Latest / Story Magic / 103 - Publicity and book marketing with Jenn Vance

Transcript

103 - Publicity and book marketing with Jenn Vance · Story Magic

• 2:28
  Rachel: Hey, writers.
• 2:28
  Rachel: Welcome back to Story Magic, the podcast that will help you write a book you're damn proud of.
• 2:32
  Emily: I'm Emily.
• 2:33
  Rachel: And I'm Rachel.
• 2:34
  Emily: And today we are talking about book marketing with Jen Vance.
• 2:40
  Emily: Welcome, Jen.
• 2:41
  Emily: We're so excited to have you.
• 2:43
  Jenn Vance: Thank you all for having me.
• 2:44
  Emily: Of course.
• 2:45
  Emily: Yeah. So we discovered Jen because I think you reached out to us about Yvette Davis.
• 2:52
  Emily: You are her publicist.
• 2:54
  Emily: Is that what you would call yourself?
• 2:55
  Emily: Yeah.
• 2:56
  Jenn Vance: Yes.
• 2:56
  Emily: And so if you listen to our episode with Yvette, it was a really great conversation.
• 3:00
  Emily: But as we were talking to Yvette, we realized we really need to learn more about the types of work that Jen does, the things that, like, you know, the opportunities that are out there for writers to get support in the marketing side of the business.
• 3:17
  Emily: And so we're really, really excited to have you here.
• 3:19
  Emily: Before we jump into stuff, can you just give us a little overview about who you are, what you do, what Books Forward is?
• 3:26
  Jenn Vance: Yeah, definitely.
• 3:28
  Jenn Vance: So I am the marketing director for Books Forward, and It's actually our 25th anniversary this year.
• 3:36
  Emily: Yes.
• 3:37
  Jenn Vance: Been around for 25 years.
• 3:40
  Jenn Vance: Obviously, the industry has changed a lot in those 25 years.
• 3:44
  Jenn Vance: So, you know, what we do today is very different than what we did in the year 2000.
• 3:51
  Jenn Vance: I mean, I wasn't even there.
• 3:52
  Jenn Vance: Obviously.
• 3:53
  Jenn Vance: I was in elementary school.
• 3:54
  Jenn Vance: But, yeah, so we've been around for 25 years.
• 4:00
  Jenn Vance: Book marketing, book publicity.
• 4:03
  Jenn Vance: And, yeah, as the industry has evolved, so has what we've offered to authors.
• 4:09
  Jenn Vance: So as the marketing director, I manage our digital marketing team that includes our social media manager.
• 4:17
  Jenn Vance: It includes our team of digital strategists who help authors run digital advertising and their social media accounts and things like that.
• 4:26
  Jenn Vance: But we also run publicity campaigns as well, so we kind of do a little bit of everything.
• 4:33
  Jenn Vance: There are some companies that, you know, they might specialize more in just the social media realm or maybe specialize more in just publicity specifically, but we really try to, you know, do a little bit of everything for authors.
• 4:48
  Rachel: Yeah, that's.
• 4:49
  Rachel: I have so many questions, and these are gonna bounce probably all over the place.
• 4:54
  Jenn Vance: That's perfect.
• 4:55
  Jenn Vance: That's fine.
• 4:57
  Rachel: Because I. So I. I'm indie publish.
• 5:00
  Rachel: Emily is trad published, and we're both in, like, this sphere of, okay, marketing.
• 5:05
  Rachel: We've got to keep.
• 5:07
  Rachel: Got to keep going.
• 5:08
  Rachel: You know, the books are out, so now we have to sell them.
• 5:11
  Rachel: Cool.
• 5:12
  Rachel: And I think, like, we have.
• 5:15
  Rachel: It's been a continual learning journey, you know, and we've.
• 5:17
  Rachel: We've talked about it on the podcast, but I do feel like every couple months I have a new, a new thing I'm gonna try or like a mindset that I'm, that I'm working through or whatever.
• 5:27
  Rachel: So right now, currently I'm like all about TikTok.
• 5:31
  Jenn Vance: Yay. Yes.
• 5:32
  Rachel: But I think like there's just so many different pieces of publicity as you've just kind of hinted to.
• 5:39
  Rachel: And I also think that depending on someone's goals or their journey or what other support they have, it might look different.
• 5:48
  Rachel: So that's like, yeah, tell me all about that.
• 5:50
  Rachel: No, but the first, like, I guess the first thing that I was thinking as you were talking is do you work with both indie published hybrid or all indie published hybrid and trad.
• 6:01
  Rachel: Are you primarily servicing a certain type of author or why would someone elect to like use a service like this versus bootstrapping it and being like, okay, I'm gonna go post on TikTok.
• 6:14
  Rachel: Like, like me.
• 6:15
  Jenn Vance: Right?
• 6:17
  Jenn Vance: Yeah. So we, we do work with authors of every publishing path.
• 6:21
  Jenn Vance: You know, traditional indie hybrid, self published.
• 6:25
  Jenn Vance: Again, every company is different.
• 6:27
  Jenn Vance: You know, some of them may only work with indie published authors, but we have found, you know, and you're traditionally published, so you might find this as well, that traditional publishers, they don't have all the resources that they used to have 20 years ago.
• 6:42
  Jenn Vance: Their teams are smaller, they have more authors and they're kind of spreading their time and their resources thinner and thinner.
• 6:51
  Jenn Vance: And so in order to make a splash, even traditionally published authors are doing a lot of that work on their own.
• 7:00
  Jenn Vance: And so authors who don't have the time or the resources or the skills to do that, definitely they're coming to us as well for that kind of stuff.
• 7:09
  Jenn Vance: I do always say like, nothing I do is, is rocket science.
