Book Marketing Secrets
Self-publishing gives authors a lot of freedom, but it can also leave us with a lot of questions. There is so much to this process, especially when it comes to the marketing aspect.
We have to know how to advertise ourselves and our books to attract the right readers and get some books sold—which, for many of us, is a daunting task.
In today’s episode, guest Shelby Leigh, a bestselling poet and book marketing strategist, is here to talk about her own self-publishing journey, and how she discovered the best way to market her books on social media.
Listen to learn:
- The importance of marketing to your specific audience
- How to market your books when self-publishing
- How to use BookTok (that’s “Book TikTok”) for marketing
- Why confidence in your story is important for marketing
Book Marketing Secrets
Here’s a sneak peek:
[03:15] I didn't really know at the time that it was helping me, it was just something I was doing. And I did it every single day for a year.
[05:38] I kind of decided on my author brand, you could say, before I even knew what that meant and what I was doing.
[09:40] You're really immersing yourself in the world to learn what would work best. And you still need to, if you're going to pitch a book, query a book to agents, to publishers. But I think it's on a different level where you're really doing the work yourself for self-publishing.
[11:43] People are quick buyers on that platform. I don't know what the difference is between that and Instagram or Facebook, but people will see a book and they will go buy it immediately.
[15:57] But yeah, it definitely is not as much time as people might think.
[18:48] My area of focus is social media marketing. Things get lost. You can talk about something five times and the majority of your audience might not have seen it still.
[20:56] And I think it was just realizing, like, I've spent so much time on this book and wanting this to be impactful for my readers, and unless I talk about it, no one's gonna know about it.
[22:09] It's—not to sound mean, but it's not about us. It's not about you, it's not about me. It is about our reader, and they wanna hear about what this book is going to do for them.
Links from today’s episode:
Book Marketing Secrets: The Resilient Writers Radio Show -- Full Episode Transcript
Intro:
Well, hey there, writer. Welcome to the Resilient Writers Radio Show. I'm your host, Rhonda Douglas, and this is the podcast for writers who want to create and sustain a writing life they love. Because—let's face it—the writing life has its ups and downs, and we wanna not just write, but also to be able to enjoy the process so that we'll spend more time with our butt-in-chair getting those words on the page.
This podcast is for writers who love books, and everything that goes into the making of them. For writers who wanna learn and grow in their craft, and improve their writing skills. Writers who want to finish their books, and get them out into the world so their ideal readers can enjoy them, writers who wanna spend more time in that flow state, writers who want to connect with other writers to celebrate and be in community in this crazy roller coaster ride we call “the writing life.” We are resilient writers. We're writing for the rest of our lives, and we're having a good time doing it. So welcome, writer, I'm so glad you're here. Let's jump right into today's show.
Rhonda Douglas:
Well, hey there. Today we are talking to poet Shelby Leigh. And Shelby is a bestselling poet, and we don't often hear those two words, bestselling and poet, together. So, definitely gonna get into that. She writes about mental health, self-love, healing, and more. Her first poetry collection, It Starts Like This, came out in December 2016, and her second poetry collection, Changing with the Tides, was originally released in April 2019, and it became an Amazon number-one bestseller in poetry, and it was just recently re-released in July 2022 with Gallery Books.
She's got a new book out in January, 2023. She's a full-time writer, poetry editor, and marketing strategist for writers. You can follow her on Instagram and TikTok @shelbyleighpoetry. I'm gonna put all of that in the shownotes, you can't miss it. Welcome, Shelby.
Shelby Leigh:
Thank you so much for having me, and thanks for the introduction.
Rhonda :
I'm so glad you're here, I've been wanting to talk to you for a while. So, tell me a little bit about your journey as a writer. Like, when did you start writing, when did you get quote “serious” about it, and how did that go for you?
Shelby :
Yeah, great question. I always wanted to be a writer, ever since I was tiny, first learned to read, I was just in love with books and the impact they made on me, and I knew that that's what I wanted to do. I definitely didn't take it seriously as a kid. I was writing short stories, novels, a couple novels in high school, and I loved that.
And then in college, whenever I was making this transition, you know, out of my parents' house, I was in a new state, in a new experience, on my own, I started getting into poetry and journaling. And I was just writing a lot about my own experiences, my mental health. I didn't really know at the time that it was helping me, it was just something I was doing. And I did it every single day for a year.It was like this challenge that I started for myself. Like, I'm gonna write a poem a day for a year.
