S01E18: When books are soda cans

In this week’s episode, Samantha and Matilda explain the meaning of the term 'soda can strategies', and how they implement them. 

Next week Sam and Matilda will delve into their comp authors again, this time looking at how they market their books. 

Where to find Sam and Matilda:

SAM IG: @sammowrimo

Website: www.samantha-cummings.com

Book to start with: The Deathless - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Deathless-Frances-June/dp/B0915V5L6F

Most recent book: Curse of the Wild (Moons & Magic Book 1) https://amzn.eu/d/fVXwW3j

MATILDA IG: @matildaswiftauthor

Website: MatildaSwift.com

Book to start with: https://books2read.com/TheSlayoftheLand (book #1 of The Heathervale Mysteries)

Most recent book: https://books2read.com/ButterLatethanNever (book #3 of The Slippery Spoon Mysteries)

Mentioned on the show:

S C Hunter: https://www.tiktok.com/@schunterrr?lang=en

LilyLouTay: https://www.tiktok.com/@lilyloutay?lang=en

Transcript:

Welcome to your next step of the Self Publishing Mountain.

I'm Matilda Swift, author of Quintessentially British Cozy Mysteries.

And I'm Samantha Cummings, author of Young Adult Books About Magic, Myths and Monsters.

I've written the books, changed their covers, tweaked their blurbs, tried tools from a dozen ad courses, and I'm still not seeing success.

Now, we're working together to plot and plan our way from barely making ends meet to pulling in a living wage.

Join us on our journey where we'll be mastering the pen to snag that paycheck.

Hello and welcome to Pen to Paycheck Authors podcast.

I'm Matilda Swift here with my co-host, Samantha Cummings, and we're here to write our way to financial success.

We're two indie authors with over a dozen books between us and still a long way to go towards the quit the day job dream.

If that sounds familiar, listen along for our mastery through missteps journey.

Each week, we cover a topic to help along the way.

This week's topic is going to be soda can marketing, but before that, let's do our wins and whinges of the week.

Sam, what are yours?

I'll start with a win because it feels like the nicest thing to do.

My win this week is that I finally released a short story on Book Funnel, which I've been meaning to do since the start of the year.

I've never used Book Funnel before, which is a website slash author tool where you can build up a mailing list by kind of cross marketing with other authors.

I guess that's what you could describe it as.

So I've been meaning to do that for a while because my mailing list is just utterly terrible.

So I finally set it all up and did some research of how it all worked, got to myself.

I've got a couple of people who've downloaded my short story and I've signed up for two things on it at the moment.

So I've got a book swap and a mailing list swap set up for the end of this month.

So I feel really like I've done something really author-y and good.

My way of the week is I set up...

It's definitely like a learning curve from what I can tell.

There seems to be a lot going on and yeah, trying to figure it out.

But I've done like the first part for so I feel like that's really good.

Yeah, my whinge of the week is that I set up an Amazon ad for my book, Curse of the Wild, and it has not done anything.

So I feel like I've obviously done something horrendously wrong.

I don't know what it could have been.

When you set up a Facebook ad, you tell it all the things you want it to do, you put money into it, and it delivers it, no questions asked, and you get clicks or you get whatever results you want.

They may not be the best results, but you see results.

And with Amazon ads, that's not the same.

It doesn't work the same.

So for some reason, I have not generated any clicks on the ad that I ran.

I think so, having read the Rachel MacLean book and talked to other authors who were doing well with Amazon ads, I think the problem often is, and I have not got great experience with Amazon ads, but I think the problem often is bidding low.

That if Amazon thinks that you're bidding low, it doesn't serve your ad enough, or it serves it and doesn't get enough response, it doesn't get enough response, so straight away, it will just stop serving it because it prioritizes, supposedly, reader experience or customer experience.

So people who have had success that I know of, and I'm sure this isn't the only strategy, but definitely people who have had reliable success have bid really high to start with and then lowered it once their ad is kind of Amazon said, okay, we see this ad is successful, we'll start serving it and serving it to our people.

So I think if you serve, if you put in a low bid, you can just find it really hard to get it going, which is a real pain because you think, I just want to test it and see how it works.

But yeah, I definitely want to do more with ads on Amazon.

Yeah.

Yeah, so it was definitely, I mean, it's a fun learning strategy.

I did go in low and increased it, which obviously isn't the right tactic for Amazon.

That's what Facebook likes, but yeah, a learning curve, a nice lesson.

I'll just take that and next time.

Yeah, I think it's worth trying.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Trying a high bid and then dropping it, once you've got some results in at least, just to see like, oh, is it worthwhile?

I think that's why, you know, it's a competitive market, I think, with Amazon ads, because a lot of people there with long series, so they can afford to bid very high, and then have a lot of read through.

So it's a tricky place to run ads.

