July 4, 2025 • 21 mins
Summer is upon us, and savvy authors know this season presents unique marketing opportunities—but what exactly makes a book beach-worthy? Penny Sansevieri and Amy Cornell dive into the evolving definition of "summer reads" and reveal practical strategies for positioning any book to capture readers' attention during these warmer months.
The podcast challenges traditional notions of what constitutes summer reading material. While escapist genre fiction remains popular, today's readers are equally drawn to true crime, activity-based children's books, and "maker" titles that inspire summer projects. With rising travel costs leading many to embrace "staycations," books offering at-home experiences or local exploration guides are experiencing unexpected popularity surges. The hosts emphasize that even serious books needn't be shelved until fall—they simply require different positioning to connect with summer readers.
What makes this episode particularly valuable is its focus on low-cost, high-impact marketing pivots. Rather than suggesting expensive cover redesigns or content overhauls, Penny and Amy recommend simple tweaks and easy changes to grab more summer readers!
Ready to transform your book into this summer's must-read? Update your marketing approach with these practical strategies, engage your fans with seasonal promotions, and watch your conversions grow. Remember—these techniques work for books of all genres and publication dates, and once developed, can be adapted for any season throughout the year.
Buy Penny's book The Amazon Author Formula
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello and welcome back.
This is Penny Sanseviery andAmy Cornell, and this is the
second of our rerun shows thatwe're doing.
This one is actually from Juneof 2021.
And it was a really, reallypopular show at that time.
It had a market yearbook as asummer read and we were going to
redo the show, but then welistened to it and were like, oh
(00:21):
my gosh, this information isstill very current and it was so
popular at the time.
So we decided to rerun it andwe'd love to get your feedback
on presenting these shows,because we have grown this
audience for the podcast so muchin the last year that I think
many of you missed some of ourheavy, like our super, super
(00:43):
popular shows from even a yearago.
So we hope you enjoy it.
And here we go.
Bye-bye, hello and welcome backto the Book Marketing Tips and
Author Success Podcast.
This is Penny Zansbury and AmyCornell, and today we're talking
about is your book, a greatsummer read and, amy, this is
(01:04):
another idea that you and I havediscussed quite a bit recently,
actually.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Oh yeah, absolutely.
I mean, I think it's hard notto Everybody gets excited for
summer, right?
Speaker 1 (01:16):
I know, I know, especially this summer, and you
know I did a blog post on this,but I felt like it was worth
mentioning, because authorsdon't often see their book as a
summer read and I think that,and then there are others who
insist that their book is asummer read when it's really not
.
So I think it's good to, Ithink it's good to create sort
(01:40):
of that distinction.
Not that you shouldn't pushyour book out all the time, but
Summer Reads, as you'll learnfrom this podcast, has a little
bit of.
You know, there's a little bitof, there's some changes that
you can make to your book andthere's some enhancements that
you can do that really help topush it out in front of you know
(02:03):
, in front of your audience.
And I think that one thing thatwe're going to see this year,
that we're going to talk moreabout, is are people really are
summer reads in 2021 the same asthey were, let's say, in 2019,
because we can't really say 2020, because nobody really has
summer in 2020, but, you know,are they really the same?
(02:25):
And that's hopefully what we'regoing to.
You know what we're going toexpand on.
But before we get too far downthis topic, I just want to
remind everybody that we aredoing we're doing a new promo,
which is your most pressingmarketing question or publicity
question, either, or, and if youcan send that in, the contact
(02:47):
details will be in the shownotes.
We will answer your questionthe last five minutes of the
show so that we know you have tolisten to the whole show.
But one of the reasons wereally like this is because I
know sometimes and we won'tmention your name if you don't
want your name mentioned on theair, absolutely, and make sure
to put that in the note too youmay feel like your question is
(03:11):
really embarrassing and youshould know this, or everybody
else knows this.
You might really be surprisedthat a lot of people don't.
A lot of people may have thesame question that you do, so I
think it's definitely worthmentioning.
We also love reviews.
So by all means, wherever youlisten to your podcast, please
make sure and leave us a review.
(03:33):
Tell us what you liked.
We love show ideas.
So contact details again in theshow notes.
Send us your show ideas.
What do you want us to talkabout on an upcoming show?
So let's dig into some ideas forsummer reads.
I mean, like what kind of bookscould be considered summer
books, and I realize that we'resort of at the cusp by the time
(03:54):
this show airs.
We're sort of at the cusp of,hey, it's already summer, but
summer is different depending onwhen kids are out of school and
things like that across thecountry.
And we know that genre fictionhas always been big.
Typically.
You know, genre fiction is abig.
It tends to align with a bigsummer book.
(04:17):
Everything has been just theworld news and everything that's
going on.
