Stop Making Videos Nobody Watches — Here's a Way to Actually Sell Books

Beth McMullen: Hi friends, I'm Beth McMullen

Lisa Schmid: And I'm Lisa Schmidt

Beth McMullen: And we're the co-hosts of Writers With Wrinkles. This is season five, episode 16, and today we're talking about book marketing, which if you're like most auth- authors, just the mere mention of book marketing makes you wanna throw up. At least that's what it does to me. It's a scary topic

Lisa Schmid: It is a scary topic, and there's so many things that people do, myself included, that do not work, and yet we keep doing them and then get super frustrated. And so we've been talking about this a lot between the two of us, just different ways to try to market books more effectively, and you wrote a great substack about this

Beth McMullen: I've been obsessing about it because you know how when you go on any social media platform or if you belong to any-- If you get any book-writing related newsletters, any of that stuff, there's always somebody pitching you the ultimate way to get on the bestseller list. The five things you must do to sell 150,000 copies of your book, and it's always it reminds me of the '70s diet culture when it was like, "All you have to do to lose weight is get in on top of this little board that vibrates, and you'll lose 80 pounds overnight." Like these quick fixes that were complete garbage,

Lisa Schmid: Yeah

Beth McMullen: So like that sort of... The-- I guess the point is there's no quick fix, right?

There's no just do what I did, and it will work for you. And so that's what I was thinking about. I was obsessing about that a little bit, and I started doing a little bit of poking around in what is something? Just give me one thing that actually drives readers to books. And the thing that I kept coming up with through sources that I actually trusted was word of mouth.

It is old school, and it is still the most effective way to market your books, which is crazy, right? 'Cause there's all this tech floating around that's supposed to revolutionize everything, and the most effective way to get someone to read your book is that there's somebody, in a gym, at a restaurant with friends goes, "You gotta read this book."

And maybe they even hand them the copy of the book. That's what happens to me all the time with my gym, my workout group. There's always somebody who's "You guys gotta read this book," and they have the book, and it makes its way around the group of us. A-and it's just, it's so fascinating to think about something that is so basic, right?

Such a basic experience, and yet it is maybe the only thing that you can point to that actually works in book marketing.

Lisa Schmid: And I think it's one of those things that, yes, there, the lead title is always going to get, a push that you can't that yourself. That's not something you're able to do. So for the rest of us who are out here wandering around in the land of marketing lost in a field it's

There has to be a better way,

And I have done everything. You know I am very active on social media. I've done, book giveaways. I've done online school visits. I've done in-person school visits. I've done I don't know. I do everything I can think of, and I try to be really clever, and obviously none of it has really worked 'cause my, neither of my books have flown off the shelves.

And I'm like, "What am I doing wrong?" So but you, when you were talking about word of mouth, that really resonated with me, and I started thinking about what, how can you get the ball rolling with that word of mouth? Because if they don't know about the book, you can't get that word of mouth initiated.

Beth McMullen: Yeah

Lisa Schmid: come up with three things that I've seen work for other people, and these are things I've been looking at anyway for other reasons. But I'm

Beth McMullen: Wink, wink nod

Lisa Schmid: Yeah, wink, wink nod. N- It's not like something's happening with us.

Beth McMullen: No, let's cl- let's clarify. Something is always happening with us, but this is something very particular that we're talking about that 

Lisa Schmid: Yeah 

Beth McMullen: we won't share with you just yet

Lisa Schmid: Fake publishing news.

Beth McMullen: The kind that I hate. I just did what 

Lisa Schmid: people 

Beth McMullen: hate it's done to me, and I, we just did it to, to everybody. Not cool

Lisa Schmid: so but I have been looking at marketing. So the first thing I've found that has been really effective, and I'm s- I've been watching somebody on Threads do it, is getting a street team. And for those of you who don't know, you get a group of readers, whether it's 20, 25, 30, whatever, that you will give a an advance copy of your book to free on, whether it's an e-file or if you have hard copies because you're with a publisher. Whatever the case may be, you give this street team your book free and say, "Here's my book but with that, I ask you to share it on social media and talk about it to your friends." Get the word out. That's what your street team is there for. It's your little army of people sent out in the world to make it known that this is a great book

Beth McMullen: And these are people that are already on your side. They like what you've done. They're people who trust your judgment, who are excited to help you. Maybe it's the sort of thing where you've helped them in the past, and they're returning the favor. Whatever it is, it's a human relationship that you have with these people, and they're gonna go out and think about, your one voice, and you're adding an additional 25 voices, and maybe all of those 25 voices are adding an additional 10 voices.