Whereas like Facebook, people are doing all sorts of advertising in there.

They're not necessarily advertising to, you know, with very specific spends in mind, a very specific income in mind.

They have to put appeals on a broader base, whereas like Amazon's really been well utilized with long series.

Yes.

Yeah.

So I'll take it.

What are your wins and whinjs of the week?

One win, I don't know if you can hear in the background, there's a little bell going.

It was a cat collar because I've got two cats.

I am very excited.

I have not had cats as an adult.

I have to spend ages, and this sort of comes back to a lot of mindset stuff I've been thinking about with writing in general.

I spent ages just like having and harring and thinking about what the negative consequences could be and trying to make the sensible decision.

And wanting a cat, but telling myself I didn't want a cat because I didn't want to be disappointed if it didn't go well.

But I'm just trying to lean in to be like, you know what, I want a cat, I'm just going to get a cat.

And in fact, I've got two cats, so I've got all in.

And I can't hear one of them in the background, who was the shyer one, so I got them on Friday and today's Monday.

They were rehomed.

They had a very nice family home, but the family was growing and they just didn't have space or the resources to keep the cats.

So I've taken them in.

They instantly hid under my bath and drew like a hole in the paneling and are slowly coming out more.

They are out and about at night.

They're quite adventurous at night, because I have slept in a living room area so I could see them.

And then if I go to where they are, they will come out of the hole in the wall and come for strokes, but they're not exploring a lot.

But I'm still very excited.

And they are called Poirot and Miss Marple.

So absolutely on-brand.

And I love it.

And I will be putting them in my newsletter once I've got some more cute photos of them and they're busy being, you know, a bit more extroverted and opposing.

So big win, feels like win in all ways.

My other one of the week is this necklace, which you are also wearing.

Cannot see if you listen to the podcast, but we got necklaces that say Epiphany.

I am really trying to, and I think probably something that I think is a positive thing about myself.

Whenever I think of something that I want, I'm not saying I will always buy it, but like I will, I'm really tuned in to like thinking, oh, that would fix a problem in my life, or that would make me happy, and then just go in and finding out how I can do it.

I often have like DIY things around my house, or like a home decor thing, so people will say, oh gosh, I didn't know there was a thing, or I've never seen that before.

It's like, I really just try to think, tap into my creativity in day-to-day life, and just be like, I want this thing, I'm gonna find, I'm sure someone's made it.

And I was just like, oh, you know what I want is, I want something like fun, and they're not expensive, they're just like a cute little thing.

I was on Etsy buying some stickers for my laptop, my new laptop, which is another one in the week, I've got a new laptop.

And I was like, oh, I really want like a cute sort of like something to do the podcast to celebrate that we are doing really well and like working really hard and everything.

It feels like my writing journey has changed a thousand percent since we started.

Like I've had a book mob, I've got this new series, we're doing Amazon ads, so yeah, tiny little gold next to say Epiphany.

And they're just really fun and lovely.

So a week of just absolute wins.

And my writing is going really well.

It's so exciting.

Yeah, phenomenal week.

I'm so happy.

My face actually hurts from this smile for the last 20 minutes or so.

It's going so well that I was talking to, I was talking to another writer friend, who's one of my Hong Kong writer friends, and she was saying, oh, I was inspired by you getting a book mob.

And I'd stopped applying for a while because I kept getting rejections, but I applied again and got a book mob.

I was like, oh my goodness.

The pen to paycheck enthusiasm and positivity is spreading everywhere.

Fantastic.

Mm-hmm.

Yes.

We are contagious.

So, we have a topic of the week.

This week is, what is soda can marketing and how are you doing it?

So would you like to explain where this term came from and what you're doing?

Yes, I absolutely would.

So, we move once a month face to face and we have a whole afternoon session in the bistro of a local science museum, the Science Industry Museum in Manchester.

It is phenomenal, and they have a very nice area where it's no longer in use most of the time, and it's just some nice seeking people who come out for picnics indoors in this old historic building.

So we meet once a month in there, and often there are lots of kids around, but sometimes there are not.

And this week we're talking about trying to think about a new approach for our marketing, and trying to separate your love for the story and your deep engagement with the story from the actual physical product.

And we're thinking, okay, imagine if we weren't marketing books and we were just marketing coke.

How would we sell coke?

How would we sell coke to people?

And unfortunately, we kept saying how would we sell coke to people in front of a bunch of kids.

So we thought, you know what, let's stop saying coke.

Like Coca Cola.

I don't think I would really like coke anyway.

But how do we sell that coke?

No.

So we made Soda Can.

And in fact, we're English, we don't even call it Soda Can really, but there's not really a great consensus of the name in England.

Everyone calls it something different.

So people call it like a fizzy pop or a fizzy drink, or just you call it by the brand name, like usually you're gonna have Coke.