• 7:13
  Jenn Vance: And like that's a good thing.
• 7:15
  Jenn Vance: Like I'm not, I'm not a scientist.
• 7:17
  Jenn Vance: Like, I'm not, you don't want me like doing anything like that.
• 7:22
  Jenn Vance: Everything we do, like, you know, authors can do and there are some, you know, self published authors out there who are really managing it all on their own.
• 7:31
  Jenn Vance: You know, they know how to run their ads and they can do all their social media and stuff like that.
• 7:36
  Jenn Vance: But it really is like the time of so many people don't have the time for that.
• 7:42
  Jenn Vance: You know, they have full time job or jobs, you know, they have kids, they have lives.
• 7:47
  Jenn Vance: And so in order to, you know, publish and market a book successfully, it really is like a full time job in itself.
• 7:58
  Jenn Vance: So, so that's why someone would come to a book marketing Firm, you know, is for that help.
• 8:04
  Jenn Vance: Because again, you know, you can do this.
• 8:08
  Jenn Vance: I think everyone can do it.
• 8:09
  Jenn Vance: It's, you know, and it's, it's fun to learn these kinds of things, but some people just don't want to.
• 8:15
  Jenn Vance: They just want to say, hey, like I, these are my goals and I want you to help get me there.
• 8:21
  Jenn Vance: And that's where we come in.
• 8:23
  Rachel: Yeah.
• 8:24
  Rachel: So they come to you with like, I mean, what's an example of a pretty reasonable goal that someone would come to you with?
• 8:28
  Rachel: Like a number sales or like a reach amount?
• 8:33
  Jenn Vance: A lot of authors, I mean, every single author wants to sell books.
• 8:36
  Jenn Vance: So like, you know, every single author is going to come in saying, I want to sell books.
• 8:40
  Jenn Vance: So that's going to be top of mind authors who have goals of, you know, reaching specific markets.
• 8:49
  Jenn Vance: They know their target audience and their market really well.
• 8:52
  Jenn Vance: That's really great to work with authors who maybe want to get into libraries specifically or maybe want to work with their local communities specifically.
• 9:03
  Jenn Vance: Like those really targeted, achievable kind of goals.
• 9:07
  Jenn Vance: Like, those are great goals to have because the broader your goals are, the harder it's going to be to kind of achieve those.
• 9:15
  Jenn Vance: And realistically speaking, the more money you're going to have to put into that.
• 9:18
  Jenn Vance: So it's great to have like these big pie in the sky goals, but it's also really important to have goals that you can achieve because if you suddenly, you know, you're two, three years into marketing a book and you feel like you haven't achieved anything, that feels really bad.
• 9:35
  Jenn Vance: You know, you want to be able to set yourself up for success and that's what you want for authors too.
• 9:41
  Emily: Yeah, yeah.
• 9:42
  Emily: So what does that look like when folks reach out to you?
• 9:45
  Emily: Like, can you walk us through?
• 9:45
  Emily: I'm like, I'm like, I want to get rid of all the vague, vague assumptions about how this works.
• 9:51
  Emily: Like what happens when someone, you.
• 9:52
  Emily: How do you decide who to work with?
• 9:54
  Emily: Like, what does that process look like?
• 9:56
  Jenn Vance: It's honestly, it's a little bit similar to like how an author would query an agent or query an editor.
• 10:03
  Jenn Vance: You know, we have like a contact form on our website where we ask for some author info, ask for, you know, your background.
• 10:11
  Jenn Vance: We ask for first few chapters of a book.
• 10:15
  Jenn Vance: We do want to know, like, if a book has been professionally edited and if the COVID it has been professionally designed or things like that.
• 10:22
  Jenn Vance: This is not to say that we can't work with, you know, books that haven't been edited, but it just puts Us in a different space.
• 10:30
  Jenn Vance: So we kind of collect all that info to see, you know, what would the plan be for this author specifically.
• 10:38
  Jenn Vance: And that of course, like genre is a big one and timing is a big one too.
• 10:42
  Jenn Vance: A lot of authors, the biggest mistake they make is waiting until the week before their book launches to try and do like any kind of marketing or anything like that.
• 10:52
  Jenn Vance: You know, we typically run like publicity campaigns five to six months prior to launch.
• 11:00
  Jenn Vance: And that means that people have to reach out even before that so that we can make sure we have time in our schedule.
• 11:09
  Jenn Vance: So and again, it depends on the time of year and like that kind of stuff.
• 11:12
  Jenn Vance: But you really have to kind of think ahead.
• 11:17
  Jenn Vance: You know, if my book's going to launch in July of 2026, I might want to start looking in fall of 2025 for a company that can work with me.
• 11:28
  Jenn Vance: Which again is not to say that other companies won't be able to do something, but you want to make sure that they're devoting the time and the resources to, you know, be able to really help you successfully market something.
• 11:42
  Jenn Vance: We do do post launch stuff, it's usually more kind of geared toward like digital marketing.
• 11:48
  Jenn Vance: So that's advertising and things like that.
• 11:51
  Jenn Vance: Maybe more like social media, like more influencers and that kind of stuff.
• 11:56
  Jenn Vance: So we can do some of that stuff as well.
• 11:58
  Jenn Vance: So we just kind of have to take a look at the timing of things and see where that plays out.
• 12:04
  Jenn Vance: Yeah, we can't say yes to everyone that comes through just because we only have so many people.
• 12:09
  Jenn Vance: You know, we're a company of like 15 people and say most of these companies are, you know, small companies.
• 12:18
  Jenn Vance: So we do have to say no a lot.
• 12:20
  Jenn Vance: Just because of timing is a lot.
• 12:24
  Jenn Vance: Budget restrictions are a lot.
