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Episode 414: 5 Myths About Your Cookbook Audience · Cookbook Love Podcast

• 0:02
  Speaker: You are listening to the
• 0:03
  Speaker: Cookbook Love Podcast with
• 0:04
  Speaker: Maggie Greene, episode number
• 0:07
  Speaker: four fourteen.
• 0:10
  Speaker: Welcome to the Cookbook Love
• 0:12
  Speaker: Podcast, a podcast that
• 0:14
  Speaker: celebrates cookbook readers,
• 0:16
  Speaker: buyers, collectors, writers, and
• 0:18
  Speaker: clubs.
• 0:19
  Speaker: And now your host, cookbook
• 0:21
  Speaker: author, culinary dietitian, and
• 0:23
  Speaker: cookbook writing coach, Maggie
• 0:24
  Speaker: Greene.
• 0:31
  Speaker: Hi, everybody.
• 0:32
  Speaker: Welcome back to another episode of the cookbook Love Podcast.
• 0:35
  Speaker: How's everybody doing today?
• 0:37
  Speaker: Hope you are all doing well.
• 0:39
  Speaker: I am having a quiet day here in my cookbook bunker.
• 0:43
  Speaker: We're having a nice thunderstorm
• 0:44
  Speaker: outside, and I might have told
• 0:46
  Speaker: this story before, but when my
• 0:48
  Speaker: kids were little and they played
• 0:50
  Speaker: baseball, the boys played
• 0:51
  Speaker: baseball.
• 0:53
  Speaker: I was always so excited when we'd have a summer thunderstorm,
• 0:58
  Speaker: because it usually meant baseball was canceled.
• 1:00
  Speaker: That's terrible to say, but sometimes it was just nice to
• 1:03
  Speaker: stay at home in a thunderstorm.
• 1:06
  Speaker: Um, not a lot of sports play during a thunderstorm, but
• 1:10
  Speaker: certainly if there's rain out, football might still go, soccer
• 1:13
  Speaker: might still go.
• 1:15
  Speaker: But it was always pretty sure they wouldn't play baseball if
• 1:18
  Speaker: we had a thunderstorm.
• 1:19
  Speaker: So I have fond memories of that.
• 1:21
  Speaker: And um, love a good thunderstorm.
• 1:24
  Speaker: Gardens doing well.
• 1:25
  Speaker: Tomatoes are turning a little yellow at the bottom.
• 1:27
  Speaker: I think that generally happens this time of year.
• 1:30
  Speaker: It's always a little disconcerting though, but I am
• 1:33
  Speaker: keeping them watered.
• 1:34
  Speaker: And if you even if you don't have a garden or a plot of grass
• 1:38
  Speaker: to plant tomatoes in, I highly recommend you grow your tomatoes
• 1:43
  Speaker: on your porch or patio and I'll get the name of the pots.
• 1:49
  Speaker: I don't have them right now, but
• 1:51
  Speaker: I've used these fabric felt pots
• 1:54
  Speaker: with handles.
• 1:55
  Speaker: They're very easy to move.
• 1:56
  Speaker: They're lightweight, they're
• 1:58
  Speaker: inexpensive, and they get great
• 2:01
  Speaker: air circulation and boy, have
• 2:04
  Speaker: they been good for our tomatoes
• 2:05
  Speaker: this year.
• 2:06
  Speaker: It's not such a heavy thing to move around.
• 2:09
  Speaker: Um, one other funny story about the tomatoes is you may not
• 2:13
  Speaker: think it's funny, but I thought it was funny.
• 2:15
  Speaker: I used a natural organic plant food to feed the tomatoes.
• 2:21
  Speaker: Um, everything needs food and water, even plants.
• 2:25
  Speaker: So, um, and it's made from
• 2:27
  Speaker: decomposed fish, and I swear I
• 2:32
  Speaker: can taste the fishy taste from
• 2:36
  Speaker: the plant food when I eat the
• 2:37
  Speaker: tomatoes.
• 2:39
  Speaker: So I don't like that.
• 2:41
  Speaker: I don't like that taste.
• 2:42
  Speaker: So I've got to figure out what I can feed my tomatoes with.
• 2:45
  Speaker: That won't make the tomatoes taste not like a tomato.
• 2:51
  Speaker: And I had the tomatoes the other day with some tuna salad.
• 2:53
  Speaker: And I thought to myself, is the
• 2:56
  Speaker: tuna salad like getting into the
• 2:58
  Speaker: tomatoes?
