I was chuffed to sit down with Book Marketing expert Katie Sadler, to chat about about how she helps romance writers to find and engage with their readers through social media. Katie has great experience in this area having worked for HarperCollins, Quercus and Ebury Publishing, I started by asking her …
What sort of social media campaigns have you been involved with?
A couple that stand out to me were working on the launch of HarperImpulse, which was a romance digital only list I worked on when I was at HarperCollins. We did the entire thing online, and had almost no budget to do so. We launched authors then who are now selling hundreds of thousands of ebooks and whose physical books are in big supermarkets here in the UK. It’s really exciting to think that that all started off the back of us building the authors and the brand up via social media.
Another that stands out is the recent launch for Peter May’s Lockdown, which is a crime novel he wrote 15 years ago and which he couldn’t get published because the idea of London completely closing was too unbelievable. We launched this entirely online because due to the pandemic, there weren’t a lot of other options! And it has been a huge success. From the minute we announced it, it went into the Amazon bestseller chart, and it was on the Sunday Times bestseller list here in the UK for weeks.
There have been loads of others, as a lot of what I do working with authors in-house at Quercus, as well as with the authors I work with directly, is to do with social media marketing and how people can use content to connect with and grow their audience, and then sell to them without feeling gross!
What were the characteristics of the most successful campaigns?
There are a few things that stand out for me about these two campaigns I mentioned, which I think could be applied to campaigns at every level.
Firstly, there is the idea of community. So, one of the things that made HarperImpulse successful was that we focused in on community at the absolute core of what we were doing. The authors were all connected to one another in a private Facebook group, and were encouraged to support the titles that were being published. This DID have downsides, mostly to do with boundaries – people messaging you on Facebook late at night asking about promotions, people comparing their activity with others’ etc, but on the whole, it was a really great way for them to get to know one another and to use their collective platforms to raise one another up.
We also had a community of book bloggers who we would send images and assets to regularly, who were first in line to download new books as they were published. We built really strong relationships with those bloggers, as did the authors, and it meant that whenever we shared anything online, we knew that there was going to be a group of people who were going to amplify that for us and spread the word further.
For Lockdown, we had an author with a very significant following already, so that always helps, but this was SUCH a contentious book and we had very little time to prepare the ground. We launched it the week that everyone was sent home from work, and I think the week after that, Boris Johnson was sent into hospital. So, it was very topical, sometimes it felt like it was too close to home.
But it kind of goes back to the community thing again – this book came out of a suggestion from one of the people in his community. ‘You should write a book that’s set during the pandemic’ – someone suggested. And he remembered that actually, he already had!
For an individual author, I cannot stress enough that building relationships with your community is so, so key. Support them, get to know them – treat them like people, not just faceless ‘followers’ – engage with them.
And those that failed – what did you learn from that?
I think sometimes there are books where getting the messaging right can be hard. So – what is the thing that people actually want to get when they read this book? What would make them intrigued enough to actually click through to read more? What is going to make them hit buy?
For some books, like with Lockdown, that messaging, once you get it clear, really hits the mark and you’re golden. But for others, you’ll try one thing, nothing. So you try another thing, nothing. It just means that you need to keep experimenting and trying different angles, but sometimes you kind of run out of steam, especially if you’re in house and you’ve got eight other titles that you’re working on that month!
OR, sometimes, you see something absolutely flying on social media, then they get to the Amazon page and literally no one is buying the book! That shows me that there’s something that needs changing on the Amazon page in terms of the cover or the description or getting more reviews, but it’s harder to pinpoint exactly what needs changing, so can take longer to get right.
What’s key to engaging with readers?
Engaging with them. As in – a lot of people expect people to engage with their content because they are sharing great content. But it’s when you start going out and engaging with what they are putting out into the world AND sharing that great content that you can start to see shifts in how much engagement you get.
How much attention do traditional publishing houses pay to marketing through social media channels?
A lot. Most of the campaigns I work on, particularly now when other routes are not actually even available to us, are supported by Facebook advertising. So that’s paid-for stuff.
But getting authors who are able to talk about their writing in a natural way is a gift. It’s not just about saying ‘my book is out now, buy it’, it’s about taking people on a journey to get to know you, discover how you write, what you write about, what inspires you, what blocks you have around writing – it’s letting people in a bit, and making them feel invested in what you do. Having an author who is able to do that makes a huge difference to the results.
And publishing’s own social channels are so important, more important now than ever. Building up direct relationships with bloggers and Instagrammers and booksellers are all SO important these days, and social media is where they (and you!) are able to do that best.
So Katie if there were three things you wanted authors to take away today – what would they be?
- Seek out your readers. Go out and actively seek your readers, and get to know them. Start interacting with your local bookshop manager. Build a relationship with bookstagrammers who like your kind of book. Don’t spam them with your content, but engage with them about what they are sharing. This a) makes social media a much nicer place to be and also b) really helps you when you DO come to have a book to launch, be able to reach out and say ‘just wanted to let you know my new book is coming out next week, I would love it if I could send you a copy to review on your Instagram page or feature in your shop’ or whatever it might be
- Please set up a mailing list! Social media is wonderful for building up relationships, but the number one way to drive actual sales online remains email. You don’t need to send out essays every week, but figure out a schedule that works for you and give people a reason to sign up, and you’re good to go.
- Promote yourself. Most authors I have ever worked with, apart from non-fiction business book type people, but sometimes them too, hate promoting themselves. But by not promoting what you do, you are doing a disservice to yourself, and also to your potential readers. Think of the good things they will get from your book and how it will help them. These are heavy, heavy times right now – romance books feel to me like they are a public service! We NEED escapism. We can’t travel anywhere physically – we NEED to travel in our minds. Focus on your readers’ needs rather than your fears, and hopefully that will make things a little bit easier.
Thanks Katie. I received so many insights from our conversation.
I wish other writers of romance the best with their efforts to increase their discoverability and engagement with readers.
Want to know more about book marketing? You can find Katie at https://katiemorwenna.co.uk/
