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1 Audience Building

2 2015 Mirasee. All Rights Reserved. This book may not be reproduced in any form, in whole or in part, without written permission from Mirasee. It's easy to get permission. Just 2

3 What s Inside? Introduction 4 Why Most Authors Fail... and Why You CAN (and Will!) Succeed 7 Why Authors Absolutely NEED an Audience 14 What Does an Author s Audience Look Like? 18 So, How Do You Build an Audience of Fans? 24 Enjoy these Resources 43 Further Reading to Help You Grow Your Audience 44 3

4 Introduction As an Author, you offer something special. You have a story that needs to be told and a voice that needs to be heard but getting attention can be a challenge. Whether you write mystery, fantasy, science fiction, history or romance, you have the ability to craft a tale that inspires, moves, questions and challenges. You know you re good at what you do, but unfortunately, that alone isn t enough to get your work in the hands of the hundreds of thousands of people who want it. You may just be getting a handle on business, marketing and audience building. Or you may never have considered them at all, and that s okay. They re essential to expanding your reach, finding new readers, attracting the attention of publishers, and making a living doing what you love. We created this free report especially for Authors. You know you can provide delight to many, but it can seem 4

5 impossible to get enough readers to ever make headway in your career. The people who will love what you do are out there you re sure they are! But getting to them is one hell of a different story, and with bills to pay, your writing can get pushed to the backburner again and again. It s fun to dream of overnight success you know, of the Harry Potter or Twilight variety but the truth is, you ve GOT to put yourself out there and create an audience for yourself. Most people don t get discovered or win over agents with big advances right away. Those who don t take matters into their own hands wind up with no customers, a dampened enthusiasm and, sometimes, a crisis of confidence. When you take into account just how many people consider themselves Authors, and that they re all competing for the same readership, it can be downright depressing. And that can lead to your manuscript anguishing in your desk drawer or hard drive, unseen and unappreciated. It doesn t have to be that way. 5

6 You CAN build an audience of interested people who respect what you do. You CAN get feedback from people about what they want to read and how before writing a sentence. You CAN have people approaching you begging to know when your next book is coming out. You CAN make a living doing what you ve always wanted to on your own terms. It just takes a little shift in focus and a few tips, tools, and strategies. Are you ready to take your writing career to the next level? Let s go! 6

7 Why Most Authors Fail... and Why You CAN (and Will!) Succeed The rules have changed. There s a new way to make a name for yourself, and it a proven way to achieve success. 7

8 Can you guess the most common complaint we hear from Authors? I don t want to waste my time on marketing. I want to do the writing I love. It s understandable. You didn t decide to become an Author because you wanted to learn about customer profiling, networking, conversions and advertising. You want to bring a passion to the world, and you shouldn t have to take time away from that. It s frustrating that your stories don t speak for themselves. You know, however, that somebody out there gets you and what you offer, so you send queries and make cold calls to agents, enter contests, network with other writers, hang out on Goodreads, and do everything you re supposed to do in order to build a thriving fan base. But it s not working. A few people may have bought your book, or an agent may have shown a sliver of interest on the condition that you gut the best parts from your book but it s 8

9 not enough to justify all the time and effort and love you put into it. This happens because you re trying to get noticed as an author in traditional ways, in a decidedly nontraditional world! You re trying to adopt what used to be considered best practice. This doesn t take into account the fact that a LOT has changed since the rules were first made. In our digital, connected world, the traditional ways of building a name for yourself just don t work! You know the rules I m talking about: You slave for months or years to create something worthy of notice. You reach out to professionals in your industry for editing and critique. You send proposal after proposal to every publishing house you can find. 9

10 You try to brand yourself as an Author online to help make the choice easier for an editor. But it s just not going the way you want it to or the way it should, dammit! The problem is you re chasing readers and decision makers, trying to convince them that your book will be the next blockbuster. Wouldn t it be better to have readers coming after you? Wouldn t it be great if publishers approached you, asking how much of an advance you d like (and being thrilled with your high price tag)? Wouldn t you rather be speaking from a position of authority, with hordes of people backing you up when you say, You need to read this? I thought so. You need to make a change not just in the actions you take, but in the way you think about your whole business. Because you ARE running a real business here, and you get to decide how you want to frame yourself and your work. 10