• 3:00
  Speaker: So maybe I thought it was from the tuna salad.
• 3:02
  Speaker: Then on Sunday we cooked
• 3:04
  Speaker: breakfast after we went to mass
• 3:05
  Speaker: and, um, Warren made these
• 3:07
  Speaker: delicious hard boiled eggs and
• 3:08
  Speaker: we just put this little bit of
• 3:10
  Speaker: mayonnaise and Dijon mustard on
• 3:11
  Speaker: them.
• 3:12
  Speaker: And he made a tomato salad with basil for the side.
• 3:15
  Speaker: And then we had some toast.
• 3:16
  Speaker: And when I was eating those
• 3:17
  Speaker: tomatoes, I said, okay, Warren,
• 3:19
  Speaker: do these tomatoes taste fishy to
• 3:21
  Speaker: you?
• 3:21
  Speaker: And he's like, no, not really,
• 3:23
  Speaker: but I think I can taste the
• 3:25
  Speaker: fish.
• 3:26
  Speaker: So that's my tomato story.
• 3:28
  Speaker: I think I need to figure out
• 3:29
  Speaker: another food to put on them
• 3:31
  Speaker: because it does make a
• 3:32
  Speaker: difference.
• 3:33
  Speaker: Um, when the soil just gets
• 3:36
  Speaker: depleted from the nutrients that
• 3:37
  Speaker: the plant needs, they don't grow
• 3:40
  Speaker: very well.
• 3:41
  Speaker: They don't produce very well.
• 3:43
  Speaker: Of course, being a dietician, I can see so many analogies
• 3:45
  Speaker: between feeding our plants and feeding ourselves well that I
• 3:49
  Speaker: could just bore you to tears.
• 3:51
  Speaker: But if you struggle with your
• 3:53
  Speaker: container gardens, please not
• 3:56
  Speaker: only be sure to water them, but
• 3:58
  Speaker: feed your plants and your
• 3:59
  Speaker: vegetables and you will be an
• 4:02
  Speaker: amazing gardener.
• 4:03
  Speaker: You will have an amazing batch of flowers that stay green and
• 4:08
  Speaker: bloom all summer long.
• 4:11
  Speaker: When we went away on our vacation, my pet sitter said,
• 4:14
  Speaker: you have such a green thumb.
• 4:15
  Speaker: And I said, it's actually this little secret I have.
• 4:18
  Speaker: I water the flowers and I feed them at the same time.
• 4:21
  Speaker: And, um, didn't always do that.
• 4:24
  Speaker: Finally figured it out, but it truly has been life changing.
• 4:28
  Speaker: Okay, so that is way off the
• 4:30
  Speaker: topic of what we're here to talk
• 4:31
  Speaker: about today, but, uh, I am in
• 4:33
  Speaker: the middle of finishing up my
• 4:37
  Speaker: video series called Grow Your
• 4:40
  Speaker: Audience Masterclass.
• 4:42
  Speaker: If you haven't registered, be sure to head on down to the show
• 4:46
  Speaker: notes, click the link, Register for the masterclass, and you can
• 4:50
  Speaker: watch the video series.
• 4:51
  Speaker: It's three parts about growing your audience without performing
• 4:57
  Speaker: for social media algorithms.
• 5:00
  Speaker: So this topic of a cookbook audience has been on my mind,
• 5:03
  Speaker: and it's actually very similar to an audience for a podcast.
• 5:08
  Speaker: There are people that pay attention to the podcast.
• 5:12
  Speaker: There are people that listen to the podcast.
• 5:13
  Speaker: Same thing is true for cookbooks.
• 5:15
  Speaker: There's people that buy cookbooks, read cookbooks, and
• 5:18
  Speaker: follow people and pay attention to people who write cookbooks.
• 5:22
  Speaker: So this.
• 5:25
  Speaker: Show is for those of you who want to write a cookbook, or who
• 5:30
  Speaker: have written a cookbook, that need to grow your audience
• 5:34
  Speaker: because an audience is people and people are the ones that
• 5:40
  Speaker: will buy your books.
• 5:42
  Speaker: And when we write a book, we usually want to sell it so that
• 5:45
  Speaker: other people, people will benefit from the book, have some
• 5:49
  Speaker: joy from the book that we wrote.
