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Influencer Marketing For Beginner Authors, With Orna Ross And Dan Parsons: Foundational Self-Publishing Podcast

Influencer Marketing for Beginner Authors, With Orna Ross and Dan Parsons: Foundational Self-Publishing Podcast

In this episode: Influencer marketing for beginner authors. Writing and publishing a book to a professional standard is a mammoth challenge, but it’s only the first step in growing your author business. Next comes marketing.

Some authors manage a huge budget and a savvy paid advertising plan to make a splash, but not all of us can do that when we start out, nor is it essential. In fact, you can actually sell books without spending any money using influencer marketing—the process of leveraging trusted individuals’ audiences to build social proof for your books.

In today's Foundational Self-Publishing Podcast, ALLi Director Orna Ross and Production Manager Dan Parsons discuss various ways you can develop an influencer marketing plan to sell your books with a minimal upfront cost.

Dartfrog BooksThis podcast is brought to you by specialist sponsor Dartfrog Books. ALLi Partner Member DartFrog Books provides indie authors with opportunities for bookstore placement and promotion to more than 27,000 book clubs. Their self-publishing, hybrid,  traditional, and single-service publishing platforms are designed to engage authors of all types, at every stage of their journey. We'd like to thank Dartfrog for their support of this podcast.

And, if you haven’t already, we invite you to join our organization and become a self-publishing ally. You can do that at http://allianceindependentauthors.org.

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On the #AskALLi Foundational Self-Publishing #Podcast, @OrnaRoss and @dkparsonswriter discuss ways you can develop an influencer marketing plan to sell your books with a minimal upfront cost. Share on X

About the Hosts

Orna Ross writes and publishes historical fiction, inspirational poetry, and nonfiction guides for authors. She is director of the Alliance of Independent Authors.

Dan Parsons writes the Creative Business series for authors, bestselling fantasy and horror novels (under Daniel Parsons), and a weekly blog for The Self-Publishing Formula. While pursuing his author career, he has worked for three traditional publishers, managed two bookstores, and listened to an unhealthy number of podcasts. Now he manages ALLi’s book production schedule.

Read the Transcripts: Influencer Marketing

Orna Ross: Hello everyone, and welcome to our Foundational Podcast for the Alliance of Independent Authors. I'm here with Dan Parsons, hi Dan.

Dan Parsons: Hi Orna, hello everyone.

Orna Ross: Hi. Yes, and here we are for another session. So, our Foundational Podcast is where we focus in on people who are beginning their self-publishing journey, and we concentrate on things like definitions and making sure that you understand the different kinds of things that we are talking about in our books, and our guides, and our podcasts, and our blogs; really just trying to get you started on the things that make most sense for you at this stage in your journey.

So, if you have questions, please do use the chat box, we can address any questions that you might have that might arise as we talk this evening.

We are going to be talking about influencer marketing for indie authors and for beginner authors in particular. So, let's dive straight in Dan. What are we talking about when we talk about influencer marketing for authors?

I know that a lot of people, when they hear influencer marketing, they think about those very cheery and obnoxious beautiful looking people on Instagram, kind of flashing their wares each time you go on, as you scroll through your feed, that's not quite what we're talking about, right?

Dan Parsons: Not necessarily, it depends on the brand, if I'm honest. It can be that, but it doesn't have to be. So yeah, the idea that we're talking about today is influencer marketing, and the process of influencer marketing is essentially leveraging the trusted individuals online so that we can get access to their audience in a way that's mutually beneficial and in a way that also does something that's good for their audience, so that everybody involved is pleased. And it's just a way of boosting social proof for your book, product, or service in a way that you couldn't necessarily do with ordinary paid advertising.

So yeah, if you really want to define an influencer, I would say that they're just a person of authority, and they usually work within a niche where they've got popularity and people follow them to find out their thoughts and opinions.