I think we might start to seemore lighter books for summer
reading, so nothing too heavy atthe same time.
At the same time, true crimecontinues to be really big and
(04:38):
it's also something that you canlose yourself in.
So I think you know we aregoing to see a lot of that as
well.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Yeah, oh yeah, the escapism factor for sure.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
And you know, as a parent I am 100% here to say
that kids' books are huge.
I have a child that's oldenough to be an independent
reader so I'm always open togreat books that will keep her
reading this summer.
You know that will actuallyengage her, keep the reading up.
You know full disclosure.
I'm not one of those parentsthat has them do homework all
(05:10):
summer long, but the readingthing is still disclosure.
I'm not one of those parentsthat has them do homework all
summer long, but the readingthing is still big in my house.
So I think kids' books for surehelp a parent out, get out
there, do your part to kind ofwave your hands in the air and
get in their faces, becauseparents are looking for things
like that as well.
And my kids also love a projectand an experiment and an
(05:32):
experience.
So books that focus onactivities or learning something
new or or trying somethingdifferent are also super
appealing and a lot of adultslike a summer project, you know,
like and I'll admit I didn'thave the time to jump on all of
those fads of like making yourown kombucha or sourdough
(05:53):
starter, or because that justwasn't my life when quarantine
happened and a lot of thosethings were happening and I I
don't think I'm entirely bymyself in that.
So I think a lot of these makerbooks are also have a lot of
potential to be reallysuccessful this summer as well
to people that want to catch upon all of those things, because
there are plenty of people thathad a really hectic, you know,
(06:16):
quarantine, you know, theyweren't just sitting around with
a ton of free time on theirhands.
So so, if you have one of thosebooks, keep pushing that,
because I think people are alsojust getting happier.
It's summer you know we'regetting out more, so I think
everybody's just really open toa lot of positivity as well.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
Well, and I also think to your, to your point,
that a lot of people were busyduring quarantine.
I mean, you know, there's a lotof really funny memes out there
about how, oh, I finishedNetflix today and, granted, you
know, granted, some people, youknow, had a lot of time on their
hands.
But I think that, with theprice of gas and with the price
of airline tickets I meanairline tickets are, in
(06:55):
particular, really expensiveright now I think you're going
to find a lot of people doingstaycations, so craft stuff,
like you mentioned, right, Ithink people who said you know,
I didn't really have time to dothis during quarantine it was
also, let's face it, it waschaotic.
If you've never worked fromhome and you're trying to figure
out how to work from home,there was a lot going on and we
(07:16):
had a lot sort of in our headsand now everything feels like
it's smoothing out.
So people may be making timefor crafts, right, but also, you
know, in terms of staycations,exploring your own neighborhood.
So, if you have a book that is,you know I'm in San Diego if you
have a book that's all aboutSan Diego and hidden San Diego,
(07:37):
or something like that, you know, think about think about really
giving that a do, and when wethe reason that we're talking
about summer reads sorry, I'mlike falling over my own words
here, but the reason that we'retalking about summer reads now
is I'm like falling over my ownwords here but the reason that
we're talking about summer readsnow is because now is a really
good time to do something kindof special and maybe a little
(07:58):
bit different, which we'lladdress in, you know, in a few
minutes, but I think in rareoccasions, you know books that
aren't really good.
Summer reads might be, like wetalked about earlier, a little
bit more serious in nature.
I think we're sort of fatiguedon politics and big name memoirs
right now, because we had somany of them in 2020 in
(08:18):
particular, that you may want tonot necessarily not market your
book if it's super serious orpolitical or something like that
, but the extra boost that we'retalking about really kind of
gives a nod to hey, if you'regoing to be, you know, if you've
got some time on your hands,you may want to make that.
(08:40):
Try that sourdough starter orwhatever that craft is.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
So let's talk.
Yeah, sorry, real quick, penny,I think you make a really good
point too, because a lot of thepeople that come to us also are
just they start to get confusedabout where to spend their time
and money.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
You know.
So I think I think I justwanted to highlight that because
you made a really good point.
I didn't want to to move awayfrom that too quickly because
most authors are dealing with afinite marketing budget for the
year.
Sure, this is also about beingsmart.
So, like you said, some ofthese heavier topics, you know,
don't do nothing.
You know there are still somesmart things you can do because
(09:17):
obviously we don't all fall intothe same boxes and do the same
things for the summer.
But this is a good time to getsmart about when, to pull back a
little bit, maybe on whatyou're spending on marketing and
the type of ads you're running,if you're running ads and
things like that and giveyourself a break so you can
really use some of that budgetand time for a time of year that
(09:39):
really is more lucrative foryou as well.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
That makes a good sense too.
And same thing for summer reads.