• 5:51
  Speaker: So over the years of talking to authors, students in my
• 5:56
  Speaker: programs, people who show up in my inbox, other chefs and
• 6:01
  Speaker: dietitians culinary professionals who messaged me.
• 6:05
  Speaker: I keep hearing the same five
• 6:07
  Speaker: things over and over about
• 6:08
  Speaker: audience growth.
• 6:09
  Speaker: And, um, I think some of these
• 6:12
  Speaker: myths are just kind of out
• 6:14
  Speaker: there, um, things that we hear,
• 6:17
  Speaker: or maybe it's a truth for other
• 6:20
  Speaker: types of audience growth, but
• 6:22
  Speaker: for cookbooks, it might not
• 6:23
  Speaker: really apply.
• 6:25
  Speaker: Um, and some of these things are things that I had to learn in
• 6:30
  Speaker: growing my own audience.
• 6:32
  Speaker: So these five things come from a
• 6:35
  Speaker: combination of what I've heard
• 6:38
  Speaker: my students say and what I've
• 6:40
  Speaker: experienced myself.
• 6:42
  Speaker: And the thing about a myth is they're myths, okay?
• 6:47
  Speaker: And I don't just mean that they're wrong, like technically
• 6:53
  Speaker: wrong, because that's not true.
• 6:54
  Speaker: But what I mean when I say they're a myth is if you look at
• 7:00
  Speaker: audience growth in the way that I'm going to talk about it is
• 7:03
  Speaker: going to cost you something.
• 7:06
  Speaker: There's an actual cost to growing your audience for a
• 7:10
  Speaker: physical cookbook this way.
• 7:12
  Speaker: It might cost you time.
• 7:15
  Speaker: It might cost you momentum in your project.
• 7:19
  Speaker: It might cost you getting a book deal or finding an agent.
• 7:26
  Speaker: It might cost you book sales.
• 7:30
  Speaker: It might cost you.
• 7:34
  Speaker: Never even writing your book to begin with.
• 7:37
  Speaker: So that's why I call them myths.
• 7:40
  Speaker: And like I said, I've believed some of these myself.
• 7:44
  Speaker: I've watched them play out in the lives of my students.
• 7:47
  Speaker: And, um, you know, pay attention to other people who talk about
• 7:52
  Speaker: publishing and talk about, um, getting book deals.
• 7:56
  Speaker: Um, what I want to couch this discussion as is maybe a little
• 8:02
  Speaker: bit of a reset.
• 8:03
  Speaker: I want to walk you through five things I hear about audience
• 8:07
  Speaker: building and what's actually true underneath them, according
• 8:11
  Speaker: to people in the industry.
• 8:14
  Speaker: And not just me, but some research that I've done to clear
• 8:18
  Speaker: these things up because I don't want it to cost you time.
• 8:21
  Speaker: I want you to spend your life
• 8:24
  Speaker: and your energy on things that
• 8:27
  Speaker: move the needle and put your
• 8:30
  Speaker: energy toward the one thing that
• 8:33
  Speaker: actually gets your book in front
• 8:34
  Speaker: of people who are ready to buy
• 8:36
  Speaker: it.
• 8:37
  Speaker: Okay, so let's dive in.
• 8:39
  Speaker: Number one is my followers are my audience.
• 8:44
  Speaker: So this is a big one.
• 8:45
  Speaker: And I want you to think about followers on social media as
• 8:49
  Speaker: people who literally just scroll by your page or your information
• 8:54
  Speaker: or your content.
• 8:56
  Speaker: They are looking for entertainment for a flash.
• 9:00
  Speaker: second, they might double tap that they like something.
• 9:05
  Speaker: They might save a post to a folder, but they never, ever
• 9:10
  Speaker: come back to you again.
• 9:12
  Speaker: They just keep scrolling.
• 9:14
  Speaker: Think about that as attention that you get from them.
• 9:17
  Speaker: You're gaining their attention,
• 9:19
  Speaker: but you don't have access to
• 9:21
  Speaker: that person as a reader in your
• 9:24
  Speaker: audience.
• 9:26
  Speaker: Um, and this really, truly isn't just my opinion.
• 9:29
  Speaker: I've studied what Jane Friedman has to say about this.
• 9:32
  Speaker: She has spent years studying
• 9:33
  Speaker: what actually gets nonfiction
• 9:35
  Speaker: books sold.
• 9:38
  Speaker: She talks about platforms.
• 9:40
  Speaker: Platforms are not follower count.