• 12:25
  Jenn Vance: A lot of people don't fully understand the cost of things, you know, because it does cost money, you know, to hire someone else to do something.
• 12:39
  Jenn Vance: If you're doing everything on your own, then obviously you're only paying to, you know, a sponsored post for an influencer or to book some Amazon ads or things like that.
• 12:50
  Jenn Vance: But those costs can build up too.
• 12:52
  Jenn Vance: So we want to make sure that authors are comfortable with anything that they're spending because it's an investment and, you know, that's an important piece, like when an author is going to sign on.
• 13:06
  Jenn Vance: So sometimes it's just not always a good fit.
• 13:10
  Jenn Vance: Sometimes we recommend authors to companies that we have good relationships with because they might have some time in their schedule or they might really focus on a genre that you Know, we think they'll succeed with, or we'll, we try to work with every author we can, but it really.
• 13:27
  Jenn Vance: Yeah, it just depends.
• 13:28
  Jenn Vance: Timing and budget are the big ones though.
• 13:30
  Rachel: Yeah.
• 13:31
  Rachel: So this, I have a lot of questions about strategy, but I am really interested in your take on this because I think, you know, being an indie published, I'm primarily focused on ebook and Kindle Unlimited and I think that vastly affects like my strategy.
• 13:47
  Rachel: So that, that being said, we're, we're doing like some marketing work with our writing program.
• 13:54
  Rachel: We have a writing program called Tenacious Writing and we have a bunch of writers in it and we're all learning craft and you know, being a community and working on mindset and those things together.
• 14:02
  Rachel: And we're, we're doing like a marketing meet up all the time to talk about like strategy and what are we all doing and how is it working.
• 14:10
  Rachel: And I see so many people put like this major pressure and influence on like pre release, pre orders, all of that and like building up this, this massive on my side.
• 14:24
  Rachel: It's very stressful, like watching all of these people be very stressed out about like, oh no, I have to have release stuff.
• 14:31
  Rachel: Stuff perfect or else the book will fail.
• 14:33
  Rachel: Oh my God.
• 14:34
  Rachel: And then like now that I have a couple books out and I'm working on my, on my third, I'm like, that's one day.
• 14:44
  Rachel: And like the real stuff comes after.
• 14:46
  Rachel: Right?
• 14:46
  Rachel: Like we, we joke about it.
• 14:48
  Rachel: I like to think about it.
• 14:49
  Rachel: It's like a wedding.
• 14:50
  Rachel: Like you're planning for a wedding but then you have to be married.
• 14:53
  Jenn Vance: And like I say, I say it like a baby.
• 14:57
  Jenn Vance: I always, yeah, I say it as like a baby analogy.
• 15:00
  Jenn Vance: Like you like conceive of this idea and then you birth it and then you have to raise it for who knows how long.
• 15:08
  Jenn Vance: Yeah, exactly.
• 15:10
  Rachel: So I think like it's really interesting and I, I think it makes a lot of sense.
• 15:14
  Rachel: Like it's interesting to hear like this strategy of pre release buildup.
• 15:20
  Rachel: And then for me I'm in the post phase where I'm like, that's not, that's like the shortest part of this whole process.
• 15:26
  Rachel: Like then you have everything after.
• 15:28
  Rachel: So have you noticed like that kind of experience differing for the different authors you work with or the different publishing paths for the different authors that you work with or like the different medium?
• 15:41
  Rachel: Because, because I can tell you that like the people that my ideal reader, the people that are wanting to pick it up on KU are like, so they want instant gratification.
• 15:51
  Rachel: So to ask Them to pre order is a much harder ask, right.
• 15:54
  Rachel: Than to be like, it's gonna be on ku, go read it right now.
• 15:57
  Rachel: So I feel like my approach to those two phases, this is what I'm getting at, has been different.
• 16:02
  Rachel: What are, do you feel the same?
• 16:03
  Rachel: Do you approach strategy different pre release and post release?
• 16:06
  Rachel: Do you get into like, you know, a bunch of lead up with a goal of pre orders and then you're in like a maintenance phase afterward to just keep, you know, the numbers building in anyway?
• 16:18
  Jenn Vance: Yeah. So yeah, that strategy definitely, I think for the most part, like traditionally published authors are going to prioritize pre orders and it's because their publishers are prioritizing that, which is understandable if you want to, if you want to stay with your publisher and you want to, you know, have another contract, you know, you have to show them that you can sell books, which is, I completely understand.
• 16:43
  Jenn Vance: And because, you know, they have the distribution behind it.
• 16:47
  Jenn Vance: So really, traditionally published, I get it if you're going to push pre orders, but for a debut author who's never written anything and they're self published and no one knows about them, it's a, it's a big ask for someone to preorder a book a month in advance for someone they've never heard of.
• 17:07
  Jenn Vance: I'm not even great about pre ordering books of my favorite authors.
• 17:11
  Jenn Vance: Right.
• 17:12
  Jenn Vance: Like, and these are authors I am like fanatic over and I'm like an average buyer.
• 17:18
  Jenn Vance: So to ask an average buyer to pre order a book, you know, of a self published author again, that they've never heard of, it's a big ask.
• 17:29
  Jenn Vance: So yeah, we do especially in like the digital marketing and like the advertising and things like that.
• 17:34
  Jenn Vance: It, it definitely differs.
• 17:36
  Jenn Vance: We always do encourage at least in publicity and specifically like in terms of media and at least some early reviews.
• 17:45
  Jenn Vance: If you can get some of that, no matter your publishing path, if you can build up that credibility a bit, that's a big help and it will go a long way post launch.
• 17:55
  Jenn Vance: No matter your publishing path, if you have that credibility, if people can Google and see, oh, they've got a review here or an interview here, they were on this podcast and that kind of thing.