This is a time where you don'tnecessarily want to be super
conservative, because there willbe other times a year where
your book doesn't quite fit inas naturally.
So you know, kind of embracewhen it works for you.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
Well, and the beauty part which we want to get into,
you know, we want to get intosome of the some of the
marketing ideas.
The beauty part about this isthat it doesn't really take much
right.
So we're not talking about,we're not talking about
re-releasing your book with anew cover.
We're not talking about, youknow, making massive changes.
We're talking about some reallythoughtful and smart pivots to
(10:24):
get it to get onto people'sradar screens.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
Yeah, absolutely, because people want a sure thing
and you say it all the time,penny everything is distracting.
You know Amazon's distracting,everything's distracting.
You add in summer and kids homeand people going out more, so
there's a lot of distractionsgoing on.
So buyers want a sure thing andyou want to make their
(10:50):
decisions super easy.
So you know, one really simplething you can do is add a
reference to being a summer reador summer activities or finally
making time for yourself nowthat summer is here.
Things like that, added to yourbook description, could
actually make a really hugeimpact on how quickly people are
(11:11):
converting from shoppers tobuyers.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
Yeah.
Yeah absolutely you could alsodo.
I'm a big fan of the Amazonshorts video.
You could also do a really funshort video for your book page
too.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Oh yeah, I would love to see that.
If somebody has a maker typebook, I would like, 100% love to
see that.
If somebody has a maker typebook, I would like 100%.
You've probably got me.
If you do a clever little shortvideo about like a before and
after or something like thatwould just be like oh okay, like
you've sold me, I know whatthis book is about, now I can
buy it.
I feel good about buying it.
Like I think that's reallybrilliant.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
You know what.
That's such a great idea.
If you have some kind of ahow-to book, you could do a
quick little snippet video ofsome of the things that you
cover, or one thing inparticular that you cover in the
book in terms of because youknow that for most of us, like
we love to try things.
Amy is so much better at thisthan I am.
(12:07):
I'm just going to be fulldisclosure.
I am so intimidated by some ofthese maker books.
I'm like, oh, it looks reallygood and I'd love to do it.
And then Amy doesn't.
It looks brilliant.
And I'm like, well, mine wouldprobably totally suck.
But I think that you can speakto that majority audience that's
looking at this, thinking thiswould be a fun craft to do over
the summer, maybe with the kidsor whatever it is.
(12:29):
Be a fun craft to do over thesummer, maybe with the kids or
whatever it is refurbishing anold desk or something like that.
If you did a short snippetvideo showing people really how
easy it is, or a quick littletip, I mean something like that
would absolutely capture myattention.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
Right.
It makes a big difference,because I think there's
something with online retail nowthat bridging that gap and
making it feel like a realityfor the potential buyer is, is
is challenging, and I thinkvideo is something that really
shows the meat of what you have.
Is is really smart and it helpsbridge that gap much quicker,
(13:07):
because sometimes these bookscan be very conceptual, you know
, and so I think that's reallyimportant.
I love that video idea andwe're always pushing authors to
keep their author central fluid.
You know that should not.
That is not a static strategy.
That is not a set it and forgetit aspect of your amazon
presence.
But changing seasons is areally great reason to change up
(13:30):
what's in the back end of yourauthor central account and
capitalize on plugging in a fewmore of those in this case,
summertime references, you know.
But again, like, get yourselfset up.
This is just a good reminderthat with changes, like set up a
reminder and challenge yourselfto come up with a few ways your
book can relate to the currentseason or time of year and get
(13:52):
into Author Central and kind ofmake some of those key updates,
because it really does stand out, because 99.9% of authors
aren't doing that.
So when a buyer lands on yourpage and they see that you're
making references to summerplans and activities or what a
great read.
This will be by the pool withyour cocktail those things stand
(14:15):
out as special and it makespotential buyers feel like
they're a part of somethingspecial, and everybody wants to
be special.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
Right, exactly, and I just want to add to this, too,
this really interesting stat.
If Amy said the word authorcentral and you think, oh, when
was the last time that I lookedat my author central account on
Amazon, author central pages getmore than 1 billion hits a year
.
So it's not.
And you know what's so crazy isthat it is something that I
(14:45):
know a lot of authors overlook.
Um, it's easy to overlook LikeI get it, but you really
shouldn't, and you can use yourauthor central pages for all
kinds of really fun stuff whichwe haven't done a podcast just
on Author Central.
We definitely want to do that.
I know we did a series onGoodreads, which was super fun.
(15:06):
Speaking of Goodreads, I thinkthat there are some really fun
promotional things that you cando, also by doing a Goodreads
giveaway to help spike someattention to your book, or an
ebook promotion, or you couldyou know you could do both.