Orna Ross: Yeah, and I mean the word influencer and influencer marketing have become very kind of used now in relation to social media, and social media has made the whole idea of influencer marketing more popular, and it's also set up, I suppose, a whole monetization structure around it, which wasn't there before. Particularly I think for literary influences, because authors have always relied on literary influencers to take their books to readers. There always was in traditional publishing, there was always a layer between you and the reader.

So, you know, trade publishers themselves, all the gatekeepers, they were in fact influencers who took your book and brought it to readers, and a lot of that influencer structure is still exists. Librarians are influencers for authors, book sellers are influencers, book seller staff, you know, if you've got an informed person, particularly a reader in your genre, it can make a real difference to your sales in a physical bookstore. So, there are lots of ways in which people can influence readers to buy your book. Children's book authors rely exclusively on those influencers called teachers. So, on the one hand we've got the social side of it, and that is very important, and I think very visible, but on the other side you've got this invisible network of influencers who can guide readers to your book.

And I think what we're talking about here, influencer marketing is particularly good if you hate social media. Sorry, traditional influencer marketing is very good if you hate social media. If you are on social media and active yourself, you can absolutely boost all of that activity and your advertising activity by hooking in with influencers, and we're going to be talking in a few moments about how you do all this. But just setting the groundwork, people often say to me, “do I have to be on social media to sell books? I hate social media; it drains my energy. I don't want to do lists. It takes far more time than it seems to give me a return. What else can I do?”

Well, one of the things you can do is influencer marketing. So, we'll be talking a little bit about how and why through the show.

Dan Parsons: Yeah, absolutely, and you're absolutely right about the traditional influencer marketers. Another one I could add is a magazine editor, you know, the people who do editor’s choice, and things like that, they were traditionally big influencers who you could market with.

Orna Ross: Book reviewers, I think, are very influential, particularly genre magazines, the reviewers and of course, book bloggers are also now online and also very important influencers.

Yeah, there are lots. There's no shortage.

Dan Parsons: The key change is the shift into digital. So, you mentioned bloggers obviously, and I think bloggers are actually, while they still have a big fan base, I think some of that fan base has also shifted into video and audio content, because of the huge rise in audiobooks, and podcasts and YouTube videos and things like that.

So typically, modern influencers that you'd be looking to market with would be things like, instagrammers, booktokkers, booktubers, podcasters, you know, all of these different, not necessarily social media stars, but they are people with an audience that trusts them, even if that audience is particularly small, as we'll look into when we get into this. Even a small audience can be very, very potent if they're engaged enough.

So yeah, there are lots of different audiences, and the fact that some of them now are in micro-niches can actually be a lot more cost-effective than if you went to try and get an advert in The Times, or something, which is a much bigger, wider scope of people who are not necessarily interested in your work.

Orna Ross: Absolutely, and I think engagement, if there is one key to successful influencer marketing, it's the level of engagement that, that community has with the influencer that you are approaching, and engagement is much, much more important than numbers. Lots of people will attest to having forked out a lot of money to a social media influencer with a huge following, or to a PR person who got them a review in a major newspaper or even a major feature in one of the weekender magazines, or whatever, and shifted almost no books at all. Very nice for the ego but not really a particularly effective marketing tool beyond getting brand awareness out there. So, engagement is the key, because on social media it is possible to purchase a lot of followers and to look like you have a large following, when in fact, you don't.

So yeah, to be careful and be aware of that, that it's engagement that you're looking for because you want people who really genuinely listen to this influencer, and a sign that they are listening is that they are engaging.

Dan Parsons: Yes, absolutely. One of the key points that you touched on there is the engagement thing, and how a very small audience can have a very big impact.

Now, I know of authors who recommend other people's books, and if they've got an extremely engaged email list, and you don't necessarily think of people with a newsletter as influencers, but they can be. There are some people who've got seven or 800 people on their email list, which by all accounts is relatively small, and they can shift 50 or a hundred copies of a book that they recommend, which is a huge participation from those subscribers. Whereas, some other people might have 20 or 30,000 people on their email list and they'd only shift 10 copies. So, it's not necessarily how many people are involved in the audience, it's how engaged they are and how aligned the content is with the audience interests.