I didn't really write much poetry leading up to that, but I found this modern, kind of more contemporary, poetry world that I really loved. And it felt very accessible and open, and not, like, gatekeep-y, in a way. And I really liked it. It was different than what I was learning in school. And at the end of that first year, I had shared a poem a day for a year on Tumblr. So that was like, where I chose to share my little like, blog posts and stuff. And people said, “you should put this in a book. That would make a cool book to have, you know, a poem a day for a year type of book.” And that was the first I ever heard of self-publishing, of putting a book of poetry together.
I just wasn't a huge poetry lover until I started writing it myself. I was learning about it at the same time as I was writing it. And so I was like, “okay, that sounds cool.” I learned a lot about self-publishing. And I didn't do all 365 poems ‘cause some of them were not good <laugh>, but I picked my favourites, picked the strongest ones, put it together and self-published it, and didn't really know what I was doing, marketing-wise, at all. So it was fine, I was happy with it and, you know, whatever. But that was in 2016. It's just really, really grown, and I've become a lot more serious about it. It's my career now, I love it. And I've published two other books, like you said, since then.
Rhonda :
Wow, that's amazing. So, how did you decide—when you were putting your first book together, because you talk about writing about healing and self-love and mental health—was that an intentional thing, or is that because of how you were using poetry? If I can use that language?
Shelby :
Yeah, so definitely the topics came before I realised what I was doing. Like, I was writing about mental health and my anxiety and my self doubts that I've dealt with my whole life, and didn't realise that's what I was doing. I was also writing about relationships and things that I was experiencing in college.
And then it wasn't until a few years later that I said, “actually this is going to be my area. I love this area. I love mental health, I love self-love. This is the route that I want to take.” I kind of decided on my author brand, you could say, before I even knew what that meant and what I was doing. So yeah, that kind of came before, and then I just decided, “this is my path.”
Rhonda :
Okay. And it kind of feels to me like your path coincided with an explosion of poetry on social media, because when I was starting to write poetry, it wasn't a thing we did. But then I think Rupi Kaur and others popularised the idea of, “write a poem and share it on social media.” Definitely something in the zeitgeist shifted there, right?
Shelby :
Definitely. I had no idea how many poets were out there, or starting to share their work, and in 2016 it felt a lot more isolated. It didn't really feel like there were a lot of people out there. Now there's a ton, and I find new people every single day, which is awesome. I love that.
But it's definitely a lot more of a cluttered genre than it was back then. Even launching my book, I remember I set a free promotion and it got to number one with barely any downloads, back in the day in 2016, ‘cause it just wasn't as popular to self-publish a poetry book. But now, yeah, it's a lot more popular as a genre, and I think it continues to grow every day, which is awesome.
Rhonda :
That's kind of cool. And so, I'm just gonna straight up ask. How many books of poetry have you sold? Like, all of them, all together?
Shelby :
I know it's over like 50,000, I don't know a total.
Rhonda :
Oh my freaking God. Right? Oh my freaking God. That is amazing. That is amazing.
Shelby :
Thank you.
Rhonda :
I'm in Canada, for all of the Canadian traditionally-published poets. They just choked on their coffee or whatever <laugh>, ‘cause they're listening to the “50,000 books.” Wow. But you are now a hybrid-published poet, meaning that you're also traditionally published. You're now both. Can you tell us a little bit about how that happened? How that came about?
Shelby :
Like you mentioned in the beginning, I self-published my second book in 2019. That one from 2016 to 2019, I had learned a lot more about a marketable book, getting your cover right, formatting it professionally, all of these things that I did not do for book number one. And so, it started doing really well. I was using social media marketing quite a bit, and it started selling really well. It hit some number one spots.
I think it was in the top 50 books on Amazon for a minute. Mostly ‘cuz of my TikTok and Instagram promotions. And then Simon and Schuster reached out, and I had just gotten an agent a few months prior to that, and we just started the discussion of republishing Changing with the Tides with them. So, that's how that took place. It was such a good experience. So cool that that happened, it's been great.
And then I already had a deal with another publisher, Central Avenue, who does poetry, and they're amazing as well. I had my third book lined up with them already at that point. I was able to have number two and number three, kind of republished, and then a new one come out this year.
Rhonda :
Wow. And that's kind of great. So I guess really, like, you did the work to get your poetry—you self-published, you did the work to get it to be popular, and then the traditional publishing world went, “hmm. We'd like a piece of that,” and kind of came to you for that.
What's been the biggest difference for you between self-publishing and traditional publishing? Have you noticed any differences? And what would you—if somebody is sitting there, considering, “I've got a book of poetry, I'm thinking of publishing it,” what would you advise them?
