A Long-term Approach to Book Marketing

Introduction (various voices) 00:03

Welcome to the Empowered Author podcast. 

Discussion, tips, insights and advice from those who’ve been there, done that, helping you write, publish and market your nonfiction book. 

Being an author is something that you’ve got to take seriously. 

I’m proud I’ve written a book.

What does the reader need, first? What does the reader need, second?

What happens if you start writing your book before you identify your “why”? What’s the problem that?

You’re an indie author, you take the risk; you reap the rewards; you are in charge of the decisions. You’re the head of that business. 

Every emotion you’re feeling when you’re writing is felt by every other writer.

The Empowered Author podcast. Your podcast hosts are Boni and John Wagner-Stafford of Ingenium Books.

Boni Wagner-Stafford 00:53

“So you’ve written and published your book. Congratulations! Your work is just beginning.” Yep, that’s the opening line from the introduction of the book entitled “The Evergreen Author: Master the Art of Book Marketing”. The message that an author’s work really begins when their book is published isn’t new. What is new – or perhaps different, at least – is the other main theme of this book and that is that you should only engage in the book marketing activities that you enjoy. Enjoy? What is that about? “The Evergreen Author” is written by Roseanne Cheng. She’s a former high school teacher and publishing marketing director turned co-founder of a company also named The Evergreen Author. Roseanne, welcome. 

Roseanne Cheng 01:45

Thank you so much for having me. It’s great to be here. 

Boni Wagner-Stafford 01:47

It sounds, you know: what, enjoy book marketing? What on earth is that about?

Roseanne Cheng 01:54

I know, I know, I get that all the time. And I mean, I’ve been doing this work now for years and worked with hundreds of authors. And I – that really got to a point after three or four years where I would see these authors just doing things they hated because they felt like they had to. Someone told them they should be on Facebook so despite hating Facebook, they created an account and they spent two hours on it every day and ended up just really resenting this whole creative process. And so that’s kind of organically where all of this started for me was just the basic principle that you’re going to be more successful doing something that you enjoy versus not. So – and there’s so many different ways of putting yourself out there, putting your creative work out there, that you may as well do the things that bring you joy because you are going to have a much better chance of being successful at it. And you’re just going to get fulfillment that doesn’t come in a paycheck. So you can …

Boni Wagner-Stafford 02:56

Yeah, it sounds – the word that came to mind as you were talking about this is “authentic”. I hear from authors often that, “You know, it just doesn’t feel right to be asking people on social media to please buy my book, buy my book, buy my book.” So that doesn’t have to be for everybody. I wanted to just say for listeners that in doing my research for this podcast and talking with Roseanne, I, of course, picked up her book. And as I started to read through it, I’ve got it marked up all the way. It’s just the introduction in the first chapter. And there’s so much that I want to talk about. So jam packed with really interesting perspectives and nuggets that we’re going to dig into probably just those two areas before we run out of our time today. So we’ve addressed the business of wanting to enjoy what you are doing about your marketing. But let me ask about the next thing that I’ve got highlighted here, which is: the word “sustainable” jumped out at me. And that ties directly into the title of the book “The Evergreen Author” and the name of your company. But tell me why we want to think about what’s sustainable.

Roseanne Cheng 04:12

Thank you for bringing that up. It’s one of my favorite words. Because I – in my work with authors over the years, what I have found is – something that’s true to life, not just true to book marketing – but that we only have a finite amount of energy, right? And everybody’s coming into their book marketing experience at a different place in their lives. And I share this in the book but when my first two fiction books came out, I had two very little babies. And so I was doing school visits. I was absolutely – I was selling a ton of books: don’t get me wrong; it was wonderful. I really look back on that time and feel really fulfilled and excited. It really launched my author career. But after a year of that, I was burnt out. And I looked at myself; I looked at my writing career; I looked at what I wanted for my own work/life balance. And I realized that while that was wonderful to go – you know, I was living in Minnesota at the time; I was going to all sorts of different schools throughout the state and presenting to classrooms – I loved doing it; I couldn’t keep doing it: not while my kids were growing up. It just wasn’t sustainable. And that’s the difference between an author who is successful for a short period of time and an author who can really have a long term career: is that they’re choosing – I’m not saying that you’re, you aren’t going to do a few things that are really going to take a ton of energy for a short period of time, like an event or you know, something that’s really important for you and your marketing goals – but this idea of having things that you are doing for your book, your creative process, for your work, that’s something you can do for the long term, that means that you can keep creating. And there’s something really magical that happens when authors understand that piece. And, you know, I’m imagining that all of the authors that are listening to this podcast are sort of nodding in agreement because they’re remembering like, “Yeah, I got really excited about, you know, learning how to do Amazon ads, right? But then I got overwhelmed with the whole process. And so after a month of trying to figure it out on my own, I just forgot about it.” Right? And that’s, that’s really tragic to me because it means that there’s this opportunity for sustainability, for to make it so you are creating passive income as an author instead of working so hard for every single sale, that is just, it’s too bad when that happens. So I always try to avoid that with authors is, let’s find things that you think you can do for the long term; not just these short bursts of energy in the short term.

