S01E20: When buyers become fans

In this week’s episode, Samantha and Matilda dig into post sales marketing, and turning 'customers' into valued fans! 

Next week Sam and Matilda will cover continuous marketing strategies. 

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:

David Gaughran - How to Find Your Comp Authors: https://davidgaughran.com/comp-authors-advertising-marketing-titles/

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 Sam 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 post-sales marketing.

But before that, let's do our wins and the winches of the week.

Sam, what are yours?

I have a few wins this week I'm very excited to talk about.

So I was just before we started recording the podcast thinking like, oh, I can't think of any winches.

And then realized, like, I don't need to do winches.

It's wins all the way, baby.

This week, one of my friends who loves all the same kind of books and TV shows that I love, has been reading my book Curse of the Wild.

And as she's been reading it, she's been texting me.

And she just sent me some of the nicest, best feedback of somebody who really understood the whole, everything about it.

And she loved it, and she was just sending me all sorts of messages and like gasps in the right places.

And it was just really nice, even though she is my friend, she wouldn't lie to me.

So it was just really nice to actually get some feedback from somebody who's reading the book and like loves all the same things that I love.

So that's really perked me up this week, because, you know, just forever thinking I'm the worst writer in the world, and then realizing actually, I'm probably not that bad.

So that's been really nice.

I have also...

I also put myself out there finally on Book Funnel, and like I uploaded a short story on there.

So I've had some people subscribe to grab the short story, which is like a big step for me.

And I've also done my first author newsletter swap.

So I feel like I'm doing big things, like things that I've been putting off for a while.

I feel like I'm finally chipping away at them.

And then today, in terms of writing and stuff, because I always forget to celebrate the actual writing things that I'm doing, I had a huge aha moment for the book that I'm editing at the moment, where there's always kind of been a bit of the story where I wasn't quite sure how, like the logistics of it, but I thought I'll figure that out when I'm editing it, it will make sense.

And it's actually finally made sense.

So I finally figured out this like big chunk of the puzzle, which like completely resolves everything that I was trying to figure out and also means that it leads nicely into the third book.

So I had like this huge like win of editing, like feeling great.

It was fantastic.

I do always really hate it when I think, future me will solve this problem and then I become future me.

And that is disappointing because future me is actually the same me as present me.

Yes.

Congratulations at future you.

In fact, better than past you, future you wins.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That jerk.

I have got good wins this week as well.

I've got a very similar win this week.

I had got a friend who is reading through all of my books, which is absolutely lovely.

And she is a friend who she is a really, really good, like, critique partner.

She always knows exactly what to say.

But because we don't meet that regularly for actual critiques, we meet often for talks about writing and kind of other retreats and things, but we don't meet on a regular schedule at the moment to talk or to critique books.

And also, even if we did, I write and publish generally too quickly to go through books in time with her.

So she's often read, like, the beginning of all my books, and she hasn't read them all, all the way through.

So she is taking the time this month or this summer to go through and read all my books.

And she just sent me a message this week about the really, really lovely, thoughtful feedback that just meant a lot to me as someone who I know.

I really value her opinion, and she really gave very specific feedback that I know was, like, meaningful and well thought out.

So that was really lovely as well.

So this is a great week for us and our work being appreciated.

Again, I'm going to celebrate my writing, actually, because I think I don't do that enough.

I had a really short week this week because I've had, like, appointments and then kind of social engagements.

That makes me sound very fancy.

But I had a very busy week outside of writing time, and I really had to squeeze my writing into just a few days.

And they met my webcam goal, which was fantastic.

So I felt really good.

I felt very committed to my writing and to myself, which was really good.

It was tiring and I was up late doing it, but I did it.

Amazing.

Well done.

So we might as well get on to the topic of the week.

The topic of the week this week is what are post sales marketing strategies and how are they useful?

So would you like to start us off on this one?

Oh, I forgot it was me first.

Okay, so this topic, I think, is a really, really important topic.

And I think it's a topic that we're going to start today and not finish today, because I think neither is at the stage where we are making our post sales strategy at the level that we want to be at.

So I think I'm kind of at the stage where I'm like, I don't currently have any post sales strategy.

And in the future, when I've got kind of a more regular release schedule and a bigger audience, I think I will change my post sales marketing strategy.