• 18:09
  Jenn Vance: Which is why we do work so far in advance, no matter the publishing path for publicity campaigns, specifically because it takes time to reach out to podcasts like y' all and things like that and organize things like this.
• 18:27
  Jenn Vance: Because we do want, when the book comes out, if it's a self published author and someone sees it on Amazon or bookshop that they can Google and they can see.
• 18:40
  Jenn Vance: Like, oh well, someone's talked about this before.
• 18:42
  Jenn Vance: Like that's so important with how many books come out every single year that you have something to, to back that up.
• 18:52
  Jenn Vance: Because there's just so many authors that you, you can just put up a book and you know, pros, cons to that, you know, whatever you think, if you want to really establish your brand and do this in the long run, it is important to build up that credibility.
• 19:12
  Jenn Vance: But it definitely does depend on publishing path and we do get some, you know, indie publish or self published authors that you know, want to prioritize pre orders.
• 19:22
  Jenn Vance: And I think it is, it's stressful.
• 19:24
  Jenn Vance: I think there are so many other things that you can focus on and worry about that stuff later.
• 19:30
  Jenn Vance: Especially if you're doing a series, you know, save it for the next book in the series, wait until you have some, some readers, you know, and prioritize preorder pre orders for the subsequent books of the series at the very least.
• 19:45
  Jenn Vance: But yeah, it definitely differs.
• 19:47
  Rachel: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
• 19:49
  Rachel: So picture like a pretty, I guess, run of the mill client.
• 19:53
  Rachel: I'm sure that this is, everybody's different, right?
• 19:56
  Rachel: But like imagine we have a general client.
• 20:00
  Rachel: What if they approach you and they're like, here are my goals.
• 20:03
  Rachel: You know, what avenues are you kind of working with to you?
• 20:07
  Rachel: You've mentioned podcasts, you've mentioned sponsored posts, you've mentioned ads.
• 20:11
  Rachel: You know, just seems like there are so many different things.
• 20:16
  Jenn Vance: Yeah, yeah.
• 20:16
  Emily: How do you choose for each person?
• 20:16
  Emily: Like what's the best path forward?
• 20:22
  Jenn Vance: Yeah, well it, one of the things is what's an author, an author comfortable with?
• 20:25
  Jenn Vance: Um, some authors aren't comfortable talking about themselves.
• 20:31
  Jenn Vance: Um, so that immediately is like, okay, maybe podcasts, radio shows are not going to be the best option for them.
• 20:38
  Jenn Vance: Or maybe like let's prioritize like things where they can write down their thoughts instead of like saying it, you know, on a live recording.
• 20:48
  Jenn Vance: I don't have that problem.
• 20:49
  Jenn Vance: I'll like you up all day.
• 20:52
  Rachel: Welcome to the podcast.
• 20:56
  Jenn Vance: But yeah, so it depends like what people are comfortable with.
• 20:58
  Jenn Vance: Some authors, if you haven't, if you have like, if you're an expert in some area and you can really write a lot on that, you know, non fiction authors are really great for this.
• 21:08
  Jenn Vance: You know, maybe let's focus on, you know, getting some articles placed and specific, you know, whether it's like online medium, print media.
• 21:20
  Jenn Vance: So yeah, it depends like what an author is comfortable with, their genre, what they value Some authors, you know, they just want reviews and it's like, okay, like, let's just focus on getting as many reviews in as, as we can.
• 21:34
  Jenn Vance: We won't, you know, focus on interviews or that kind of thing, and we'll just build up reviews.
• 21:39
  Jenn Vance: So. And that's why we take that time on the front end as well to, you know, to talk to authors and, and kind of get an idea of, of their goals specifically because.
• 21:48
  Jenn Vance: And that can even change, you know, like in the middle of a campaign, like all of a sudden, author will be like, I think I'm ready for interviews now.
• 21:57
  Jenn Vance: You know, they've got that confidence now and it's like, okay, so like, let's find, you know, let's find you something where you can, you know, talk about yourself and about the book.
• 22:05
  Jenn Vance: Yeah, it depends.
• 22:07
  Jenn Vance: Every author is different, but yeah, it depends on what they value and what their goals are and what their budget is again, because, you know, some authors are going to have more to devote to things like advertising and maybe like sponsor posts with influencers.
• 22:23
  Jenn Vance: And, you know, some budgets might not be as big.
• 22:25
  Jenn Vance: Like maybe we can only reach out to influencers who can, you know, just take an arc and let's hope that they review it like that kind of thing.
• 22:35
  Jenn Vance: So, yeah, that depends as well.
• 22:36
  Jenn Vance: Budget's a big one in the industry, which is unfortunate, but that's how it goes.
• 22:43
  Jenn Vance: We adapt.
• 22:45
  Rachel: Yeah.
• 22:45
  Emily: Are there any, like, pieces, you know, pieces of that puzzle piece of the strategy that you see as like, mostly non negotiable?
• 22:55
  Jenn Vance: Oh, like on our end or the.
• 22:57
  Emily: Author'S end, like just in general with book marketing.
• 23:00
  Emily: Like, are there certain things that you're like, an author really should do this.
• 23:04
  Jenn Vance: I always say every author asks me, like, what they should spend their money on.
• 23:09
  Jenn Vance: And I always say, don't spend it on marketing and advertising if you're not going to spend it on editing and a book cover.
• 23:19
  Jenn Vance: Because I can do a lot, you know, to make you sound great, but the moment someone opens a book and sees that it hasn't been edited, you know, that's, they're going to close it.
• 23:30
  Jenn Vance: So.