So Soda Can seemed like the best fit.

Also I think because, you know, then you get that kind of Mad Men style, razzle dazzle advertising feel of just like, it's something a bit shiny, it's Soda Can.

So yeah, so we were thinking about Soda Can strategies and trying to think about how we divorce ourselves from the book itself and try and look at it much more objectively.

And if we were doing that, how would we sell a thing rather than like, oh gosh, I've tried Bookbob and I've tried Bookfunnel and I've tried my main list and I've tried Facebook ads.

Like trying to think about it from big picture, start from scratch, like how do you sell things?

So that really, I feel like it's ridiculous that it feels like an epiphany, but it really does.

Yeah, agreed.

I think when I was doing my research this week, because whenever you're, when you start writing and you start this whole book business, the thing that you look at when you think about marketing is marketing for books.

And everyone's written a blog post or got something on their website, which is how to market books.

And it's always social media, ads, just like the usual stuff.

But when you do think about what we call Soda Cam Marketing, and you step back from the book thing, it's easier to look at it in more of a general marketing term of how am I selling this product?

It's not a book.

I mean, it is a book, but you're so close to the book itself that you're just like, it's just too much of an emotional thing.

So step back.

We are marketing men from Mad Men.

So I've never watched it, so I don't know anyone's names.

I'm Jon Hamm.

I'm assuming he's one of your guys.

I don't know why I haven't watched it, but yeah, I'm Jon Hamm, and I'm trying to sell a soda can to anybody who wants one.

Yeah, I think another big reason why in self-publishing, people don't think about big picture marketing, or I certainly haven't, is because most of the time, you don't want to run a full-time job.

So if you've got a full-time job, you don't have time to sit back and think, okay, let me just go and take a marketing degree and then decide how do you sell things to people?

You have to be like, okay, I've heard about Bookbub, I should get, or I've heard about BookFunnel, I should get a BookFunnel account.

And I've heard about writing a prequel, so I'll just do that.

And you've got no extra time, you've got no brain space.

And also you don't really know enough about the tools to be able to evaluate them.

So this week, and I feel like maybe for me, the last tool that I had really not at all even tried was BookBub.

I had never had a BookBub before.

And now I've had one, and even on the 30% royalty and 99 cent book, I am just about to pay off and still have very steady page reads and people ordering at full price.

I've got other books in the series, so I am hoping that I will have quite a long tail.

But I don't know, and I'm just really enthusiastic to see what the consequence is.

A big part of the improvement of the BookBub is I've gone from a book having four reviews to 18 reviews, a book that really was just lingering and doing nothing.

And now I think, you know what, I could see myself advertising that.

I might do some Amazon ads on that because it doesn't look now like this forgotten book.

I've got more Goodreads followers, I've got more Amazon followers.

Even if I only broke even on this, I have improved in other areas and improved my knowledge.

So that was kind of the last big hole for me.

And now I've got enough things where I have tried pretty much everything a little bit that you can do in a whole marketing sphere for book marketing.

And now I know enough about having a work to go back and think, okay, this is every tool on my plate.

What do I want to do with them sensibly now?

And it also meant that I could ask a friend who works in marketing, who's got a very senior marketing job, I could say, okay, I know all my tools, but can you give me some advice in this area?

And one area was if you've got no idea what you're benchmarking against and what your possible projected sales are, how do you even vaguely figure out a launch plan?

And I've asked a few different authors this, and the common consensus is your advertising for your launch plan is just what you can afford to lose, which to me, I am a scientist by background.

I have a science degree as my undergrad.

I absolutely love science.

My whole family is very science-y.

That's not scientific enough.

It makes me not want to invest anything because I don't want to do something that just feels like plucking a figure out of the air.

So I talked to him about this and got really good ideas about where you would go if you're marketing a soda can.

What would you do?

Because he is a writer but not in self-publishing world.

So really could kind of look at it from just a marketer's perspective and say, like, here are the steps, X, Y, and Z.

Make this list.

We talked about separating inbound customers and outbound, well, no, inbound promotion and outbound promotion.

So getting people onto your main list and then doing a separate section of advertising for them.

That really helped.

I think it's a thing that I knew-ish.

I had it in my head, but I had not even articulated like that.

And I was not treating it like a sales funnel.

I had like, I've got automations on my email, but they're not, they're not to a purpose.

They're just like, I know you're meant to, so I've done something.

And I've got, you know, I've got different steps.

Like I've got different elements of a marketing funnel.

They're just not in a funnel shape.

They're just, they're in a sort of, you know, ball of ball that's been attacked by a cat shape.

And now, and now I can sit down and think about it more logically.

Has that also been your experience this week?

Yes.

Oh, a hundred percent.

I think we've both done, well, we've done similar things.