You could also have some funwith Amazon ads, too, which I
love doing and, I think,especially as a seasonal element
.
(15:27):
So if you're running Amazon adsnow, you could run another one
or another set of them, and whenI say set, I usually run all
three.
I run the product placement,keywords and automatic ads with
a seasonal tie-in, you know,with a seasonal ad tie-in too.
But I think that, and not toget too far off the mark, you
(15:51):
know in terms of promoting onAmazon, but if you're going to
go after that summer read market, you know in terms of promoting
on Amazon, but you're, ifyou're going to go after that
summer read market, you knowyour social media should align
with that too.
So if you have I mean you knowwe talked about the video for
the crafts, right you couldreuse that video in your social
media.
Or if you have images of crafts, um, or summer reading images
(16:11):
or things that you know spiketheir attention, you really
almost have to and I'm notimplying that readers are not
thoughtful, but you reallyactually have to kind of make
that connection for peoplesometimes and say oh, I hadn't
really thought of this, this isgreat, I would love this book
while I'm, you know, on vacationor doing a staycation or
(16:34):
whatever it is.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Absolutely, and you know you should always enlist
friends to help you out as well.
If you can, yeah.
So ask them to take a pictureof your book in different
locales, share those with youdirectly to send them to you to
use or, better yet, ask them toshare on their own social and
tag you, you know, the goal isto never be the only person
(16:56):
talking about your book, andsummer is absolutely not a time
to be shy.
So, or just straight up friendsand family, um that, that
that's totally allowed.
Ask them to share on social,you know, ask them to post
images and and and help you withthat, because, again, just to
(17:20):
Penny's point, you need to showpeople, show it in action,
essentially, that this book isalready being enjoyed.
And that makes such a hugeimpact on somebody's decision to
finally click buy Well, and Ithink that you know this is a
good opportunity.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
If you have a super fan, know this is a good
opportunity.
If you have a super fan group,this is a good opportunity for
you know, to invite them to notonly share it on their social
media but also send you picturesof them reading the book.
We did a really fun promo withan author that we worked with
and it was.
We asked people to submit theirfavorite place to read the book
(17:58):
and we ended up getting a lotof beachy pictures because it
was it was a romance novel andit was something that she used
in her social media.
It was so, so, so fun.
So you could engage yourreaders to get um your fans or
or email list or whatever, tohave them send pictures and
maybe offer them some, you know,some kind of a prize or
something.
(18:18):
And I think that it's alsoimportant to note that whatever
you implement so we're notasking you to continually
reinvent the wheel every singleseason but whatever you
implement for this summerreading kind of campaign, you
can really duplicate for anyseason, right?
So whether it's back to schoolor late summer or holiday, we
talked, we just did a podcastand I think it's probably going
(18:39):
to run after this show, but wejust did a podcast on
publication dates and aligningyourself with publication date.
You know with a particular dateand how to pick it, et cetera.
But you know, once you createthe set of strategies that you
do for your seasonal sort ofpromotional boost, you could
very easily replicate that forevery season.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Absolutely.
That's so smart.
You know the focus is different, but pretty much the strategies
that really work and thatresonate with people are pretty
consistent.
So it's reinventing why yourbook currently fits into
readers' lives, why it'sfulfilling needs, why it's
answering current questions, andit's just.
(19:22):
It's a great exercise anyway tokeep yourself on top of all of
your marketing, because you knowagain, it's so easy to get off
the rails here, but when youstart brainstorming these now,
you have new ideas and newthings to pitch to bloggers as
well.
You know what I mean.
All of these things we talkabout how your marketing efforts
should always be supportingother efforts that you have
(19:43):
going on, and so there's noreason to not use these ideas
that you come up with in lots ofdifferent ways.
Utilize them throughoutdifferent strategies.
There's no sense in wasting allof these great ideas and
efforts on just a single season.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
Yes, that's absolutely true, and I also
think that you know this is thistype of thing is not.
This is not just for you.
Newbie books out there, right?
If you're listening to this andyou think, well, my book is a
few years old, this is not meantjust for new releases, jump on
(20:21):
this train, because as long asyour book is evergreen meaning
that your book isn't, you know,outdated get out there and
promote it.
In fact, I was teaching a classabout a month ago and an author
mentioned to me that she had abook.
Actually, it happened to be asourdough starter book and this
book was, I don't know six yearsold or something, and she has
(20:43):
been selling this and it wasn'teven a book that she was pushing
.
Obviously, now it is because itjust started selling out of the
clear blue, which is a highquality problem to have.
But you know this is not a datesensitive thing and you know
this isn't just for new releases.
So, if you have a book that'sout there, think about, you know
(21:04):
, creating this great summerread and then replicate this
across different seasons, causeyou'll get much more bang for
your for your buck.
