A Guide to Building an Audience Before Publishing Your Book
Gather an audience for your book before you launch!
📙I shouldn’t have to tell anyone why building an audience before publishing is the best way to achieve success with your book, but because too many authors wait, I thought a short tutorial might inspire authors reading this to finally do this for their book.
🖋️Or, you for your book, if you’re an author reading this. Or even if you’re an aspiring author reading this.
Here’s the stark truth: Publishing your book without planning to engage your audience ahead of time is like having a party and forgetting to send out the invitations. 🥳 You know who you wanted to invite, but you thought pushing a note out on LinkedIn or Facebook the morning of the party would be good enough.
🔕 And it isn’t.
🧑🏻🦳🧑🏻👩🏻🦱👩🏻🦰👩🏽🦱 Your book’s success depends on people knowing about it well in advance of launch. You want the right people at your (book launch) party, and you want the right people to be aware of the value your book will bring them, weeks before it’s published.
These are the people you will nurture and respect for many weeks ahead of publication.
📖 People who will be eager to read your book because they’ve heard so much about it. People who are thrilled to be part of your entourage.
Additionally, when you have a pre-existing audience, their commitment can often boost launch sales, help garner reviews, and even generate word-of-mouth.
🎦 If you’re into the speaking circuit, these folks can also help attract speaking opportunities – someone might mention you or your book to a favorite podcaster, for instance, and you could be invited to be a guest on the show.
Rob Eagar says this about building your reader list ahead of time:
“Building a large audience positions you to generate a bigger book launch, quickly secure hundreds of Amazon reviews, and possibly hit a bestseller list.”
👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼 Another benefit of curating an audience ahead of launch is that these are the people who can help you fine-tune your writing. These are the people who might offer insight and advice on your throughline or your ability to tell a good story. This gives them skin in the game. It makes them want you to succeed.
Now, the question is – how do you find these people?
Think Connecting, not Selling.
All of the best salespeople on LinkedIn, or anywhere else, will tell you that you need to build relationships before you start selling.
👯 This means getting to know folks before you ask them to be part of your book’s launch team, or before you incentivize them to join your mailing list.
This is not as hard as some folks make it out to be. Think back to when you were the new person at a new job. You had your role to play. Perhaps you were part of a team. To be considered worthy of everyone else’s approval, you had to prove your worth. You did that not only by being good at what you do, but by making friends with those around you (ask them about their pets, it works every time!)
🐩🐈 Back in the day, when I worked in a veterinary office (yes, I was a veterinary technologist), I made friends with the receptionist, with the kennel folks, and then with the veterinarians. I was closer to the receptionist and kennel folks because we all helped each other out. The vets were a little standoffish, so even though we called each other by first names, they didn’t go out with all of us at the end of the week. They were the bosses; we were the staff.
Approach potential readers as I approached the friendships at my vet’s office – think of them as peers with shared interests, not as buyers for your book. Find out what else they read. Ask about their personal lives. Learn to be a good listener. In our ebook, How to Market Your Book Like a Rockstar: The Taylor Swift Model of Book Marketing, we share a number of things Taylor does for her Swifties that you can do for your fan club, too! Hint: Make it about them first!
Here’s where Your Ideal Reader and Your Branding Work Together
👏🏼 These people are the start of your fan club – you will want to connect with them because they are the people we’ve identified as wanting to learn and benefit from your experience. We call them ideal readers.
My friend, Dianne Volek, (who loves cats🐱 like me!), turned my head around this week about who an ideal reader is. In her LinkedIn post, she wrote,
“Let’s talk about List Segmentation, a fancy phrase for a simple concept. Don’t email everyone all your emails.
“It’s horrible for the recipient, AND they will unsubscribe.
📬 𝐇𝐞𝐫𝐞’𝐬 𝐚 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐝 𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐚: 𝐨𝐧𝐥𝐲 𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐝 𝐞𝐦𝐚𝐢𝐥𝐬 𝐩𝐞𝐨𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐮𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐰𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝.
“BUT to do that, you need to know why they subscribed. Some people subscribed on your Substack, some actually wanted your giveaway, and some handed you their card at an event.”
She goes on to talk about having multiple audiences for your book. I recommend reading her post on this and thinking carefully about how to craft your outreach to the people you believe are the right audience for your book. Click the link on her name above.
👩🏻🦱🐱👯 Your ideal reader is a persona. To connect with them, you need to understand them. You need to know their demographics, interests, challenges, and where they spend time online. I always like to create three of them. Each one will represent a different group of people who will want to read your book.
