Tag Archives: romance readers

Creating a Community Around Your Books

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Time to read: 9 minutes

To no one’s surprise, I’ve been thinking a lot about my series and how people are going to discover them and how I can market them so people do.

It’s really not so much about discoverability, though that is difficult too. What I’ve come to realize is that we all want to build a community around our books. Discoverability, yes, but we also want people to stick around once they do find our books. We want people buy our books and talk about them. We want people to talk about our books to other people. We want those in our groups to talk to each other and engage in conversations about our books, but not only our books–other books in the genre you’re writing in.

Some authors do this really well–I’m a member of Susan Mallory’s and Brenda Novak’s facebook groups. They have thousands of members and they all talk to each other, get excited for the authors’ new releases, and just have a really good time talking books.

If you look at any author’s successful groups, you’ll find some similarities right away.

They post regularly and have chosen the platform that works best for them. They usually have one spot where they focus all their time. I might be showing my age, and other authors who are my age might be showing theirs, but Facebook groups still seem to be the place where authors and readers like to go. I’ll be 50 this year and I’m guessing Susan and Brenda are older than me. But that also means their readers are around the same ages they are. When I look at my Facebook Ads demographics, women 55+ are the ones who click on my ads the most. Which means that maybe since I’m an older author and my readers may be skewing older, places like IG and TikTok aren’t going to drive sales. The characters in most of my books are usually older than 30 years of age, and that’s a great marketing tool. So not only do they post regularly, they chose the platform that works well for them. It helps to know who your readers are and who you’e writing for. Not only do you want to speak to your readers who build your community, relating to them is important, too.

They encourage reader participation. When you peruse author groups, you’ll find out right away that they always encourage reader participation, be it a giveaway, a poll, or simply asking what their summer plans are. The reason I hesitate to do that is because when you encourage reader participation, especially by asking a question, to be courteous and polite, it is nice, every once in a while, to respond back. This is something I have to work on because I tend to blow off notifications and don’t really like to speak to anyone. That could be a byproduct of how I’ve been feeling and now that I’m feeling better, maybe I will be more open to chatting and engaging with people, but for the past four years, I’ve been a lurker and that’s not really great when you’re running your own group. In the past I have tried to run giveaways and such, but no one really participates because my “group” isn’t cohesive. I have 700 subscribers I moved over to my blog from MailerLite and only 28% of them open my emails. Fewer yet click on links. That’s not great participation. I have fewer than 200 likes and followers on my FB author page, when after all this time, I could have had thousands. It’s not that FB is a dud for me, it’s that I don’t post, and when I do post and people engage, it takes me days to respond back. No one wants to join a group where the host isn’t present so if I want to build my following, I need to put more work into it and be present. That’s what anyone has to do, no matter what platform they’ve chosen.

They have confidence in their work. It’s really difficult to have confidence in your book if you’re the only one who worked on it. Doing your own editing and cover design can make you feel like Wonder Woman, but it also elicits a lot of doubts because it’s rare someone can be a one-stop-shop successfully. I’ve gone through most of my books at least once more since they’ve been published (my duet and my Lost & Found trilogy both got massive scene rewrites). We get better as we go along, and you’ll always find changes you want to make in a book that’s three years old or whatever. Even my rockstars have a “with” and “when” problem, though I seemed to have caught on to that when I was editing A Heartache for Christmas and fixed it in that book. I could go back and re-edit my rockstars but even though I love the stories and wouldn’t mind reading them again, the want to do so just isn’t there, at least, not now. I could change my mind after my series is done and not hanging over my head anymore, but we’ll have to see how I feel. I promised myself a break, and re-editing 300,000 words isn’t a break. So, knowing your book is the best it can be is a big deal, and that gives you the confidence you need to push your book out into the world. If you love your book, love the cover, and are proud if it, you show it to everyone and can’t stop talking about it. If you’re excited, others will be too. It helps to know not every book is going to be perfectly published, and it helps to know that not every author has the same skills. I’ve read some books that were not to my taste that had thousands of 5-star reviews. There’s room for everyone, so grab your seat at the table and shine!