Shelby :
I think self-publishing was such a good experience. You have to do the research when you're self-publishing on what's popular with covers, “how do I write a good book description?” You're really immersing yourself in the world to learn what would work best. And you still need to, if you're going to pitch a book, query a book to agents, to publishers. But I think it's on a different level, where you're really doing the work yourself for self-publishing.
So, I think that's really beneficial, starting out, just because I learned so much. And then, with my most recent book, it was really nice to say, “here's my book, it's done” and then, “hey, here's your cover.” Things were kind of taken off my plate, which was really nice. There were still, of course, things I had to do, but I did like that aspect.
I think some authors love to do it all themselves, and that's why they love self-publishing. And I was kind of like, “it's fun, I learned it, I got it.” But it was really nice to have another expert in this field, in this genre, know what they're doing as well, and kind of take the reins on that. So, I really liked that benefit of going with the traditional publisher, for sure.
Having my books in stores is just a cool thing to say and see that I didn't really get whenever I was self-published. That was another cool one. But honestly, I'm torn. I really enjoy them both, and I think if it's possible to continue a path of doing both, that's what I would like to do. It's been a good experience both ways for sure.
Rhonda :
Yeah. Often with a publisher you get a little bit of help on the marketing side as well. I mean, you didn't really need that. You probably could have been teaching them some things about book marketing <laugh>. So, let's talk a little bit about book marketing, ‘cause you really have built up quite an area of expertise there.
What's your current favourite? Like if someone came to you and said, “I've got a book of poetry,” where would you advise them to go? Is it Instagram, TikTok, Facebook? Is Twitter dead yet? I can never tell. Like, what week is it, you know, <laugh>. What would you advise?
Shelby :
I would say TikTok. TikTok is my absolute favourite—for most genres, not just poetry—and I don't just work with poets. It's a great platform. The book community is amazing there. People are quick buyers on that platform. I don't know what the difference is between that and Instagram or Facebook, but people will see a book and they will go buy it immediately. And there's a thriving poetry community on there as well, too.
Rhonda :
Wow. So that's different, then, from Instagram. I mean, I know I get a lot of book recommendations from Instagram and if I think about it for sure, I do kind of note it. I'll just take a screenshot and then go buy it. But on TikTok people are like right on it, are they?
Shelby :
They are. Yeah. It's really interesting. I don't know if it's… I mean, it definitely slants to a younger audience. I mean, especially my audience would be teens and young adult women, for the most part, of course there's other people as well, but I don't know if it's like, more impulse with purchases.
Like, “oh, I have my Amazon wishlist, like here we go, I'm gonna go buy it.” I don't know what it is, but it's definitely something that I've noticed. I've had a big audience on Instagram as well, and I make sales from there for sure. But it hasn't been anything like… TikTok is a lot more… <laugh>
Rhonda :
And so, give us a little bit of, I guess, intro like, top three tips for success on TikTok. I have been on the TikTok, and <laugh> I had to get off the TikTok because even TikTok was sending me videos saying “maybe you should take a break from TikTok <laugh>.” I was like, “if I stay on this platform, I'm never gonna write again”. So I got off it. But, definitely I loved the book recommendations and stuff there. What would you recommend for people if they're gonna hop into TikTok for book marketing? What are your top three tips?
Shelby :
I would say the first one would be just spending a little bit of time, research-wise, searching for your genre on TikTok, looking at what other authors are doing, looking at what other readers are doing, ‘cause what you really wanna do is appeal to readers and the types of videos that they like. And so, spending some time just scrolling through, looking at that.
And then the second one would be just making sure you are optimising your profile as an author. Your genre should be clear, your first and last name that's on your book should be clear, your bio should really speak to your reader and what you're going to do for them. What are your books doing for them? What's the impact, the emotion, things like that.
You can't have a link in your bio until you have a thousand followers, which is kind of a bummer. But you can link your Instagram so that if people wanna go follow you on Instagram and get to your website from there, they can do that.
And then the third one would be the hook. That is your key to a good TikTok video, that first second you have to hook people in. Whenever you're doing that research, kind of paying attention to what hooks you in, what grabs your attention in that first second as you're kind of scrolling through, and then just brainstorming a bunch of different options for yourself. What would your readers be interested in?