• 23:32
  Jenn Vance: And a lot of people are hesitant to do that, or they want to, you know, they want to skimp or they want to get around it.
• 23:39
  Jenn Vance: Finding an editor that has edited books is so important and has edited in your genre specifically is so important.
• 23:48
  Jenn Vance: Like a developmental editor, a line editor, a copy editor, a proofreader.
• 23:53
  Jenn Vance: Maybe you can't like get every single one of those, but at least getting the big ones because readers notice and if you're really, especially if you are planning to write multiple books and you want to build up a fan base and a readership, you've got to spend that money on the front end.
• 24:16
  Jenn Vance: And people judge books by their covers, like, you know.
• 24:19
  Jenn Vance: Yeah, they do.
• 24:21
  Emily: Yeah, I love that answer.
• 24:23
  Emily: That's a great answer.
• 24:24
  Emily: So the reason I'm asking is I feel like when we talk to folks in our community, in our sphere about marketing, a lot of times people see, see social media as non negotiable.
• 24:34
  Emily: And so I'm so curious, like, do you ever work with people who are like, nope, I'm not going to use social media and see success, like, honestly.
• 24:42
  Emily: Because I'm, I'm just so curious.
• 24:44
  Emily: Like on your side, you've worked with a lot of different authors, you've seen a lot of different versions of success, I'm sure.
• 24:49
  Emily: And so like, what are your thoughts on that?
• 24:52
  Jenn Vance: I honestly, I tell authors never to do anything they don't want to do because that's how I am as a person.
• 24:59
  Jenn Vance: I'm not going to do something I don't want to do because it feels like homework and it feels like a chore and the moment you don't enjoy doing it, it's the quality is going to suffer.
• 25:11
  Jenn Vance: And I do, I see that with authors who, you know, they plan out things and they write out their captions and everything starts to look stale and formulated and it's not genuine, it's not like engaging.
• 25:23
  Jenn Vance: They're not.
• 25:24
  Jenn Vance: Their purpose isn't to build a community.
• 25:26
  Jenn Vance: Their purpose is to sell books.
• 25:28
  Jenn Vance: And like, so first and foremost, if you're going to be on social media, you have to like, get it out of your head that it's going to help you sell books.
• 25:35
  Jenn Vance: Because that's not the point of it.
• 25:36
  Jenn Vance: The point of social media is to build a community, you know, of readers of other authors, whoever, who are going to resonate with you as an author and hopefully buy your book?
• 25:46
  Jenn Vance: You know, that's the secondary goal.
• 25:54
  Jenn Vance: But yeah, I never tell authors to do anything they don't want to do.
• 25:58
  Jenn Vance: And yeah, I'm working with an author right now doing some digital advertising and he's an older author and he doesn't want to do it and that's totally fine.
• 26:08
  Jenn Vance: And he's got a really quality book that just consistently brings in sales because it's quality.
• 26:16
  Jenn Vance: He's built up the reviews now that, you know, if you look at the book on Amazon, it's, you know, it speaks for itself.
• 26:25
  Jenn Vance: So, you know, someone doesn't have to go to Instagram.
• 26:29
  Jenn Vance: And yeah, you know, they don't, they don't want to know what, you know, his thoughts are on the Million Lives Book festival or whatever.
• 26:39
  Rachel: It was a mess.
• 26:41
  Rachel: It's all over my feet.
• 26:45
  Jenn Vance: That's all I can think about right now.
• 26:46
  Rachel: But horrible publicity.
• 26:51
  Rachel: Case studies written about it.
• 26:55
  Jenn Vance: But yeah, you can have success and you can find success and maybe you devote your time to other things, like maybe you devote your time to more interviews or more events, you know, more kind of boots on the ground in person things or, or your email newsletter or like that kind of stuff.
• 27:14
  Jenn Vance: Because. Yeah, I mean, I don't, I don't even like social media that much.
• 27:17
  Jenn Vance: Like, the moment I'm like, not doing it for work, I'm like, it's just my cat, you know, that's basically it.
• 27:24
  Jenn Vance: So I understand, you know, why people wouldn't want to do it.
• 27:31
  Jenn Vance: So. Yeah, but if you're going to do it, you have to.
• 27:35
  Jenn Vance: What is that, like Ron Swanson quote?
• 27:35
  Jenn Vance: Like, don't like, half ass one thing.
• 27:39
  Jenn Vance: Like whole ass.
• 27:41
  Jenn Vance: Yeah.
• 27:41
  Rachel: Don't half ass a lot of things.
• 27:43
  Rachel: Whole ass one thing.
• 27:45
  Jenn Vance: Yeah, exactly.
• 27:47
  Jenn Vance: So, yeah, you can see success.
• 27:51
  Jenn Vance: It's just a matter of, like, putting intention behind, like, what you're doing.
• 27:56
  Jenn Vance: And that's why I think a lot of authors who are on social media might not be seeing the results that they want to be seeing.
• 28:02
  Jenn Vance: It's because they're not putting the right intention behind it.
• 28:06
  Rachel: Yeah. Or like on the right platform, like, yeah, like Instagram, I have completely stopped, like, trying to market my books.
• 28:16
  Rachel: It's only I have really been embracing, like, the community aspect.
• 28:21
  Rachel: But on TikTok, it just seems like it, like that's where the readers are.
• 28:25
  Rachel: And so nobody cares if you're just marketing a book because you're scrolling through like a thousand videos at once.
• 28:31
  Rachel: So, like, I don't even see half my friends things on TikTok.
• 28:36
  Rachel: Like, they just don't.
• 28:37
  Jenn Vance: Right.
• 28:38
  Rachel: So the community aspect on TikTok is a lot more difficult to achieve.