So it's just exponential amplification, and that's amazing, right? And it's just based on these relationships that you've been building along the way within your writing community, and maybe this is the first time that this group is gonna be brought together to do the same thing. You know this person from this writing group, and you know this person from Pilates or whatever, these don't all have to be writers by any stretch. We're talking about readers here, people who can help you get the word out about a read- something that, you want to be read. So yeah it's... It feels very low-tech, but it's hugely influential

Lisa Schmid: It's very low-tech, and it's also it, there's no pressure on you. It's not like you're, like, you have to be in front of the camera and doing a dance and holding your book up or something. This is just you reaching out to your group and saying, "Help me," and they will. That's the thing, it's you s- And you can go into your, like you said, into your writing group your friends, whatever the case may be, but assemble a team on your behalf to go out and spread the word

Beth McMullen: Yeah. It's good and it doesn't give you that same sense of dread like, "Oh, I have to make a short video and it has to be edited really well and it has to look cool." Like something that my, my 19-year-old can do in her sleep that would take me months to perfect, right? You don't have to do that.

Different thing. This is a totally different thing. It's just about talking to people and coming up with a few things that you're asking them to do. I think it helps if you're clear. Can you please share this book with, 15 of your email friends or whatever it is. Something specific that you're saying, "Please help me do it, and here are some ways that you can do it."

Lisa Schmid: Yeah. Don't just give it to them. Give them a list of ways that they can help you, like Beth just said. I think that's the key, is, people will do anything to help a friend or help another writer, but they need the steps of, okay I've got this book, now what am I supposed to do with it? And then if you give them okay, here's your duties, or here's what I ask like you said, share it on social media, give it to 15 friends, have email this out to, just give them not too many, maybe three or four. Maybe even just three. Three is probably a really good number

Beth McMullen: Yeah. Yeah, and it just, it makes it easier. Everybody has got a huge to-do list, so if you make your ask reasonable, they're gonna do it

Lisa Schmid: Okay, so item number two, Bookstagrammers. And I did this with my last book, not effectively. And I look back on that and I understand why, is I was going around and finding Bookstagrammers I liked, and then sending, asking if they wanted to read my book, and then sending it to them. And some of them would post and some of them wouldn't, blah, blah, blah. It was just, it was like I was throwing it out there. But I think it would be more effective if you found people very specific to what your book is, what genre. Find people who are reading and liking books that are similar to yours, and start developing those relationships ahead of time before you put the ask in. Do you know what I mean? So

Beth McMullen: Totally

Lisa Schmid: their onto their account and say, "Hey, do you want my book?" This is what I did, and it didn't really work all that well for me. But if you spend the few months leading up to your book launch, commenting, sharing their, sharing their posts, engaging, you're gonna develop a relationship, and then they're gonna know who you are.

And so when then you, when you put in the ask, they're gonna be more apt to say, "Yes. Yes, please. I wanna help you. You've helped me."

Beth McMullen: That is so clutch. That's the most important part of this. So important, right? Because you have to... Wait, Lisa's making a face at me 'cause I said clutch

Lisa Schmid: I'm like, such a great use of the word, but I'm like, it's clear you've been hanging out with your two kids home from college.

Beth McMullen: I've been spending too much time with the young adults

Lisa Schmid: using that today in a sentence.

Beth McMullen: Clutch is a great word,

Lisa Schmid: It is a

Beth McMullen: and not the kind you used to find in cars to shift gears. Anyway, it is totally clutch to get involved in these communities early because they are communities, and they require your participation in order for you to be seen as, a valid member.

And that might be posting reviews of books that you've read or saying, "I like this. These are the five reasons why. If anybody likes books like this, they should read it. I thought it was good." Whatever it is that they do in the community, but you have to be part of it. It has to feel genuine and authentic.

And it should be. Like, you shouldn't have to be forcing yourself to do this. You should be able to find one of these, BookTok, Insta- Bookstagram, any of these communities, and you should share similar taste to the people that are there. And as a, as an aside, you're gonna get a lot of really good book recommendations, so you have something to read

Lisa Schmid: Yeah, that's true. And the other thing is it's just, and it goes in with the same thought process, is being very generous with other people who are launching books. Let them, go, post, re-share leave reviews. Be very active in the book community with your fellow authors because they...

And then do not be afraid to ask them, do you mind sharing my book and posting a review?" Because if you don't ask, they, sometimes they just don't even think about it. And

Beth McMullen: No

Lisa Schmid: and I remember I had a hard time doing this, and I'm always sharing people's books and always doing reviews. And I can't remem- maybe it was you who just said, "You need to ask."