Orna Ross: Absolutely. They're the two key factors that you really need to keep in mind.

So, I mean, how does somebody go then and approach an influencer? How can you actually harness this influence power and unused it for yourself?

Dan Parsons: Well, one thing I would say is, don't try to find any influencer. So, like you said, you need to make sure they're the right influencer. So, initially you need to find out if an influencer aligns with your values, because obviously you don't want to be approaching an audience that you know your book isn't going to be right for, or possibly the other way around, you wouldn't want the influencer to be aligned with something that would upset your existing audience. So, you want to make sure that there's a good alignment there.

You also want to look at their audience demographics. So, if you're writing children's books, do you want to go on a huge crime fiction podcast, is that necessarily the audience that you're trying to tap into? It may be, if a lot of the people read crime fiction are parents or grandparents, but not necessarily. So yeah, you want to make sure that everything aligns really well before you actually even make an introduction.

And then you also want to make sure that the influencers are authentic when they're talking about other people's books, and possibly look into their track record and the history of things that they've endorsed in the past. It might be that they don't just give endorsements, they also give quite harsh critical review, which can be good or bad, but it depends on what you've seen them be harsh and critical of in the past, because it might be that they just don't like your type of book. So, you don't want to send a book to an influencer that you think is going to be really good for your brand and is actually extremely damaging.

Orna Ross: Yeah, just as an example there, I know that some indie authors who are really good, successful authors who are doing great work, have approached podcasts that only take traditionally published authors, and there really probably isn't a lot of point unless you want to get into that whole argument, and then probably at the end of the day, it still won't deliver for you.

So, do look carefully. Don't apply to any influencer, any podcast, any program of any kind, without really engaging with it first. Every week we get people who pitch us to come on the ALLi podcast, and if they listened to the ALLi podcast, they would know that we don't actually have guest interviews on the podcast at all, but they haven't even listened. They tell you how much they love the show, and how fabulous it is, how wonderful it is, and then they talk about guests, and thereby making it clear they haven't listened at all. So, don't be one of those people because it's not going to get you anywhere. It's just an example as to make sure you consume the content for a little while before you make an approach. Follow that person around a bit on social, on their own social platforms and get to know them, make sure it's a good fit, as Dan was saying earlier.

Dan Parsons: Yeah, also the fact that, if you don't follow them, you don't know exactly how they interact with the people that they're endorsing, and it might be that they want more from you than you expect to give, or that they want to delve a little bit more into your social life or something than you'd really like to give, if you've got pen names and things like that. So, it might be that you're just not aligned at all.

Another thing that you should possibly look into is engagement ratios. So, as much as some influencers on Instagram or TikTok, or something like that, might have huge, huge followings, it might be that they bought followers and their likes and retweets and shares, and all that, might be a lot lower as a ratio compared to their followers, because they bought followers, or it could just be that they were popular years ago and a lot of those accounts are now dead accounts that still follow them after years.

So yeah, you could be potentially paying a high price for access to followers that no longer realistically exist and engage. So yeah, you just want to make sure that you get a good fit before you start.

Orna Ross: And I would say also that it isn't necessary always to pay. There are lots of influencers that can be pitched who are not going to be looking for you to pay money. This is a new sort of model that has come in around influencers where, you know, this idea of paying for access. So, if your budget is not high, don't think that influencer marketing is not for you, look for influencers who instead of looking for you to pay a fee, they're looking for you to show your level of engagement, or you might have to jump through some hoops for them in order to get through to them.

And then sometimes some influencers just need an approach, and they're supportive and they're helpful. I think the main thing I would say to beginner authors is that we tend to be too shy when we're starting out. Our self-talk tends to run something like, who's going to want to have anything to do with me, and I'm too new at this, my book's not good enough, you know, how do I know it's good enough, all that kind of stuff. And really, all of that's a waste of head space and creative energy, because you let them saw no, don't say no for them.