Boni Wagner-Stafford 07:05

Yeah, because it is a long-term game. Let’s pause for a moment for a message from our sponsor.

Commercial 07:15

Boni Wagner-Stafford 07:44

We often say to the authors that we work with – they say, “Well, you know, what’s our target published date?” And where I was going. Yeah, well, you know, “Publish date is a period of time,” we always say. We say, “Like, eight weeks. It doesn’t matter when the book is actually live. There’s a publish period of time.” So that is a longer concept. But also, the book, once it’s out there, it is out there. And it’s almost like your garden needs a little bit of care and feeding. You’ve got to keep plucking out the weeds. There’s going to be seasons coming and going. You know, all of that.

Roseanne Cheng 08:24

Absolutely. 

Boni Wagner-Stafford 08:25

All of that kind of thing. Just before we go further: something that you and I were talking about before we started recording, which I thought we should come back to, which is this notion about choosing the marketing activities, a) that you enjoy; b) that are going to be sustainable. What kind of author does that apply to?

Roseanne Cheng 08:48

I mean, it applies to the author who wants to do this long term. I really have worked with authors who have said, “I wrote this one book; I don’t really care what happens to it. I’m not – you know, I don’t have another book in me; I’m not interested in writing another book.” And really, the big message from the book “The Evergreen Author” is just get honest about what your goals are. If that is your goal, to just get, you know, one and done – your book is out there and maybe it’s kind of an elevated business card for your business or maybe it’s just something that, you know, you really wanted to write this memoir and it was really difficult for you and you don’t have any desire to write about yourself ever again – that’s totally fine. Just be honest about it. And so that means that when you look at your marketing plan, you can say, “Yeah, you know what? I’m going to give two months of my time to this and then after that, I’m just going to let my books sit on Amazon and that’s fine with me.” For the vast majority of authors, though, that I work with – and it’s probably the same for you – they’re not going into this big investment of their time, their money, their energy, without thinking, “Gosh, it really would be nice if I could continue doing this.” So I would say, you know, there’s this honest conversation that needs to happen. And usually that conversation doesn’t happen with the publisher. It happens with, first, yourself and getting honest about your goals. And then, you know, probably whoever it is you share finances with. In my case, it was, you know, my husband and us really talking about like, “Okay, what does – what do we want the next five, ten years of our lives to look like?” Because the reality, as we all know, is, you know, once the world opens back up again, of course, we’re going to be back to this, you know, there’s trade shows that are happening on weekends, right? There – you can take a day off of work to go to this book conference, right? Is that really worth it to you? Does that meet your long-term goals? Because if you only look at it on surface value, it’s like, “Yep, I could – maybe I could sell a hundred books that day. And that would be great.” But does that really – is that, a) sustainable for you and b) is that really meeting the goals that you’ve set for yourself in the first place? And so, you know, authors often – I’m sure this happens to you too – but when they start out with, their book is first out there, their baby is out there and people say, you know, “What are your goals for your book?” And they’ll say something like, “I just, I don’t know. I just want to make money,” right? That is an unacceptable answer for a career writer because making money is yes, important and let’s find ways for you to do that but in order for you to do that, you need to be taking seriously some of these larger goals and really getting honest about what those goals are for you. And then everything – and I say this in the book – but once you’ve established those goals, everything else falls into place. It means that when someone calls you and is like, “Hey, you know what? I heard the next best thing is doing Instagram ads,” it means that you are so secure in yourself as an author and very secure in what your goals are that you can say, “Actually, no. I don’t think that’s a good path for me. Forget that,” or, “That’s a great idea. Let me explore that more,” right? Instead of just being so emotional about it and thinking, “Oh my gosh, my friend down the street, she did an Instagram ad so I have to be doing that too.” This is about – I’m sorry, I’m all over the place right now but I could talk about this forever – this is such emotional work, as we know. 

Boni Wagner-Stafford 12:41

Yeah. Yeah, it really is. 