• 9:42
  Speaker: A platform is your credibility
• 9:45
  Speaker: and your authority on a topic,
• 9:47
  Speaker: combined with your visibility
• 9:49
  Speaker: and your reach to actually get
• 9:51
  Speaker: readers who are going to buy
• 9:52
  Speaker: your book.
• 9:54
  Speaker: So credibility, authority, visibility and reach.
• 9:59
  Speaker: Okay.
• 10:00
  Speaker: And, um, an algorithm on social media determines who sees what.
• 10:07
  Speaker: Okay.
• 10:07
  Speaker: And so that's why we can't think
• 10:09
  Speaker: of our followers as our
• 10:11
  Speaker: audience.
• 10:12
  Speaker: And the other thing to think about is if you have a follower
• 10:17
  Speaker: on TikTok or you have a follower on Instagram, or you have a
• 10:20
  Speaker: follower on Facebook, that follower lives on the land that
• 10:26
  Speaker: Instagram, I should say meta.
• 10:28
  Speaker: They actually have Instagram and Facebook.
• 10:31
  Speaker: Um, X is not, it's Twitter.
• 10:34
  Speaker: TikTok.
• 10:36
  Speaker: That's someone else's rented space.
• 10:38
  Speaker: You don't own that space and you don't control who sees you when
• 10:42
  Speaker: you are there.
• 10:43
  Speaker: Um, you have no say if the rules
• 10:45
  Speaker: change, if the platform goes
• 10:47
  Speaker: down, the algorithm is really in
• 10:49
  Speaker: control of what other people
• 10:51
  Speaker: see.
• 10:53
  Speaker: Okay.
• 10:54
  Speaker: It's in between you and your readers.
• 10:57
  Speaker: No platform can stop showing you to the people who already said
• 11:06
  Speaker: yes to hearing from you.
• 11:09
  Speaker: And that's what we're going to talk about here in a little bit.
• 11:11
  Speaker: But when you're on social media and you're just tracking
• 11:13
  Speaker: followers, there's an algorithm that determines everything.
• 11:17
  Speaker: And so it's a myth.
• 11:18
  Speaker: It's not a great way to build an audience of readers.
• 11:20
  Speaker: It's, um, and for people that are listening that are already
• 11:25
  Speaker: food, nutrition, culinary professionals, dietitians,
• 11:29
  Speaker: experts, you already have expertise, you don't need to
• 11:32
  Speaker: build your influence through a huge following on social media.
• 11:36
  Speaker: Okay.
• 11:37
  Speaker: The second myth is that you need the book deal before you can
• 11:40
  Speaker: start building the audience.
• 11:42
  Speaker: Um, I've heard this a few times, but this is obviously backwards.
• 11:47
  Speaker: What's backwards is when we think that if we get the deal,
• 11:52
  Speaker: then we build the platform and then we get the readers.
• 11:55
  Speaker: But if you want to talk to
• 11:57
  Speaker: anybody who actually evaluates
• 11:59
  Speaker: nonfiction proposals for a
• 12:00
  Speaker: living, you're going to hear the
• 12:01
  Speaker: opposite.
• 12:03
  Speaker: Editors at publishing houses and
• 12:05
  Speaker: agents talked very plainly about
• 12:09
  Speaker: this.
• 12:10
  Speaker: Okay.
• 12:11
  Speaker: They recommend that aspiring
• 12:13
  Speaker: authors, people who want to
• 12:14
  Speaker: write cookbooks start building
• 12:16
  Speaker: their platform.
• 12:18
  Speaker: I've read even three years
• 12:19
  Speaker: before you get your first book
• 12:21
  Speaker: deal.
• 12:23
  Speaker: Specifically because you need time to let that platform grow
• 12:28
  Speaker: and for you to really engage with what your platform is.
• 12:32
  Speaker: Now, I don't know if three years is true or not, because I don't
• 12:37
  Speaker: really know consciously when I actually decided to start
• 12:40
  Speaker: growing my platform before I got my first book deal.
• 12:44
  Speaker: But the point of it is, is that
• 12:45
  Speaker: it's the audience building, and
• 12:48
  Speaker: the growth of your audience
• 12:50
  Speaker: takes place before the book
• 12:51
  Speaker: deal.
• 12:53
  Speaker: Okay.
• 12:54
  Speaker: That's the order that things would go in.
• 12:55
  Speaker: Don't wait for the book deal to grow your audience.
