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Nuts & bolts of how to grow Apex writer groups so they’d really boost sales?
As I was doing some busy work earlier, I figured I’d start listening to the backlog of Apex meetings. In the first one, David talks about how some Romance novelists are able to pull in hundreds of thousands in sales from their “writer’s ring”, and that we should build similar things here.
This set gears grinding in m’noodle… and resulted in one big fat question. I understand how a cabal (a good cabal!) of niche influencers could lead to each individual member getting more than they put into it, if you have one with authors that already come to the table with large fan bases, but – save for David – we’re a bunch of small fries in here, are we not?
So, it seems the question is…
<u style=””>Q: How would ‘it’ get from here to there?
In that first Apex conference call video, David drew a scenario to illustrate how such a writers ring could work, where “half a dozen people like that” may have “three hundred thousand, five hundred thousand, a million fans who find out about the book instantly, and who go out and become fans of those people too.”
That’d be great, but only a handful of already famous authors have fan bases of that size.
Hence my question above. Or, more specifically…
How would such a group get from:
1. here: a bunch of people with small, probably not very well-targeted followings
to…
2. there: hundreds of thousands of followers, cross-promoting to massively boost sales(?)What am I missing?
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PS – If you read all of that, here is a reward that will give your ear holes/cochlear nuclear complex joy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEcdoXWbm50
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7 Replies
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It’s definitely a numbers game. Not just total numbers, but unique numbers – if ten authors start out at the same time, in the same genre, and make a continuous effort to cross-promote within (and only within) that circle, they may end up with 500 readers each; but if they are the SAME 500 readers, there isn’t a great deal of benefit from that. If those authors only had 100 readers in common, that’s a total pool of 4000-odd readers you can then reach.
I think the best growth will rely on members being proactive at growing their readership outside of the ring, at least initially. Ideally, each author would have several circles – standing at the centre of their own venn diagram, if you will.
I’ve networked a lot with other authors and group promos (a multitude of like-genre books hosted on one webpage and promoted to readers); newsletter swaps; reader magnets; and competitions can all be effective ways of growing an audience for multiple people at once. Just gotta make sure that group members are doing this outside of the writers ring as well as within it.
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Definitely agree with Amy, growing outside the group is the only way to sustain your fan base. I think we all know that and each person in the ring, group, etc. must be working on that, but the thing is that 10 people done 1 thing each (assuming readers will look at each other) is better than one person doing one thing.
I think the underlying principle is that as writers we are all working together. One person who is converted to life long reading will start to search for new people and we can help guide them by talking about our “friend’s” work and such.
and while not everyone may have the largest following now, there might be a time when someone gets an amazing publishing deal and makes it big, knowing that you have been there for them in the past, hopefully they will return the favor and point their fans to also check out your work.
I guess my point is that it’s not always a quick process, but if we truly act like we are working together, it will do more for all of us in the grand scheme of things then if we faced it alone.
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“It’s definitely a numbers game. Not just total numbers, but unique numbers – if ten authors start out at the same time, in the same genre, and make a continuous effort to cross-promote within (and only within) that circle, they may end up with 500 readers each; but if they are the SAME 500 readers, there isn’t a great deal of benefit from that.” – @amyhopkins
“Definitely agree with Amy, growing outside the group is the only way to sustain your fan base. I think we all know that and each person in the ring, group, etc. must be working on that, but the thing is that 10 people done 1 thing each (assuming readers will look at each other) is better than one person doing one thing.” – @spencerw
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I get that.
I must not be explaining myself well…
I’m not asking what people need to accomplish (AKA: people need to build their following).
I’m asking how people are going to actually go out and do that.
You’re talking about 500 readers per author… but for this to work, you need to be talking hundreds of followers being added, per author, per WEEK. We need people with tens of thousands of followers, and thousands of email subscribers, etc.
