletter Ninja books by Tammi L. Labrecque.
Legal and ethical aspects of email marketing
Trust is critical in your relationship with email subscribers, and you also need to be legally compliant and ethical in your email marketing. Ensure you comply with anti-spam laws and General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) by doing the following:
• Use a service that complies with these laws.
• Include a privacy policy on your website. You can find templates online.
• Don’t add people to your email list manually. Only include people who sign up for themselves.
• Don’t buy email lists or add people to your list without permission.
• If people unsubscribe or request to be removed, delete them from your list and don’t retain their data.
• Respect your list. Don’t sell your list or use it in any way that the person who signed up would be unhappy with.
Questions:
• How can you reframe marketing so it becomes a positive part of your author business?
• What is an author platform? What do you have already and what might you need to build?
• How can you ensure your email list continues to grow and also remains legally compliant?
Resources:
• Kit email service (previously ConvertKit) — www.TheCreativePenn.com/kit
• Author Blueprint, my free reader magnet — www.TheCreativePenn.com/blueprint
• Newsletter Ninja books — Tammi L. Labrecque
• How to Market a Book — Joanna Penn
• How to Market a Book: Overperform in a Crowded Market — Ricardo Fayet
• What every good marketer knows, Seth Godin — www.seths.blog/2005/05/what_every_good/
