Amy’s Abridged Version
I see you. You’ve put your heart on the page. You’ve found the courage to publish your book. It wasn’t easy. You’ve obsessively refreshed Amazon’s Author Dashboard for months, but no matter how many times you click, you can’t will the numbers to move. It’s not enough. It’s never enough.
Maybe you’ve googled every writers most despised word: marketing. Maybe you’ve read some books. Maybe you’ve given up and have decided that the only people who can sell books are the type of people who can sell anything. Those exotic creatures called extroverts who are so filled with charisma that people just hand them money wherever they go.
Maybe if you just try to fake it ’til you make it and pretend to be extrovert, your dreams will come true.
You do you. If you want an excuse to try on the Extrovert hat, go for it. I’m here to tell you, you don’t have to. You can do things your way. You can lean in to your introvertedness and play to your strengths and do marketing in ways that honor your values and your journey.
I am an introvert. I can fight you on how introverted I am, and I will probably win. I am also an author who wants more than anything to be part of the legacy of storytelling by actively participating in the community. I want to be in the room where it happens. I want to be part of the conversation. I want a seat at the table. I want my books to find an audience.
Once upon a time, I tried on the Extrovert hat and gave social media a try. I didn’t last long. I want to recognize that social media can be awesome for many people and many businesses. I admire and respect so many authors who are using social media to find their audience and make their dreams come true. I believe that it can work for lots of people, and I am not evangelizing jettisoning platforms that help anyone succeed. I’m just saying that for me, as a writer and individual, it was a disaster for me and my mental health.
I worked hard at it. I posted regularly 3 to 5 times a week. I tried reels and lives and talking and smiling into my phone, when all I wanted to do was hide behind it. I engaged with comments and DMs. I tried follow trains. I tried ads. I was always following more people than were following me, and only 20 of my hundreds of followers ever joined my newsletter. And it took up so much of my time. Writing requires time and attention, and social media zapped me of both. I felt like not just an imposter, but a failure. I felt anxious, overstimulated, distracted, and vulnerable. I didn’t want to be an influencer; I was a writer. So I left. I was so overwhelmed by all the other moving pieces of the author game that it was an easy decision. I closed up shop and deleted my social media accounts. I’d find a different way to do marketing.
And I have.
In the last year, I have built a newsletter list of over 1020 subscribers (and if you want to talk numbers 970 of them came my way in the last six weeks. It’s true what they say about things happening two ways: slowly and then all at once). I did this without having a presence on Instagram, Facebook, or TikTok. I did this without pitching anyone in or outside an elevator. I did this without wallpapering my face over every piece of digital real estate that I could find or own. Instead, I leaned into what I enjoy best as an introvert: reading, listening, and writing,
I read books. I listened to podcasts. I experimented. I attended workshops. I sent emails to peers and mentors. I tinkered. And I wrote. I wrote a lot.
Throughout all these efforts I noticed a pattern that I call Amy’s Three Cs of Marketing: Brand Clarity, Collaboration, and Consistency. That’s it. I’ll provide a little more explanation below, but I want to encourage you to do your own research and come up with your own framework for describing how you want to approach marketing. Everyone is fond of talking about how the author game is a marathon and not a sprint, so take the metaphor one step further and give yourself permission to find your own, unique stride.
Brand Clarity
When you get super clear on who you are, what you have to offer, and why your work matters, it shows. A clear message is easy to share. A clear message is easy to understand. Brand clarity shows up in your visuals, your theme, your values. Brand Clarity has helped me see the value in my work and this caries me through to the next launch, the next accolade, the next writing day, the next review.
The work I do as a storyteller becomes less lonely and arduous when I know that I am building a brand that is a clear reflection of what I value and what I have to offer.
Brand Clarity is an invitation to world build when it comes to your author career. Do you want to be an award winner? Do you want to write best sellers? How do you want readers to feel when they read one of your stories? Books may be cheap, but a reader’s time is precious. Why is time in your pages worthwhile? Brand clarity creates natural cohesion when it comes to your content. It’s also something that you can do independently. Today, you can brainstorm five words that identify your brand. You can write a mission statement. You can journal why you want to share the stories you’re writing. You can do this.