I want to thank you so much fortuning in for listening again.
Once again, what is yourbiggest marketing challenge?
Send that over to us.
Contact details are in the shownotes.
We love reviews, so please tellus what you think.
(21:25):
Leave a review wherever youlisten to podcasts.
This is Penny Sandsbury and theever awesome Amy Cornell.
Thank you so much for listeningand thank you for helping to
make the show so popular,because we're really rising up
the lists of marketing podcastsand we're showing up in Google.
We're getting some really greatattention, so we so appreciate
it.
We hope the show is helpful andwe always welcome your ideas.
(21:46):
Bye-bye.
Hello and welcome back.
This is Penny Sanseviery andAmy Cornell, and this is the
second of our rerun shows thatwe're doing.
This one is actually from Juneof 2021.
And it was a really, reallypopular show at that time.
It had a market yearbook as asummer read and we were going to
redo the show, but then welistened to it and were like, oh
(00:21):
my gosh, this information isstill very current and it was so
popular at the time.
So we decided to rerun it andwe'd love to get your feedback
on presenting these shows,because we have grown this
audience for the podcast so muchin the last year that I think
many of you missed some of ourheavy, like our super, super
(00:43):
popular shows from even a yearago.
So we hope you enjoy it.
And here we go.
Bye-bye, hello and welcome backto the Book Marketing Tips and
Author Success Podcast.
This is Penny Zansbury and AmyCornell, and today we're talking
about is your book, a greatsummer read and, amy, this is
(01:04):
another idea that you and I havediscussed quite a bit recently,
actually.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Oh yeah, absolutely.
I mean, I think it's hard notto Everybody gets excited for
summer, right?
Speaker 1 (01:16):
I know, I know, especially this summer, and you
know I did a blog post on this,but I felt like it was worth
mentioning, because authorsdon't often see their book as a
summer read and I think that,and then there are others who
insist that their book is asummer read when it's really not
.
So I think it's good to, Ithink it's good to create sort
(01:40):
of that distinction.
Not that you shouldn't pushyour book out all the time, but
Summer Reads, as you'll learnfrom this podcast, has a little
bit of.
You know, there's a little bitof, there's some changes that
you can make to your book andthere's some enhancements that
you can do that really help topush it out in front of you know
(02:03):
, in front of your audience.
And I think that one thing thatwe're going to see this year,
that we're going to talk moreabout, is are people really are
summer reads in 2021 the same asthey were, let's say, in 2019,
because we can't really say 2020, because nobody really has
summer in 2020, but, you know,are they really the same?
(02:25):
And that's hopefully what we'regoing to.
You know what we're going toexpand on.
But before we get too far downthis topic, I just want to
remind everybody that we aredoing we're doing a new promo,
which is your most pressingmarketing question or publicity
question, either, or, and if youcan send that in, the contact
(02:47):
details will be in the shownotes.
We will answer your questionthe last five minutes of the
show so that we know you have tolisten to the whole show.
But one of the reasons wereally like this is because I
know sometimes and we won'tmention your name if you don't
want your name mentioned on theair, absolutely, and make sure
to put that in the note too youmay feel like your question is
(03:11):
really embarrassing and youshould know this, or everybody
else knows this.
You might really be surprisedthat a lot of people don't.
A lot of people may have thesame question that you do, so I
think it's definitely worthmentioning.
We also love reviews.
So by all means, wherever youlisten to your podcast, please
make sure and leave us a review.
(03:33):
Tell us what you liked.
We love show ideas.
So contact details again in theshow notes.
Send us your show ideas.
What do you want us to talkabout on an upcoming show?
So let's dig into some ideas forsummer reads.
I mean, like what kind of bookscould be considered summer
books, and I realize that we'resort of at the cusp by the time
(03:54):
this show airs.
We're sort of at the cusp of,hey, it's already summer, but
summer is different depending onwhen kids are out of school and
things like that across thecountry.
And we know that genre fictionhas always been big.
Typically.
You know, genre fiction is abig.
It tends to align with a bigsummer book.
(04:17):
Everything has been just theworld news and everything that's
going on.
I think we might start to seemore lighter books for summer
reading, so nothing too heavy atthe same time.
At the same time, true crimecontinues to be really big and
(04:38):
it's also something that you canlose yourself in.
So I think you know we aregoing to see a lot of that as
well.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Yeah, oh yeah, the escapism factor for sure.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
And you know, as a parent I am 100% here to say
that kids' books are huge.
I have a child that's oldenough to be an independent
reader so I'm always open togreat books that will keep her
reading this summer.
You know that will actuallyengage her, keep the reading up.
You know full disclosure.
I'm not one of those parentsthat has them do homework all
(05:10):
summer long, but the readingthing is still disclosure.