The reality, and we'll be talking about pitching in a minute, but the reality of pitching influencers is that lots of your pitchers go un-answered or get no's, that's just part of what happens. So, don't you add to the no's by ruling people out in advance. If there are people that you feel are aligned, would like your content, are in the same arena as you, and you would really like to engage with them and work with them, then don't be shy. Do reach out.

Dan Parsons: I absolutely agree, and as someone who has used a fair bit of influencer marketing in the past, I can actually say that just because someone says no to you at one point in your career, they won't necessarily continue to say no to you, because you can reapply when you've got a slightly bigger platform, or when you've written something or produced something that is more in alignment their brand. So, just because somebody says no to you now, it doesn't mean they'll say it again in six months or five years, you know, you can always go back to those people.

And what's the worst-case scenario, if they say no, then that's one of the 50 no's that they've given up that day, and they probably won't even remember when you come back the next time.

What you'll need to do, and this is a really good way to start actually, is if there's an influencer that you want to work with, as you said, stalk them a little bit on social media, which we all do anyway, and then possibly get onto their radar by supporting them, either with comments or shares, or whatever you're going to be doing. You could even put a message about them in your newsletter, and then that sometimes permeates through to influencers who discover you without you actually approaching them, they just see your name coming up a lot around their name, and it could just be that you've got a lot in common and there's a Venn diagram of followers that follow both of you. So yeah, you can do lots of different things.

You will eventually though need to pitch them if you want to get something going, unless you've had a stratospheric rise to success and then they pitch you, but that's an entirely different podcast.

Orna Ross: Yes indeed, that is a different podcast. And I think this is one of the ways that social media has been fantastic in terms of, you can really “get to know” people that you have never met, and they can get comfortable with you just by seeing your face on Twitter x number of times, and they go, oh yeah, I know him, I know her. So, it's very possible to get closer to people that you wouldn't have been able to before, and realize that they're just people too, you know, they just are in a different stage or state, or whatever.

The thing is, I think, is that these communications that you are crafting, as you are kind of in the getting to know somebody phase, are really important pieces of writing, and to treat them as such. Don't get too heavy and too hung up about it, but definitely be aware and be mindful of what you are saying and how you are saying it. Don't be creepy. Don't be, you know, like assy. If you're a man and the influencer's a woman, or something like that, be careful what you say and what you don't say, all of that kind of thing.

Get a sense of that person, where their own kind of offense boundaries are, and how they think and how they work, just in the same way you would if they were in front of you and you were getting to know somebody, you know, observe the kind of person they are and engage in the relationship at their level. Come in where they are comfortable and, you know, if they're jokey and they like fun, then get involved at a fun level. If they're very open, vulnerable, and revealing stuff about themselves, encourage and support and give them kudos for that. So, you know, be sensitive to what is being put out there. Hopefully, if you've aligned well, if you've chosen well, you're not trying as hard as I'm making it sound, it's happening more organically and more naturally.

But just to be aware, don't go crashing in there. Do say things, but just be aware of how they like to be engaged with and how the rest of the community engages with them too.

Dan Parsons: Yeah, what I would also say is, if you are going to be showing up on someone's reader, then possibly make sure that the rest of your social media profiles, if you are publicly open with social media profiles, actually align with what you're seeing, and you can see the authenticity all the way through.

I have seen some faux pas with people who have reached out and said, you know, big fan of this particular person or concept, and then you click on their profile and it's just a list of a copy and paste job with different influencers names, and the first thing they'll do is click on your profile and then see what you're up to, and if they can see that, then they know that you're not really a fan and that it's a bit gamified and you're just using the numbers game to them.

You can pitch to lots of people at once, but just make sure that every one of your pitches is authentic and that the influencer can see that you've actually put in some effort, because if you don't put in effort then they know that they're not going to get a great communication with you going forward.