Roseanne Cheng 12:43

And the key – and it should be, right? You have to create a book that you’re proud of. And a lot of the authors that I work with, are, you know, they’re nonfiction authors: some of them are writing their life stories. You – of course you’re emotional about it and you should be super, supremely attached to your work and all of the energy that goes behind it. But when you’re talking about the marketing piece, it’s really important to figure out a way to detach from some of those creative emotions and say, “I’m going to make decisions not based on emotion, not based on how I’m feeling at the moment, but based on data that tells me this is a wise investment for myself and my goals, moving forward.” If that makes sense.

Boni Wagner-Stafford 13:31

It makes total sense. And I didn’t think you were all over the place. Just, I thought you were answering the question beautifully. So I have another – I don’t know how we’re going to get through all the questions that I have for you – but just to dig a little deeper from another avenue, actually, in terms of what kind of author your message is right for: does it matter whether they’re self-published, hybrid published, traditionally published, any other kind of published? Does it matter?

Roseanne Cheng 14:09

No. It really doesn’t. I mean, you know, we – any author who’s done any sort of research on what the publishing world looks like, knows that, yes, you have different options for publishing now. And you can, you know, whichever way, just that you choose, make sure you do it with your eyes wide open. But it’s very rare that an author is going to just get swept up by a publisher and not have to do any of this marketing work. I work with traditionally published authors; I work with hybrids; I work with indies; I work with the whole gamut. And they’re all asking the same questions, right? “What is my author platform? What does that even mean? What can that look like for me?” My business partner Josie and I have a talk that we do all the time called Amazing Author Platform and it’s available on our website and we talk about that very idea: that your author platform is the thing that is going to follow you throughout your writing career, whether you’ve got Simon & Schuster behind you or, you know, you are just doing this all on your own on Amazon. It’s all the same.

Boni Wagner-Stafford 15:19

Which brings a question that I hadn’t planned. Remember, I said to you that our conversation may vary, may veer? This is one of those moments. Which brings to the forefront: if your writing, your publishing, your author career is a side hustle – and we work with a couple of people like that where, “Nope, this is only my side thing; I’ve got a whole other thing on the other side,” – is that still doable? Does that pose unique challenges? I’m thinking about the author platform question, in particular. What do you think?

Roseanne Cheng 15:56

No. In fact, I think it is – that’s the reality for most authors: it’s, I can count on one hand the amount of authors that I’ve worked with over the years who are just devoted to writing all day long. I mean, can you imagine? That would be amazing. Could you imagine? (Indiscernible) awesome! And so that’s, that’s kind of the core message around raising an amazing author platform in general: is that no matter what your life situation is, all of us have a million and one different things that we need to be doing. That is creative work in general. That’s the hard thing about being a creative in general, is finding the time and figuring out how to prioritize your creative work when there’s a million and one other things that you should be doing. That is a whole different podcast, right? But what our core message at Amazing Author Platform is: once you’re honest with your time commitment, what your goals are, then you’re going to pick one or two things that you can honestly commit to doing. I have worked with authors who are literally working two jobs, have four young children at home: it’s amazing that they even got a book written in the first place. So their platform might be, “You know what? I’m going to write; I’m going to have a website and I’m going to have a blog and I am going to write one blog post every two months. And that’s all I can do.” That’s great, write those six amazing blog posts in one year and do those just with passion. Make sure that they’re really awesome blog posts. Crosspost them all over the place when you do them. And that’s enough, right? But then for other authors, if I know they have a lot more time on their hands, they have a lot more money to invest, then their whole marketing plan and my suggestions around their platform are going to be totally different. That’s why – I think I joke about it in the book but I say it all the time: when I was a marketing director at a publishing company, I would always joke that my title should have been “author therapist” because I really – you know, everyone was like, “Well, can you just give me the template for a marketing plan? Just give me the thing that every author should do.” And I can’t do that because it would be totally disingenuous for me to say that, you know, the single mom with three kids should be doing the same thing as the retired man with infinite funds, right? It’s just a different game that they’re playing. And this is where it gets really fun, though, as an author, is that I say this because what drives the marketing process is really the author and not the genre. So we tell people all the time, “Always have a lot of mistrust around, you know, the checklists that you get: ‘Here’s what every sci-fi author needs to do to market their book.’” I don’t – how can that be possible when, you know, every sci-fi author has different levels of energy, goals, finances, time, all of that? So really, it’s – it depends on the author; it depends on the honest ability of the author to do that marketing work. And it is very, very personalized. And this is a good thing. This is the thing, right? This is what I tell authors is, “Don’t hear that message and think, ‘Oh, great. Well, now I’m really lost because I don’t know what to do.’” It’s actually very empowering to hear that message and say, “Wait, are you telling me that I can just do one thing?” Yes, that’s exactly what I’m telling you. I’ve had authors who have said, “Wait, are you telling me I don’t need to be on Facebook?” That’s exactly what I’m telling you. If you don’t want to be on Facebook, get off Facebook. You don’t need to be there, right? Or on the very – the flip side of that coin, right, is, “Gosh, I really love doing my Facebook groups and everything else I do is just like really annoying.” Well, then don’t do those annoying things. Focus on those Facebook groups and make them shine in that time that you have. You don’t need to be anywhere and everywhere. Just do a couple things that bring you joy and that you can do for the long term. It’s still, you know, it’s so simple and yet kind of a hard message sometimes for creatives to hear at first.