I write poetry, I write a lot of mental health stuff. So in my first second, I'm like, “this is for you if you're going through anxiety,” and then the person instantly knows, “okay, this is for me.” If you're a horror author, how can you kind of appeal to them with the imagery, with the spooky sounds, with the text that you put on the screen, to make sure that people know like, “this is for me.” Just knowing your audience and that hook is really, really key for TikTok videos.
Rhonda :
Hmm. Yeah. And how much time are you spending promoting a book on TikTok in a given week?
Shelby :
I would say if I had totaled everything up, like an hour, hour and a half. It's not a lot of time, but I've also—
Rhonda :
Just in a week?
Shelby:
Yeah.
Rhonda.
Oh, wow.
Shelby :
Not a lot. But in the beginning, I was definitely more—I was learning the platform, learning a whole new way of doing videos, and experimenting and testing a lot. And now I've kind of gotten it to, I know what works and I can kind of have a science to it and repetition to it, so I can do it a lot quicker. But then there's people who put together a lot more advanced videos than what I might put together, so it would take them longer. But yeah, it definitely is not as much time as people might think.
Rhonda :
And are you doing any of the… like, there was a time when everyone was doing the dance from Wednesday Addams, you know? Are you doing the dances? ‘Cause I always look at that and think it's got nothing to do with my books. How would I even—do you do that?
Shelby :
No, I don't.
Rhonda :
No.
Shelby :
I don't do any trends, really. It's pretty rare if I do trends. They can work, if you can figure out a way to apply it. If something comes to you instantly, like, “oh, this is how I would apply this.” Like, maybe for a horror author, that's a good example. That could be kind of a fun thing to do. But that doesn't fit my brand at all. So I just don't typically jump on those trends ‘cause they're just not a good fit for me.
Rhonda :
Okay. So, you talked about your main audience being people in their late teens, maybe college, you know… women in particular, in their twenties. People who would be fairly common to be dealing with self-doubt and mental illness and anxiety, and so on. Is that something that you planned? Or did you see yourself there and decide, “you know what, I think I'm gonna stay here for a while?”
Shelby :
Yeah, no, it's not really something that I planned. I actually always thought that I was gonna go down the fiction-novel path. That's what I wrote in high school, so I never really saw myself being a poet. But it's really cool to look back on what I needed as a teenager, hear it from someone else as I was going through, and still do go through, the self-doubt and anxiety.
So, now whenever I hear from someone who's in high school and they're like, “this really spoke to me, this is what I'm going through,” it just brings me back to that and I'm like, “oh my gosh, I'm so glad that they found this.” And so it's really cool. It's definitely not the path that I thought I would take, but, yeah. I love it.
Rhonda :
So are you still thinking of writing the novel?
Shelby :
I think so, yeah. I definitely want to.
Rhonda :
At some point.
Shelby :
Yeah. Yeah. At some point,
Rhonda :
And you also, part of how you make your living in addition to being a bestselling poetry author, is you offer marketing services for authors. What's the biggest thing that you see? If you get an author knocking on your virtual door saying, “oh my god, Shelby, help me.” What are the weaknesses you usually see? What are people usually doing where you're like, “uh oh, I see where we have a problem”?
Shelby :
I think it comes down to two things. One is the messaging, find your book, and two is just not promoting it nearly enough. Especially when there is that self-doubt around being self-promotional, talking about yourself, talking about your book. It can feel like we are talking about it a lot more than we actually are.
My area of focus is social media marketing. Things get lost. You can talk about something five times and the majority of your audience might not have seen it still. It can feel like, “I'm constantly talking about this,” but you're really not. Those are the two things where the messaging will be a little bit off. They're kind of like, “hey, I have a book out, buy my book.” And we're not really getting to the meat and the emotion and the pull of the book, the impact it'll make on your readers. That's a big one.
And then, just making sure that you really are, with that correct messaging, getting it out there enough times. And it doesn't have to be posting every single day. That's not what I mean by that. But, a little bit more consistently and more often than popping your book cover up once a month and hoping you get some bites. It definitely takes more than that.
Rhonda :
I mean, I think a lot of writers, we wanna be doing the writing, and it just feels like marketing. There's a thing in our culture about not tooting your own horn, not being the tall poppy that people can chop down, being afraid of putting yourself out there, how are people gonna judge me?
You know, all of that. And I think those messages are stronger for women in particular, and maybe marginalised people as well, with different identities. So, how did you get over that yourself? Like, get to the point where you realise, you know what, it's okay for me to be out there saying, “I have this book.”