11 You can build an audience. I m not saying it s going to be easy. Quite the opposite! It s going to be a lot of hard work, but it s work that, if done the right way and in the right order, can transform you from the chaser to the chased, from the seeker to the sought-after, from an unknown to a beloved friend on the bookshelf. Here s what you need to know that your fellow Authors probably don t: The story you re telling and what people want to read might be different. Your readers matter as much as your words. You ll never know if your work will be well received until you involve your audience in the creation process. 11

12 Print, if not dead, is no longer the best option to pursue, and the same is true of traditional publishing houses in some, but not all, cases. Other Writers, blogs, publications, and collections, as well as celebrities and critiques don t have to be your competition they can help you! You re not just telling a story. You re connecting with individual people. It takes lots of preparation, research, and trial and error before you can start making sales to readers and getting the kind of acclaim you re after. The truth is talent and skill simply aren t enough to attract your best customers. Don t get overwhelmed with all this. You don t need to do and learn everything today, but you do need to understand something. Without an audience, you re going to be chasing attention and readers, either on your own or with the help of a big company, with little hope of success, like most of the other would-be Authors struggling out there. 12

13 So what do most other Authors get wrong? It isn t that they aren t good at what they do or don t want to learn new things to market themselves effectively. It s that they are playing by the old rules, trying to get published in the traditional way, when what they really need is an audience. That s the key difference right there: successful Authors have audiences. Unsuccessful ones don t. 13

14 Why Authors Absolutely NEED an Audience Learn the real value of an engaged, loyal audience and how it helps you turn your talent into a real business. 14

15 Let s start with the bad news. No matter how talented you are, you re unlikely to be able to reach every person or organization who might want to read your work on the hundreds and thousands of online spaces, forums, communities, review sites, social media platforms, and blogs out there. Further, when you are trying to get attention the traditional way and have to pursue the people who will become your readers, the burden of proof is all on you. An audience is genuinely interested in you, and what you have to offer. An audience takes tons of that burden off of your shoulders, helps you spread the word about your services, AND acts as living testimonials to your quality and popularity. Without an audience, your pool of fans, online and offline reach, sources for interesting opportunities and 15

16 ideas for new pieces is limited to what you can do for yourself. You ll constantly be playing catch up, and maybe never seeing the results you want whether those results are financial or more related to your lifestyle. That won t do. So hopefully, you re coming around to the idea that continuing to try to make it as an Author without an audience is no way to create a profitable, sustainable business. Knowing all that, you cannot afford NOT to have an audience that will help you: Test ideas, styles and themes Validate that your ideas are good ones Improve on your delivery Get your message out to hundreds and thousands more people than you could alone Create an audience who sends you recommendations and referrals, tells you EXACTLY what they want to read, and eagerly buys your works 16

17 An engaged audience is a group of people who love your work and are your best readers, colleagues and friends. They will support you as you move forward, comfort you when you fall, and help you build career into something great. Are you ready to start building yours? 17

18 What Does an Author s Audience Look Like? Building your audience doesn t need to be overwhelming, especially when you know how to do it. 18

19 Having read this far, you re probably wondering what an Author s audience might look like. After all, it s not likely that you can wave a magic wand and have a pool of obsessed book buyers appear who hang onto your every word. A useful audience works differently. Your best audience members engage with you about your passions. The significant difference between an Author s audience and everyone else s is the nature of the relationship. As mentioned, it s not likely that your audience will be composed only of people who mindlessly consume whatever you provide, although diehards will absolutely make up a healthy chunk of your fans. Instead, they are going to be the people who engage with you about your passion, provide the evidence that you re a voice worth hearing, and possibly become 19

20 people with a different type of relationship than what you re used to having with readers. This means you have a wonderful amount of freedom in what your audience will look like and who it will be composed of. There are a few things to keep in mind as you read this report and start building your own audience: Relationships can be valuable even if they re nontransactional. The more people you have paying attention to you, the more authority you command in the market place. You may be leaving a lot of money and relationships on the table if you refuse to consider new options as they present themselves. An audience, once built, will bend over backwards to help you build the kind of fan base you want but you have to put in the time first. If you can find people you can engage with outside of the context of your finished work, they will repay you by helping you make your writing better and your works more visible to people who can afford them. 20