• 28:41
  Rachel: But I think the viewers that are there, like, many of them aren't looking for that.
• 28:47
  Rachel: I don't know.
• 28:47
  Rachel: But on Instagram, it definitely feels like, don't sell me your book.
• 28:53
  Rachel: I just want to see pictures of your cats.
• 28:55
  Rachel: And I'm like, great.
• 28:56
  Jenn Vance: They're looking for community in a different sense.
• 28:59
  Jenn Vance: You know, maybe they're.
• 29:00
  Jenn Vance: They're looking for people who read the same things that they read and just want to be able to, you know, talk about these specific books and.
• 29:11
  Jenn Vance: Or they want to be able to talk about, you know, these specific, like this fan fiction or etc.
• 29:16
  Jenn Vance: So it might not be like community in the same sense of the word that we think of it, like, on Instagram or Facebook, where it's just like your family and your high school friends, but it, like, in a different sense, it is, you know, more of a niche.
• 29:31
  Rachel: It's like shared interests.
• 29:33
  Jenn Vance: Yes.
• 29:34
  Rachel: And let's connect about that.
• 29:36
  Jenn Vance: Yeah. Yes.
• 29:37
  Rachel: Yeah. I think, like, one of the other things that I've been thinking or wondering is when you form a strategy with the author that comes to work with you, do you then, like, get.
• 29:51
  Rachel: I'm just like, picturing, how do they do it?
• 29:53
  Rachel: Like, what's execution look like?
• 29:53
  Rachel: Do they give.
• 29:55
  Rachel: Do you, like, give them, like, a spreadsheet and you're like, make all these posts on this day?
• 30:00
  Rachel: Are you obviously, like, organizing, you know, interviews or articles and things like that is a little different, but how are you do.
• 30:09
  Rachel: How are we executing this strategy?
• 30:11
  Rachel: What does that look like?
• 30:12
  Jenn Vance: It's a lot of spreadsheets.
• 30:13
  Jenn Vance: I love a spreadsheet.
• 30:15
  Jenn Vance: Yeah.
• 30:16
  Jenn Vance: My best friends, we do.
• 30:19
  Jenn Vance: We have a lot of documents.
• 30:21
  Jenn Vance: We. We have documents that help authors, like, keep track of, you know, who we're pitching, like, our company.
• 30:30
  Jenn Vance: You know, we reach out, we pitch places, like, individually.
• 30:33
  Jenn Vance: So, you know, like, the pitch I sent y' all is not going to be the pitch I sent a different podcast, hopefully.
• 30:42
  Jenn Vance: So, you know, we have, like, resources like that for them to keep track of, and we do.
• 30:47
  Jenn Vance: I'm pretty meticulous with my notes, so if I have, like, I have, like, notes for.
• 30:51
  Jenn Vance: This is your interview time and this is your zoom link.
• 30:54
  Jenn Vance: Um, and then we have, like, separate things for send a reminder, like, all that kind of stuff.
• 30:58
  Jenn Vance: I know there are some, like, I see on TikTok all the time, like, specific, like, platforms for organizing that kind of stuff.
• 31:06
  Jenn Vance: But yeah, it is, like, a lot of spreadsheets and a lot of email.
• 31:10
  Jenn Vance: Like, 66% of my job is just, like, being on my email and responding and being there, like, for an author, too.
• 31:20
  Jenn Vance: It is like being a resource for an author because they're going to have a lot of questions, especially, you know, not just if they're a debut author, because, again, things change so much if your publishing path changes or, you know, if TikTok goes down and you've got to switch up, you know, your plan or something like that.
• 31:38
  Jenn Vance: Things change all the time.
• 31:39
  Jenn Vance: So, like, being a resource and staying connected with someone, you know, that's kind of where it feels very Much like a, like an agent relationship as well.
• 31:49
  Jenn Vance: Like just being there for an author or therapists sometimes.
• 31:53
  Emily: Because it's a stress.
• 31:55
  Jenn Vance: It's a stressful industry.
• 31:56
  Jenn Vance: Like, it really, really is.
• 31:59
  Jenn Vance: And so I've, I've heard of, you know, if you can name it, I've heard it.
• 32:04
  Jenn Vance: So.
• 32:07
  Jenn Vance: But yeah, we, we.
• 32:08
  Jenn Vance: And that's again too why we try and work so far in advance too, so we can make sure that we're devoting as much time as possible, you know, to every campaign because we want to be able to do right by our authors.
• 32:25
  Rachel: Yeah, for sure.
• 32:27
  Rachel: How have you seen, like, where do you see this change going?
• 32:31
  Rachel: You know, like I ever.
• 32:33
  Rachel: I just.
• 32:34
  Rachel: TikTok goes down, then what.
• 32:36
  Rachel: Or all, you know, there's AI now and you can just ask AI to make you a marketing strategy and like, boom, here it is.
• 32:43
  Rachel: So like, where obvious.
• 32:44
  Rachel: I'm. Obviously you're not using AI to do that.
• 32:47
  Rachel: But like, where do you see the industry continuing to change the last couple years, I mean, the last five years have just been.
• 32:55
  Rachel: It's.
• 32:55
  Jenn Vance: Yeah.
• 32:56
  Rachel: So so much different.
• 32:58
  Jenn Vance: I mean, I think social media is always, at least for the near future, going to be one, if not the biggest things, which is again, so different than 10, 15 years ago, you know, where traditional media was prioritized.
• 33:16
  Jenn Vance: And maybe if TikTok is gone one day, you know, then it'll be back to Instagram or maybe some other thing will take over.
• 33:24
  Jenn Vance: Usually some other thing takes over.
• 33:26
  Jenn Vance: You know, there's always something in the works and being able to adapt to stuff like that is also just part of the job.