They have newsletters. Building a community takes time and consistency. I would love for all 700 of my blog/newsletter subscribers to also follow my FB page and maybe one day I can ask them to follow me there. Maybe a small percentage of the small percentage that reads my blog will do it. But if I do, then I have to commit to posting there, and I rarely post, hence the fewer than 200 followers. Since I started my newsletter, I have actually been really good about sending it out once a month. Writing is probably my biggest strength (as opposed to finding and posting memes or creating videos) and I do use that to my advantage posting here once a week and sending out a newsletter even though I didn’t have much to say because I didn’t have a new release coming out. I like creating content that way, and maybe during the time leading up to my series, I’ll post twice a month. I’ll have a lot to say, even if it’s just posting the blurbs to my books to build buzz. But if you’re creating a community, starting a newsletter is pretty common. My property management sends out a newsletter, so do my local libraries. My children’s schools sent out newsletters, so do churches and other groups. If you’re saying “I don’t want to send out a newsletter because…” You’ll have to find a substitute because no matter what you tell yourself, people really do want to know what you’re up to. I’d like to think my newsletter/blog will complement my FB author page and vice versa. When I start posting.

So what does all this mean for me and my series? In a nutshell, I don’t post enough. I was happy hiding in my books, churning them out, but that’s only half of what you need to do. Having the books and the backlist will always come first, but a close second is getting the word out, and that does mean posting and talking about my books. I don’t have the confidence to do a FB Live or similar, but I would like to start sharing more videos of myself, especially holding author copies of my books. Videos are rewarded by the algorithms after all, and if you film yourself they can be cross-posted. But like I said in my mental health blog, part of what is wearing me down is the fact that for so long I haven’t felt good, and while that adds to me not wanting to do stuff like that, the years have been hard and show on my face. I don’t really notice until someone takes my picture (like my daughter did of me and my sister during a roadtrip to Bismarck, ND last week) and I can barely recognize myself. Hopefully as things continue to improve on that front, my face will perk up too and I won’t look so rundown and downtrodden.

What are my next steps? While I’m proofing these books, I can create graphics that have quotes from the first book and I can make several at a time and either post when I want or schedule them through Canva. Like this one:

I want to put my covers out there for the next month while I proof and get my ARCs ready to go. I’ve always felt a little weird hyping books that aren’t ready yet, but some authors do it the second they decide to write the book. I have covers in place, blurbs, and plenty of words to search for quotes. I should have no problem creating the content, I just need to have the motivation to do it. But, if I’m interested in building a community, no one congregates where there aren’t people around. That’s why they’re called ghost towns, and yeah, right now, all that’s on my FB author page is tumbleweeds. Not great.

I do want community. I do want people talking about my books.

It just sucks I have to talk about them first.

Have a great holiday week, everyone. Stay safe, and if you’re drinking, stay away from those fireworks!

Impatient readers. A gift or a burden?

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You know what I love more than anything in the world? Realizing at 8 pm the night before a blog post is due that I haven’t written it yet! This week has been just a crazy time with some personal issues, a cat that won’t let me sleep, and a maintenance man in our bathroom. I’m exhausted, and for the first time in a long time, I didn’t get much done on my book this week. I stalled out around 64k and I need to dig my heels in and get it finished if I want to meet my goal of the middle of December. For the first time in forever I don’t have the next book planned, so I may actually take that break I wrote about 6 books ago. Maybe.

What was interesting this week is a little drama over on the Nora Roberts blog. She released a first in a trilogy (which apparently ended in a cliffhanger) and already her readers are clamoring for the second. The comments on the blog got a little heated, and Nora and her publicist Laura shut it down pretty quickly:

For those of you who can’t read that one of her readers says: NR trilogies used to be published all in one year a month apart. now they are a year apart.
what the heck

Her publicist, Laura, came back with: The trilogies are longer, more complicated books. Nora needs the time to write them.

And Nora herself said: I did the three in three months in paperback trilogies once or twice. That schedule was by no means usual or regular. As it was, doing that cramped my writing schedule and seriously impacted my personal life.

I can’t write that fast!!!

It takes time to write, and it takes a lot of time to write these longer, more complex hardcover trilogies.

It does take time to write. Anyone who has written a book knows that. And the more subplots that are interwoven into the main plot, the more complicated and more time consuming it is. I’ve read several of Nora’s trilogies and she has each book with it’s own plot that gets tied up at the end but also an overarching plot that gets resolved at the end of book three. Those take time to plan.

You can dig through all of the discussion here, if you want.

The discussion upset Nora so much she had to write a blog post about it to, I don’t know. Defend herself, I guess. And in reality, does she have anything to apologize for? She publishes under Nora and her pen name, JD Robb, and her blog post says she write four books a year. That is more than some indies who aren’t under any publishing constraints.

And then Debra has a whole article written about her, and I happened to find her comment going deeper in to The Awakening thread:

Nora’s response is long and available at this article or in The Awakening comment thread I posted the link to earlier in the blog, but I’ll copy and past it here for fun.

Nora: I have personally explained the process to you, Debra. You are not stating facts but opinions. But you continue to contradict me, as you apparently think you know more about publishing than I do, and more than the industry professionals I work with.