21 An Author s audience is composed of: Readers People who are interested in the themes and topics you deal with Other writers in the same, related, or totally different spaces Agents, critics and other industry notables Each of them is valuable in their own way and brings different qualities to your community. The more viewpoints you have to draw upon, the more insightful and popular your work will be. YOU make the difference. You gather these people for a common purpose, and you create the world they will inhabit during their time with you. Because of this, and because your audience gives you the precious gift of their time and attention, you should be prepared to give a lot of yourself to help and inspire them as well. 21

22 Having engaged readers and community members who are interested not just what you produce but YOU yourself is a priceless resource. If you can do this if you can gather together people of all sorts and needs and interests under the banner of your stories you ll find that your books and reviews get shared far and wide and your blog posts and excerpts go viral, generating lots of great discussion, ideas and attention. (And by the way, these things are frequently noticed by those who seek new talent!) As your community grows, you will be seen as an authoritative voice, and people will ask you about your area of interest as well as your work itself. This is significant when it comes to expanding the ways in which you share your vision. When you have a blog (and we insist that you do!) with thousands of engaged followers, literary agents will come to you, asking for a piece of the pie. 22

23 Your audience will suggest things to you, challenge your assumptions and treat you like a mentor and you will be able to see the impact you have, not just with your confirmed book readers but with a large, constantly evolving group. As your standing in your community grows, so does your authority. Your audience will teach you things, too! If you ve connected with people who are colleagues as well as audience members, you ll be able to share tips, instruct each other, and even refer business back and forth. Lastly, an Author s audience will buy your work, as well as sending you people who can. The holy grail of writing is having people waiting for your next edition or publication so they can buy it and spread the word. However you decide to get published indie, self or traditional publishing if you ve invested the time to create real relationships, then having an audience will pay off in dollars. 23

24 So, How Do You Build an Audience of Fans? It starts with finding the link between your areas of expertise and your audience s areas of interest. But that s only the beginning 24

25 Consider why you started writing in the first place. It could have been: An interest, native talent or passion A need to tell the tales that fill your waking and sometimes sleeping hours The desire to connect with people and change their lives All three, or something else entirely Whatever the reason you chose to write, you were able to because you possess the talent to put words on paper in a way that captivates. Being able to express your thoughts and ideas clearly and fully means you have a deep understanding of the topics and themes you deal with. You also have a wealth of ways to talk about it and share what you know, think and believe. You need to start finding the links between the ideas that excite you and how other people deal with the same themes in their lives. This is the bridge you will build your relationship on. It s not an easy leap to make, but it s a critical one to be able to build an audience that s interested in your 25

26 finished works. They need to trust and be interested before they become readers. They have to trust that they will like what you produce. It can be difficult to step outside of your comfort zone and write new types of content can be difficult, but immensely rewarding as well. The basic steps are: How to Build an Audience of Raving Fans 1. Identify who you want to serve and what you want to provide. 2. Provide one unique and irresistible bit of insight or delight. 3. Create that content, and put it on a landing page, connected to an auto-responder that has a series of engagement s that will be delivered at intervals. 4. Start connecting with people on blogs, social media, and other online spaces they inhabit. 5. Contribute to communities by guest posting on blogs your ideal customers read. 6. Once you reach critical mass (at least 1,000 people) on your list, launch or re-launch your blog and continue to engage people there. 26

27 Now, we ll go into each step in more detail. 1. Who You Serve and What You Provide First things first: know what you offer and who it best serves. This sounds obvious you re offering your writing! But there s more to it than that. Knowing who you serve means identifying in detail who your one single ideal reader is. Who is that one fan you wish you had thousands of, and what is it about your writing that they lust after? Start by identifying your one single ideal customer. 27

28 Think about things like their age, family situation and income, and then delve into their hopes, fears, opinions and dreams. Once you have a clear idea of who you will be working with, think about your writing: What element of your work is the most important to your future readers? What do they care about most? What will give them the greatest delight or the most profound experience? This will tell you how you need to approach your reader, and help you understand how to frame your work so it speaks to them in terms of the benefits they will get from consuming it and engaging with you. 28