Orna Ross: Yeah, and we're making all of this sound very difficult and hard, and it isn't possibly as hard as we're making it sound, and certainly the first one is the hardest, like most things. First book is the hardest as well, it's always the same. So, you know, the first time is difficult but once you've had some exposure from an influencer in your arena, in your genre, then other people take note of that, and it all gets easier as you go along.

Dan Parsons: Yeah, you can actually, and I wouldn't want to speak for other people, but if you know that some influencers know each other, and one influencer has endorsed you or worked with you in the past, then you can always mention that in a pitch to another influencer, if they're friends, because then you know that you've already got a foot in the door because you're a friend of a friend rather than a cold call.

One thing I will say is that there's a bit of a formula to pitching, which we could go into a little bit if you want, because I think it's proven useful for me in the past, and I know other people use a similar formula.

So yeah, if you're going to pitch them, then typically it works quite well over email because you can go long form for the pitch, so we're talking 200-300 words and you get all of the pieces that you need in place to craft an effective pitch. So, I would say, firstly, tell the influencer how you know them and why you're a fan, because that immediately gets in their good books. After you've done that, then introduce yourself and your book, and then possibly talk about why yourself or your book aligned with their values, and why you'd actually be good for their brand if you were associated with them. And then obviously give them an arc copy if you can and some swipe copy because, one thing that sells quite well to a lot of influencers, because they're so busy, is if you make their job easy for them by giving them some swipe copy that they could use in social media, if they worked with you. And then, yeah, you can just call to action. I'd love to hear back from you, get back in touch as soon as you're ready.

Just to make everything completely easy, you've sold yourself well, you said why you like them, and you've made it as easy as possible for them.

Orna Ross: Yeah, that's a really good way to approach it, and then follow up. Busy people get a lot of email and it's very easy to overlook an email, for an email to go into a spam folder, you know, lots of things can happen. So, do follow up, don't just pitch once and say, okay, they never replied. At least three. So, you send it, if you haven't heard, then you do a resend of the exact same email, and then maybe something like, look, I don't want to be a pain, and pitch yourself again.

So, I think if you haven't heard after three, you can probably take it that they're not interested, but don't just send one mail. Very often, it's the second one that gets the response.

Dan Parsons: Yeah. Yeah. I can understand completely, and what you'd actually want to do as well is try to work out in advance what would incentivize them, because I know you said that you don't have to pay, and that has been the case with me when I've used influencer marketers, it's been, you know, if you craft an effective pitch then a lot of them won't expect you to pay. But when you get to the upper echelons of influencer marketing, where money is a big issue, they expect to be paid for their time, because they also deliver a lot of value in return, in terms of social proof.

So yeah, there are a few different ways that you can sort of close that pitch by giving them incentives, one of which could be a freebie. If you spend a lot of time on YouTube, then you'll notice that a lot of influencers get sponsorship deals, and the company will actually send a product to them to try out before they even get into the deal, and they'll talk about their experience with the product. You can do the same with a book. Equally you could do a sponsorship deal that is monetary, and it could be based on the performance of the video or the audio that they produce, or the social media campaign, or it could just be a fixed fee, you know, it can go either way.

The final way that I've seen people do it is by giving an affiliate or a promo code, and this is not as effective if you're just selling through Amazon because an influencer can get their own affiliate link and they wouldn't need you at all, they could just talk about it and there'd be no problem. But if you've got your own website and you can get them to send customer traffic through to your website, then you can give them a promo code that they can't manufacture anywhere else without you. So, that can actually be a more effective sell.

Orna Ross: And I will say that it's also worth reaching out to very highly established authors in your genre, and I'm thinking particularly, I think the social media and the payment, and, you know, all that kind of structure is very well set-up for non-fiction authors, and that's sort of become almost like the tried and tested way now to get influence within a certain sphere in the non-fiction.

