Today’s edition covers:

• Feedback request: What 3 books influenced yours?

• Why is being authentic so important when promoting your book?

• Why is Ben feeling scared? 👻

• November roadmap & traffic updates

• Ben's updates and reading list

Fun Size! 🍫

• We had a book recommendation list on “the best science fiction books that you may never have heard of, but definitely should read” go viral on HN. It received over 30,000 visitors!

• We are up to 1,000+ submissions for the Best Books of 2024! Please share your 3 favorites and join the club!

Feedback Request 👂

What 3 books influenced your book?

If you have a second, can you fill out this quick survey?

What is this for?

I will use the data you give me to test this format on readers. Several authors have requested this format, and I will test it over the Winter to see how well it works. Thank you!

Why is being authentic so important when promoting your book?

Books are not something you can easily promote.

Books are a magical experience, not something we check off a list (like buying toothpaste). They are incredibly hard to promote because the marketing must be authentic, and authenticity is incredibly hard to scale.

Books are promoted by word of mouth, and that requires authenticity.

Someone likes a book and tells a friend about the amazing experience they had.

For example, if I read a stunning science fiction book, I have a group of friends who I tell, and they trust me enough to buy that book. They read far fewer books than me, so they can’t take as many chances on books (and they trust my picks, given my past track record).

Any book promotion you do for your book needs to be focused on one of two things:

1. Authentically connecting with readers

2. Amplifying word-of-mouth in some way

What are two examples of authentically connecting with readers?

Gathering and growing your fan base is one of the most effective things you can do as an author. If you authentically connect with them, it makes launching and promoting your next book much easier. I’ve seen this work via email newsletters, Facebook Groups, TikTok, social media, etc.

You must find the right medium for your style, or it will fall flat. It has to be a genuine connection that they want in their lives.

Shepherd is a good example of authenticity in action. When authors like Nathan Lowell or Kevin Miller share books they love about something they are passionate about, it resonates with readers. This is why this format creates such a high conversion rate to the author’s featured book.

What are two examples of amplifying word-of-mouth in some way?

I know authors who spend $5,000+ a month on Amazon and Facebook book ads. This only works when you can correctly target the most likely readers for your book (for many authors, this is not possible due to the genre/nature of their book). By doing this, they amplify authentic word-of-mouth growth for their book, book series, and author brand. Enough readers love that book to tell their friends, buy and read the rest of the series, join their fan club, and read through the author’s back catalog.

Another good example is building a system that encourages your readers to leave Amazon reviews. It is vital to get Amazon reviews because that is how readers vet the quality of books (for good or bad, which I will talk about another day). 

How can you promote your book authentically?

(Ben’s disclaimer: I’ve done marketing most of my life, and these are my personal opinions. I am constantly learning and adjusting as I learn from our data, readers, authors, and publishers.)

Book promotion is not a requirement for authors, BUT…

… if you want to make money from your writing, it is key. I define “book promotion” as growing, collecting, and harnessing your fan base.

(Hopefully, it goes without saying that the most important thing an author can do is keep writing, keep improving, and build a great group of beta readers who can help you improve.) 

Don’t do book promotion techniques you dread.

If you keep hearing that you should do X or Y or be on social media as an author, try it! But don’t force yourself to be there if it isn’t a fit for you. The best book promotion methods are the ones you will do 😃.

If I were a sci-fi author, I would use social media to build my fan base, keep my fans up to date with my writings, and engage with them to increase the number of book reviews on Amazon and convert them to my email newsletter (where I can build a real connection with them).

So that means things like:

• I would regularly ask open-ended questions to engage my fans. Things like, “What was the best sci-fi movie you saw this year?” or “Who is your favorite sci-fi character?” Talk to them and create an interaction that they enjoy.

• I would share longer posts from my newsletter about the new book. I aim to share something valuable with my fans and convert them into direct relationships as an email subscriber.

• If someone mentions how much they liked your book, thank them. That is a great fan interaction where you hopefully increase the chance they will tell people about your book because the author said hello to them. Even better, you can smartly ask them to leave a review and help other readers find it (people love to help), or you could pitch your newsletter (aka your fan club).