🪷After you’ve done that, make sure your branding represents you and your book properly. If you’re a small business owner, you may have a brand you want to use or enhance. Your book needs to be part of that. That includes how you speak (your voice), your colors (branding), and your mission.
At Master Book Builders, we’re simple people. Our mission is to support Indie authors and help them create a book that will represent them and their brand properly. We work hard to produce books that are as good as any books published by the Big 5.
🌟 If you’re an entrepreneur and plan on using your book to jump-start a new venture, ask yourself: What do I want to be known for? What story will I tell? How will people relate to me and my work? What is my vision for the future? And then, how will I represent that to the world? This includes the design aspects of branding as well. Your design will speak as loudly as your words.
I wrote a blog post about author branding in 2024 that you might want to read, “Your Author Brand: How To Make It Stand Out.” It’s short, but full of advice from not only me but others who are brand experts and worth listening to. (Hint: your brand isn’t just your business or your book, it’s you!)
Now, Build Your Author Platform
🥲 I hear you whining and crying. “What’s a platform?” so many of you ask. “I just want to write,” you’re saying. And I get it. But that’s not enough.
▶️ A platform is the basis for engaging with your audience. It’s your foundation. It’s where I can find you if I have a question or a comment about your book.
▶️ It’s a website, a blog, social media, and any other way you plan on promoting yourself and your book.
A. Website or Blog
☑️ Yes, authors need websites. Within the website, we recommend a blog to showcase expertise and share valuable content. This should not be solely related to your book. It should also be about you and sometimes about your readers.
Use it as a hub for updates, pre-orders, and exclusive resources. We recommend free downloads of tip sheets, ebooks, and other content useful to your audience. Try your hand at LI Live events or webinars, which you can feature links to on your site. Don’t shy away from humor, either. People love to laugh. If you make them laugh, they remember you. (Visit Tom’s post about the 7 Essentials of Author Websites and take notes!)
B. Email List
📝 Once you’ve created authentic relationships, as mentioned above, you can begin collecting contact information.
❓Offer a lead magnet (mini-guide, checklist, insight into the book that isn’t written in the book, case studies, and special offers) that will enhance people’s lives. ASK people which of these ideas they would most like to see.
Once you have their contact information, create a schedule for your newsletter or promotional material that won’t overwhelm anyone. Having a VA help can save you time and effort.
C. Social Media Presence
Choose one or two platforms where you know your ideal readers hang out. You can use AI to help you with this. Be specific about what you ask. For instance, “I’m an author with a new book about This or That. I would like to know which social media platforms people interested in <topic or focus> are discussing this or topics similar to it. Please give me a list of these people from each platform you identify as meeting my requirements.” Then, you make friends with those people!
This is where being ahead of the curve helps most. You make friends before the book comes out, and all of your new friends will want to buy it and support you.
✔️ Social media is a great place to share tips, ideas, stories, and even sneak peeks of your current or next book. Don’t hesitate to repurpose book content into engaging posts or videos.
🌟If you can share insight or content that did not make it into the book, people will love it! Make them feel special by telling them you’re sharing it exclusively on that platform, just for them.
🎥 Leverage Bookstagrammers and BookTok – two powerful social tools for authors. Oh, and get comfortable with video. People want to see your face.
Find bloggers who do book reviews and set up a blogger book tour. Or ask us to help. We offer them to our authors via Kelley Lacey at Love Book Tours.
✔️ REMEMBER this: you are not the only author out there. Support the authors you meet on your journey through these platforms.
And Now it’s Time to Engage and Grow Your Audience
Here are some ways to engage and grow your audience:
- Guest blog
- Be active on LinkedIn
- Start a YouTube Channel
- Create an Ask Me Anything hour
- Host an in-person book signing at a local café
- Read last week’s post on collaborating with other authors
- Podcast guesting or public speaking (start local, it’s easier)
- Support readers by commenting on their posts and content
- Invite people to a webinar and offer a free PDF of your book
- Check out Authority magazine for opportunities to write for them
- Write a guest newsletter and let the newsletter host guest post on your newsletter
Reap the Rewards
🌱 None of this happens without planning and work. If you can’t do it on your own (and who can?), find a VA to help. The investment of a VA for a couple of hours a week will be worth it, I promise. These are professionals who can help with the heavy lifting.
📕 Building an audience ahead of your book launch is a long game, but it pays off with a more successful launch, increased book sales, and lasting readership. And a lot of new friends.
❓What did I leave out that you have burning questions about? Ask me in the comments. Otherwise, I’ll see you on LinkedIn.
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