29 Write your answers to these questions about who you serve and what you provide, and keep it by your computer to help you remember what your goals are. 2. Pick ONE Element The next thing you want to do is think of one specific thing you can offer your readers one that you can provide quickly and thoroughly with a single piece of content. Remember the first step, where we talked about the benefits in relation to your readers? That s where your analysis begins. Pick one critical way you can engage their attention. If you succeed, you will forever be regarded as a source of insight and pleasure in their minds! We call this first engaging piece of content a First Impression Incentive, and it is one of the very first steps to building that thriving book-buying audience you want. There is a temptation here to try to get people to consume your finished works right away. After all, you might already have a book, or several, sitting around 29

30 waiting for readers, but the purpose here isn t to sell or even to give away a book. It s to start a relationship that exists outside of your books. With the First Impression Incentive, you want to prove your credibility. It s easiest to do that as a writer by showing you have ideas and insights outside of your own completed work. Some examples might be: First Impression Incentives Suitable for Authors The five most controversial romance novels from the 20th century Why your relationship doesn t follow literary patterns 7 amazing Easter eggs in the books you read in high school Wildly effective life hacks from the characters you Rule of thumb: think simple, interesting and valuable. 30

31 You ll notice that these examples are applicable to more people than just your ideal reader, and that s good. While you re going to keep in mind the objective of having a steady stream of reliable book readers, it s valuable to add people to your audience who are interested in the themes you talk about. 3. Crafting the Incentive Once you ve decided what interesting and insightful information you re going to be delighting your new audience members with, you have to figure out how to best present the information. You can make an ebook, a free report, a video, an audio recording whatever you think will best help people absorb and use the information you re giving them. If you re not sure how you should be doing so, keep this in mind: use the minimum richness to get the job done. That means, if you really need a video to demonstrate a connection, then make a video. But if a description would be as good, then write a report or an ebook. You don t want to invest more of your time or resources 31

32 than you absolutely have to, because you ve got plenty of other things to worry about! Like making your content available. Always use the minimum richness to achieve the best possible outcome. You ll do this through a landing page and an autoresponder. A landing page is a simple part of your website that only has information about the incentive, and a chance to subscribe with their name and to get it. Anything else is a distraction. You want them to sign up for your First Impression Incentive, and at the same time, give their permission for you to contact them in the future... which is where your Engagement Sequence comes in. The Engagement Sequence is a series of s that do a few things: It gets people in the habit of opening your valuable messages. 32

33 It encourages your subscribers to respond to you. It shows that you re interested in whether or not they like what you re sending them, and you re hitting the notes they care about. It show s you re a real person not just a novelpusher. Set up your s to deliver in the days and weeks after people subscribe. In these s, you can ask them if the information you ve shared is working, send other resources, and ask for their opinions. You manage all this with an service provider like AWeber, which allows you to create opt-in boxes and schedule your s in advance. Landing pages can be tricky, but some free and premium WordPress plugins work right out of the box. 4. Finding Your Tribe Once your landing page is live, your First Impression Incentive is created, and your Engagement Sequence is ready to go, you ve got to start finding and connecting with the people you identified as your 33

34 perfect readers (and the myriad others who will find you cool and interesting). Go back to the research you did when you were identifying them, and try to step into their shoes. If you were them, what blogs would you read? What magazines? What forums? Make as long a list as possible, and start joining conversations in those spaces. If your ideal reader is a big follower of home and garden blogs, start reading them too, and leave interesting insightful comments on as many posts as possible always keeping in mind the underlying themes of your work that you know will entice them. Do this for a while, and you will start to see subscribers trickling in. Do you see why the first step is so important now? Your audience is the foundation for everything else you do to build your business. 34

35 This part of building an audience is long, and sometimes it feels like absolute drudgery, but you re building a very strong foundation for everything that comes after. The readers of these other blog and communities aren t the only ones who will notice your comments. The blog owners will notice, too, which is absolutely critical to your next step Contributing to Communities Once you ve established yourself through commenting (when you have 100 to 300 subscribers), you ll need to step up your game, and start leading the conversations on these other blogs, not just participating in them. You do this by guest posting. Remember, the owners of those other blogs have been reading your comments. That s important because when you go to pitch them a guest post, you ll be able to say, I ve been happily commenting on your articles... and they will know it s true. 35