Shelby :
It definitely took time. Actually, I didn't mention this in the beginning, but whenever I was posting my poems on Tumblr, I was completely anonymous because I was so scared and filled with that self-doubt. I actually didn't have any sort of—my name on it, no pictures of me, anything like that. It was quite a jump whenever I went to, you know, starting to post on Instagram and kind of realised I needed to build up a bit of an author brand around myself, if I wanted to sell more books and be more successful.
And I think it was just realising, like, I've spent so much time on this book and wanting this to be impactful for my readers, and unless I talk about it, no one's gonna know about it. I mean, it's gonna drown in Amazon, no one's gonna be able to find it.
And I didn't just do it to make money. Like, it's not just that. A lot of writers aren't writing just to make money. It's not like, the best way to get rich quick, right? So, I think just remembering that the reason you wrote this book in the first place, the reason that you wanted to impact people, entertain people, and just coming back to that as your, kind of root, for, “okay, I need to market this because no one is going to be impacted by this and all of my hard work if I don't.”
Rhonda :
I often talk to people who are trying to—so I have a program called First Book Finish, where I help people finish their first books, like it says on the can. And often I'm saying to people, “get out of your own head. It's not about you, it's gonna be about the reader. So, imagine I'm a reader.” And I heard you say that around building an audience as well, like get out of “you” as the creator and “you” as the writer and “you” talking to other writers about writing, and focus more on the reader. Do I have that right?
Shelby :
Absolutely. Yep. I say that all the time. It's—not to sound mean, but it's not about us. It's not about you, it's not about me. It is about our reader, and they wanna hear about what this book is going to do for them. So yeah, if you can think about it, not as, “I'm promoting myself,” ‘cause you're not, you're promoting this work, this art, that you created that you want people to find.
Rhonda :
So cool. So, your third book is out, right?
Shelby :
Yeah, it came out in January.
Rhonda :
Okay, we'll put links to find that. And I'd love to talk to you about your—you have a guide that is a book sales on TikTok guide, and it's just $27, and it's The BookTok Blueprint. Can you talk a little bit about what's in that? ‘Cause I would love—I'm gonna buy that, and I wanna show that to people, ‘cause I feel like I took on TikTok all the wrong way, because I don't know anything, I would love a guide. So can you just sort of walk us through why that might be helpful for us, to break that down a bit?
Shelby :
Yeah, definitely. So, I created this after seeing what TikTok did for me and other authors. I started working one-to-one with authors on TikTok. I put all of this into a guide. It is just a step-by-step guide, it'll walk you through creating your account, what to put in your bio, just step-by-step researching on TikTok, how to make a good video.
There's also video tutorials embedded throughout, so it's not just a pdf, there's videos of me walking through the platform as well. But yeah, over 1500 authors have used this guide. It's very highly rated, people are loving it. It's been really fun to see other authors hop on TikTok and get a sense of how they can use it to sell their books too. It's really fun.
Rhonda :
I'll put the link in the shownote, I think it looks really great. And, you know, I still feel TikTok hesitant. I'm gonna say that. Because when I was on it, I was consuming content, and it consumed me <laugh>. But if you're just doing an hour and a half, that sounds way more manageable.
Shelby :
It’ll take time to get that down. At first it will be a lot, but I think—if your phone lets you set timers on apps, I do that a lot for social media apps so that you are alerted like, “hey, you've been on here for an hour today, let's get off,” sort of thing. I find that really helpful. But definitely once you learn it more and kind of get a sense of what works, it becomes a lot faster to make content.
Rhonda :
Yeah. I mean, we're all pressed for time, but writers in particular. Ideally we wanna spend time writing, so. Wow. Well, thanks for being with me today, Shelby. I feel like you've opened up a whole world for me, and made things seem possible that weren't before, and just being able to say “bestselling poetry book” and “bestselling poet” is a real treat. I love it, that you're able to reach so many people with your poetry. So, congratulations, it's kind of amazing.
Shelby:
Thank you for the conversation. Thanks for having me.
Rhonda:
Thank you. Take care.
Outro:
Thanks so much for hanging out with me today and for listening all the way to the end. I hope you enjoyed today's episode of the Resilient Writers Radio Show. While you're here, I would really appreciate it if you'd consider leaving a rating and review of the show. You can do that in whatever app you're using to listen to the show right now, and it just takes a few minutes. Your ratings and reviews tell the podcast algorithm gods that “yes, this is a great show. Definitely recommend it to other writers.” And that will help us reach new listeners who might need a boost in their writing lives today as well. So please take a moment and leave a review. I'd really appreciate it, and I promise to read every single one. Thank you so much.
