How Authors Can Successfully Approach Book Clubs

EPISODE TEN

Book clubs are a fantastic way to get readers talking about your book and grow your audience. But how do you actually get your book in front of them? Jenn and Marcus discuss an approach that you can easily apply to your marketing strategy.

Thanks to Erskine for the great question!

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Transcript

JENN: Hello, and welcome to the Book Marketing Simplified podcast. I am Jenn Hanson dePaula. 

MARCUS: And I'm Marcus dePaula. We have been taking questions from you listeners. Thank you for sending those in. And we have another great question to cover this week, and it's actually something that Jenn, you haven't even covered in a blog post yet. So it's a really, really good question. What is it? 

JENN: Yes. Well, Erskine sent this question in - she's a newsletter subscriber, and she said, "how do you successfully approach book clubs to see about them reading your book?" And I love this question. 

MARCUS: That's a good one. 

JENN: It is. And it's something that I think that many authors kind of feel is rather elusive. It's something that's really hard to nail down, or that it's hard to find book clubs that they can submit their book to or connect with so they can grow their audience and get more word out about their books. 

MARCUS: Absolutely. So what's the best way to get started? 

JENN: The best way is to start local. I know that we often see these big book clubs or these online book clubs. Or book clubs on Instagram or Facebook. And we tend to gravitate towards that right away. But if you're just starting out and you've never done a book club before, start local. And what I mean by that is start by calling your local library. Librarians are a fountain of information and they know. They might even have book clubs at the library. And they are aware of various book clubs in the community. So I would start there if you are kind of hung up on how to even start. So start with your local library. Or you can even try meetup.com. They have various book clubs and various genres. So you can make sure that your book is getting into the right set of hands.

MARCUS: We're recording this in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. So it might actually be hard to find any book clubs that you can go to in person, but even starting out online - because a lot of these book clubs are still meeting online - it's still better to start locally, right? 

JENN: Absolutely. When I worked in the music industry, I would always tell bands to look at a map and get within an hour driving radius of where they lived to find clubs and other venues that they could play their music in. The same applies for authors for when you're looking locally. Like if you're in a small town that doesn't have a lot of resources around it, look within like an hour driving range. And chances are that you're going to find a bigger town or a bigger community that you can step into and say, "Hey, I'm a local author." You live within their state. And that's something too, to keep in mind. People want to support their local authors. That's a better shoe in for you to get your book into...

MARCUS: It's the easiest shoe in.

JENN: Absolutely. Start small and grow from there because when you've kind of saturated that hour radius that we were talking about, you can move out and make that circle even bigger, like going into two hour radius and you can grow from there. 

Something else that you can do is a simple Google search to find book clubs. You can contact your local churches. You can look at different community groups and you know, your parks and rec community group. So looking at the resources that you have locally around you and tapping into them first is a great way to get your foot in the door.

MARCUS: And keeping in mind again, that we've talked about this mindset of not going in with guns blazing, the "I'm here to promote my book." But actually honestly and authentically trying to get plugged into your community to find your people that you know will want to read your book.

So the first and easiest way for an author to get their book into a book club is to start locally. Don't go after the Oprah book club or any of those big ones, because they're just going to be a waste of time. 

JENN: Yes. 

MARCUS: All right. So what else do you have for us? 

JENN: So the second point kind of goes with what you were talking about earlier, not coming in with guns blazing and pushing your book onto book clubs. The second point is to connect with book clubs early. And that means not coming at it as an author, desperate to get their book into a book club's hands. It's more about creating a connection with these book clubs. You need to remember that book clubs have no shortage of options. In the book clubs that I've been a part of, I have three or four books that I want to suggest. And all the other people have books that they want to suggest, and then you have to narrow it down. So you need to have that connection with these people. You want to connect with them as a reader and someone who loves books, not just as an author, trying to promote a book because there's a definite difference.

MARCUS: Right. So again, we mentioned it all the time, thinking about your ideal reader and putting yourself in their shoes. If you are a member of this book club, why in the world would I want to have somebody that I'm not familiar with - even if it's a local author - why should their book jump to the front of the queue for what we're going to read next as a book club?

JENN: Yes. And you need to really prove that your book is worth their time. So that interaction and that relationship that you're developing is going to play a huge part in that. And you will understand how they pick their books. Are they reading on a certain theme throughout the year? Do they pick their books at the beginning of the year and have it all worked out ahead of time? When you understand how these but clubs approach their choices, you will know how to pitch to them or how to connect with them. Authors also need to remember that they need to start this process probably even before their book has done. Because those relationships take time and you need to foster that and you need to be thinking about that.