With fiction, as ever, and poetry as well, it's a lot less clear. Though there are still various sites on Instagram and stuff where you can actually pay some money and then they would recommend your Instagram account or whatever, it's less well set-up in that sort of way. But it is always worth, if there is an author that you really genuinely do admire and love, and they are in your orbit and they are active on social, it is worth doing a private reach out sometimes. Authors remember what it's like to be starting out, and they can be incredibly generous. You can be really, really lucky, and I have seen this happen many times somebody has reached out to somebody that they are absolutely star struck about, you know, they are there their dream living writer, and they've been really kind, really helpful, really useful, and it has really made a difference. Not just in terms of the intro to readers and stuff, but also the validation that the beginner author gets from the attention, and from the fact that this person that they admire so much has actually done this for them. It generally is a hugely positive experience on both sides.

So, again, I suppose I'm repeating myself, don't be the person who says, no, if there's somebody you really would love to engage with and really would, if it will be your dream come true for them to actually do some sort of endorsement for you, a blurb for your book, or something else, do reach out, do ask. You will be surprised how generous some authors can be, some big-name people.

Dan Parsons: And what you need to remember as well is that people don't always do exactly the same process of actions for exactly the same reason. So yes, there may be a big influencer who expects to be paid for the majority of projects, but they may also do some projects pro bono, because you've got a theme in your book that is particularly close to a charity that they represent, or something like that. They could tie in with another element of their business or their life. So, it's not necessarily going to be a rejection if you can't, you know, send them a thousand-pound gift or something because, you know, they don't do that for every single person, it's very much a case-by-case basis with influencers.

Orna Ross: Yeah, absolutely.

Dan Parsons: One thing that we haven't spoken about yet is actually growing this, so scaling up over time. And one of the great things about influencers is that they watch each other, and they sort of follow each other. So, once you start on the ladder, even if you're working with small influencers, for a relatively low cost, you can actually build up your own presence and get to associate yourself with bigger and bigger influencers over time.

This is fairly evident with people like YouTubers, where they will collaborate with a bigger influencer, and then the minute they've collaborated with them they get another opportunity to bounce to the next one. And you can do it just the same way. You don't have to be the face of that, it could just be that you reach out and send them your book, and then that book becomes a bit of a flywheel trend that builds up over time.

So, one thing I would say is, you really want to be intentional about the way that you approach influencers, because you're not just thinking about the one you're approaching right now, you're thinking about where you eventually want to go with your brand.

And you can AB test. So, if you know a little bit about advertising, you can change one element of what you do and then create the same product all the way through, and then people will click on one thing and not click on another and you get it back to return on investment. And it works similarly with influencers where if you're giving them equal exposure and very similar swipe copy for if you're helping them on social media to promote your brand, then you could find that one actually gives you a much bigger return on investment than another one, and you can choose to approach them again with a future book. Whereas, some people, if it doesn't really change anything about your sales, then you may not want to work with that person again in the future.

So, you can, over time, become more efficient with your pitches and more efficient with your time so that you can actually build up a better efficacy of your strategy and you actually become much more potent.

Orna Ross: Yes, I think that's all really good advice, and the thing is that, influencer marketing, like every kind of marketing is for the long-term.

So, sometimes again, among beginner authors, there can be the sort of sense, if only I could get that one deal, that one person, and go viral, that's it, I'm made. And it's not like that. It's not like that with influencer marketing or any kind of marketing. So, it's really important that if you're going to start this, there's a lot of, again, like most marketing, there's a lot of upfront stuff that has to be right, and there's a lot of upfront investment of time and then money, if money is required. So, it's something that you need to think about. It's not an immediate payoff. It's something that builds over time, and you need to dedicate yourself to this type of marketing for a period of time, I would say at least a year, before you're going to see real returns. Unless you're lucky, of course you can be lucky, but it generally takes a good year to become very established in a niche and to begin to climb that ladder, and for people to really become aware of who you are.