You never ask

Beth McMullen: I'm sure it was because it has to be direct because people are not necessarily gonna understand what you'd like them to do unless you tell them

What it is. And there's nothing wrong with asking, especially if you have already paid it forward 1,000 times, right? 

Lisa Schmid: Yeah 

Beth McMullen: there's nothing wrong with saying, "I would be so grateful for you to do this particular thing right now."

And, they, people who you have helped out with, giving free promotion and call-outs and shout-outs and whatever over time, they remember that, so they're more than happy to return the favor. It's just that they might not think about returning the favor all on their own. They just need a little nudge

Lisa Schmid: Yeah, you gotta ask. You got to ask. Okay, and the last thing, again, something I've never done until recently, is book festivals. And I had no idea how many of these book festivals are actually going on. Somehow, in my algorithms, I got caught in the book festival people posting about them, and there are tons around me that I had no idea about. And you don't, at book festivals, you don't have to typically pay, unless you wanna go and get a booth or something. Y- you can do that, but you can also just apply to be, to be accepted as an author at the book festival. So for examp- and it's, if you have a new book coming out, they're more prone to take you. So for example, I had applied to a book festival up in Washington, and unfortunately, they're like, "You know what? You haven't had a book out this year. We want something that's newer." But I just started applying to different book festivals, and they're all around you. So before you even launch, looking up around you who is available, and go apply to those festivals

Beth McMullen: And they're fun.

Lisa Schmid: Yeah 

Beth McMullen: really fun people at these sorts of things. 

Lisa Schmid: Of people

Beth McMullen: yeah, and the foot traffic is crazy. I had... I got invited once, oh my gosh, when was this? This was probably 10 years ago, to this festival in kind of a obscure area in Northern California, and they were like, "Please come." And I'm like, "Okay, I'll come."

I didn't have... I think I had three books out at that point, and I had, enough books on hand that I'm like, "I'll just go. It'll be fun." I like the idea. The organizer was lovely. I just, you get to that point where you're like, "I just wanna help you out because I really like you." So I go to this book festival.

It is in the middle of nowhere. Insane numbers of people come. Insane numbers of people. I sold all of my books within the first two hours, right? And this was just my random assortment of what I happened to have in boxes around my house I just brought. And I made so many friends. It was really fun.

It was super fun. So you have those sort of, those serendipitous moments where you're meeting somebody who is now gonna be your amplifier because you meet them, they take your book, they remember that they had a nice chat with you, they read the book, they love the book, they tell 10 of their friends.

It is a, it requires your time. It's a big investment of your personal time. It requires your ability to get there to whatever the festival is, but there are so many that feel within driving distance that you don't actually have to get on planes and book hotel rooms and really get into the big money spend.

You could do it pretty cheap. And, more often than not, they are just happy to have you come and participate. And sometimes they do panels. I gave a little talk at this one. It was sm- it was a kind of a small little venue, but it was full of people. There are various ways in.

You can offer, you can pitch an idea that you wanna talk about. You can say you'd love to do a booth. Sometimes you can say, "I'd love to share a booth with somebody 'cause I don't wanna, I don't wanna have the whole thing to myself," blah, blah, blah, lots of options. And they're always run by people who are total book nerds, and I love the book nerds.

I am a uber book nerd, so I always am happy to go support.

Lisa Schmid: And book people are happy people. They just, and they love talking to authors, and this goes for, trad trad published authors and indie authors. It's, they love everyone. Nobody cares is

Beth McMullen: Everyone is a potential reader

Lisa Schmid: Yeah, everyone's a reader, and they just wanna grab your book. They're not sitting there going, "Who's the publisher?"

Nobody thinks about stuff like that. And so

Beth McMullen: they really don't.

Lisa Schmid: books, 

Beth McMullen: really don't. And it was funny, I remember from this festival, I... These were all books that, the publisher had given me because, your contract, they have to give you 50 books or whatever. So I had a lot of them. So I could price them in whatever way I wanted. So I think I priced them, I think the list price was y- 18.99 or whatever it was at the time for hardcover books, and I'm like, "I'm gonna sell them for $10 flat."

So people could just give me a $10 bill and take the book. It was so funny. It was, like, very liberating, I think

Lisa Schmid: Yeah, that's ex- it's just fun. And you give away your books.

Beth McMullen: Yeah, I just, I didn't want to take them back to the car. 

Lisa Schmid: Yeah. 