I had, you sent me pictures of what you had done.

And it was very, very similar, similar in what I had done.

But I also stole things from your thing.

So, yeah, I, I very much looked at the marketing funnel, which is something that if you've worked in, I mean, I work in marketing, it's not product marketing, but I've worked in marketing before.

I think this is like, this is the worst thing about it, is we've both worked in marketing.

I know, but it's just, it's just different.

I've never worked in, like, in marketing a physical product.

But I have seen the obvious, like, marketing funnels that you see, like, and it was just, it was really interesting, like you say, when your friend had talked about inbound marketing, outbound advertising, all that stuff, that really put it into perspective of the channels that you have available to you, that you just...

Personally, I was, my whole thing has been thinking about talking, if I get in front of the right people on social media, they will turn into sales.

It's like I was doing two steps, but it's like, it's like a 12-step process, like there's so much more.

I just, I don't even want to say I simplified it.

I was just so naïve about how intricate the sales process really is.

I think the problem is, lots of people do hit big with that incredibly simple version.

They will have like TikTok virality and then their book is enormous.

And I think because self-publishers often, especially at our level, are very short of time and very short of marketing degrees, you will see that and you will think, okay, that is the thing I could do because I'm creative.

I could make some great TikToks and I could really hope, I could put a lot of hope, but hope that the universe delivers TikTok virality, which makes my book famous.

And that's reasonable, given the resources that you have.

Yeah, it felt very much like I was hoping to win the lottery and basing my whole life and future plans on the idea of winning the lottery, which is like, I would never do that.

I wouldn't do that in real life.

I wouldn't get a lottery ticket and then go and start shopping for new cars.

It's not in my life plan.

So when I win that million or when I win that like 90 million, then I can do all the things I want.

That's just absolutely ridiculous.

And that is how I've been living.

In a way, I don't mind that because I feel like it's a very good mindset to have is to live with, I don't know what the word is, just hope.

Like a gold ticket mentality, right?

It's not terrible.

And I think the positive thing is it's not like we were doing nothing along the way.

It's not like we just sat at home scratching off scratch cards.

We were scratching off scratch cards, but also putting in a lot of graft.

And I love a special case of scratch card.

If I'm doing something fun with a friend, and I don't quit my job and think, okay, I've got a scratch card now, I'll quit my job.

I am still working my day job while playing lottery occasionally.

I would love to win a lottery.

I'd be so good at it.

I just think I'd be a great lottery winner.

I wonder why the universe hasn't done it yet because I am born to be rich.

Yeah, I'd make it look really good.

I'd get the great marketing for the National Lottery.

But yeah, so I think though, it's a bit like the people who play lottery the most are people actually who are in the poorest sex society because that is their only possible option of seeing enormous life changing wealth.

So I think really authors who are new in their career, putting a lot of effort into social media is the same as that.

It is playing the lottery because you don't have other opportunities at that time in your life.

Whereas now, the stage we're at, we've got enough books, we've got enough knowledge that actually we're sort of moving into a different stage of our economic development.

And we can afford to do things, and we can afford to hope that things will work that are not lottery, you know, shot from the blue.

We can now put together very clear marketing plans.

I think neither of us has got, like having a little bit of this week, neither of us has got, you know, suddenly magically an MBA level, super worked out, clear, smart goals everywhere marketing plan.

And I don't think that's worth doing.

In fact, the friend that I was talking about earlier, who works in marketing, was saying the only way to get your figures for your launch and to figure out like how much money to be putting into it and how much you should be benchmarking and like estimating as your outcome is to do experiments now.

So I'm going to launch in October.

I have still got five months of experiment time.

So if I say, and I've made myself a list of Q2 experiments, one of which I've cheated because I put my book above, but I would say that class and experiment.

The other things are that I want to do Amazon ads.

I want to trial using book above ads to change my also bought authors.

And just a small change, I want to see how you do and how much it costs and how effective it is.

I'm not trying to do it as a marketing, like a sales immediate sales strategy.

I'm going to do a variety of experiments with a small fixed cost that I then see the outcome for that cost.

And that just feels so much more like I'm not playing the lottery.

I am working.

This is a job and it feels great, even though it's going to cost you money.

Fine.

I want to invest that money in my business.

And I'm happy to do that.

I'm not happy to buy a thousand scratch cards.

I'm happy to invest in my business.

So those are two really different things.

That feels great.

So, yeah, really exciting Q2.

I have seen your funnel diagrams.

Can you talk a bit about those?

Because I think they were really, really helpful and they kind of brought up a topic that...

Yes...

.

where we kind of separated marketing from sales.

Yes.

Yes.

So let me open my big notepad, which has got the pictures in it.

It's easier to look at.

You didn't go to the brown paper.

No, I should have done.