But right now, I'm kind of in experiment mode.

So I've got a few ideas of things I want to experiment with, even just thoughts that I've got.

So I think we mentioned last week that we want to think about post sales marketing strategies, because traditionally you think about the funnel of marketing and then sales, then you make the sale, job done.

But actually, people have got Kindles, they're absolutely stuffed with books.

If you've got Kindle Limited, you could borrow the book and never read it.

You could just borrow it, think you love it, and then you're, oh, I'm short of space.

I do this all the time.

I have an app for audiobooks, it's like through the library.

And it only allows you to have five reservations.

And if there's a reservation that I really, really want, but there's something in my list that I quite want, I'll kick off the one I quite want, even though I quite want it, just to make space for one I really, really want.

And so that author couldn't count on that.

Listen from me, just like I think I can't count on a read from someone who maybe engaged in me a few months ago and thought, I want to read that when it comes out, and then they don't.

So I think currently I want to go from I do nothing, I don't think about it, to starting to think about it, but I don't feel like I am going to feel confident, like I'm saying I'm 100% with my strategy.

Is that kind of where you're at with your thoughts about strategy?

It is 100%.

So I was really thinking about this this weekend about how when you're trying to sell your book, everything you do is to hook that first reader, like to get them to buy the book, which obviously is like the stuff that we've already been talking about.

But then that's the only relationship that you really try and foster.

But I said like this whole post sales strategy is really about fostering a relationship with people after they've bought a book.

And just in terms of like social media, like you say, when people have backlogs on their Kindles, or even just like TBR piles, we all know, I've just said it myself before we started recording, my TBR pile is so big that like I feel sad at the bottom.

I know, and I am so like, sorry for my book, because I know it's at the bottom of other people's TBR piles as well.

So it's like, just like reframing your mind to say, stop talking to the people, stop like spending 100% of your mental and emotional energy into trying to get people to pick up your book, and start trying to talk to those people who already did, but just need to be reminded about why it's so good.

So just that shift in my mind has like set me up for thinking, well, there are so many techniques that I can just start using now, which maybe they won't pan out, but at least like, yeah, some, there's a lot of space for experimentation, which I'm really looking forward to.

And I've written out some ideas for the things that I want to start doing on social media that I can pop into my social plan that I've got on the wall.

Yeah, so it's just like kicked off a thought that I'm going to continue to kick down the hill, and we're going to gather momentum.

Yeah, I think the tricky thing about this kind of strategy is, like we said, it's often, it's a thing for big authors.

Like when we think about traditional kind of post-sales marketing strategy, you think about kind of big, big, like street teams, scream teams, like shouting about your book when it's launched.

You think about like read alongs on Facebook, even for books that have already launched.

They're people that need a lot of fans in place already, or they're strategy need a lot of fans in place already.

They need a lot of momentum, and it can feel daunting to think that you want to try something, but like the only things I could try, I could fall flat on my face.

I could be like, let's have a read along, everyone.

Tell me what you think of chapter one, and then crickets.

You're like, well, that's, that is like falling right on my face.

I will just jump in there.

But you can't get bigger.

No, I actually trialed that earlier this year, I thought, because a lot of people are really into audio books, and a lot of the people I follow on TikTok, I'd say a lot of people, I do follow some audio book narrators on TikTok.

And I thought it would be fun to try and read some of my book on TikTok and see if it generated any interest.

I'm a terrible person.

I can't read out loud very well.

I am dyslexic, so it's tough.

I thought I'd try it just to see if anybody was interested.

And it did fall flat.

And so I just kind of thought, okay, for now, that's not something that I am going to put any more time or energy into.

But if not now, for doing these sorts of experiments, like when?

So at least we have the benefit of being able to do this and people not really remember.

Yeah, but also I would say I don't love real time engagement people.

Yeah, so I don't love real time engagement.

Because I am social, so I am an author.

I like conversation, I like a really good one on one conversation.

That's why I like podcasts and I like small group kind of mastermind type things.

But I don't like being cheerful to strangers.

I don't know how to say that.

And the thing social media requires is that it drains a lot of energy from me.

So it's not for me.

So I don't think I want to plan towards that either.