FACT: Publishing the trilogy a year apart is not a marketing strategy. 

I haven’t finished writing the second book, and won’t begin to write the third until next fall. 

Your opinion that the publisher should wait a year or two—holding a completed ms, or two —is in fact not how publishing works. 

You’re not commenting, but contradicting and insisting against every fact given you that you’re right and I’m wrong, that Laura’s wrong, that everyone who disagrees with you is wrong.

Once again, I ask: Do you work in publishing?

If so you’d know that in order to publish a major release in less than 6-8 months means serious added cost—it’s called crashing for a reason.

This is not how the process is intended to work or should.

You can keep insisting you’re right, you know better than I do how publishing works. 

But that won’t turn your opinion into a fact.

The most interesting part though, is Debra’s opinion on the publishing industry:

Debra: Please stop making comments on a blog about the publisher setting release dates according to their timeline and not considering the customer? What is wrong with suggesting that the publisher can alter a release schedule? They can and they do. Many times. Assuming that just because we read Nora’s books we have no idea about anything that a publisher does is insulting. It is a business. It should consider its customer. Without the customer there is no business. This is business 101. I am sorry that you do not want me to state facts. Publishers can and do publish books in less than 6-8 months. Fact. It does not have to affect Nora’s writing time. Fact. A publisher does sit on MS’s when it is prudent or they are waiting for an event before they release. Fact. Publishing trilogies a year apart is simply a marketing strategy. Fact. I am reading the book for a second time. Fact. I will read it again before the next book drops. Fact. That does not mean I cannot comment on the fact that the publisher, that controls the release date, cannot change the release dates. If you do not want people to post facts-do not have a blog open for comments.

Of course, I don’t agree with her going off the rails on Nora Roberts. Nora does what her publisher tells her to do, and that’s it. All Nora cares about is writing a good book, and she does. Four times a year.

But what this does tell me is that Debra reads a lot of small press and indie. Indies and small presses who have a lot more flexibility in their publishing schedules. Indies who write books, save them up, and rapid release them especially so their whale readers can binge an entire series in one sitting. This is definitely a different kind of publishing than what Nora does, and quite honestly, I’m expecting the worlds to collide more frequently as more and more authors turn indie and more and more readers grow aware of that fact.

Debra has forgotten that even though Nora finishes a book she’s put into a queue same as other authors. With cutbacks there are fewer editors who edit the books, and her cover artist isn’t solely working on her book. Indies are in charge of their own editing schedules and buying a premade for a book cover doesn’t have much of a wait time involved.

Where does that leave us? Especially those of us who write romance? When customer demand outweighs supply, that can be a good thing, right? Except when indies try to write ten books a year and get burnt out on reader expectation.

Sometimes the customer isn’t always right. Sometimes she’s a Karen who feels entitled to getting what she wants when she wants it. I’ve seen that behavior more than ever before with COVID and the horrible things some authors have said about KDP (Amazon’s POD service) and IngramSpark. They forget that these call centers and POD printers are run by people. People who may have gotten sick and need to go home and quarantine to get better and prevent others from getting sick. I’ve seen some nasty treatment of workers for the POD companies right now and it’s disheartening. A sick employee doesn’t GAF where your proof is, Karen.

Indies are the same. We get sick. We have to look after sick family members, not just in COVID times, but all the time. Some of us still have day jobs and we write when we can. Some of us write through pain of carpal tunnel or other illnesses like depression. Nora, in a previous blog post some time ago has said she has dental issues and finds herself in a dentist’s chair frequently. Having had a tooth pulled a couple months ago, I can agree that teeth issues are not fun.

I won’t even get into quantity over quality simply because yes, some authors do need time to daydream, take walks, think about their book and where they need it to go, what their characters are telling them. Just because I’m not sitting at my keyboard pounding out letters doesn’t mean I’m not in some capacity writing every single second of my day. And it’s exhausting.

Debra got a lot of flack online for trollsplaining to Nora Roberts, but I’m interested in what she’s saying, even if she could have put it in a nicer way. Indies are spoiling readers. They want what they want, and they get it. And if you sign up for an indie newsletter, you get more than just the books. You get excerpts of coming books, deleted scenes, novellas, just-for-newsletter subscribers short stories and in some cases character art, word searches, crossword puzzles, and coloring pages, exclusive giveaways. It takes a lot these days to keep a reader of indie books happy, and if you don’t believe me, read Debra’s comments again.

So far, I don’t have a readership clamoring for my books, but I don’t think it would be a bad thing. At least, not until I have a Debra trolling my website hounding me for the next book.

What do you think?

Happy Monday everyone! Have a great week!