I'm not one of those parentsthat has them do homework all
summer long, but the readingthing is still big in my house.
So I think kids' books for surehelp a parent out, get out
there, do your part to kind ofwave your hands in the air and
get in their faces, becauseparents are looking for things
like that as well.
And my kids also love a projectand an experiment and an
(05:32):
experience.
So books that focus onactivities or learning something
new or or trying somethingdifferent are also super
appealing and a lot of adultslike a summer project, you know,
like and I'll admit I didn'thave the time to jump on all of
those fads of like making yourown kombucha or sourdough
(05:53):
starter, or because that justwasn't my life when quarantine
happened and a lot of thosethings were happening and I I
don't think I'm entirely bymyself in that.
So I think a lot of these makerbooks are also have a lot of
potential to be reallysuccessful this summer as well
to people that want to catch upon all of those things, because
there are plenty of people thathad a really hectic, you know,
(06:16):
quarantine, you know, theyweren't just sitting around with
a ton of free time on theirhands.
So so, if you have one of thosebooks, keep pushing that,
because I think people are alsojust getting happier.
It's summer you know we'regetting out more, so I think
everybody's just really open toa lot of positivity as well.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
Well, and I also think to your, to your point,
that a lot of people were busyduring quarantine.
I mean, you know, there's a lotof really funny memes out there
about how, oh, I finishedNetflix today and, granted, you
know, granted, some people, youknow, had a lot of time on their
hands.
But I think that, with theprice of gas and with the price
of airline tickets I meanairline tickets are, in
(06:55):
particular, really expensiveright now I think you're going
to find a lot of people doingstaycations, so craft stuff,
like you mentioned, right, Ithink people who said you know,
I didn't really have time to dothis during quarantine it was
also, let's face it, it waschaotic.
If you've never worked fromhome and you're trying to figure
out how to work from home,there was a lot going on and we
(07:16):
had a lot sort of in our headsand now everything feels like
it's smoothing out.
So people may be making timefor crafts, right, but also, you
know, in terms of staycations,exploring your own neighborhood.
So, if you have a book that is,you know I'm in San Diego if you
have a book that's all aboutSan Diego and hidden San Diego,
(07:37):
or something like that, you know, think about think about really
giving that a do, and when wethe reason that we're talking
about summer reads sorry, I'mlike falling over my own words
here, but the reason that we'retalking about summer reads now
is I'm like falling over my ownwords here but the reason that
we're talking about summer readsnow is because now is a really
good time to do something kindof special and maybe a little
(07:58):
bit different, which we'lladdress in, you know, in a few
minutes, but I think in rareoccasions, you know books that
aren't really good.
Summer reads might be, like wetalked about earlier, a little
bit more serious in nature.
I think we're sort of fatiguedon politics and big name memoirs
right now, because we had somany of them in 2020 in
(08:18):
particular, that you may want tonot necessarily not market your
book if it's super serious orpolitical or something like that
, but the extra boost that we'retalking about really kind of
gives a nod to hey, if you'regoing to be, you know, if you've
got some time on your hands,you may want to make that.
(08:40):
Try that sourdough starter orwhatever that craft is.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
So let's talk.
Yeah, sorry, real quick, penny,I think you make a really good
point too, because a lot of thepeople that come to us also are
just they start to get confusedabout where to spend their time
and money.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
You know.
So I think I think I justwanted to highlight that because
you made a really good point.
I didn't want to to move awayfrom that too quickly because
most authors are dealing with afinite marketing budget for the
year.
Sure, this is also about beingsmart.
So, like you said, some ofthese heavier topics, you know,
don't do nothing.
You know there are still somesmart things you can do because
(09:17):
obviously we don't all fall intothe same boxes and do the same
things for the summer.
But this is a good time to getsmart about when, to pull back a
little bit, maybe on whatyou're spending on marketing and
the type of ads you're running,if you're running ads and
things like that and giveyourself a break so you can
really use some of that budgetand time for a time of year that
(09:39):
really is more lucrative foryou as well.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
That makes a good sense too.
And same thing for summer reads.
This is a time where you don'tnecessarily want to be super
conservative, because there willbe other times a year where
your book doesn't quite fit inas naturally.
So you know, kind of embracewhen it works for you.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
Well, and the beauty part which we want to get into,
you know, we want to get intosome of the some of the
marketing ideas.
The beauty part about this isthat it doesn't really take much
right.
So we're not talking about,we're not talking about
re-releasing your book with anew cover.
We're not talking about, youknow, making massive changes.
We're talking about some reallythoughtful and smart pivots to
(10:24):
get it to get onto people'sradar screens.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
Yeah, absolutely, because people want a sure thing
and you say it all the time,penny everything is distracting.