I've got this big art pan, which I forgot that I owned and decided to set up.

That is extra marketing planning.

So I have this, yes, this like a big marketing plan here.

And effectively what I've done is just set myself up for sales tactics for any book that I would write.

So very generic.

I've got, I know that people can't see this unless they watch the video that will go up on YouTube at some point in the next 10 years.

But effectively what I have is a sales funnel and inbound and outbound marketing strategies.

And I also realized, we were talking about this this week, when you look at the marketing funnel, you have, there are five sections.

So you start with awareness, so making people aware of your product.

Then you've got content, call to actions, newsletters, and they all should lead to the sale.

However, I think when you, when it comes to a lot of things, so whilst this obviously does work for the Soda Can strategy, if you were just selling the Soda Can, you would get somebody's attention, sell them all the things, and then it would lead to a sale.

Because if you get somebody into a physical shop, and they pick up an item, there's probably a 90% chance that they'll go to the checkout with the item.

That's a made-up figure.

Don't quote me on that.

But it's probably over 50% if you pick something up in a shop.

It's your best on Draper.

I should be wearing a suit.

I realized that when it comes to book sales, specifically because a lot of people, a lot of readers are buying digital books these days, they are still buying paperbacks, but because I'm selling on Amazon, it's still an online purchase.

Just getting somebody to my Amazon page is in itself a thing.

So you can get people to send it to your newsletter, or you can get people to follow you on social media, but that's not going to lead to the sale.

So I drew up my own funnel, which is called Pitch to Purchase, which I was very proud of myself for coming up with that.

And my Pitch to Purchase is a four-step funnel, which is really like a plan on how to...

Once you've got somebody's attention, so once you've got somebody following you on social media, once you've got somebody on your newsletter, they then go into this new funnel where you have got, the four stages are involving the customer in the conversation about the product.

An example would be pitching your product as something that they want, or asking them what they want and saying, this is what you want, here you go.

So involving them in a conversation.

You'll see people do it on social media all the time, talking about...

I'm trying to think of an example because I definitely saw one today.

Let's bring up Breanne Randall, because we love to talk about her.

Gilmore Girls Practical Magic book.

And she realized by saying that this is what she'd written, that that's what people wanted.

And a lot of her social media is asking people, like, is this the book that you wanted?

And people have said yes.

And she uses a social media tactic where she says, like, this is my book, comment, yes, and I'll DM you the link for it.

And so, like, she's getting people involved in the conversation.

One of the other strategies that I came up with was connecting with people on an emotion base.

And we've talked about this before, like, what emotion does your book bring out in people?

So trying to then connect to people on the emotional base of what your story is, is another strategy that you can use to sell it.

So once you've got them listening to you, then you can start telling them, like, this is what I'm going to make you feel, and isn't this great?

The next one on my list is to facilitate the sale, which is a lot easier in a newsletter form.

So this is particularly like the easier part when it's in a newsletter.

Once you've got somebody in your newsletter and they are primed for a sale, you show them the discovery process, make it really easy, big splashy picture, and a big button that says, click here to buy.

Again, it's difficult to convince people to buy, but if you can show them that's like, this is the process, this is where you click, I think some people kind of tend to forget that when they write newsletters, that they should be starting pretty soon with a button or a link to click.

Once somebody opens the email, it needs to be one of the first things that they see.

So that is another fun thing on my list.

And then my last one, which is what I've titled, make them an offer they can't refuse.

And that is when you use your butter.

So this is where you show them that your book is the perfect match for their taste.

And it's like, it's all really obvious, I think, but it just for me put it into perspective that there are two stages to marketing.

There is the normal soda can strategy, and then-

See, there are three.

And pitching.

Yes, go on.

There probably are three, so please hit me with your knowledge.

Yeah, because as you talk about this, I realize that actually, so there's one that's like, get people to be in your funnel, basically.

It's like, get people solidly in your funnel.

Then there's a whole separate price of selling.

Then soda expires.

Books don't expire.

Books can see it on your Kindle forever.

Yes.

And I think one of the problems is, and the bookbob is a great example of that, right?

People can buy your book for 99 cents, and you can get thousands of downloads.

And I imagine, and I've done the same.

I buy a lot of books in general, but I buy a lot of 99 cent books that I see on a great deal.

I'm like, oh, I'll get that.

And it will sit on my Kindle.

Sometimes I'll never read it, right?

There are books on there that I've never read on my Kindle.

They're books that I won't read for years.

And then when I read them, I'll kick myself, because I was like, oh, what a love this book ages ago.

And yeah, and there are books I read straight away.

And I think with the enormous availability of books that are well marketed and that are in people's faces, that are beautifully covered, that have got great hype around them, it's not enough to get someone to buy a book.