Beth McMullen: It was like, I have carried all this stuff over here to put it out at this table. I am not carrying it back to the car. I'm gonna do a fire sale at the end if I have to.

Lisa Schmid: Yeah.

Beth McMullen: I just don't wanna take anything back home with me.

Lisa Schmid: Yeah, so those are like the top three things that are just actionable items that you can do that aren't gonna cost you a lot of money that are going to help you spread the word which is what, that word of mouth is gold. 

Beth McMullen: It is. It is. In the research that I did, the poking around, I found a statistic, and I don't have the original document o- up on my laptop right now, but nearly half of readers, like 47, 48%, choose books because somebody that they know recommended the book. Quote unquote, "People I know personally" beats platforms, social media, AI tools for discovery, all of those things that we're always trying to make work for us, when really it's the people and the relationships that are critical to helping you move books.

And I'm not saying that, a little bit of luck doesn't help. Luck is always a great thing to have on your side when you're marketing a book. But I think, I just feel like we should think more be a little bit more critical in how you allot your time when you're marketing so that you're not spending eight hours a week making videos that nobody watches and nobody cares about.

And rather than investing that eight hours in going to the book group at your indie bookstore and meeting those people and getting to know those people and, stuff like that. It does require you to come out of your shell a little bit. Can't be, like, a total introvert. Gotta get out there and talk.

But you're talking about something you love, so it's easier

Lisa Schmid: It is easier. It is easier

Beth McMullen: Anyway, that is our spiel. That's our marketing spiel. I feel like we should have marketing summer and just talk about marketing to get people over the trauma. I feel like everybody's traumatized by book marketing, myself included. So I feel like anything that we can throw out there that's practical and doable and has been proven to work, that's good, right?

Lisa Schmid: And the other thing is if you have an idea that has worked for you that you would like to share, oh my gosh, please let us know 'cause that, we can pass on that information. Either, shoot us a text or an email

Beth McMullen: Yeah

Lisa Schmid: room. And we just love sharing ideas that can help each other. Because we're... at the end of the day, we're all in this together. It's the book world, and we

Beth McMullen: Totally

Lisa Schmid: another and look out for each other. And y- it's just by you lifting somebody else up, it lifts you up. Blah, blah, blah. That's my,

Beth McMullen: Yeah, I know, but the blah, blah, blah is important, especially in the world we're living r- in at the moment.

Lisa Schmid: Yeah

Beth McMullen: can find us, we have new email addresses. I'm gonna tell you guys what they are. It's beth@writerswithwrinkles.net and lisa@writerswithwrinkles.net. We are creating a Writers With Wrinkles universe that we're gonna be living in, so you can reach us at either of those.

And you can find us on Facebook at the Waiting Room, which is where we gather with all of our writer friends. So you can reach us there. You ha- do have to ask permission to come into that group. We do ask you a few clarifying questions, but believe me, it is low stress. So reach out to us there and tell us what you're doing for marketing, what works, what feels like a colossal waste of time.

We wanna know that too. And we will gather all of that together and maybe do another episode about it

Lisa Schmid: We will. It's been we've been working on a project. Our Writers With Wrinkles universe is expanding. It's so

Beth McMullen: We are expanding our ecosystem.

Lisa Schmid: And I can confirm that I have more wrinkles after the last six months.

Beth McMullen: We've been cooking up some stuff, and we're both getting way older doing it, so we are leaning into the writers with wrinkles thing

Lisa Schmid: Yeah.

Beth McMullen: creating more wrinkles.

Lisa Schmid: yesterday we were talking about all that we've accomplished in six months. I'm sorry that we're s- just still not sharing with

Beth McMullen: We're being obtuse

Lisa Schmid: we

Beth McMullen: purposefully

Lisa Schmid: We are, but yeah, intentionally. And we'll be sharing more over the coming months of when it will be all happening

Beth McMullen: Yes. So that is it for today's episode. We are back next time with literary agent Anne Rose. And we talk to her ... Actually, we recorded that yesterday. We talk to her about things like what makes a submission stand out to an agent, what's something you shouldn't do, things like that. So just a little bit more on the how to stack the odds in your favor when you're dealing with querying agents.

That's ... It's a good conversation, so hopefully you will join us for that one. And in the meantime, if you like the show, visit our website writerswithwrinkles.net. That is the homepage for this podcast, and you can find show notes. You can find back episodes. You can leave reviews. We are always very grateful if you leave us a review 'cause we need those.

And until next time, happy reading, writing, and listening. Bye Lisa.

Lisa Schmid: Bye Beth. Bye guys