36 This puts you miles ahead of other bloggers who haven t done the preliminary work. Let s step back for a moment. What Is a Guest Post? Guest posting is when a blogger lets a guest author write a post for their blog. It s an amazing way to get attention and build relationships with both readers and bloggers who will help promote your work down the line. If you re not sure you have anything to write about for the blogs your ideal customer spends their time on, look for the intersections. Say you re a mystery writer whose ideal customer middle aged men with corporate jobs and a few children also reads a lot of how-to and DIY blogs. A possible intersection between those two ideas could be 6 Times Fictional Characters Solved a Crime with Technology or 4 Weekend Projects Inspired by Sherlock Holmes. 36

37 If you re a romance Author whose ideal readers follow fashion and beauty blogs, you might want to write about the 7 Homemade Cosmetics your Favorite Heroines Relied Upon. Remember the main goal is to impress your future readers so they follow your byline back to your landing page! You ll ideally do all of this before you actually start a blog, and certainly before you try to sell people your finished work. In fact, until you have close to a thousand people on your list, we don t recommend blogging on your own site much at all. For the time being, keep your novel to yourself. You ll get there. I promise! Rule of Thumb: In the beginning, you need to put more energy into guest posting than into posting on your own space. If you already have a blog, this can still work for you. Make sure to create a landing page and spend more of 37

38 your energy guest posting and building relationships than you do posting on your own blog. 6. Finally, You Can Launch Did it feel like you were never going to start promoting your books? We just wanted to make sure your launch is a successful one. For best success, wait until you have around 1,000 subscribers before you launch. By waiting until you have around 1,000 subscribers before you launch (not to mention healthy relationships with a host of bloggers and professionals), when you officially open your doors, you can ensure there s a crowd of people waiting to celebrate with you, share the news, and spread your message. 38

39 To launch, pick a date at least a couple of months in the future and reach out to all of the bloggers that you ve been in contact with. Ask them for another chance to guest post during the week you ll be opening your doors. Most of them will say yes, and running several guest posts in one week will bring plenty of site traffic. During the launch, you need to make a decision. You can either use it as an opportunity to sell your finished work or to generate interest and buzz and create a sense of excitement about your eventual release date. For instance, you could make an excerpt available during your official blog launch or re-launch, then solicit as much feedback from subscribers as possible. When you re ready to launch your book, you can use this information to frame the story or message. That s the basic formula for building an audience and getting your online business going. Let s recap, because we ve covered a TON of ground and this stuff is vital: 39

40 The 6-Step Formula for Building Your Audience Business 1. Identify who you want to serve and what you want to provide. 2. Provide one unique and irresistible bit of insight or delight in the form of a First Impression Incentive. 3. Create that content, put it on a landing page, and connect it to an autoresponder that has a series of engagement s that will be delivered at intervals. 4. Start connecting with people on blogs and other online spaces your target audience inhabits. 5. Contribute to communities by guest posting on blogs your ideal customers read. 6. Once you reach critical mass (at least 1,000 people) on your list, launch or re-launch your blog and continue to engage people there. So, what happens after you launch your blog? You continue your community-building exercises, and you also get ready to start offering your art to your audience. 40

41 Remember, up until this point, you ve mostly been giving, giving, giving, and asking for fairly small things in return, like comments and social shares. Now is the time to think about offering something a little bigger in scale, namely, your book. At last, it s time to scale! 41

42 The launch window for new books can make or break their success. You want to get enough buys, reviews and ratings on Amazon to get your book picked up by the recommendation engine and that s worth waiting for. So if your list is only a 1,000 or so subscribers, you may do better to continue developing relationships and involving your audience in your writing and editing process. That way, when you do launch, they ll feel enough loyalty that a purchase will be the natural and appropriate response. This is just the beginning. There are many more details to creating a thriving audience business around your writing more than we can cover in one ebook. But these are the basics. If these ideas appeal to you, I recommend you look into the Audience Business Masterclass, where we take you through this process step-by-step, with all of the detailed, customized support your creative heart could desire. 42

43 Enjoy these Resources Engagement from Scratch! The Audience Revolution Teach and Grow Rich 43

44 Further Reading to Help You Grow Your Audience Creativity: The Essential Discipline for Entrepreneurs I used Instagram for Business and Doubled my Sales in One Month 3 Reasons to Use Pop-Up Retail: Curiosity, Cost Cuts and Carving a Niche Blogging 101: The Most Advanced Blogging Technique You Can Master 44