Sell Books with Content Marketing

Selling a book is a long game. It's all about staying in the market and consistently doing things to find readers day after day. One of the best ways to do that is through content marketing. So if you're wondering what content marketing is and how to use it as an author, well, I have some great news. This video is for you. Hey there. I'm Julie the Book Broad. I'm a three time working on four time author and the founder of a fabulous self publishing services company called Book Launchers. One of the things I do a lot of as an author and a business owner is content marketing. What is content marketing? You might be asking? Well, you're watching a great example of it right now. My entire YouTube channel is content marketing. All the blog posts on book launchers.com are content marketing. My free downloads like this one, how to Write a Business Book. Content marketing. All the live streams I do. Yep, Content marketing. My bi weekly email newsletter called the Launch Letter. You got it. More Content Marketing Content marketing is any content of value you create that has a long life. It'll be found on search engines and it sends people to you. For some people, this can be imagery, writing, videos in person, content or audio content. Every nonfiction author should be doing some form of content marketing because it establishes credibility, it builds a loyal audience, it reduces the cost of advertising, it drives traffic organically, no ad spend necessary. It can lead to book sales, business growth, and even PR opportunities. Now your first and probably the most important thing you should create is at least one high value reader magnet. I'll link to a video on that at the end so you've got some help and support in creating one. But that reader magnet needs to be set up on an opt in page so you can collect email addresses and begin building a relationship with people interested in your content. As an example, you can head to book launchers.com businessbook link right here and check out a simple download page and get the business book download, which is an example of a reader magnet. What you do beyond your reader magnet? Well, it's pretty much up to you. If you're starting completely new, my suggestion would be to tap into places that already have an existing audience versus starting a blog on your website and having to drive traffic to that blog or waiting for the search engines to deem you worthy. Truly, the content marketing options are endless. And I know book marketing can already feel overwhelming. So rather than give you a gigantic list of all the things you can do, pick one that appeals to you, even a little. Imagine someone said you can only Create one type of content for a year. What's that content? Audio, written, live stream, imagery, video. For me, it's video. This helps my business, it sells books, it makes me feel good because I'm helping people. And ultimately I really enjoy creating video content for you. It's a creative outlet for me. I. I can teach stuff I've learned, which I love to do. And apparently I enjoy talking where nobody talks back to me. In my dream world that I will have someday, I have a studio, a video crew with someone that actually fixes my hair and we can create more dynamic, entertaining and educational content. That day will come. But in the meantime, this is still fun and my husband comes in front of the camera from time to time to help entertain you. Who, me? Now think about what content kind of gives you that feeling. Is it that visual? Is it that audio? Written video? And then once you know that, decide on your platform, your website, LinkedIn, TikTok, YouTube. Again, options are endless. All I'm asking is for you to commit to one type of content and then commit to a regular content creation schedule. No matter what. If you look, I've been posting videos every Tuesday and Friday for four years. I. I don't miss a day unless it's during my summer break where I take 5 week break from posting new content. For my mental sanity, I do this and I keep to this commitment by batching content. I usually shoot somewhere between six to 10 videos in a day, which takes about three days prep leading up to that, but it's all batched, so I've got a whole bunch of videos. So if I get sick or I'm traveling, a video always comes out every Tuesday and every Friday. So to recap, choose one format for now, then set a schedule and commit to sticking to that for a year. Now, brainstorm all the things that your book audience remember that lovely ideal reader we've talked about so many times. Brainstorm all the things they'll find valuable. And this can come straight from your book. For example, if you look at my book Self Publish and Succeed, you'll notice a correlation between a lot of the content in that book and YouTube videos. A lot of the content from my book is appears on the YouTube channel. For example, I have a section on the copyright page in the book and I pretty much took that content word for word and turned it into a video for the YouTube channel. I've also taken excerpts from the book and had them published on various websites and in other people's newsletters. When I do that, I usually just Add some intro comments or closing remarks in every piece of content you create. Make sure you have a call to action. You want to send people to that all important reader magnet that you've created. Like I did before sending you to booklaunchers.com businessbook now here's where content marketing gets fun. You're repurposing that content. For me, that happens in many ways. Like I said, the videos get turned into articles, the articles get turned into social media posts, and so on. But bigger than that, my YouTube besties like Alan West, Linda K. Lee, Michael Fakerty, Efren Delgado and Rachel Roberson, they've all likely noticed an increase in marketing related video content around here. Well, that's because the book I'm working on right now is all about book marketing strategies and tactics for nonfiction authors. So I'm creating videos that become scripts that become material for my manuscript. These videos are also getting broken up into content for social media. Other people use the videos on their blogs. In my bi weekly newsletter, I reference some of the content or pull from the scripts of a video for the material. The list goes on. Just because you put that content into the world once in one format, you don't have to stop there. It can become audio, visual, something else. You can smell it, you can eat it. No you can't. Okay, just because you put that content into the world once in one format, don't stop there. Use it as audio, visual clips, snippets and words wherever you can. Very few people will ever see it in all the places or in all the ways. And even if they do, they're probably going to be okay with it. They just might not spend as much time on that content. But usually you're reaching different people with different formats. Now that you've got your content in the world, you now can spend money on ads if you want to. Paid ads that are sent to content tend to cost less than if you're sending to a buy and they build a much stronger audience. And they usually lead to book sales, brand awareness and business growth. For me personally, I've stopped donating money to Big Blue with only one campaign exception that actually did perform for me until Facebook abruptly shut it down. I have not been able to make Facebook ads profitable, but I have had success with Google Ads on YouTube. I leveraging all the amazing content I have on YouTube. But I didn't start with ads. I started with content. And once that content was performing, then I invested in ads. If you're getting the feeling that all this content marketing is work. It is. And it's work you have to do consistently to get results. Now, there's some companies out there that you can hire to help you, but one action will rarely lead to thousands of sales. It's consistent effort over time that leads to your own version of YouTube, besties, book sales, clients, and more. That's why I said pick something you enjoy and stick with it. You won't find me hanging out on our social media channels or writing big long articles for magazines or other places. I can do those things, but I prefer not to. It's not as fun for me as book Launchers grows. Other people on my team are taking on some of those tasks. But for me, you'll find me hanging out right here on YouTube. So go ahead, say hi in the comments below and I'll prove it to you. And when you do say hi, let me know where I can find some of your great content. Go ahead and drop your links now. If you're looking for that Reader Magnet video, click over here, my friend. However, if you're all set on that, here's my thoughts on creating video content as an author. Either one will be great for you to see. Right now. I'll put on some coffee, tea or hot chocolate for you and I'll see you there.