And it's that thing of one action building on the next one, some being more successful than others, as Dan says, doing your testing, or at least closely monitoring your analytics, and having the structure in the background that means you can take advantage of this.

There's absolutely no point in some influencer giving you that highlight, and that moment in the sun if you don't have, for example, your own email signup, autoresponders, and everything else in place. You need to have your own machinery ready so that you know exactly what you want the influencer to do for you and you know exactly what you're hoping for as an outcome on your side, when you bring them over to you. Where are you bringing them to, and what is it that you want them to do? If it's buy a book, that's one thing, but you might prefer to get them to sign up to your newsletter, or take a free book, or something else. So, you need to think about everything that kind of underlies the moment when, hopefully, you do go viral and you do get this super influencer who brings you thousands of people, what is it you want them to do when they arrive?

Dan Parsons: Yeah. And I think you really hit the nail on the head there when you talked about the newsletter, because for most online businesses now, even though TikTok's taken off, and there's all these different social media platforms, the newsletter really is still the biggest, most engaged, most powerful tool that you'll have. And that would be the tool that would build you up as an influencer in your own right, because you can build those other social media platforms by driving traffic through your mailing list, and you never lose control of the mailing list.

So, what I've found now is a trend amongst influencers that I actually consume their content, as many of them as the industry is evolving and they're becoming more mature in their industry, they are actually now moving into newsletter content rather than being on YouTube or TikTok or Instagram. So, what you'll find is, if you just focus on the newsletter, then that will usually be the centre point that will help you grow on all other platforms and become your own influencer.

Orna Ross: Exactly. It's at the centre of the spokes, and then the different ways of reaching people, you know, they're reach out, but your ultimate aim is to bring them back to you. And then yes, you become an influencer and people start pitching you, and from there on it gets easy. So, anything else on influencer marketing before we head off?

Dan Parsons: Not really, no. It's just like I said, it becomes a fly wheel over time, and you've just got to give it a lot of time, and think about the seven touches of marketing. So, just because it doesn't work this time, somebody might see you six times and they don't even recognize you, and then on the seventh time they will start to recognize you and your brand.

Orna Ross: Yes, you'll be sick of yourself before they even know you exist. So, keep on putting yourself out there.

Okay. That's great. We're out of time.

So, next month, Dan, we are going to be talking about?

Dan Parsons: We are going to be talking about, I've actually forgotten off the top of my head there.

Orna Ross: It's our 10th anniversary episode, I think, if I remember correctly. So, we're going to be looking backwards. Yes, ALLi is 10 years old in April. So, we're going to be having a look back at the lessons we've learned over the last 10 years. Essentially, the show is called something like, what I wish I had known when I was starting out. So, if you've anything you really want to ask us about in relation to that, then do drop us a line any time.

This session will go out on our podcast on Friday next, and we will have some show notes and some links and things for you to avail of some of the resources and things that we have spoken about as we have been talking about this topic. So, yeah, do keep in touch [email protected].

And yeah, we will see you next time. Until then, happy writing and happy publishing.

Author: Howard Lovy

Howard Lovy is an author, book editor, and journalist. He is also the Content and Communications Manager for the Alliance of Independent Authors, where he hosts and produces podcasts and keeps the blog updated. You can find more of his work at https://howardlovy.com/

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This Post Has 3 Comments
  1. How long have a been a member of ALLi? A pretty long time. I have to say that this was one of the less illuminating advice pieces. It was all theoretical! One could actually look up a how to on the internet, you know? I appreciate the effort here, but without examples of people who have used influencers and can speak to results, or perhaps, an interview with several genre influencers who can point to results, it sadly isn’t much help to authors, new ones who don’t have time to embark on a campaign to find influencers.

  2. Thanks for sharing. I just joined ALLi a few weeks ago after seeing an article someone posted. and after reviewing your website, it looked like an easy decision to join. This was my first podcast! It was helpful in clarifying ideas about who and how to approach. Thanks again.

    Steve

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