Boni Wagner-Stafford 20:10

Yeah, I love it, though. So we’ve got the message that what is going to be fun and enjoyable and feel right for one author versus another author is going to be individual. You also have a line in your introduction that I’ve highlighted, which says, “What works for one author doesn’t always work for another.” So we’ve got the desire. We’ve got what feels good. Now you’re talking about results? And it’s not – I’m guessing it’s not by genre and it’s not by checklist? 

Roseanne Cheng 20:52

No. No, I wish it was: my job would be a lot easier if I could do it that way. It would really be a lot easier. 

Boni Wagner-Stafford 20:59

Yours and every other author’s.

Roseanne Cheng 21:00

Exactly. And every publisher, for sure. 

Boni Wagner-Stafford 21:01

Right. Exactly. 

Roseanne Cheng 21:03

Yeah. So I think you start with what brings you joy, right? And you start there. And many times I have had authors say, “Okay, well, I’ve been blogging for two years. And I love it. But it’s not doing anything for me,” right? And this is where in “The Evergreen Author”, I’m going to skip to the last chapter and talk about – it’s actually my favorite chapter in the book, where it’s called “Being a scientist of your data”, right? So you suddenly, as an artist, as a creative person, are going to take off that artist’s hat for just one second and put on your lab coat and your glasses and you’re going to get really interested in what that data is telling you, right? And so, if you are loving Facebook and you are putting tons of time and energy into that platform and you put on your science brain and your lab coat and you look at the analytics – you get really, you get smart about what’s actually selling books for you – and you find that Facebook’s not doing it and really is just wasting your time, then how much joy is that really going to bring you sustainably? And this is the hard message that a lot of authors need to hear. I have worked with authors of all different genres and I’ve loved it because it has been so enlightening to me. And the thing that is – again, this is an empowering message; this is not a message that makes you cringe, right? It means that when you see an author who is just killing it on, say, Pinterest, right, maybe they have a bajillion followers on there; they’re selling books left and right on Pinterest. And that is amazing, right? And you as an author look at that other author and you say, “How do I duplicate that? How do I do that for myself?” Well, you have to – there does come a point where the joy piece needs to move aside and you actually look at, okay, well then, what exactly is working for that author? Right? Well, Pinterest is a platform that’s mainly used by women, right? Mainly used by teachers and educators. And hey, if I look at this author, their book is geared toward teachers and educators. So no wonder Pinterest is an amazing platform for them. Of course that works for them. Maybe your book is a book that really wouldn’t work on that platform. Do you see what I mean about not letting like your emotions run the game for you? It’s really about stepping back. And so it, you know, when you – it’s so easy to do: I am victim of this myself, right? You look, you see what is working for other books in your genre – maybe you go to Amazon, which is like, you know, Google for authors, right, and readers. And you put in your book genre – like, you know, say, let’s say you wrote a self-help book – and you put in your genre into the search bar and you see, you know, ten other books that are similar to yours that have a thousand more reviews and tons more sales, right? It’s so easy to get wrapped up in, “I have to do what that author is doing.” But the reality is, you don’t know what their investment was to get to that point. You don’t know what their time commitment is, what their goals are, what the team is behind them. Just don’t worry about any of that stuff. It’s so easy for me to say but I’m telling you, as an author, I’m also practicing what I preach.

Boni Wagner-Stafford 24:40

Yeah, makes total sense. So everything up to now we’ve been talking about pretty much you cover in the introduction to your book, which is kind of amazing. And it does set the stage for what comes next. But then I want to take our last eight minutes or so – not that we have to end on a bell, necessarily – but Chapter 1 of your book “The Evergreen Author” says, “Write and publish a really great book.” Now what? We’re talking about marketing, now you’re taking me back to the beginning of the process. Tell me why that’s important.