• Please share interesting personal updates! I am on email lists for a few authors, and I love getting their emails because they include interesting personal tidbits. One is an author who wrote about his move to France, and I love his updates because he writes a lengthy update on his experience of going back to France every year and what is happening in his village/life. It is lovely.

The point is to be authentic and build a real connection with your fan base.

How does Shepherd help you promote your book authentically?

This is the entire premise of Shepherd 😀.

How can we help authors authentically meet the most likely readers for their book?

What do we do right now?

• 5 Book Recommendation List - Authors share five books they love around a topic, theme, or mood they are passionate about or experts in. When done correctly, each book recommendation gets readers more interested in you and your book. It comes across as super authentic and speaks to the readers who are most likely to be interested in you and your book.

• 3 Favorite Reads Of The Year - Authors share their three favorite reads of the year; it can’t get more authentic than that. This is designed to be shared with your fan base to start a conversation with them and gently remind them about one of your books and you.

What will we add soon?

• Sharing interesting facts & stories - I love listening to a podcast and hearing an author share an amazing fact or short story. It instantly gets me interested in them and their book. I want to do similar and pull readers toward you and your book through an interesting fact or story. This is an authentic way to engage them through curiosity and good storytelling.

Are you feeling stumped?

Hit reply, and I will happily brainstorm some ideas with you.

I know many authors get stuck on what to do. Please click reply, and I will be happy to brainstorm some ideas with you. They might not work for you, but they might help you get “unstuck.”

Ben is scared 👻… why?

Yes, my 8-year-old son is putting fake snakes in my bed every few nights… but that is not why I am scared.

I removed all of the ugly display ads on Shepherd.

This is a slightly scary move, as they pay for a chunk of our server and software costs (see our business model). But I feel confident we can replace them with more authentic book ads and provide a better experience for readers and authors in one go. If you are curious, I’ve written a longer post about removing the display ads.

Want to help me feel less scared 😃 ?

I am 178 members from reaching my 2024 goal of 1,000 paying Founding Members. We are meeting 70% of our costs, and I’d love to reach 100% soon (the rest is coming from my savings). Learn more about the perks and benefits here!

And I will tell you a secret…

As a huge thank you to all our Founding Members, we will switch all the ad spots on the website to them for November, December, and January. We are working to make this change, and I will officially announce it soon (once we are ready to turn it on).

My November Roadmap Update (For Authors)

What are we building now?

• Adding widgets to invite readers to share their 3 favorite books of the year across Shepherd. (90% done)

• Adding book series pages to Shepherd. (50% done)

• Implementing a referral program to reward authors who refer readers who share their 3 favorite reads of the year. I’ll talk more about this soon. (0% done)

• Upgrading the Book Boost Ad system for Founding Members. This will make the ads persistent, improve targeting, roll out new designs, and more! (0% done)

What are we building after that?

• A quick upgrade to our bookstore buttons to improve the UX. Long term, this will allow us better to highlight direct purchase options from authors (and other bookstore options).

• Upgrading our bookshelves! I am so excited about this update 😀.

• Launching an author dashboard for Founding Members where they can manage their membership perks and more.

And then?

• A giant update for our genre and topic system. It needs a big revamp to improve genre/topic accuracy and a lot more. This is a monster project for Winter. 

• I’ll share more as we get further along…

Traffic, bookstore clicks, and sales

For last month:

• We had 232,000+ visitors.

• We had 12,800+ clicks to bookstore partners this month. 

For a big-picture perspective:

• In 2023, we had 5 million visitors! Woohoo! 

• In 2022, we had 1.8 million visitors.

• In 2021, we had 266,000 thousand visitors (launched in April). 

Detailed stats on our traffic, clicks, and sales stats page.

What else is going on?

We spent a fantastic week in the Pyrenees mountains. I spent a lot of time reading in a hammock, making fires with my son, and hiking as a family.

My son finished Harry Potter 3 on our trip, and I get so excited watching him get excited about every chapter (he is reading Harry Potter 4 every night now).

What am I reading?

I just finished...

• All six books in the Sword of Jupiter series. Think of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, except in an alternative history of Ancient Rome. Fun reads!

I am reading...

• In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts—This is my brother’s pick for our dad/sons book club, and I look forward to it. It is about addiction and recovery (which is not something I’d typically read).

Thanks, Ben

P.S. Picture from a hike that reminds me how lucky I am to be alive.