• 12:58
  Speaker: Um, people that get book deals
• 13:00
  Speaker: tend to already have access to
• 13:01
  Speaker: readers.
• 13:03
  Speaker: They're not waiting for the deal before they start.
• 13:07
  Speaker: And if you delay one thing, it
• 13:12
  Speaker: would be delay pitching for the
• 13:14
  Speaker: book deal and focus on growing
• 13:16
  Speaker: your list, growing your
• 13:17
  Speaker: audience.
• 13:18
  Speaker: Okay, that's the solution to that particular myth.
• 13:23
  Speaker: The book deal would not come first.
• 13:26
  Speaker: Audience growth would.
• 13:29
  Speaker: Now, the third myth is that a
• 13:30
  Speaker: lot of people think that the
• 13:31
  Speaker: publisher will do it all, that
• 13:33
  Speaker: you just.
• 13:33
  Speaker: Maybe back in the old, old days, I don't know, publishers might
• 13:36
  Speaker: have done it all.
• 13:38
  Speaker: Um, that as the author, we just write the book and once it's
• 13:41
  Speaker: published, the publisher will take care of everything when it
• 13:45
  Speaker: comes to distribution and sales.
• 13:48
  Speaker: Um, but it's pretty clear that that is definitely not how it
• 13:51
  Speaker: works anymore, especially in categories like cooking, where
• 13:54
  Speaker: and nutrition where platforms do matter a lot.
• 13:58
  Speaker: Uh, nonfiction books in categories like self-help or
• 14:01
  Speaker: business or cooking are held to probably the highest platform
• 14:05
  Speaker: expectations in the industry.
• 14:07
  Speaker: Publishers in these categories are looking for authors who are
• 14:11
  Speaker: already bring readers with them to the publishing relationship,
• 14:16
  Speaker: not authors who plan to build the relationships after they get
• 14:20
  Speaker: the book deal.
• 14:22
  Speaker: Okay, so we are held to high standards as cookbook authors.
• 14:28
  Speaker: Bring your readers with you.
• 14:30
  Speaker: It's almost like BYOB.
• 14:32
  Speaker: You could say b y o r bring your own readers.
• 14:35
  Speaker: They love it when you bring readers to the relationship.
• 14:40
  Speaker: You're expected to already have people who look to you as an
• 14:44
  Speaker: authority, which means you've established authority somewhere
• 14:47
  Speaker: you have credibility.
• 14:48
  Speaker: People might be on an email list
• 14:50
  Speaker: who look forward to hearing from
• 14:52
  Speaker: you.
• 14:53
  Speaker: Marketing and PR from a
• 14:54
  Speaker: publisher can support a launch
• 14:57
  Speaker: once the book is out, but they
• 14:59
  Speaker: amplify everything that is
• 15:01
  Speaker: already there.
• 15:03
  Speaker: They don't really create readership.
• 15:05
  Speaker: They're amplifiers of that.
• 15:07
  Speaker: So if you walk into a book deal, assuming that the publisher is
• 15:10
  Speaker: going to conjure up your readers and they're going to amplify it,
• 15:14
  Speaker: that's not true.
• 15:16
  Speaker: You'll just be waiting around
• 15:17
  Speaker: for a book deal that will never
• 15:18
  Speaker: happen.
• 15:19
  Speaker: Focus on growing your connections with people.
• 15:24
  Speaker: Build trust.
• 15:25
  Speaker: Build relationships.
• 15:27
  Speaker: Um, that is an amazing thing to do before you get a book deal.
• 15:30
  Speaker: And it actually will help you get a book deal and could
• 15:33
  Speaker: certainly prevent you from getting a book deal if you
• 15:35
  Speaker: haven't done it already.
• 15:37
  Speaker: Myth number four is that if the
• 15:39
  Speaker: book is good enough, it'll just
• 15:41
  Speaker: sell itself.
• 15:43
  Speaker: Um, and I, this, I can kind of
• 15:45
  Speaker: understand why people might
• 15:46
  Speaker: think this.
• 15:48
  Speaker: Um, it means all you have to do
• 15:50
  Speaker: is write really well and the
• 15:51
  Speaker: rest is going to take care of
• 15:52
  Speaker: itself.
• 15:52
  Speaker: But that's not true either.
• 15:54
  Speaker: Um, non-fiction books point to something.
• 16:01
  Speaker: that other fiction books don't
• 16:04
  Speaker: have to worry about, and that is
• 16:05
  Speaker: positioning.