Roseanne Cheng 25:18

Because everything starts there. There’s not – none of this work will be joyful or fruitful or sustainable if you don’t have a book that you love and will love for the long term. And that is – I see authors, a lot of times when we give this message, say, “Well, duh. Of course.” Not of course. Because what I see often is authors who, when things get real – maybe they get a review that they don’t like; maybe they get some feedback from a certain audience that is less than desirable; maybe a partnership that they were really planning on falls apart – and it’s very easy in those moments – in those book marketing moments – to say, “Well, then I guess I suck. And I made a mistake going into this and I don’t have the chops for this.” And those are those critical moments that are going to really determine whether you are going to be a successful author for the long term or not. I mean, Toni Morrison – the goddess, right, of all literature – dealt with her share of rejections and naysayers and people critiquing her work, right? She, just like you, had to stand behind her work and say, “This is my book. This is what I believe in.” And truthfully, you know, if you’re working with nonfiction authors, I find this to be an incredibly important message to give to memoirists because – or anyone who’s writing a business book; anyone who’s writing something that’s very near and dear to their hearts: fiction authors have a easier time kind of separating – but with nonfiction, this is your life’s work. You have to be prepared for some negativity because the positivity will come too but we always, as humans, hang on to the negative, right? And so if you haven’t written a book that you can stand behind for the long term, that you look back and read and say, “Gosh, this is good,” – and I want to add one more thing here, too, because I see this a lot with authors who – particularly with women authors, to be honest – but – and I want to change this so much: there’s this humility that authors feel like they need to have all the time. “Oh, you know, my book, it’s, it’s fine. I – it’s not a big deal. I – you know, I mean, it was just this thing that I wrote, and you know,” right? Every time you talk about your creative work in those really passé type of terms and you don’t give yourself the credit that you deserve as an author and as a creative, that really sticks in your brain. And it can really affect your ability to love and do this work for the long term. I’m not saying, you know, go out and you know, post on Twitter every day about what an amazing writer you are: that’s certainly not what I’m saying. But what I am saying is stop talking about your work as though it’s not something that you love. You should be proud of it. And if – again, if you cannot do that, if you if you have a book in front of you or if you’re looking at your manuscript and you’re like, “Gosh, you know what? This really could use another round of editing,” or just, “There’s something about this ending that’s not resonating for me,” don’t publish it yet. Because it’s not time. Because all of this marketing work requires that you love what you have published.

Boni Wagner-Stafford 29:07

And that takes an investment of time, often money and blood, sweat and tears: the emotions.

Roseanne Cheng 29:18

But sometimes not too much. You know, you can – it doesn’t. You don’t have to break the bank for this. That’s our main message at Evergreen Author is that, you know, you don’t have to hire a $30,000 publicist to make your dreams come true. You don’t. It’s – things can be done much more responsibly. And you know, we – my business partner Josie and I are, you know, we are career writers: we make passive income as writers. And that’s what we want for our authors. We don’t want them to spend thousands and thousands of dollars and get in a hole somewhere. Like that’s not good for anyone.

Boni Wagner-Stafford 29:55

Yeah. This is super fantastic. I want to talk about so many other things with you. We’re going to have to schedule to bring you back. There’s the whole topic around money, which we’re just starting to get in there. You know, and how you build your unique marketing strategy that works for you, that gives you joy, lets you look at the, you know – puts your scientists glasses on, if you like. So we don’t have time for any of those things today but I promise, listeners, we will be back to talk about more of that stuff. Now, Roseanne, before we go, where can people find you?

Roseanne Cheng 30:34

So we are at Evergreenauthors.com. We have tons of resources on there. So you can get a copy of the book on there. We have some downloads. We also have two kind of master class courses where we teach how to run Amazon ads, if that’s something that you’re interested in doing. And we also have a course that I teach called Book Launch Blueprint, which is basically for any author who is wondering what to do after they’ve written their book. We’ve kind of structured it to, you know, here’s what you do in the six months before your book launches; here’s what you do during the launch period; and here’s what you do for the six months and beyond after. So those – everything’s sort of anchored by those two master classes. And we have tons of other free stuff on there. We do coaching. All at Evergreenauthors.com.

Boni Wagner-Stafford 31:21

Awesome. Wonderful. Roseanne Cheng, thank you so much for joining us today. And very interesting message for authors of every stripe. Thank you so much. 

Roseanne Cheng 31:33

My pleasure. We’ll do it again. 

Boni Wagner-Stafford 31:38

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