• 33:35
  Jenn Vance: But AI worries me.
• 33:40
  Jenn Vance: We. I see it.
• 33:42
  Jenn Vance: I guess I'm more concerned with it on the publishing side of things because I do know, you know, I like lurk around in Reddit.
• 33:50
  Jenn Vance: I see authors who are using it to just like batch out books and stuff like that.
• 33:56
  Jenn Vance: You know, I. And there are, you know, publishing companies who are using AI to, to format and distribute and things like that.
• 34:04
  Jenn Vance: And so it's very.
• 34:08
  Jenn Vance: It's going to be interesting.
• 34:10
  Jenn Vance: I think people just kind of have to stay vigilant with that.
• 34:12
  Jenn Vance: And if you have values like holding to that, you know, we don't, you know, we look, you know, at submissions and like, is this cover like AI?
• 34:24
  Jenn Vance: You know, is there like generative AI with it?
• 34:25
  Jenn Vance: You know, was this.
• 34:28
  Jenn Vance: Does this look like it was edited by AI and that kind of stuff?
• 34:31
  Jenn Vance: And again, it's not to say that AI can't be useful.
• 34:34
  Jenn Vance: Like, you know, that kind of stuff is very useful.
• 34:37
  Jenn Vance: But what is it being used for?
• 34:41
  Jenn Vance: So I think publishing is going to have to kind of have a reckoning with that in the next few years, but especially with things like social media and stuff like that.
• 34:54
  Jenn Vance: I've seen accounts that are just purely like, AI content and stuff like that, and it doesn't appeal to me, and I don't think it appeals to most people.
• 35:02
  Jenn Vance: I think the point of social media and that it's interaction and it's engagement, and again, it's like creating that community.
• 35:11
  Jenn Vance: And if you're not doing that again, people know they're able, you know, they're able to see if you have 70,000 followers, that they're probably bots, you know, that you bought, you bought.
• 35:26
  Jenn Vance: They're able to sniff that stuff out.
• 35:29
  Jenn Vance: And so I think it's really important to do the legwork if you want to see, you know, the reward in the end, which is not to say that everyone's going to do that, but.
• 35:42
  Jenn Vance: Yeah, you know, not to be depressing.
• 35:44
  Emily: Oh, no, no, not at all.
• 35:46
  Emily: It's.
• 35:47
  Emily: It's good food for thought.
• 35:49
  Emily: Yeah. This is all so fascinating.
• 35:51
  Emily: Fascinating.
• 35:52
  Emily: And I'm watching the clock because I don't want to run you out of time, but I'm curious.
• 35:58
  Emily: For folks who are starting out right, we have a lot of folks who are working on their drafts, and so they've got in the back of their mind that they need to be, you know, prepping for their marketing.
• 36:10
  Emily: What advice would you have for folks like that, maybe even, you know, before they reach out to someone like you?
• 36:16
  Emily: Like, what kind of ducks in a row do we want to start placing?
• 36:20
  Emily: You know, do we want to start placing ducks in a row before our draft is finished?
• 36:25
  Emily: Right.
• 36:25
  Emily: Or do we wait until after?
• 36:27
  Emily: Like, do you have any advice on.
• 36:29
  Emily: On where, you know, folks who are in that stage could start putting their attention?
• 36:34
  Jenn Vance: That's a good question, and I see it a lot, too.
• 36:38
  Jenn Vance: Ultimately, I think if you're close to finishing something, then that's the time to start.
• 36:43
  Jenn Vance: Kind of looking like.
• 36:45
  Jenn Vance: I don't want authors to, like, be like George R.R. martin and be like, I'm working on something.
• 36:51
  Jenn Vance: Like, that's the last thing you want, right, is be like, I'm working on this thing.
• 36:54
  Jenn Vance: And you start, like, telling people about it, and you start, like, building buzz, and then it never comes.
• 37:00
  Jenn Vance: So that's why, you know, I say be close to finishing it.
• 37:06
  Jenn Vance: And if you're querying like, that's.
• 37:08
  Jenn Vance: I think that's fine to talk about, but especially if you're, you're you know, indie published or you're self published and you're, you're.
• 37:15
  Jenn Vance: It'll be out soon, you know, then that's definitely the time.
• 37:18
  Jenn Vance: If you're like, close to finishing.
• 37:21
  Jenn Vance: Getting your, like your network, like your direct network involved is truly like the easiest place to start because you're probably already telling them that you're writing a book or you should be, and you can start engaging them and letting them know, you know, I've got this coming out.
• 37:40
  Jenn Vance: Like, you know, can it, can they be a beta reader?
• 37:43
  Jenn Vance: You know, can they leave early reviews and that kind of thing?
• 37:47
  Jenn Vance: Because, you know, if they're your friend or your family member, you should be able to call in a favor.
• 37:53
  Jenn Vance: So that's like kind of the easy, like, direct stuff that you can get to if you're like finishing up things.
• 38:01
  Jenn Vance: But yeah, I would say be close to being done.
• 38:03
  Jenn Vance: You know, if you're, if you've got an idea, that's great.
• 38:07
  Jenn Vance: But especially if it's your first book and you've got an idea, you know, I would say work on it.
• 38:13
  Jenn Vance: If you've got some books out and, you know, you're just, you're active and you know that kind of thing, you know, you can put some feelers out into the air.
• 38:21
  Jenn Vance: But yeah, you just don't want people to be waiting on something that never comes.
• 38:26
  Jenn Vance: But yeah, get your direct network involved.
• 38:29
  Jenn Vance: And then, you know, once you do have, usually by the time you're like editing, that's a good time to start, like, really preparing, like a marketing plan and about like a year from launch, if you can, that's usually a good time to start, like putting things into place.