• 16:07
  Speaker: And whether the author is already positioned in a market
• 16:12
  Speaker: to reach the audience.
• 16:13
  Speaker: Who wants the book?
• 16:15
  Speaker: It's not necessarily about the
• 16:17
  Speaker: quality of the writing itself,
• 16:19
  Speaker: the quality of the writing
• 16:20
  Speaker: matters, but you have to be
• 16:21
  Speaker: positioned and ready to reach an
• 16:23
  Speaker: audience who wants to buy the
• 16:24
  Speaker: book.
• 16:27
  Speaker: It's not the thing that gets a book in front of people.
• 16:32
  Speaker: A well written book that nobody knows about still needs someone
• 16:37
  Speaker: to buy it the day it's available and is ready to buy.
• 16:40
  Speaker: And that doesn't happen just with no effort.
• 16:46
  Speaker: People need to be made aware of it.
• 16:47
  Speaker: People need to know that the book is coming out.
• 16:50
  Speaker: And this happens because an
• 16:52
  Speaker: author has intentionally built a
• 16:53
  Speaker: relationship with their readers
• 16:55
  Speaker: before the books ever hit the
• 16:56
  Speaker: shelves.
• 16:58
  Speaker: So if you write a high quality
• 17:00
  Speaker: book, You're going to have a
• 17:01
  Speaker: great book, but it doesn't have
• 17:03
  Speaker: access to people unless you have
• 17:05
  Speaker: people waiting for the book to
• 17:07
  Speaker: be published.
• 17:08
  Speaker: And it's almost like the writing
• 17:09
  Speaker: of the book and building the
• 17:11
  Speaker: readership are two different
• 17:12
  Speaker: jobs.
• 17:13
  Speaker: And that's kind of hard sometimes to swallow.
• 17:16
  Speaker: But I think that there's ways that you can grow your audience.
• 17:25
  Speaker: Um, practice writing, connecting with people.
• 17:29
  Speaker: It's exactly what I'm talking about in the master class.
• 17:32
  Speaker: And then be very proud when you
• 17:34
  Speaker: do get a book deal because, or
• 17:36
  Speaker: you do get your book published
• 17:37
  Speaker: because you've written a great
• 17:39
  Speaker: book and you have the readership
• 17:41
  Speaker: ready.
• 17:42
  Speaker: So a good book alone is not enough anymore, especially in
• 17:45
  Speaker: these nonfiction categories.
• 17:47
  Speaker: You need to have readers ready to buy the book.
• 17:52
  Speaker: And then myth number five is that some people who want to
• 17:58
  Speaker: write a book say they'll build their audience later.
• 18:00
  Speaker: One thing, once things settle down.
• 18:04
  Speaker: I think that's such a
• 18:05
  Speaker: fascinating thing to think about
• 18:07
  Speaker: is, um, there's a lot of things
• 18:09
  Speaker: in our life that we might be
• 18:10
  Speaker: putting off doing and we say,
• 18:13
  Speaker: well, we'll do that once things
• 18:14
  Speaker: settle down.
• 18:15
  Speaker: But I have started to believe
• 18:18
  Speaker: that things won't really ever
• 18:21
  Speaker: settle down.
• 18:22
  Speaker: Um, it feels so smart to think that way, but it's really not
• 18:27
  Speaker: because things happening in my life are because I'm alive and
• 18:31
  Speaker: I'm active and I have, um, active adult children.
• 18:35
  Speaker: We like to spend time together.
• 18:37
  Speaker: They're getting married next year.
• 18:39
  Speaker: Um, I'm not going to wait to do what I need to do in my business
• 18:43
  Speaker: and for my audience until things settle down, because that point
• 18:48
  Speaker: will probably never arrive.
• 18:52
  Speaker: And so I'm just asking you if you've ever thought that to
• 18:56
  Speaker: really investigate that thought, try not to wait for the perfect
• 19:01
  Speaker: time to start because it'll almost never come.
• 19:04
  Speaker: There's always something urgent for us all to do.
• 19:07
  Speaker: There's always a deadline.
• 19:08
  Speaker: There's always a class to teach.
• 19:10
  Speaker: There's always the next thing.
• 19:12
  Speaker: But this audience building is
• 19:14
  Speaker: like the slow moving
• 19:17
  Speaker: undercurrent of everything that
• 19:19
  Speaker: we do.