And so not coming at it as, again, an author desperate to get their book into the book club's hands. But rather having respect for the process and respect for these people that are in this book club and really taking your time to get to know them and to connect with them. That is very important. 

Many authors put getting their book into the hands of book clubs as a part of their book launch. And if you are listening to this and you're in the middle of that promotional process, and you're not having any luck getting your book into the book club's hands, remember that your book doesn't live and die by the release schedule. Thinking about, "Okay. If my book is coming out and I'm just starting this process..." Maybe this can be a promotion that is within your followup process, that comes a couple of months down the road where you can start now connecting with book clubs. And thinking, "Okay. Maybe towards the end of the year, I can pitch my book to be a part of their book club next year." Remembering that the lifespan of your book is very, very long. So you don't have to get your book into a book club's hands right away. This can be a process. 

MARCUS: So you haven't necessarily missed the boat. And that's something that we need to actually talk about in a future podcast is the whole book launch topic. All right. So communicating with the book club and getting to know them as early as possible, coming at it from the reader's point of view and not just coming at it from a marketing promotional point of view. 

JENN: Yes, absolutely.

MARCUS: Is there anything else that authors can do to help get their book more visible in book clubs? 

JENN: One thing that I would stress is to create book club resources. Now this means you can have something on your website, you can have it as a part of the book, you can have it as a free download. Provide questions that they can discuss for the book club.

Maybe you can provide special discounts for book club members. Maybe you buy the physical book and you get the ebook free. Or if you're a member of the book club, you get 10% off. Whatever you want. And even saying that you're willing to do a zoom call with the members. Having resources and things available that are specific for book clubs, make that offer all the more tantalizing. Just coming up with different creative things that you can give to book club members that just make the decision even easier for them to pick your book. 

MARCUS: If you're a nonfiction author, you can actually create almost like a study guide or discussion guide around the topics and the message that you're trying to get across. If you're a fiction writer, you can maybe do character studies or something that gets people drawn in deeper into the story and facilitates that discussion about how they can relate to the characters in the book. 

JENN: Absolutely. Or even discuss people that inspired those characters. The list is endless. And so really kind of outlining these things that you can discuss in a live zoom call or, you know, FaceTime that you do with the book club would just make that decision all the easier for them. 

MARCUS: All right. So once again, we've got three points that authors can do to help get their book in the hands of book clubs. The first one we talked about was starting local, either in person, which might be difficult in these times that we're recording this or virtually even starting in your local geographic area, online, connecting with people that are in your same geographic area. The second point was to connect with these book clubs as early as possible, getting to know them, establishing relationships and coming at it from a connection point of view, instead of a promotion point of view. Then your third point was to create tantalizing resources that will help make your book irresistible to be discussed in their book group.

JENN: Yes. 

MARCUS: Alright. So what is the make it happen moment for this episode? 

JENN: The make it happen moment is to actually connect with your local library, or to check out online to start making a list of book club options. So just doing a quick search or making a quick phone call to your library or to your community group and seeing what book clubs are available and start making a list.

I think if we start off by doing the social media book club option... 

MARCUS: Like a Facebook group. 

JENN: Yeah. You can obviously include those in there. But if you're just starting out and you haven't done book clubs before, starting local gives you more of a shoe in because you're a local author. 

MARCUS: So meetup.com would be the best place.

JENN: I think so. And then you can start looking at different social media book club options. That's totally fine. And you can add a couple to your list. But starting local, I think authors tend to find a better response right away. 

MARCUS: Well, and chances are that these in-person meetups do have a Facebook group of some kind. So you might be able to learn about which groups are in your area. If you can't find any on meetup.com, maybe try searching some of the social media platforms. Goodreads. There's another one that check out. 

JENN: Yes. Definitely Goodreads. Facebook groups. 

MARCUS: Even  just doing a Google search.

JENN: Yes. Even just doing a Google search would be great.

MARCUS: As we always say, at the end of every episode, we'd love to hear from you if you have more questions. But also if you have experience with this and you can share some information that might be helpful to our listeners and to the blog readers and social media followers, let us know what's working for you, what you've had trouble with.

And we also want to let you know that we just made an update to the website. In an effort to try to help as many authors as we can, we've come up with some new coaching and consulting packages to try to hit every price point so that it can fit - hopefully - every author's budget. If you want to see the new packages we have that you can get coaching from Jenn, go to mixtusmedia.com and check it out.

JENN: Thank you so much for joining us. And until next time.

MARCUS: Thanks for listening.