Our July Theme Is...Making the Most of the Slowest Month of the Year for Bookselling and Book Publishing
As I pointed out in the first newsletter of this month, July happens to be the slowest month of the year in publishing, by which I meant slowest in terms of book sales, book reviews, media mentions, making contact with anyone in the NYC publishing world. It is historically the slowest month for authors and publishers to make tangible progress on classic measures of publishing success.
But, that doesn't mean it's not just the right month to make progress in other important areas of your author business and publishing life, and those areas are what we're looking at in July's three newsletters.
Last issue we covered writing, research, and vacation! Next issue, July 24, we'll look at mid-year evalutions and strategic planning. Today, we focus on July as a great month for...
Relationship Building
Cultivating a network of support is one of the seven core things I've seen hundreds of authors out in the wild do to create successful author lives. Read on to learn more about developing this piece of the Profitable Author Life You Love framework.
This month, ask yourself about the relationships you have in your author business and author life, and those you want:
- Who do you want to meet this year and why?
- Who would you enjoy spending more time with this year and why?
- Who have you helped and supported the most in the world of book writing, book marketing, and book selling this past year? How did you help them and what made your help so effective?
- Who has helped and supported you the most this past year? What did you most appreciate about that support and why did it work for you?
- What has been the connection to date of help and support from others and measurable results to your books' visibility and your author income?
- Who (or what type of person) has the potential to help your author business the most this year? How will you meet these people?
Here are my top 50 ways to nurture relationships for your author business. Borrow them directly or use them to inspire the ideas that will work better for you and your situation:
Not sure what to ask for to help move your progress along? Here are some ideas:
Take action today
- How often will you try to connect with new people?
- Will you invite people to coffee, lunch, a Zoom call, or a walking meeting?
- Who will you try to meet in July and August this year?
Thank You, Carmen Amato!
Former CIA agent and mystery author Carmen Amato recently posted these excellent reminders about ongoing learning and finding the things that work for you and your books in our A Profitable Author Life You Love Facebook group (join here):
"I had an experience the other day that may resonate--I subscribe to a number of newsletters from other authors, including an Australian blogger named Tim Denning. His message is that you can make a living writing and has made his fortune writing about writing and selling webinars about writing about writing. His writing course about crushing it on those platforms sells for $1k. He's on major social media platforms, notably Medium, Substack, X, and LinkedIn. He has an email list of 200k subscribers.
I've tuned in to 2 of his free seminars about crafting better headlines and being consistent but have never signed up for his $$$ course. Out of the blue, he emailed me to ask why I haven't signed up for a class. I replied that I was working on my next book, trying to meet a deadline and could not take time away for such a big time investment (didn't mention cost). To my surprise, he emailed back 10 minutes later. He had Googled me and said that with so few LinkedIn and Medium followers, writing another book was a waste of time. How else could I sell books unless I was burning down social media to get subscribers to my email list?
After swallowing annoyance that he hadn't noted 6k followers on X or 2.3k on Facebook, I responded with a lengthy list of real-life actions that sell books--thanks to Sharon's ideas!--and said that social media was only 1 tool in the box. Besides, with so many people opting into my list from the link at the end of Kindle books, that more books is the best way to get more subscribers! He responded with a brief "thanks have a good day."
I share this as a cautionary tale not to let someone else's ideas of success make you chase shiny objects. Do I need more LinkedIn followers? I doubt it. That's not a platform people go to to find fiction reads. By the same token, I don't think that writing about writing will boost fiction sales, either. So keep learning, but don't let yourself be pressured into heading in the wrong direction."
Reach out today to those you'd like to know!
Sharon