• 19:20
  Speaker: And it will never appear urgent.
• 19:23
  Speaker: Okay, but if you want to write a
• 19:27
  Speaker: book and you want to sell it, or
• 19:28
  Speaker: you want to get a book deal, you
• 19:31
  Speaker: need to have this growing
• 19:33
  Speaker: audience and start working on it
• 19:37
  Speaker: now.
• 19:39
  Speaker: This will make a lot of difference in how you relate to
• 19:44
  Speaker: your audience, their ability to trust you, and your ability to
• 19:48
  Speaker: bring readership to a relationship with an agent or a
• 19:51
  Speaker: publisher and get a book deal.
• 19:54
  Speaker: So it's not just a nice to have thing.
• 19:56
  Speaker: It's really like infrastructure.
• 19:58
  Speaker: So, um, don't wait until things settle down in your life they
• 20:02
  Speaker: probably never will.
• 20:04
  Speaker: And start working on building your audience now.
• 20:09
  Speaker: So. Here's what all these myths have in common.
• 20:15
  Speaker: Every one of them gives us permission to wait on growing
• 20:18
  Speaker: our audience, or assuming that we can skip it instead of
• 20:25
  Speaker: actually working on it now.
• 20:28
  Speaker: But the truth of it is, is that even if you clear up the myths,
• 20:35
  Speaker: it doesn't really fully solve having access to people and the
• 20:39
  Speaker: right kind of access.
• 20:40
  Speaker: That's two different things.
• 20:42
  Speaker: I've watched people grow thousands of followers and never
• 20:46
  Speaker: sell a single book.
• 20:47
  Speaker: So you, I shouldn't say never sell a single book, but there's
• 20:51
  Speaker: a disconnect between the number of followers they have and the
• 20:54
  Speaker: number of books that they sell.
• 20:56
  Speaker: And I've also watched people just engage.
• 20:58
  Speaker: A few hundred people land a deal and sell thousands of books.
• 21:03
  Speaker: Um, so there's not always an exact representation between the
• 21:09
  Speaker: number of people in your audience versus the number of
• 21:12
  Speaker: books you sell.
• 21:13
  Speaker: Um, but the truth of the matter is you have to have an audience
• 21:17
  Speaker: for a book deal.
• 21:18
  Speaker: And even if you self-publish, you need an audience to sell
• 21:20
  Speaker: your book to.
• 21:22
  Speaker: So I highly recommend growing an audience, um, and starting that
• 21:26
  Speaker: today if you haven't already.
• 21:28
  Speaker: And that's exactly what I'm
• 21:30
  Speaker: teaching in the Grow Your
• 21:31
  Speaker: Audience masterclass.
• 21:33
  Speaker: Without performing for social
• 21:36
  Speaker: media algorithms, um, someone
• 21:39
  Speaker: told me that they're avoiding
• 21:41
  Speaker: social media because of internet
• 21:42
  Speaker: politics.
• 21:44
  Speaker: They are essentially hiding their expertise in their, um,
• 21:51
  Speaker: their great personality because of internet politics.
• 21:54
  Speaker: But I talk about a way to grow your audience that you can get
• 21:58
  Speaker: around that you don't have to worry about that.
• 22:00
  Speaker: You can dive in and build your
• 22:03
  Speaker: authority without worrying about
• 22:05
  Speaker: internet politics.
• 22:06
  Speaker: So if you're interested in
• 22:07
  Speaker: learning more about that, head
• 22:08
  Speaker: on down to the link in the show
• 22:10
  Speaker: notes and you can register for
• 22:13
  Speaker: the Grow Your Audience
• 22:14
  Speaker: masterclass.
• 22:15
  Speaker: You can learn all about the secret to growing it without
• 22:19
  Speaker: social media algorithms, and I would love to see you there.
• 22:24
  Speaker: So that is it for today's five
• 22:27
  Speaker: myths about Audience Growth and
• 22:30
  Speaker: this episode of the Cookbook
• 22:31
  Speaker: Love Podcast.
• 22:33
  Speaker: This is your host, Maggie Green.
• 22:34
  Speaker: And until next time, have a
• 22:35
  Speaker: great day and keep loving your
• 22:38
  Speaker: cookbooks.
• 22:42
  Speaker: Thanks for listening to the Cookbook Love podcast.
• 22:45
  Speaker: You can find out more information at w w w dot
• 22:48
  Speaker: cookbook dot co.