You actually have to get someone to read your book, because really once they've read that first book, that is a marketing tool in itself to read the next book, because they think I want either more of this world, that I want more of this feeling that I've experienced, or I want to close the open loop that started at the end of this book.

But it's not enough to get someone to buy your book.

That is not a career maker.

Actually, reading it is the end of the funnel.

And that I think is something we have.

I think we feel we've got no control over it, but actually we do.

You see things like readers' groups for big authors, where people are excited to talk about it.

And you see people who books that have got big spoilers, and so if one wants to read it before the spoiler comes out.

We were talking today about Leigh Bardugo's newest book, which has been out one month, and already on Goodreads has got 15,000 ratings.

Which is like, that book will be good in five years' time.

That book will be good in ten years' time.

People are desperate to read it, to be like in the in crowd, right?

To be in that great feeling of like, I'm reading the thing that everyone's reading, I can talk to my friends about it, it's so much fun.

That is an extra added bit of fun.

And I think we assume that the fun will end up at the purchase.

But there's a reason why Leigh Bardugo is bigger than all of us, and that is because she has that extra, I mean, she's a great writer, but like the extra hype around her books is the thing that's like catapulting her.

The same as like the hype around Taylor Swift right now, right?

It's not like her music magically got miles better, but it's that like she's got this just enormous funnel and this enormous level of attention on her music that everyone is talking about it.

There's the tour, there's the album, there's all the merch and the fun things that go around it, there's all the social media, there's everything saying like you have to be in the Taylor world right now because it's so much fun, and it is.

And we need to find a way to do that about our books.

Obviously, probably slightly less than Taylor and Nibiru go, but what can we be doing that has that same sense of urgency to read?

Yes, that is a very, very good question, and one that I think I have always not thought about kind of on purpose because this is a mindset thing where you just think like nobody will ever love my books that much, but that's so silly because I love my books that much.

So I think that there is a missing component to my plan, and that really is the, yeah, just generating the excitement, generating fans.

Like you say, like we're generating sales, but we need to be generating fans.

And I think that that is like-

Tiffany!

Yes, the necklace is work.

Oh my gosh, Rob, the Tiffany necklace.

Yes, I used to work in, I used to work for the AA, which in the UK is what we call AAA for Americans.

And I used to work in a call center because it was right next to my college, and everyone at my college worked there, and no one knew about cars, and we were just meant to be changing people's details.

They call up and say, I've got a new, I've moved house, I've got a new address, his money address can be put in the system.

This was before the internet was that big, I'm very old.

So they'd call up and say, I've got a new address, or I've got a new car, here's my registration number.

Whatever they change in their details, they would call up, or they want to add a person to the membership.

And the job was not that well paid, but it had a great bonus scheme available, if you could upsell someone.

So you try to upsell people and say, oh, is there anybody else's property that also needs to be added to this cover?

Or do you have any additional cars?

Or do you want an additional level of coverage?

And I hated it, right?

I hate sales.

And we had targets, really specific targets for our sales.

And one thing we had a target for was, I don't know if they still do this, so I'm not kept up with my AI knowledge because I don't own a car.

But what they used to do was they had a thing called Home Starts, where if you didn't have this actually in your policy, you couldn't actually get, you couldn't call the people out to come and help fix your car, if you were within a quarter mile from your house.

So if you were on your driveway and the car didn't start in the morning, unless you got Home Starts, you couldn't call them out.

When people called up to change their address, you would say, oh great, I've changed your address for you just to make you aware, do you know you've not got Home Start in your policy, so if you break down at the new address, you can't call the AA.

People would get so annoyed.

They'd be angry because they'd be like, well, why am I paying for this thing that you can't even come collect my car if it gets broken down at my house?

It gets so angry.

And I was talking to my boss one day and saying, I really hate trying to pitch this thing because it feels like a really mean policy.

Like, why don't we just have it that we would give them home so?

Like, that seems ludicrous that we don't offer that.

It's a big expense.

Like, a lot of call-outs are for people who just haven't, like, looked after their car in cold weather properly.

And if they didn't, if they give it to everybody, they have to raise everyone's costs.

So, and I said, oh, can I just not, like, get that target?

Can I just not go for that bonus?

And I'll go for the other ones, because this one feels like I hate having this argument every time.

And he's like, if there is someone who breaks down tomorrow and they don't know they've not got a home start, they're paying hundreds of pounds to get the AA to come out to them, because they need the AA to come out to them because their car's broken down.

You spoke to them yesterday and you didn't tell them that for just, it was not expensive, like, 25 pounds, they could add to their policy.

And they'll be annoyed at you.

And you're giving them just the opportunity to buy this thing, that's all you're giving them, is an opportunity to buy something that they really might want.

They don't know they don't have it.

They would love it.

You know, many people would love it.

And you're just giving them the opportunity to do it.