I don't want to say when I've got X number of readers, I'm going to start doing launch parties and read alongs and other sort of big things that will just will feel fake to me.

They won't feel fun to read it because they're not going to be things I would actually enjoy.

I want to I want to plan things that I would enjoy.

And I think one of the tricky things with like thinking of other strategies.

So like doing doing everything around the launch, that's one tactic, and that's the tactic that you you do if you don't sell direct or people often don't sell direct because you've got no idea who your customers are.

You can't contact them to do any follow up emails because they didn't buy from you.

So Amazon got the email address.

Even if they are people from your newsletter list, you know, you don't know which ones have bought the book.

You don't know which ones are reading it right now.

It's very hard to engage.

You're not a direct seller who doesn't know like this person bought this book on this day.

I can do three full of emails.

So people do like around the launch a lot of strategies such as a read along party or, you know, other sort of screen team activities.

But I think that we are missing a trick.

And I think we can solve it.

Or I think we can start solving it and start figuring out some things that we could do that kind of fit within this broad idea of post sales marketing.

And kind of allow readers to maybe start funneling themselves that way or allow readers like pick things up asynchronously.

That's what I've been thinking this week.

I've got some some specific thoughts on it.

But have you got any kind of ideas about timings and things like that for for post sales marketing?

Yes, I, this is something that's been on my list for a while.

And I'm really bad at my whole email system and subscriber list and building a subscriber list and emailing people consistently about the right things.

And you sent me a link recently about audience segmentation.

And that is something that I've written down as part of my post sales marketing is really trying to figure out who my audience is and make sure that I've got well timed emails set up.

And just, yeah, like trying to, like you say, when you don't sell direct, you don't know who your readers are, who has read what book.

I really want to try and figure out a way to get my email audience to fill in like a getting to know you type form where they tell me what they've read.

And then I can segment them in the correct way and just like know what emails to send people and be really strategic about it because my email strategy right now is literally non existent.

It's just me, like once a week, talking to people.

But in no way is it doing a good job in any respect.

It's not doing not a good job in respect of brand building, I think it does a good...

it keeps a connection to your mind, but it's not selling, it's not trying to do it directly.

Yeah, that's definitely what I need to work on.

So what I've been thinking about is I just bought myself a holiday, because I have not been on a nice, like, sun holiday for five years.

So I have bought myself a holiday to Corfu, which for any kid that read My Family and Other Animals Growing Up is like dream vacation spot for me.

But I am sadly not going to be exploring lots of animals.

I am just going to sit by a pool and read a book, which is what I really, really need to do for a week.

So I bought myself this.

And in fact, I bought a package tour, which I haven't been on a package tour since I was like a teenager when they were like weirdly cheap in the 90s.

And you basically paid nothing to go on them.

They just seem to have just invented package tours and everyone just come along for free.

So what was the package tour?

Because I just literally want to get to the airport and then not think about anything apart from reading and eating ice cream.

After that, and because of that, a company knows exactly where I'm going, where I'm staying, how long I'm going for, the level of hotel I'm going for, like the level of holiday I'm experiencing, my likely income levels.

They know a lot about me.

They can infer from the fact that I've told them where, when and how expensive a holiday is.

So they are sending me, the package tour company, lots of emails.

I would say every two to three days sending an email and I'm opening in them because I have to because they might important things about my holiday.

So the first couple, I've sort of advised them, they could have been my ticket, they could have been like important information about passport details or something.

But when I opened them, they weren't about that.

They were really fun emails that say something like 48 days left to go to your holiday.

Here's what you should be packing.

Here's what your pool looks like.

And I was like, oh my goodness, I'm so excited for the next email.

46 days to go to your holiday.

Make sure you get your money out.

Make sure you got this much time left in your passport.

So a mix of useful things and fun things.

And I'm opening them.

And I have no interest in emails from this company, really.

And also, I've given them my money already.

I've paid them for this holiday.

I might never book another holiday with them again, but they are banking on like creating goodwill in my mind so that this holiday, I tie with them, not that I think of this holiday as I went to Corfu.

It's my holiday with this company, with the package draw sell book, and I package them in the future.

So they are trying to turn me from a buyer into a fan.

I'm going to go on the holiday regardless.

I've given them my money.

This is a great example of post-sales marketing, and it's been really lovely to see.

