Networking for Authors

Building connections with other authors, influencers or experts in your industry can be the single biggest thing you do to sell a lot of books as an author. If you're wondering how to network to support your book sales, then this video is for you. Hey there, I'm Julie, the book broad of book launchers, your professional self publishing services team. My first book, More Than Cash Flow topped the charts of Amazon as a print book. Yep, number one in print books. But it didn't hit number one because I had a gigantic audience. It hit number one because of the audience of my network. People that I had built relationships with that had their own audiences and they got behind the book and pushed it as hard as I did. One of our clients sold 800 copies of her book in a single order through a professional connection who arranged for every person in their company to get a copy of her book for Christmas. Another one of our clients had a connection to Ellen's show producer and got her book into the hands of the producer. Now, she didn't end up on the show, but that's still a pretty cool connection. Worth mentioning, my latest book, Self Publish and Succeed. This one right here, it's going to be given to every person entering the North street book prize for 2022. And that connection came from a colleague in the self publishing space. I could go on because we see cool connections at work every day in the book business. But you're probably wondering, how do you build those kind of connections that will sell books, open doors, and ultimately just make life as an author more fun? First, I got a disclaimer. I'm not a pro networker. In fact, if you ever see me at an event where I don't know people, I'm probably that gal standing near a wall watching everybody. I'm not ever at the bar or in the middle of the room trying to find new friends. Now if you do see me, I'm happy to chat, but I don't seek out those conversations. So this is definitely an introvert's guide to making connections and networking. So, so what do I do first? Number one, I think about who I want to connect with. Make a list. I also highly recommend you know why you want to connect and if you have any ideas of how you can help them or even just making notes about what you admire about them and what's making you want to reach out. Think about how you might be able to serve them as much as you can versus focusing on how someone might be able to serve you. Do your research. Check them out on social Media, Google their name, see what's going on for them. Number two, I ask, who do I already know that might know someone on that list? My preference for this is to see if I know anybody that already knows somebody and then ask to get connected. What I've discovered is that I often have a friend that knows the person or knows somebody that knows that person. You can check to see if you have shared connections through LinkedIn or Facebook. If you don't use those platforms, this gets a little trickier, but you can just start asking people. Michael Dominguez, author of Armchair Real Estate Millionaire, asked me to connect him to David Chilton for a blurb. I really have only connected with David through Twitter, but I did have a loose connection to his son Scott. I connected Michael and Scott, and even though Michael didn't get the blurb he was hoping for from David, he did end up getting something he thought was even better. David Chilton called him on the phone and they talked for 15 minutes. I thought that was pretty awesome and it made me respect David Chilton even more. Number three, if it's at all possible, I try to be at a live event and make a connection that way. Self publishing with Dale and I connected over the Internet at first, but making it a point to connect in person at live events was a really important part of us building a strong bond. Sitting across from each other over a meal, meeting Kelly, his lovely wife, and chatting about all things life and business just makes a relationship stronger than any virtual connection can. I've gone to events with the sole goal of connecting with someone, but for me, I usually only do that if I'm certain I will be able to connect through a mutual connection. If you're speaking at an event where someone else is speaking speaking, you can often ask for a connection through the event organizer. If you're someone who adds a lot of value to others in your work and interactions and you're not always asking for things, you will find that a lot of people will be very help helpy to happy you. You will probably find that many people will be happy to help you out if they can remember, because I know you're starting to feel nervous about asking, aren't you? Well, many people will welcome the opportunity to help you with something if it's not too difficult and they can see a good reason to help you. Number four is if all else fails, be there. Like my YouTube besties are there for me. Mary Lynn Turner, Andy W, Brian k. Morris, Kevin McGuire, Efren Delgado, Bill Miller, Martha Detenborn, Rachel Robertson, Benny Bullock, and so many others are people I know I can count on. They have supported my book, supported the YouTube videos, and they support many of you watching this video by responding to your comments too. And as a result they've built currency with me. If you are there for someone online, providing value, commenting, cheering them on, answering questions of the folks in their audience, and you do it consistently, they will notice and it will matter. Number five, the last way is cold outreach. It's my least favorite and I almost never do it, but it can work if you have a positive approach and get right to the point. What you need to be careful of when you do cold outreach is to remember the other person is a person and they have limited time and probably minimal attention to give to any one one ask. So make your ask small and easy to say yes to and always start off with why you're reaching out. Compliment them if you can, show you've done your research and let them know why they're the person that you need to connect with versus all the others. And then make your ask. But again, make it to the point. Kind and easy to say yes to and also easy to say no to because that will give them an easy out too. Which is important. For many years I used to attend this event in Las Vegas called Influence Bootcamp. One of the speakers at the first event I went to was this super smart woman named Coach Deb Cole. She had an amazing presence and just dished out massive gold when it came to the content she presented. When I was coming out with my first book and I just wanted to build more connections for promotion ideas and promotional opportunities, she was high on my list of people I wanted to connect with and luckily she was going to be at an upcoming event I was attending and I remembered her saying something like, you know, you should never go to an event and eat lunch alone. So I tested her out on it and sent her some tweets to see if I could take her to lunch so neither of us would have to be lunching alone at the upcoming event. And guess what happened? We went for lunch at that event. Here's the picture. Aren't we cute? But guess what? We hit it off and we've become great friends. We've shared the stage as speakers. She came to Canada and spoke at an event I held for real estate investors building their brand. I was at her plus one at a really cool red carpet event. She helped me get this YouTube channel rolling when I started Book Launchers and my son Jackson loves her like an aunt. She didn't even really help me with more than cash flow, which is why I reached out in the first place. But that was one of the best tweets I ever sent. Do you agree? Hit that thumbs up button if you do try it. It feels so good. This was essentially cold outreach when I reached out to Deb, but used in combination with being at an upcoming live event and having shared experiences, it worked for us to get a connection and ultimately build a great friendship. I shared that story because I hope it inspires you to step out of your comfort zone and try to connect with someone you've wanted to connect with for a long time. Most importantly, build relationships now before you need them so you have folks to reach out to in order to call in favors for your book launch. Because there's a lot of favors that can help you with a book launch. And never go into a relationship focused on what someone can give you. Give because giving feels good and the more you give in life, the more great things you will get. Also, heads up, it's rarely the thing you asked for, like my example with Deb and even Michael, but sometimes you end up with something far better. So go into this open minded. How do you build relationships? Let's chat about it in the comments below. And when you comment the day a video is released, you get entered to win some sweet noboringbookswag. You must watch this video right here on selling your book to local bookstores because you are going to want all kinds of great places to share your noboringbook. And if that's not what you want right now, YouTube thinks this video for you is a must watch. So go ahead. I cannot wait to see you on the next video. I'm waiting.