And I think you can feel that same way about our books, is that we are pushing our books on people.

We're saying, like, oh, here's this book that you must read because it's the next big thing.

And you're giving someone an opportunity to enter a world that you have spent months, sometimes years crafting, that you have done your absolute best on, and you have studied, and you have worked and researched, and you have written, you've chosen every word, you've edited, you've polished it.

You have made a world that, like, I keep reviews on my wall, and the reviews on my wall say things like, oh, it's like meeting my best friends, going back into these books, or it is just such a wonderful experience, like opening a new head of ill mystery.

Like, all you're doing is giving people an opportunity.

They don't have to buy your book.

They don't have to read your book.

But if you don't pitch to them, they don't get the chance to find their new favourite book.

And that is a really hard mindset thing to get on board with.

But I think that is an easier way for me.

I'm thinking, I'm trying to do the hard sell.

I'm just trying to give people an opportunity to find the series that I know I would love to read.

Because, you know, when I'm a person, they're a person.

Maybe they'll also love to read it.

Yes, I think that's a very...

I think it is definitely a mindset thing of feeling like...

You feel like you're tricking them.

I feel like I'm trying to trick people into buying a book.

But I live in these books.

I am still in these places, and I still love the characters that I created.

And think about them constantly.

They are real people to me.

It's funny because I follow somebody on TikTok, and she released her first book, like end of last year.

And I had signed up for a pre-order because her whole strategy was, she loves her book.

Every single like, she was like almost like Brianne Randall.

She was hammering it with social media, just specifically on TikTok.

Every video was her either doing a lip sync or just like a funny reaction or something.

And every single video was about how much her characters were going to change my life.

She makes me feel so uncomfortable.

I know, but there's absolutely nothing cringe about the way that she was doing it.

I 100% believed that she believed.

And I do think when I make videos on social media, I do try and channel her level of excitement for her books.

I mean, I don't do it enough, but when I do do videos where I'm trying to convince people to buy the book, I do think like, if she can, because I read her book, and it wasn't fantastic.

It was a really good story, and the characters were really good, but it was definitely, you could tell it was a passion project.

And I didn't have any problems with that, because I will read anything and love it.

I'll find all the good things in it and ignore the bad things.

But every video that she does is just basically telling me that I am going to fall in love with these characters.

And even if she was wrong, I still bought the book.

And I'm still going to buy the next book, because why not?

I'm in now.

Yeah, I think it's such a mindset thing.

I'll tell you her name just in case, because I know people...

There's no point not sharing.

She is called...

I think she comes up under SC Hunter.

Let me check.

SC Hunter.

Sorry, I'm just doing the old woman search on TikTok, where you just assume that the letters you're writing are correct.

And from my past podcast episode, I can't remember anyone's names.

I'm really bad for it.

I'm going to say it's SC Hunter.

Yes, it is.

So definitely check her out on TikTok and just see the level of excitement and charisma.

She's so charismatic.

Everything.

I'm just enthralled by her.

I just want to watch all...

She's kind of like the cooking woman on Instagram and TikTok, I just see on Instagram.

Yeah, Lil Ute.

Yes, she's kind of like that, but she's sexier.

But very much more sexier about it.

She puts herself across as very...

I don't know, like va-va-voom.

You just have to look her up.

She's just a great example.

She's very seductive.

I find her seductive anyway.

I mean, I find Lil Ute seductive enough, so I will...

Yes, she's just a little bit more forward with it.

I'll put links both over the show now, if it's useful.

Yeah, I...

What was I going to say?

Yes, I now have a collection on my Instagram of just posts that are from people who are like that, just of like authors who are very confident.

And it...

Their work is no better than mine.

That is, I think, the thing that I really, really have to reconcile myself with, is like...

Their work isn't terrible, and it isn't out there winning the Pulitzer.

It is really good.

I think my books are really good.

I think you're just looking for the right audience for your book.

And for a lot of people, different books are really good.

I think I am doing a good service for my books, and I'm not giving enough people an opportunity to find them.

I need to practise self-love for my books.

I feel like, if we just kind of circle back to the Soda Can strategy is there are drinks out there that people don't like, but a lot of people do.

So I'm going to say a drink that not a lot of people like, but I do.

Dandelion and Burdock.

Oh, love it.

It's like having a nestle from the gods.

Yeah, I don't like coke.

If I'm drinking a black-pizzic drink, I'm drinking Dandelion and Burdock.

Right, right, so you see, there is an opportunity, and there are these big things that everybody or a lot of people love that other people don't love.

So it really is just, it's all about elbowing your way in to your target market and staking your claim.

And I feel like if I follow this process that I've come up with and start just really trying to believe in the fact that I deserve to be on the shelf with the other cans of soda, that level of thinking, that mindset, that confidence will eventually pay off.