And again, one tricky thing is they know exactly where my holiday is.

They know when I bought the holiday.

They know where I'm going.

They know a lot about me, which I don't know about my readers.

So that's often why people time things around launches.

But I think, I do think there are ways in which we can get readers to select kind of what they've read.

I think there's an option.

I really like writing newsletters, so I'm always keen to kind of think of new ways to experiment and read my newsletter and work in that.

And I think segmentation is a great idea to do that.

I really want to use my newsletters more to promote my backlist, because people might have joined from one series and not read the other series.

They might have joined because they read a prequel a year ago and they never read anything else.

And they don't know that there's now six book series.

They think, oh, actually, I'd love a six book series.

I wasn't actually, it was like a two book series because they were in like a long series.

So there's tons of people on my newsletter list who maybe love to know where I write books.

So say I put in, have you read book one?

Clicking over the bonus material.

I can then segment and then say, those people wrote book one.

And I've got tons of ideas of things I can do to promote to them.

I've got a bonus thing, thing that I'm not discussing right now, a bonus thing that I can send to readers.

You can be sending people, you know, in the email, you can put in like reviews in, here's reviews, have you left yours yet?

You can be putting in sales numbers, which I know everyone's comfortable with, but like Amazon started putting that now on everyone's page anyway, 1000 plus this month.

So why not use it yourself?

You can put in best sellers information.

There's tons of things you can be used to promote.

And again, most of it falls most naturally after a launch, but you can do other things.

Have you had any other thoughts about sort of specifics of what you can be doing and how?

Yes, I mean, similar to what you've just been saying.

Really being a lot more mindful about my follow up emails, when you get people who join your mailing list, like they get for me, my automations are like nothing.

I really need to redo them all.

So when somebody joins your mailing list and they get like a link to my page, which has got freebies on it, but I'm not sending them another email the next week saying, have you read this book?

Which is so ridiculous, but it's just something that, because I'm so busy with other things, it's just one of those tasks like I've got, you put it on the poster on your wall and you think, I'll get to that next week.

So it's just taking things like that a little bit more seriously, reminding people to leave reviews because as we all know, reviews are our bread and butter.

And I out and out text my friend who'd read my book and said, go and leave a review.

So I need to be doing that to my e-mails as well.

Like go and leave the reviews.

But yeah, I'm just trying to encourage people to interact with me a bit more, I suppose.

I really like it when I read e-mails from authors, and just anyone in general really, where it's conversational to the point where I want to click Reply, or I do want to click through their links and see what they're talking about and create content that is, I don't like to say create content, but that's what it is.

Create content that is interactable.

People want to actually get involved and be excited about it.

Like you say with your holiday, people sending you e-mails and getting you excited, are reading books not exciting?

I think they are.

You are taking a mind holiday.

That seems like something that I should be encouraging.

Yeah, I think my newsletter, I think my newsletter when I'm e-mailing people I've got quite a good automation sequence, I think, or not a good one.

I've got a substantial one.

It's not that long, but it's longish.

But it's not quite an apologetic tone, but it's definitely not a salesy tone.

It feels like, oh gosh, I'm so glad you're still around.

Here's some more information that you might be super excited about.

Here's some pictures about the beautiful place I live in.

Here's some links you might want to research some more information about this series setting in.

It feels like I'm trying to sneak into their inboxes by being really interesting, rather than assuming that they are loving this series, that they are desperate to read the next book, if only they knew what it was, that they are desperate to be engaged in the world of the book.

So I was thinking about an example of how I could improve my automation sequence.

So it's filtered by what free book you come in on and what link that you follow, which I do need to improve it for organic sales from the back of books, but I don't currently push that very much.

I mostly have it from book funnel promos or similar things like that.

But imagining if I knew which book you came in on, which prequel you came in from usually, and I could say, oh, fantastic.

You've read this one.

Did you love XYZ in the first few chapters?

Read on to find out what happens to them next.

If you're feeling peckish at the recipe in Chapter 5, here's the actual recipe.

You can bake this yourself.

I can really get people into the world of the books.

There is so much I could be doing that I'm just not doing.

And then when they get to the end of that, I can say, move on to Book 1.

Here's where you get it.

Here's the little summary.