Collaboration
Remember Oprah? She spent years on day time TV building a loyal audience. Remember Dr. Phil? Oprah plucked him out of obscurity and brought him on her show and told all of us that he was a guy worthy of our attention. Dr. Phil got his own show because he collaborated with Oprah. The collaboration was mutually beneficial. Oprah needed content. Dr. Phil needed an audience.
I was driving with my daughter last week and this song was on the radio, and she said, “Have you noticed how most of the songs on the radio are collaborations?”
She’s right. And why is that? Because collaborations are good business. Audiences grow. Content is created. Everyone wins.
My newsletter grew by leaps and bounds because of collaborations. I wrote a (really good) novella (that embodied my brand). I joined Bookfunnel group promos with other authors. I agreed to share the promo landing page on my newsletter, and then I followed through. That’s the short of it. That’s how I grew from 20 subscribers to 1020 subscribers. On paper the growth happened in a single month. In reality it took all my accumulated experience to get there, but I won’t be hurt if you want to call me an overnight success.
Consistency
Following through is part of consistency. So is maintaining brand clarity. Readers have expectations. Algorithms do too. Growth requires consistency. If I were to abandon my newsletter, I’d miss out on that steady stream of growth that comes from collaborations.
It’s easy to see where consistency comes in with a newsletter format. I can’t send 12 emails in twelve days to my list. The unsubscribes would come in so hard and fast that the spam filters would destroy me.
More is not more when it comes to emails. It’s been literally years since I’ve been on social media so I’m not sure what tolerances are, but more was more when I left in 2022. Posting multiple times a day was no big deal, sometimes it was the way to grow. But even back then, the experts said consistency was better.
I send out a newsletter monthly. I blog twice a month. I aim to launch a book once a year. This is my writing journey on my terms. This is the backbone of my author game that soothes and delights my introverted heart. I love popping into my readers’ inboxes once a month with a thoughtful, exuberant, beautifully crafted, whimsical email. I love the intentionality of correspondence. I love knowing that my readers are there of their own free will. Consistency feels like cashing the paycheck you’ve worked so hard to earn. Don’t choke on that last step. Don’t sell yourself short. Follow through and watch your writerly dreams come true.
I’ve got a lot of resources for you to explore below, and even some of actionable steps that hopefully play to your introverted comfort zone. Before I let you loose, I need to tell you about a fourth C that I often forget about when it comes to marketing. It’s Quality, but that doesn’t work… so we’ll call it Craft.
Quality Craft
If you don’t have a high level of craft, if you are not producing quality work that delights and surprises your audience, you’re marketing job is going to be that much harder. The ideas that I’m sharing below may not be as helpful. Developing your craft takes time. It took me years and years of work to hone my craft. It was fun. It was hard. It was rewarding. It was at times lonely. It was worthwhile. Like everything else in the writing world, developing your craft is a marathon and not a sprint. And there is always room for improvement and growth.
Final thought: embrace your writerly dreams. There is a reason why this dream is a part of you. You are writing someone’s favorite book. You have stories inside of you that will make the world a better place. You have the power to comfort, delight, and distract. Embrace it. Celebrate that you are here at a time when it has never been easier to publish and share your stories. There has never been a larger market. There have never been more avid readers. Writers are far more likely to pick up a book, or a dozen, than the average bear. The fact that we are a growing tribe is cause for excitement and celebration. Some of us are extroverted. Some of us are introverted. Some of us are Dr. Phil.
Some of us are Oprah.
All of us can benefit from each other.
If you ever want to collaborate with me, feel free to reach out. My contact form on my website is the best way to reach me, if you are worried about spam filters, but email is great if you want to take your chances: amy at amytrent dot com.
I’m cheering for you. You got this.
XO,
Amy
Introverted Ways to Approach Marketing
Listen (to podcasts)
–Publishing Rodeo is a great podcast, especially if you think going trad will solve all your marketing woes, but S1 Ep2: “The Secret World of Bookselling” is the episode to listen to if you’re only going to listen to one. Take note of the behaviors that did not lead to book sales, and breathe a sigh of relief knowing you don’t have to resort to pushy sales tactics.