You know Amazon's distracting,everything's distracting.
You add in summer and kids homeand people going out more, so
there's a lot of distractionsgoing on.
So buyers want a sure thing andyou want to make their
(10:50):
decisions super easy.
So you know, one really simplething you can do is add a
reference to being a summer reador summer activities or finally
making time for yourself nowthat summer is here.
Things like that, added to yourbook description, could
actually make a really hugeimpact on how quickly people are
(11:11):
converting from shoppers tobuyers.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
Yeah.
Yeah absolutely you could alsodo.
I'm a big fan of the Amazonshorts video.
You could also do a really funshort video for your book page
too.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Oh yeah, I would love to see that.
If somebody has a maker typebook, I would like, 100% love to
see that.
If somebody has a maker typebook, I would like 100%.
You've probably got me.
If you do a clever little shortvideo about like a before and
after or something like thatwould just be like oh okay, like
you've sold me, I know whatthis book is about, now I can
buy it.
I feel good about buying it.
Like I think that's reallybrilliant.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
You know what.
That's such a great idea.
If you have some kind of ahow-to book, you could do a
quick little snippet video ofsome of the things that you
cover, or one thing inparticular that you cover in the
book in terms of because youknow that for most of us, like
we love to try things.
Amy is so much better at thisthan I am.
(12:07):
I'm just going to be fulldisclosure.
I am so intimidated by some ofthese maker books.
I'm like, oh, it looks reallygood and I'd love to do it.
And then Amy doesn't.
It looks brilliant.
And I'm like, well, mine wouldprobably totally suck.
But I think that you can speakto that majority audience that's
looking at this, thinking thiswould be a fun craft to do over
the summer, maybe with the kidsor whatever it is.
(12:29):
Be a fun craft to do over thesummer, maybe with the kids or
whatever it is refurbishing anold desk or something like that.
If you did a short snippetvideo showing people really how
easy it is, or a quick littletip, I mean something like that
would absolutely capture myattention.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
Right.
It makes a big difference,because I think there's
something with online retail nowthat bridging that gap and
making it feel like a realityfor the potential buyer is, is
is challenging, and I thinkvideo is something that really
shows the meat of what you have.
Is is really smart and it helpsbridge that gap much quicker,
(13:07):
because sometimes these bookscan be very conceptual, you know
, and so I think that's reallyimportant.
I love that video idea andwe're always pushing authors to
keep their author central fluid.
You know that should not.
That is not a static strategy.
That is not a set it and forgetit aspect of your amazon
presence.
But changing seasons is areally great reason to change up
(13:30):
what's in the back end of yourauthor central account and
capitalize on plugging in a fewmore of those in this case,
summertime references, you know.
But again, like, get yourselfset up.
This is just a good reminderthat with changes, like set up a
reminder and challenge yourselfto come up with a few ways your
book can relate to the currentseason or time of year and get
(13:52):
into Author Central and kind ofmake some of those key updates,
because it really does stand out, because 99.9% of authors
aren't doing that.
So when a buyer lands on yourpage and they see that you're
making references to summerplans and activities or what a
great read.
This will be by the pool withyour cocktail those things stand
(14:15):
out as special and it makespotential buyers feel like
they're a part of somethingspecial, and everybody wants to
be special.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
Right, exactly, and I just want to add to this, too,
this really interesting stat.
If Amy said the word authorcentral and you think, oh, when
was the last time that I lookedat my author central account on
Amazon, author central pages getmore than 1 billion hits a year
.
So it's not.
And you know what's so crazy isthat it is something that I
(14:45):
know a lot of authors overlook.
Um, it's easy to overlook LikeI get it, but you really
shouldn't, and you can use yourauthor central pages for all
kinds of really fun stuff whichwe haven't done a podcast just
on Author Central.
We definitely want to do that.
I know we did a series onGoodreads, which was super fun.
(15:06):
Speaking of Goodreads, I thinkthat there are some really fun
promotional things that you cando, also by doing a Goodreads
giveaway to help spike someattention to your book, or an
ebook promotion, or you couldyou know you could do both.
You could also have some funwith Amazon ads, too, which I
love doing and, I think,especially as a seasonal element
.
(15:27):
So if you're running Amazon adsnow, you could run another one
or another set of them, and whenI say set, I usually run all
three.
I run the product placement,keywords and automatic ads with
a seasonal tie-in, you know,with a seasonal ad tie-in too.
But I think that, and not toget too far off the mark, you
(15:51):
know in terms of promoting onAmazon, but if you're going to
go after that summer read market, you know in terms of promoting
on Amazon, but you're, ifyou're going to go after that
summer read market, you knowyour social media should align
with that too.