You'll find out from the prequel what happens to X character.

And then here's three reviews, people who loved it.

Don't forget to leave your own at the end.

And I could just keep moving through the books that way.

Or I could even put already read Book 1, click here for Info on Book 2, and then I can start segmenting them that way.

And who's read which books?

It feels like a lot of work, but I think it's worth doing.

I think there's still more I can think about in that area.

And what else can I say about it?

Yeah, things like I want to try and get techniques from other non-book fields.

So things like cross-selling.

So saying, you've read Book 1 in this series, it's a summery book.

It's focused on this sort of conflict.

You would love Book 1 in this series because it's also set in summer, it's got some conflict.

Even upselling.

So you could say, you've loved the e-book, why not get the paperback?

Or here's this special edition hardback if I had them.

People do that in other marketing fields.

And then even just trying to use it as a way to gain a personal brand building.

So, one thing that I want to improve this year or in the next couple of years is I want to get a better launch celebration.

So I finish a book and then it's done.

That's what I do.

When I publish a book, I do the launch.

And again, like it's a job to do.

But there's people out there who would love to write a book and I don't appreciate it.

And I don't appreciate it if I get to do this, that I have worked hard enough, but I know now how to write a book and how to release a book that is great.

I should be celebrating.

And there's tons of like fun, quirky things I could do to celebrate.

And I could have a little celebration sequence that I do that I can send in my emails.

I could say, it's launch day.

So you know that I have done X, Y and Z.

Here's pictures of it.

And then in my subsequent email.

I was just thinking that about you.

I was just going to say, so we have got a bit of a delay.

I could just imagine you like going to a cute little town and pouring yourself a cup of tea.

And it pans out and you're just like in the middle of this cute town for every book launch.

I can just, it would just be like the cutest thing.

Like you have so many cool things that you could be doing.

Where have I gone?

Yeah.

And then I could include those in, you know, in the emails that are not synchronous, that are like not coming out at launch time.

I could say, oh, you do want to see what I did for the launch of this book?

Here's the little clip of that.

And I could put it on social media.

And I think just building enthusiasm for me and my books is something that I don't do for people that I think are reading the book already.

I think, sold the book, you're done.

But I want to get these people to fans.

And I'm not thinking enough about how to do that.

And I think I previously thought about, oh, could I do like a bonus scene or a bonus something that I've got in the plans.

But it's like, there's nothing ongoing about that.

There's nothing relationship building.

And I want to find a way to like be with people in the world of the book.

So that is what I'm working on kind of thinking about now.

Again, that's a big job.

And I don't have time to do it, like to fix it right now, to finish it right now.

But I am going to start experimenting with it.

Yes.

No, I think that's the best we can do is we can't solve every task that we have on this podcast or just in our writing lives.

Like immediately, once we think about like the challenge, they're not all solvable immediately.

It's just you have to get a ball rolling.

And I am really excited to think about the things that I could be doing.

And it's just it's just painting a clearer picture in your mind of the actual what it actually looks like to be an independent publisher.

It's not just this, this and this.

It's like everything that we cover is broadening the landscape a little bit more.

And it's just really helpful to know where we are.

I think it's also helpful for us to think about things before we're necessarily ready to do it, because the big help with this mastermind session, with these weekly sessions is once we raise a topic, I start to see it everywhere.

And I think having things like this where I know I'm not I'm not ready yet to do anything about it, but I will be quite soon.

You know, I couldn't have said that a couple years ago.

So this wasn't even my radar a long time ago, but it's on my radar now, not to do anything but to say I'm universe.

I am ready.

Send me some things.

I hate thinking about the universe like that's not for me.

But just my own brain, thinking my brain, can you start picking up on like, can you find podcasts on this?

Can you can you like read articles on it?

Can you take an interest in this rather than sort of swiping on it?

So yeah, I guess, yeah, I, I, it's definitely telling that I haven't noticed other authors doing this in a way that feels like, oh, I can take that thing.

And I don't think that's because people are not doing it in the way that I want to do it, or because my brain is not paying attention enough.

So either way, I'm going to start resolving that in the next few months.

I'm going to be noticing and actively seeking things out.

Have you got anything else to add on the post sales marketing trashy?

Just like what you just said, I came up with a good list of comps last week, or the start of this week, I've finally found...