–Brandon Sanderson has so many good things to say to writers, but I always come back to this episode on his YouTube channel: “How to Write a 100K Words a Year.” Notice how Brandon sets time aside (20% of his work week) for non-writing tasks. Does that sound like marketing? I think that might be marketing. Not saying 20% of your writerly time needs to be marketing, but some of your time will be.
–Writing Off Social is the podcast I didn’t know I needed until my friend and fellow author, Arianne Costner, sent it my way. Episode 56: “How to Grow Your Email List by Borrowing Other People’s Audiences” is where the case study of Oprah and Dr. Phil cemented the importance of collaboration in my writing brain. Collaboration is really important and collaboration is mutually beneficial if the quality of your content is high.
—Daniel Priestley’s latest episode on Steven Bartlett’s The Diary of A CEO podcast is not for the faint of heart. There’s a lot of information. Lots of actionable steps. Lots of discussion about how brand clarity and collaborations can help you level up. Highly recommend, but maybe after the overwhelm of some of this other information has subsided.
Read
Read in your genre. Read the classics in your genre. Read the current best sellers in genre. Read what your peers are writing in your genre. Read outside your genre. Keep track of what you read. Review the ones you loved. This should be fun.
Newsletter Ninja: How to Become an Author Mailing List Expert by Tammi Labrecque. Email marketing is the best way to grow an audience, and this book tells you how to do it.
Your Author Business Plan: Take Your Author Career to the Next Level by Joanna Pen. Maybe there is something to thinking through what you want from your author journey.
24 Assets: Create a Digital, Scalable, Valuable and Fun Business that will Thrive in a Fast Changing World by Daniel Priestley. Written for entrepreneurs, but full of relevant advice for authorpreneurs.
Hey, Hun: Sales, Sisterhood, Supremacy, and the Other Lies Behind Multilevel Marketing by Emily Lynn Paulson. Sometimes a deep dive into what you know you do NOT want to be is as beneficial as researching what you do want to be.
Write
Write about your values. Write about what you like, what you hate. Write down five words that embody your author brand. Write a mission statement. Write your big picture.
Remember all those books you read in your genre? When you find a book that you like, email the author and tell them. If a conversation starts, you might even pitch a collaboration. It can be as simple as sending them interview questions for your newsletter. Be genuine and professional, and see what happens. You might be surprised.
Write a short story. Write a novella. Maybe write a few. Make sure they are complete and not just the first chapters of something bigger. Make them short. There is more than the sticker price of a book that readers weigh when they are looking to buy. There is the time too. If you are an unknown they are going to be choosier with their time. I’ll read just about anything that strikes my fancy in a 90 minute window. I’m much, much choosier about how I spend 9 hours of my time.
Use your short story or novella for collaborations. Bookfunnel group promos are where it is at, but maybe accruing a list of publications in literary magazines is important to you. If so, submit your stories to those magazines.
Write emails. Reply to an author newsletter you enjoy. You never know what could happen.
Write newsletters. I thought I would have nothing to put in a monthly newsletter because I wasn’t publishing a book every other month. That’s where contact buckets come in. Who wants to see pictures of my cat? Literally the entire internet. Funny cat videos is the currency the internet runs on.
Take notes on what you enjoy. What clues are there? Journal your way through your why. Think through your decisions and write down your reasons. I enjoy writing. I enjoy reading. I enjoy listening. I enjoy learning. I now enjoy marketing. And I am still an introvert.
Disclaimer: If you do everything I did, can I guarantee the same success? No, results will vary. Is there another way of approaching marketing? Of course! I’m encouraging you to go out and find what works for you. Am I prescribing specific steps/actions. Nope, just sharing what I found helpful for me. You do you, remember? Remember what Grace said up top? “If there was a magic formula for building sales overnight, every author would be a bestseller right out of the gate.”
So what do I feel now when someone tells me, an introvert, I must do marketing a specific way? I feel like Mr. Data in the gif below.
Sometimes. Okay, not really. I usually wonder if they’ve found the secret sauce and stick around long enough to hear about their success and take a few notes to sift through as I ponder what I can learn from their story. Sometimes there’s a good resource or idea and sometimes there is literal gold. When that happens I add it to this list.
This guide was written and created because Amy was invited to participate at the LTUE Symposium on a panel discussing marketing for introverts. And like all introverts, she has to have lots of notes on hand before she does any public speaking.