I don’t know what you mean by 500 readers (email subscribers?), but even under rosy circumstances, the conversion rate to selling someone who follows you on something else is very low, so 500 doesn’t mean other people in the ring get your 500, it means they might get 1-10, given realistic email open and conversion rates. Less if you’re talking social followers you just share to – especially if you’re not very good at juicing engagement.
That’s not enough to warrant the time investment in such a ring, for anyone involved.
All the best advice I’ve seen on book marketing says things like ‘you need to think about it like a business’, and if you do that, and you’re spending hours and hours helping other people, just to get a handful of book sales later, that’s *TERRIBLE* ROI.
If I’ve got ~50,000 followers by the time I finish my book (a low estimate), and several hundred to maybe a few thousand email subs, I’d get significantly more ROI from that than the entire ring you’re talking about.
David keeps bringing up the romance ring, but if we want to build something like that, it’s not going to start with dozens of people playing small ball. If that’s all you’ve got to work with, it’s just not a good investment of limited time, energy and money, and we should just stick to doing book bombs, led from the top by David.
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Weird. I added a picture, but it didn’t make it through. Let’s try again…
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Huh. I guess they have images turned off?
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My advice for fast growth was, basically, ‘join writer’s rings’. Join many. Or, join a few really strong ones. Rising tide and all that.
Realistically, I don’t expect to ever have 50k followers. If you know the secret sauce to get there, do share! That said, I’m doing ok with my 1300 strong email list and a few hundred Facebook fans. I make a respectable income – not yet full time money, but then, I haven’t written anything in about a year.
To get to my meagre numbers, I used the group promos and other methods I listed in my post. And book sales, of course. A few Facebook and AMS ads to propel those.
You can grow a lot faster with a reader magnet or six, but I’m in KU so I can’t do first in series free anymore. My other series aren’t ‘mine’ so I can’t use those. I’m writing a novella as my new magnet bit I’ve honestly never pushed hard down that route.
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I can’t say that I don’t have any secret sauces, but they all rely on a / only work if you have a strong foundation built on fundamentals that anyone willing to put time and work into can learn – at least to some degree. Gotta learn how to boil water and cook pasta properly before it makes sense to start experimenting with spices in your sauces – something I am, oddly enough, quite well versed in.
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Amusing, mildly relevant tangent… if I could share images, I’d share my spice shelf. I have an entire shelf in a cabinet entirely full, with spillover onto the one above, of my various spices and flavorings. That experimental mindset is very useful, and it saves money 🙂
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There are plenty of books out there on those fundamentals, as well as webinars, classes, freelancers you can hire, etc etc etc. You’ve just got to dive in, read, watch, listen, trial and error, adapt, rinse, repeat and never stop (it’s always slowly evolving), new tools are coming out, etc.
Some things hold true in every niche, like how every project is different, research and planning is key, developing a system you can make into a daily habit is very powerful, and having the right mindset is ‘make or break’ (a LOT of people don’t get past that last part… the others as well).
There are some differences in this niche, vs – for instance – local small businesses I usually work with. The overall ‘target audience’ pool is GIGANTIC, which has its pluses and minuses. The competition is pretty weak, but there is so damn much of it… there’s just SO MUCH NOISE.
One great thing is your primary targets are very easy to find. These are the ‘early adopter’ and ‘maven’ types, who seek out new things in their area of interest, and quite literally broadcast when they find new things they like.
Identifying and crafting a plan to go after those people is one of the biggest parts of planning… identifying who whose people are, where they are, how to find them, how to get in front of them, how to engage with them when you do, how to build both numbers and connection with them, how to funnel them toward (insert what = your ROI here), and how to convert them into whatever your version of ‘paying customers’ is (etc).
Using ‘reader magnets’ can be useful, yes. That’s near the end of the funnel, though (the very last part of the super vague steps I mentioned just above), and has it’s downsides, but both/and is almost always better than either/or, so if it’s working then keep doing it. Maybe A/B test different ideas to try and improve, but when/if you’re satisfied, then start learning about something else… and never stop.
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