I should have put that on my win list.

I finally found some comps that felt like they fit a lot better than the ones I'd had previously.

And I need to really go through...

I follow them on social media and everything, but I really need to sign up to all their mailing lists.

This sounds like...

I feel so bad because I feel like it sounds like stealing in a way, but it's really like...

It's more inspiration that I'm looking for.

I want to see how they're doing it.

I want to look at the pros and cons or the stuff that are doing well, the stuff that maybe I think I could do better.

Yeah, so after this podcast, I think what I'll do is I'll go and make sure I'm signed up to everyone's mailing lists and get that mental ball rolling and wait for the universe to show me all the things.

Sure.

Yeah, that's how this all works.

It all works like that.

Just the universe will bring us the answers.

We don't have to work at all.

Okay, so it's our last week, next week on the series of Books as Products.

We're doing an episode on continuation equation, which I definitely know what it is.

I haven't kept forgetting this, but just to remind anyone else who's not aware what it is, could you tell us what this means?

Yes, I came up with this.

And then just before we started recording, I had to write down what I meant.

So this is what I've written for what I came up with.

It's building a process, which means you're never wondering what to do next.

So it's keeping your backlog in rotation in your sales slash marketing plans.

So it's just having those processes in place that mean that you're never just leaving a book by the wayside once it's done.

And I'm terrible at this.

I do do that sometimes.

But it's just making sure you're building your backlog into...

I mean, it's kind of like what we're just talking about now in terms of making sure you're turning readers into fans.

It's just making sure you're keeping people in the loop and everything that you're doing is taken into account in your process.

Have you got any initial thoughts on what that might mean for your writing and marketing?

No.

Kind of.

Kind of.

I do have a social slash marketing plan that's not really implemented yet, but I do have things like, on a Wednesday, post this.

And so it's just in my mind to make sure that I'm probably going to have things like my books on Post-its.

I love Post-its.

I can't tell you how many Post-it notes I've got knocking around all different colors.

I'm going to write my books on Post-its.

And then every week, I'm probably going to move them on to a different day on my calendar so that it reminds me.

But at some point, I will try and automate that rather than just doing Post-its on a wall.

But yeah, automation in social media is probably also something we should talk about.

But I think it's just, yeah, I need to pop it into my plan of what's going to, what I'm going to be talking about with people.

Not just social media, with email marketing as well.

Okay, yeah, I think it definitely feels for me like there's something that fits in with what we talked about today.

And just ways to think about my backlist as present books for some people.

Some people have not read these books.

I mean, actually quite a lot of people know I've not read books, so I think I could be doing more with them.

Like, for example, it is coming up to summer or here in the UK this weekend.

It has been summer finally.

I have got books.

My books are very seasonal.

They are set through a longer year.

There are books that are set like in glorious midsummer.

And then when it comes to autumn, there are books that are set in autumn.

I don't promote those.

I don't say, oh, you're looking for a lovely summer read, go for this one.

I don't plan ahead.

I don't have any consistency in my marketing strategies.

I mean, that's fine.

I'm still very conscious in like an experiment phase.

But I want to get to a stage where I can say, okay, every year, this is my overall strategy and I make sure that I promote a backlist book a month.

Or I have seasonal periods where I do a close-up of these backlist books, rather than just saying, I assume people will just find them themselves.

That's not the strategy.

No.

And in fact, it doesn't work.

I followed somebody on Instagram today, and I know, or maybe yesterday, I know that she's an author.

And yet, I had to scroll through her social feed to try and find her books.

And I'm glad I have pinned posts on my socials, but it is just that realization that I did it because I was specifically looking, but other people who come to your account aren't going to specifically look for what they're looking for.

They look on your account, and if it's not in their face, they move on.

So, yeah, that's definitely a big thing to think about.

I think it's good to remind that for me.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Plenty, I think, for us to think about for next week.

I think this will be a good kind of rough up topic for everything we talk about this last four weeks, all this four weeks.

And again, I think it'll be a big topic of things we're not necessarily ready to implement now, but we will be soon.

So I'm looking forward to it.

Soon.

Yes, me too.

Thank you very much.

And thank you, everyone, for tuning in.

And I guess that's it.

Goodbye.

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