Ep 027: “Don’t Feel Bad About Marketing”

Welcome to the 27th episode of The Author Hangout, a “Hangout on Air” designed to help authors, especially self-published and indie authors, with marketing their books and improving their author platform. Authors struggle with various aspects of marketing and we are here to help!

“Don’t make marketing an afterthought and don’t feel bad about marketing.”– Farnoosh Brock

“Don’t Feel Bad About Marketing”

In this episode, we are joined by entrepreneur and bestselling author Farnoosh Brock. She shared great tips about marketing your books, what works and what doesn’t work. She also talked about mastermind groups, the author mentality, and more!

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Episode Resources:

FREE: The Ultimate Author Checklist for Online Book Marketing
Prolific Living – Farnoosh’s website

Get the Full Transcript From This Episode

Intro

She’s a creative entrepreneur, business coach and professional speaker who left a comfortable corporate life to pursue her passion and start Prolific Living Inc. A successful media and publishing company. Besides developing courses that empower professionals to transition into full time entrepreneurship, she has published several popular books including the Healthy Juicer’s Bible and the Healthy Smoothie Bible. She has been featured on Forbes, Chickpreneur, BBC World News, Pro-Blogger and more. Please welcome accomplished author and personal development blogger, Farnoosh Brock. Farnoosh, welcome to the Author Hangout.

How did you become an author and publish your first book?

Farnoosh shares a bit about how she got started:

“I was just in Seattle visiting one of my Mastermind friends. She is a true author. She published a poetry book while she was in the military and very young. I told her that I’m the definition of an accidental writer. I did not grow up wanting to be a writer. I didn’t have this dream of publishing a book and of course now I’m thrilled that it had happened… I took advantage of the Kindle publishing store as well as selling on my own website… I did not do that well. It sold a few copies. It just hung around but it was great to go through the process. I found out that I loved going through the process of putting your thoughts together and creating a book.”

What is your most recent book or project?

She is currently working on courses for her business:

“I’m actually in the process of turning down a proposal with my fabulous publishers because I want to focus on building and growing my coaching practice. That’s where I have been devoted to working with private clients and also running my small group Mastermind. That’s really where my energy and focus is going. Not all of it but most of it… I am running those courses, I’m working with private clients and running a mastermind group. I’m starting another one. We travel quite a bit so really, that’s a full schedule.”

Shawn also followed up about the concept of a mastermind group. Here is Farnoosh’s response:

“[A mastermind group is] to work with colleagues and friends who are at the same level and ideally, ahead of me in some places. You basically come together and it was a very small group. At least I have found it was it small groups, 3 to 4 to 5 max. You commit to holding one another accountable. It’s beyond friendship. You really are holding each other accountable. Pushing each other out of your comfort zone and you benefit from the expertise that you have, so having a variety of expertise is really good. If you are starting a business you definitely need to be in a Mastermind for yourself.”

All authors should be in a group with other authors to help each other out and to keep each other accountable. Be sure to listen to the interview to hear more about how important a mastermind group is.

Can you tell us about a time when you really struggled as an author?

Farnoosh talked about her mindset and how that caused her books to not sell well:

“My first few books, Shawn, I was under the impression that they were just going to sell. They were good, I thought they were good. That was the mindset where I was creating them, maybe not creating them in a vacuum but I was thinking in a vacuum. I wasn’t really thinking, how would I reach my readers, so when they didn’t sell I immediately concluded that they weren’t good, that there was something wrong with me. It was really hard to admit this, but that was really the mis-conception, but as you and I both know, books that are really, really bad sell really, really well. Books that are fantastic, you read a gem of a book, nobody has ever heard of it. So, we know that marketing plays a really great role and if you have a great book you owe it to yourself and to your book to do due diligence on that marketing.”

She also talked a bit about her relationship with her publisher, and how one of her books became a bestseller, and some of the specific steps that she took to help it become a bestseller.

Also, nonfiction authors won’t want to miss how her books have helped her with her coaching business.

What one marketing tactic is really working well for you?

She talked a bit about Facebook, and one of the main benefits of using Facebook:

“We did that, we did a video on the web page and we opened the comments on Facebooks. The way that works, you may know, particularly, you can start with the question and you will take the time to respond to all comments. If people make a comment, they could, unless they uncheck it, they post that as a personal update on their web page. That will spread it to their friends and so on and so forth.”

She made sure to stress this about marketing your books:

“Make sure that you do something that resonates with you because sometimes we feel uncomfortable with some marketing tactics, I would recommend to only use the ones that you really, really feel good about.”

If you started over today, what 3 things would you tell yourself to help you sell more book?

She shared some great stuff:

“I would say, before you write your book think about how you’re going to market. As you put the pen down to write the first chapter or the outline, depending on how you’re going to start, put the pen down and write your marketing plan. It is not too early to think about that. You don’t have to do anything just yet, but think about it. Don’t make marketing an afterthought and don’t feel bad about marketing. We talked about this a little bit. I felt that it would be sleazy to market my books, you have to get over that. Just get over it.”

She also gave some great tips about just talking about your book, and also asking people with larger audiences, more pull, more reach to share about your book. Be sure to listen to the interview so that you don’t miss this part!

How can people connect with you?

“You can find me at http://www.prolificliving.com/ that’s my home online. If you like, I have downloadable give-away, I have an audio give-away. If you’d like to download that you can just go to http://www.prolificliving.com/positive-affirmations-landing/ because a lot of the other works that I do is on positive thinking, positive affirmations. I have an audio download that can help you get in the right mindset for everything that you want to do. Again, Prolific Living, you can find me on Facebook and Twitter on that and please approach me and talk to me. I’m approachable. I respond to everyone who contacts me and I would love to hear how you enjoyed this show and what book you’re working on.”

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