#081 - Don’t Be an Island

Hey, Hit Splits Family, this is Shelly Hits, the owner and founder of ChristianBookAcademy.com and today I just wanted to remind you, don't be an island. So what does that mean? I use this illustration often when I refer to marketing. So you have a book or you have a website and you have an email list you want people to sign up for. But the chances are in the beginning, very few people know that it exists. It's an island. So you have to, you know, ask the Lord. What roads, what signs do you want me to put up to lead to my island? You know, we can get to islands. My husband just recently visited Belize again, and we were missionaries there for two years. We served and spent most of our time near Guatemala in San Ignacio area. But when he got there, a friend of ours surprised him and they went out to the island. Now, they took a boat taxi. Isn't that crazy? Like, they have boat taxis because the islands aren't very far away. But there was a way to get to the island and there were signs to get to the boat taxi. So people know where to go, they know how to get to the island. The. There's also a small little airport out there, so you could take an airplane in there. But, you know, think about your book as that island. And how are people gonna even know you're out there? Well, you could build roads. So my sister lives in Florida in the Panhandle. And there's some areas that you can get to on the beach that, like, you have to go over bridges. You know, you have to, you know, to get to them because they're, they're like, you know, a little bit of island. So you could build a bridge, you know, build roads to your island. That could be through collaborations. It could be through Amazon ads, it could be through search engine optimization, SEO, through your blog, or through YouTube or through Pinterest. It could potentially even be social media. Or, you know, there's many different ways. Speaking engagements, there's many different ways, but that's how you know, these are ways that you're finding new people. So you're creating roads, but you're putting up signs, you're telling people where to go. A lot of times those signs can be calls to action. Like if you think about you're driving down a road and then, you know, which way do I go to get to the boat taxi? Let's say, for example, the sign will tell you, turn left here. And so your calls to action. And CJ talked about this in our most recent email marketing conference. If you missed it, you can still sign up@dommywritersconference.com email. If you only listen to CJ's presentation, I really believe you'll be blessed. We got so much incredible feedback from that. But he talked a lot in that about calls to action. And what is that? What is, what are your calls to action? So for an Amazon ad, it could be buy now, right? Get your coffee here. All right. And some of that is already written by Amazon. But for a collaboration, we have our courageous writer module in the Christian Book Academy membership. Those toolkits, I've put templates in there. I've done all of the hard work for you. And a lot of the calls to action and the things that you'll need are already in there for you. So you just edit them to what's appropriate for your book. But let's say you're on a podcast interview and so your call to action could be you can follow me on social media here and sign up for my free quiz or my free download or whatever your lead magnet is. It could be. And you know, you can get my, my book on Amazon or where books are sold, you know, something like that. So, you know, you would be a call to action out. Normally you wouldn't want to have three calls to action. You want to have one main call to action. But on a podcast interview, it's sometimes good to have one free way for them to connect with you and one paid option if you are going to be promoting your book. And so I would choose either social media or your email list. I prefer email list. You know that. But what is your, what are your signs going to say that lead them down the road to your island, which your island is your book. So, so think about these things and if you are not clear on your signs and it just says, you know.

You'Ll find it somewhere up ahead. You know, it's like I go to some author's websites and honestly I just did this the other day. I couldn't find anything about her book on her website. Nothing. I had to go to her YouTube channel and then I had to dig Even on her YouTube channel, go to her profile. Finally I found a link. And isn't that crazy? Like you, you really don't want to make people work so hard. You want to make it easy. You want to have those signs very clear and you want to, you know, have those so like in your sidebar of your blog or, you know, have a link in the navigation at the top that says book or shop or something. Like that, but make it easy. Make it clear. Think about it the next time you're driving down the highway and you see the signs and how clear it is. And it will say, half a mile, turn here. Make it easy for people to find you. Build those bridges, build the roads, find a way to get people to your island and make the signs clear. So I hope that this made you think. And what signs or what bridges or roads can you build to bring people to your book this week? Let me know. I'd love to hear if you're a Christian Book Academy member, share with us in the private group. I'd love to hear from you. All right. I will talk to you soon. Bye. Bye.