#355: Marketing Minute: Book Marketing Predictions for 2023

Welcome to Kingdom Writers, where we help equip and empower Christian writers of all genres to share your unique gifts with the world. We're your hosts, C.J. and Shelley Hitz.

This podcast is filled with spiritual encouragement as well as prayers to help you overcome the resistance you face as a writer. Your story matters.

Hey friends, can you believe it is December already? Where has this year gone? My name is Shelly Hitz and in this episode of the Kingdom Writers Podcast we have a special treat for you. This is the first time I've ever tried something quite like this. I'm calling it a collaborative podcast episode and so I have several of my colleagues and experts that shared their book marketing predictions and and then at the end I will share some thoughts of my own. But we wanted to just kind of gear you up for going into 2023. Things change all the time in marketing and so we wanted to share some thoughts with you. So I'm going to turn the stage over to a few of my friends and then I will come back at the end with a few thoughts of my own.

Hi, this is Kim steadman from Kim steadman.com My predictions for book marketing for 2023 is the old adage content is king. I remember hearing that phrase a long time ago when I started into the blogging world. And I know the term content has taken on different meanings even over the past 10 years, not just including blog posts or emails. It can mean written posts on social media platforms as well as videos and just visual posts. I know I've enjoyed being able to connect with a lot of my audience on social media channels, but as those platforms change the way they work, I have to be willing to pivot. Under the hood of those platforms is a term we hear called algorithms and what that means is what your audience gets to see. And those algorithms are always changing. Right now it's tough to not only get discovered, but even for folks who connected with you on social media platforms to even see see your posts and your content. My prediction is that as authors we will need to return to some of the old concepts such as blogging and emailing to our readers to connect with them there. I truly think authors who haven't and who want to market and sell their books will have to embrace some of that old fashioned concept of email lists and nurturing those folks that opt in onto your list love on them and let them see the real you and deliver special content to them that they love. One of the ways I think you'll start hearing about how to do this More is something called the author subscription model, and this is where you deliver special content to someone who is supporting you with a paid subscription. It's something I've already dipped my toe into the waters with, and it's been fun and profitable and I think you'll start hearing a lot more about it in 2023.

Hi, this is Ruth L. Snyder and my website is ruthlsnider.com I am a podcaster, a speaker, and an author who helps other people write and publish and profit from their books. Aren't you glad that God is going before us into 2023? What is your book marketing prediction for 2023?

If only we could know. We live in a very busy world and there are more and more books being published. There are a couple things that seem to be catching on more. And one of those things is podcasting. So I'm very glad that Shelly is encouraging us to collaborate on this podcast and providing opportunities for authors to share.

I also have my own podcast called Get Clients, Build Community. Feel free to look it up and I would strongly encourage you to think about starting your own podcast in 2023. It doesn't have to be complicated. I started my podcast using Zoom to record and I use Imovie and Guitar Band to create the podcast and then I use Libsyn to deliver my podcast where it needs to go. The other tool that I've used this year is Twitter Spaces and I interview authors there every week and it's a great way to collaborate and let people know about books that they may never hear about otherwise. And the great thing about Twitter Spaces and social audio is that you can have discussions with people in real time. So consider those two things, podcasting and social audio in 2023 hi, I am.

Benicia Ponder, your book writing and publishing Coach from inspirational authors.com here's my prediction for your book Marketing Success in 2023. Community and collaboration will exponentially increase your reach, your visibility, and your profitability. Now what does that look like? Well, first you want to focus on building relationships with your readers. Do you have an email community? Do you have a Facebook group? How are you connecting with your readers beyond the pages of your book? At the bare minimum, I advise you to create an email newsletter once a month. Ideally, I recommend weekly interaction with your community. Next, you are also going to want to build relationships and collaborate with other authors. Join author groups, collaborate with other authors to do book signings and speaking events. Host webinars and summits with other authors. Be visible to audiences beyond your own and build those relationships with other authors. That will also help you to build a stronger community. Remember, impact and income starts with visibility. And in order for you to be more visible, you must be willing to build direct relationships with your community and collaborate with other authors. The more you build relationships, the more people will see you. And the more people see you, the more they're going to like you. They're going to know you. They're going to trust you. And the more they know, like and trust you, the more they will refer you. This will expand your audience. You'll be able to sell more books. But ultimately you are going to be able to impact and inspire. You'll be making that difference you were born to make. Again, this is Benicia Ponder, your book writing and publishing coach from Inspirational authors dot com. I am wishing you an abundance of success and prosperity as you enter into this new season of your book marketing success.

Thank you so much Kim, Ruth and Benicia for sharing your predictions for 2023. And I would say my biggest prediction for 2023 is that we are all going to use collaborations on a much bigger level. That was one of the reasons I decided to make that the topic of our most recent Kingdom Writers conference this past September 2022 is to really get you thinking of like, how can I use collaborations? Because what Kim said is true. Organic social media is becoming harder and harder to reach our target audience. It's not impossible and I share a lot of things and a lot of tips in my workshop mini marketing messages. But because it is getting harder to really focus on how can we work together together, how can we collaborate? This podcast is an example of how to collaborate. Then all of us can share this podcast with our audiences. We all get, you know, visibility from all of you listening and it's just a win, win, win. You learn something new. Our experts get to be heard and known by you and they share this podcast with their audience. And so how can you consider doing more collaborations in 2023? And if you haven't already, focusing on a platform you can control like an email list is going to be key moving forward. I've really decided to put most of my time and attention into growing and building my email list as well as serving you through this free podcast. And so how can you build an audience on a platform that is not going to be filtered out by all of the algorithms? Email marketing is not dead. It is still a really great option. And so I just encourage you to go into 2023 with trusting God with your marketing. You know, things are always changing. Things are always changing, different. But Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. Amen. We can trust him with our future, with our future marketing efforts and, you know, not to be afraid to try something new, to try something different like I'm doing with this podcast today. This is our first time doing this, but it's been a lot of fun and I think I'm going to try it again in the future. So don't be afraid to try something new. Let me pray for you as we close this episode. God, we just thank you so much that you really have given us unlimited opportunities in your kingdom to have an impact on people's lives. We thank you for the message that you've given each one of us, the books that we are stewarding. And we just pray, God, that you would just first of all take away any worry, any stress, any overwhelm that is related to marketing. In Jesus name, Lord, bring your calm, your comfort, your peace and your wisdom. I just pray that each person listening would get God ideas as they go into 2023 for what it is you have for them in their marketing. And Lord, that you would lead them, you would guide them every step of the way, that they would be willing to take courageous steps into new territories, into new things that they've never tried before. And we just thank you and, and we praise you for what you're doing in Jesus powerful name. Amen. Amen, friends. And we would love to also hear like what are your thoughts? What are any kind of predictions that you have for book marketing in 2023? What do you plan to do differently? We would love to hear from you in our free Facebook group. You can just go to trainingauthors.com group that will redirect you to our free group and we would love to have you join us there there. Until next time, my name is Shelly Hitz and I am cheering you on.

Thank you for listening to this episode of Kingdom Writers. We believe that you as a Christian writer have a specific role to play in the kingdom of heaven to impact lives for eternity.

And because of this, we, we choose to pour out our lives into encouraging writers like you to not only tell your stories, but to take the courageous step of self publishing your stories in books that will outlive you and leave behind a powerful legacy. This podcast is sponsored by Christian Book Academy where we help you give birth to your books. We invite you to join our community of Kingdom writers, Sam.