Like, if other people like drinking Dan Delano and Burdock, then we're all there.

So it's all good.

Yeah, and Dan Delano and Burdock is not trying to be coke, right?

It is trying to be, and it's essentially a drink, I don't think they have in America.

I think we're saying this most nonsense drink.

It's a drink literally, it's the flavors of Dan Delano and Burdock.

It's just weeds.

It's just a drink made of weeds.

It's so delicious.

I feel like it's quite similar to root beer.

I don't feel that way because I don't really like root beer.

But maybe it is.

I don't hate root beer, but I think it's not got that, like, I don't know.

It's got such a unique taste, like such a specific taste.

It's like, but it's not...

It's kind of like medicine.

Yeah, it's like medicine.

But it's not like, the people who make that are not thinking, oh, should we just add, like, a bit of Coke flavoring in there to make it more palatable?

Because I hate Coke.

So if I drank that on a burger tasting more like Coke, I would stop drinking it.

And if I, if Coke tasted more like that on a burger, I'd be more likely to be on board.

But then they would probably lose quite a big part of their market share.

So it's, we're back around to niches again.

We're back around to niches and like really being in your niche and loving your niche and like celebrating your niche, not saying like, oh, I'm so embarrassed.

I'm in this weird little niche.

I'm so sorry that I can't be mainstream.

I'm like, no, be the dandelion and burdock.

People love it.

Yes.

I want the dandelion and burdock now.

I'm so annoyed I haven't got any.

I'm gonna get some this week.

Me too, yeah.

That, I think we really reached the depths of our knowledge of our epiphanies on this when we're down to talking about drinks made of weeds.

So next week, we shall be back on the epiphany train.

We're continuing this series on books and products with an episode on author comps.

Do you have any thoughts already on that?

I, like I just said, my author comps tend to be around people's attitude or how they put themselves across on social media.

I have looked at author comps before in the past, particularly at the start of this year when I was looking at like book covers and things and just seeing where I fit within the market and found it very difficult because I haven't actually found many indie authors who are doing what I'm doing.

Like I find it very difficult to find people who are writing books similar to what I'm writing.

So I think I'm going to maybe try and look at like traditionally published authors as well, or maybe just lean in that direction just to see what level of marketing they're doing.

Yeah, I'm kind of still mulling things over.

How about you?

I am still in a mulling phase as well because I think one thing I've really trying to be trying to figure out is like, you can have an author comp on different levels.

So if we think about cozies, right, there are different sort of subcategories of cozies.

So you could have culinary, historical, paranormal, they're like craft cozies.

So you can have it based on that.

You also get ones that are, for example, written in first person or third person, present and past.

You also get ones where they're set in England or they're not set in England.

And those are two quite specific niches.

Some people absolutely love books that are set in England and they will read anything set in England because it is, you know, a big Anglophile genre.

Or you get ones where they're like different levels of like wholesome for want of a better word, like really, really no violence on the page cozies or ones a bit more sassy and even have like swearing of violence in.

So I think the tricky thing for me is figuring out and like writing style I think is another big comp or area to make a comparison on.

The biggest thing to me to figure out is like, what is the primary thing that matters when you're looking for an author comp?

Because I've got author comps I've been thinking about for ages who, they both write English cozies.

They're contemporary, they're baking related, but their style is relatively different from mine.

And are they close enough comps for me to say those are comps?

Or when people are looking for author, when people are, you know, we're usually looking for author comps, are they looking that you are, are they looking at people who are very, very similar style-wise?

I don't know.

And I think that is one thing I want to figure out because as authors, we don't really read like readers.

We are very eclectic readers.

And I want to figure out more about how a reader's choosing.

So I did come across, again, this is very English specific, a mum's net thread about someone trying to find Cozy Mysteries.

And mum's net threads do not hold back.

They are full of honest opinions.

So I've put a bookmark in it.

I kind of didn't want to get into all the comps too much while I was doing stuff last week, but I started thinking about it.

And I started looking at my comp authors, or the ones I think are closest to me, and then their author level also books and trying to figure out like which ones of those maybe are a bit closer to me.

But I think my thing that I want to figure out this week is I've already got plenty of people that I know are, have intersections with me.

But what are the key intersections that matter most to readers?

I don't know.

So I need to find that out.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Lots of research this week for sure.

Can't wait.

One of these weeks, we'll have something relaxing to do.

No, never relaxing.

We'll be on it.

We'll relax when we're millionaires.

So we're on it this week.

Okay.

We have got...

Fair enough.

Some things coming up that are less research based, maybe more about thinking based.

So this I think is a big research week, like the week just gone has been.

I am looking forward to it.

I think it will be fantastic.

And I will look forward to chatting to you again next week.

Yes, me too.

Well, thank you very much.

And goodbye everybody.

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