Day 5 of 5 | Author Marketing Superpowers Bootcamp
Complete All 5 Days of Challenge 🏁
If you’ve been following this bootcamp closely, you’ll know that last time I emailed, we had just finished building our Reader Growth Engine.
Things are starting to look really good for us! As a reminder, so far we have:
- Nailed down our target audience (day 1)
- Created a story blurb and cover that we sold to readers before we wrote our story (day 2)
- Validated that our readers engaged with our story and want to buy more from us (day 3)
- Created a way to scalably reach tons more readers in our target audience with as little stress as possible (day 4)
There’s just one thing missing here. Our goal for this bootcamp may have been to get you from story idea to $1,000 in book sales using the Author Marketing Superpowers.
But what good does that do if we only get those sales one time? Or even for one book series?
As authors we are in the business of superfans. A small portion of our readers will end up making the majority of our profit over time. This is true in video games, movie franchises, and yes, even books.
Why?
Because readers who continue to purchase more and more stories (and other products + experiences from us) end up making us a lot more money than readers who only purchase one story. It’s having readers stick with you and your stories for years that creates a truly sustainable career in publishing.
Knowing that before you even test your story in the marketplace, you are going to have thousands of raving fans to line up and pre-order it is the dream.
But actually achieving that… is yet another thing.
We’ve all seen it before.
Authors with careers that soar but crash and burn just as fast as readers move onto the next trend.
Likewise, we have seen the opposite. Authors with rabid fanbases that seem to go feral with every new release, nearly forcing their friends and family to buy the author’s books, even if they don’t read, because they love their stories so much.
We all want the latter. We all want to turn our Reader Growth Engine and stories into a legacy that can last generations. A publishing empire that, instead of crumbling the moment we stop working, lives on past our deaths and forever in the hearts and minds of our fans.
I specialized for years in helping authors do just this. Helping hundreds of fiction authors in aggregate make over $1 million a year in memberships from their readers.
Some authors I mentored had readers pay $100+ per month for access to their stories and other experiences, and paying this month after month after month (sometimes for years).
So how can you turn your readers into customers who pay your bills for years to come?
Good thing we have the Command Powers: Scale Your Income to help us do just that.
For Day 5 of the Author Marketing Superpowers Bootcamp, share with us what you did to complete the following steps.
These superpowers, when unleashed in the following sequence, are what I call the Forever Reader Formula. When you nail these steps, you can create more Forever Readers than most authors, and in turn make even more money.
#1: Reader Nurturing – how do you continuously earn trust with your readers? Trust is the currency of publishing, and it’s the core element that will lead to your long-term success. If readers trust you, they will come to buy your stories even if they don’t know what they are about (i.e., Brandon Sanderson’s Four Secret Novels).
Earning trust with readers has three main components:
- Consistently deliver on your brand promise. First, you must understand what your brand promise is. What consistent experience do readers come to your stories for? Is it certain tropes? A specific character arc or theme? To learn or explore a specific subject or interest?
- Deliver surprises to your readers. Great friends aren’t just there when you need them. They are there when you don’t even know you need them. What can you do to surprise and bring joy to your readers? (i.e., a special short story delivered to their inbox or a birthday message delivered to readers on their special day).
- Go the extra mile. Whether it’s in your attention to detail, your entertaining marketing, or just the thoughtful replies you make to readers who reach out to you, going above and beyond to serve your readers will build endless trust and loyalty. One example I love is when a customer cancels their subscription to Chewy, a pet retailer, it is often because their pet has passed away. Chewy then sends flowers and other gifts to their customers, commemorating the life of their beloved pet 🥹.
#2: Fanatic Builder – what shared purpose, language, and rituals can unite your fans? In order to have a community of fans supporting your work, you need to design something that brings them together.
A shared purpose is the reason people come to your stories. It’s similar to brand promise. Do readers come to your story to explore what the future might look like? What about exploring the darker sides of romantic relationships?
Shared language is the specific words, icons, and symbols your readers identify uniquely with your stories. This can be names of settings in your stories, inside jokes between characters, or even sayings that you come up with. The key is that once a reader understands this language, they now get to be on the “inside” of the fandom.
Shared rituals are what your readers do when they come together. Is it talking about other books? Baking? Sharing pictures of a symbol or icon in your books in the real world? (e.g., your story involves lots of ice cream and readers constantly share ice cream together).
#3: Audience is Everything – what other ways can you serve your readers beyond books to enhance their experience and increase your revenue?
Now that you have an understanding of how to consistently build trust with readers AND how you will bring them together around your fandom, it’s your job to immerse them even deeper.
Once you’ve built an audience of readers who trust you, you can sell them a wide range of products—from merchandise and food & drink to games, movies, services, and educational offerings that all tie back into your brand promise.
A new wave of technology is making it easier to create nearly every product imaginable. You can now build a “mini-Disney” for your readers.
Think big and execute one step at a time. This is where stories will turn to empires… and it all starts with the Forever Reader Formula. If you want to learn more about going Beyond the Book you can listen to the podcast here (new episodes each week!).
In the end, by putting your Readers First at every stage of the Reader Journey (from ideation, to story testing, to drafting, to marketing, and beyond) you can grow a loyal fanbase and profitable business.
I’m so grateful for you joining me on this journey 💙.
I hope you enjoyed this bootcamp! I know it was intense, but I hope it changed how you look at publishing and will very soon change the trajectory of your author career.
You can share your feedback with me anytime, and if you want to unleash all 50 Author Marketing Superpowers, you can get an even deeper dive into everything we have discussed in this bootcamp by reading the Author Marketing Superpowers in eBook or audiobook format completely for free here.