• 38:48
  Jenn Vance: You know, do I have my social media if I'm going to do that?
• 38:52
  Jenn Vance: You know, do I have a press kit or, you know, if you don't have a publisher or things like that, and who am I going to pitch?
• 38:57
  Jenn Vance: You know, do I have an arc team?
• 39:00
  Jenn Vance: Like that kind of stuff and slowly building that out again.
• 39:03
  Jenn Vance: Because if you're going to do this all on your own, you want to make sure you give yourself enough time and you're not just doing it three weeks before the book comes out.
• 39:12
  Jenn Vance: And again, because it doesn't, you know, it's, you know, to what Rachel is saying, it's not as big of a deal, like with pre orders and stuff, but it really is just a, like a stress thing.
• 39:22
  Jenn Vance: I don't like the feeling of I have all this to do, you know, before my book launches.
• 39:29
  Jenn Vance: You know, I feel like authors Just need to give themselves some time to, to plan.
• 39:36
  Rachel: Yeah, I, it's so hard not to feel the pressure to, like, get it all done.
• 39:42
  Jenn Vance: Yeah.
• 39:42
  Rachel: I, I, People just put, like, the cart before the horse a lot of the time.
• 39:47
  Rachel: Yeah.
• 39:48
  Rachel: And I don't ever think slowing down is a bad idea.
• 39:52
  Jenn Vance: No, no, definitely not.
• 39:54
  Jenn Vance: Especially if you're going to make sure that, like, because you don't want quality to suffer.
• 39:59
  Jenn Vance: You know, there's so much competition out there.
• 40:04
  Jenn Vance: And if you're just, again, if you're just publishing a book, to say that you're publishing a book and you just want to, like, be able to show your friends and family, then do whatever you want, like, that's a great accomplishment.
• 40:14
  Jenn Vance: I've never written a book and I don't plan to, so that's a great accomplishment.
• 40:19
  Jenn Vance: Like, do that.
• 40:20
  Jenn Vance: But if you want to try and make a career out of this and, like, you know, try and amass, you know, a readership, then you definitely have to put the work in.
• 40:32
  Jenn Vance: It's not just going to come out of nowhere.
• 40:37
  Jenn Vance: Yeah.
• 40:37
  Emily: Amazing.
• 40:38
  Emily: Well, thank you so much.
• 40:39
  Emily: Then.
• 40:40
  Emily: Can you tell us a little bit more about how, you know, if people are interested in your services, like, where they could find more information?
• 40:47
  Jenn Vance: Yeah, definitely.
• 40:51
  Jenn Vance: So you can Visit us@booksforward.com that's our website.
• 40:56
  Jenn Vance: We are also on Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, at Books Forward PR, and then we're on Facebook, just at Books Forward.
• 41:06
  Jenn Vance: We don't do Twitter anymore, but we are, we're all still there if you just want to look at what we used to do.
• 41:13
  Jenn Vance: And we have a great blog, our Lit Happens Blog, for, like, resources for authors.
• 41:20
  Jenn Vance: You know, if you're just looking for, you know, answers to questions like, why do books publish on Tuesdays?
• 41:25
  Jenn Vance: You know, we've got a blog for that.
• 41:27
  Jenn Vance: So, yeah, it's a great resource.
• 41:30
  Jenn Vance: And so follow us on social media.
• 41:33
  Jenn Vance: And we, yeah, we have a contact form if you're interested in reaching out to us.
• 41:38
  Jenn Vance: I might be the one responding, lurking in our inbox.
• 41:44
  Rachel: I love it.
• 41:44
  Emily: That's awesome.
• 41:46
  Emily: Did you say that you had some, some things coming up?
• 41:48
  Emily: Did you want to talk about those?
• 41:50
  Jenn Vance: We do, yeah.
• 41:51
  Jenn Vance: So for our 25th anniversary, we have a few, like, free webinars planned, and we also have 25, like, free consultations planned as well for authors, you know, in the latter half of the year.
• 42:06
  Jenn Vance: So our first, our first webinar will be in July and it's going to be like an Ask a Publicist webinar, basically.
• 42:14
  Jenn Vance: So just kind of letting people submit their questions, and we will go through and answer them.
• 42:20
  Jenn Vance: And I will make sure that y' all can have the link to include in the show notes.
• 42:25
  Rachel: Awesome. We'll put.
• 42:26
  Rachel: We'll put a link to the website and the link for the webinar coming up.
• 42:31
  Rachel: So swipe up to see both of them.
• 42:34
  Jenn Vance: Yay.
• 42:35
  Emily: Thank you so much.
• 42:37
  Rachel: Thank you.
• 42:37
  Jenn Vance: Thank you so much.
• 42:38
  Jenn Vance: Thank y' all.
• 42:40
  Rachel: Just pick your brain constantly about all this.
• 42:44
  Rachel: Thank you.
• 42:45
  Jenn Vance: This is literally my favorite thing in the world, so I'd rather like if I could do this all day, I would.
• 42:50
  Jenn Vance: Truly.
• 42:51
  Rachel: This podcasting would be in your marketing plan if you were ever to release a book.
• 42:57
  Jenn Vance: Yeah, no. Truly.
• 43:01
  Emily: Amazing.
• 43:02
  Rachel: If you want to build a successful, fulfilling, and sustainable writing life that works for you, you've got to get on our email list.
• 43:09
  Emily: Sign up now to get our free email course, the Magic of Character Arcs.
• 43:12
  Emily: After seven days of email magic, you'll have the power to keep your readers flipping pages all through the night.
• 43:18
  Rachel: Link in the show notes.
• 43:19
  Rachel: We'll see you there.
• 43:20
  Emily: Bye.