So if you have I mean you knowwe talked about the video for
the crafts, right you couldreuse that video in your social
media.
Or if you have images of crafts, um, or summer reading images
(16:11):
or things that you know spiketheir attention, you really
almost have to and I'm notimplying that readers are not
thoughtful, but you reallyactually have to kind of make
that connection for peoplesometimes and say oh, I hadn't
really thought of this, this isgreat, I would love this book
while I'm, you know, on vacationor doing a staycation or
(16:34):
whatever it is.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Absolutely, and you know you should always enlist
friends to help you out as well.
If you can, yeah.
So ask them to take a pictureof your book in different
locales, share those with youdirectly to send them to you to
use or, better yet, ask them toshare on their own social and
tag you, you know, the goal isto never be the only person
(16:56):
talking about your book, andsummer is absolutely not a time
to be shy.
So, or just straight up friendsand family, um that, that
that's totally allowed.
Ask them to share on social,you know, ask them to post
images and and and help you withthat, because, again, just to
(17:20):
Penny's point, you need to showpeople, show it in action,
essentially, that this book isalready being enjoyed.
And that makes such a hugeimpact on somebody's decision to
finally click buy Well, and Ithink that you know this is a
good opportunity.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
If you have a super fan, know this is a good
opportunity.
If you have a super fan group,this is a good opportunity for
you know, to invite them to notonly share it on their social
media but also send you picturesof them reading the book.
We did a really fun promo withan author that we worked with
and it was.
We asked people to submit theirfavorite place to read the book
(17:58):
and we ended up getting a lotof beachy pictures because it
was it was a romance novel andit was something that she used
in her social media.
It was so, so, so fun.
So you could engage yourreaders to get um your fans or
or email list or whatever, tohave them send pictures and
maybe offer them some, you know,some kind of a prize or
something.
(18:18):
And I think that it's alsoimportant to note that whatever
you implement so we're notasking you to continually
reinvent the wheel every singleseason but whatever you
implement for this summerreading kind of campaign, you
can really duplicate for anyseason, right?
So whether it's back to schoolor late summer or holiday, we
talked, we just did a podcastand I think it's probably going
(18:39):
to run after this show, but wejust did a podcast on
publication dates and aligningyourself with publication date.
You know with a particular dateand how to pick it, et cetera.
But you know, once you createthe set of strategies that you
do for your seasonal sort ofpromotional boost, you could
very easily replicate that forevery season.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Absolutely.
That's so smart.
You know the focus is different, but pretty much the strategies
that really work and thatresonate with people are pretty
consistent.
So it's reinventing why yourbook currently fits into
readers' lives, why it'sfulfilling needs, why it's
answering current questions, andit's just.
(19:22):
It's a great exercise anyway tokeep yourself on top of all of
your marketing, because you knowagain, it's so easy to get off
the rails here, but when youstart brainstorming these now,
you have new ideas and newthings to pitch to bloggers as
well.
You know what I mean.
All of these things we talkabout how your marketing efforts
should always be supportingother efforts that you have
(19:43):
going on, and so there's noreason to not use these ideas
that you come up with in lots ofdifferent ways.
Utilize them throughoutdifferent strategies.
There's no sense in wasting allof these great ideas and
efforts on just a single season.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
Yes, that's absolutely true, and I also
think that you know this is thistype of thing is not.
This is not just for you.
Newbie books out there, right?
If you're listening to this andyou think, well, my book is a
few years old, this is not meantjust for new releases, jump on
(20:21):
this train, because as long asyour book is evergreen meaning
that your book isn't, you know,outdated get out there and
promote it.
In fact, I was teaching a classabout a month ago and an author
mentioned to me that she had abook.
Actually, it happened to be asourdough starter book and this
book was, I don't know six yearsold or something, and she has
(20:43):
been selling this and it wasn'teven a book that she was pushing
.
Obviously, now it is because itjust started selling out of the
clear blue, which is a highquality problem to have.
But you know this is not a datesensitive thing and you know
this isn't just for new releases.
So, if you have a book that'sout there, think about, you know
(21:04):
, creating this great summerread and then replicate this
across different seasons, causeyou'll get much more bang for
your for your buck.
I want to thank you so much fortuning in for listening again.
Once again, what is yourbiggest marketing challenge?
Send that over to us.
Contact details are in the shownotes.
We love reviews, so please tellus what you think.
(21:25):
Leave a review wherever youlisten to podcasts.
This is Penny Sandsbury and theever awesome Amy Cornell.
Thank you so much for listeningand thank you for helping to
make the show so popular,because we're really rising up
the lists of marketing podcastsand we're showing up in Google.
We're getting some really greatattention, so we so appreciate
it.
We hope the show is helpful andwe always welcome your ideas.
(21:46):
Bye-bye.
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