On the Self-Publishing with ALLi podcast, host Orna Ross speaks with Roz Morris, editor-in-chief at ALLi, about ALLi’s new marketing guide, Reach More Readers, and why marketing today is less about algorithms and more about authentic human connection. They explore how shifts in the industry, including the rise of AI, are transforming how authors reach readers, and they discuss how understanding your values, reader journey, and publishing personality can lead to more effective, sustainable marketing.
Listen to the Podcast: Marketing That Puts the Author First
Show Notes
Reach More Readers: ALLi's Definitive Guide to Book Marketing (50 percent off)
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About the Host
Orna Ross launched the Alliance of Independent Authors at the London Book Fair in 2012. Her work for ALLi has seen her named as one of The Bookseller’s “100 top people in publishing”. She also publishes poetry, fiction, and nonfiction and is greatly excited by the democratizing, empowering potential of author-publishing. For more information about Orna, visit her website.
About the Guest
Roz Morris is editor-in-chief at the Alliance of Independent Authors and lead editor of ALLi’s new marketing guide. She has extensive experience helping authors develop their publishing strategy and connect more effectively with readers. Roz is also an accomplished writer and mentor known for her clear, human-centered approach to book marketing. Learn more on her website.
Read the Transcript
Orna Ross: Hello and welcome to the podcast. It's all very exciting around here at ALLi Towers at the moment because we've just finished our Self-Publishing Conference, SelfPubCon, for another year, and we launched our upgraded, updated marketing book at the conference.
Overview of the New ‘Reach More Readers’ Book Marketing Guide
Orna Ross: That marketing guide is the topic of our podcast here today, and it is currently available half price at selfpublishingstore.com. So, if your marketing is in need of an update, and so much is going on in that space at the moment, as we know, then this book may well be for you. It's one of ALLi's seven definitive guides, and it'll be followed in January by Sell More Books, because here at ALLi we separate out marketing and promotion.
This is very much about the marketing side of things, setting yourself up, your reader promise, reader journey, all those kinds of things.
A few weeks ago, just as we were coming to the end of this project, Roz Morris, who was the editor, and I got together to discuss what exactly you can expect to find there, and that's what podcast is about today. So, get yourself a nice cup of tea and enjoy Roz telling you all the wonderful things that you can expect.
Hi Roz. Roz, of course, is editor extraordinaire, editor-in-chief here at ALLi, and she's been working with me on this book and with other members of the team also.
So, we thought we'd give you a sneak peek. This one was a little bit different because everything has changed so much.
It's not that long since we did our marketing guide and everything has just changed so, so much with the advent of AI.
Humanizing Marketing in the Age of AI
Orna Ross: So, first of all, can you talk a bit from your perspective as the editor as to how it has been working on this book?
Roz Morris: I've learned a lot, which is great, and something that I'm really enjoying about it is the way we're putting the emphasis on the human.
Although we are including ideas for using AI, marketing is not about being a machine that just pumps out messages saying, buy my book. It's the very opposite. It's about connecting with readers and part of the way you do that, in a genuine way, actually stems from the kinds of books you feel called to write and your kind of publishing.
We've tried to really distill what makes marketing effective for all kinds of different authors and how we've noticed a simple pattern. It's sophisticated, but it is also simple in the way different kinds of authors approach marketing; what they'll be good at, what their blind spots will be and what they can do about it all.
Orna Ross: Exactly, that's it in a nutshell. The editorial mind is a wonderful thing.
So, beginning at the beginning around that humanizing, regular listeners to the podcast will be familiar with, and if you've read other ALLi guidebooks, you're going to be familiar with the idea that AI is with us. It is a tool which can be used in different ways, and authors make up their own mind about whether they want to use it at all, whether they want to use it for everything and whatever in between. We just have an ethical policy, advice and general ethical and practical guidelines around AI.
What we wanted to do for the marketing book was not ignore it, but press down on the human aspect. So, what AI does when it comes to marketing is it makes a lot of tasks easier, but it can't bring the main driver in terms of connecting, whether it's discoverability at the state of wanting a reader to find you, or particularly as you begin to build up that reader relationship, AI can't do the things. Only you can do them, and I think all find marketing hard because it is hard. It's really not easy, and it's not something that anybody else can do for you until you've worked it all out for yourself.
So, after writing the book, marketing is the hardest thing. We begin in the marketing book talking about values, and that's my introduction because I feel that values provide a very useful way to think about how is this book of value to the reader?
These are my values as a writer. These are my values as a publisher, we often don't think about publishing values enough. Making the bridge between those things, your values and what the reader is going to value in the book.
Roz Morris: That was another of the parts that I really enjoyed doing because we were also talking about the experience that the reader has, the feeling that our books leave the reader with, and that is key to determining what they like from us, what they seek from us. This is all very genuine.
This book, I hope, will help people realize what their unique qualities as authors are, what makes them appeal to readers, and how to use that to reach more of them. That's one of the fundamentals of good marketing; it's letting people see what they get and fulfilling what they want.
Orna Ross: At the beginning, we also talk about marketing resistance because just like there is resistance to writing, there is also resistance to marketing. As I said, it's not easy, especially at the start when you're not quite sure.
If it's your first book and you have just written a book, you don't necessarily know what you've even written, nevermind how to position it in the marketplace and bring the reader to you in a way that they'll stay with you into the next book.
These are skills that people have to learn over time. So, we go into that a little bit of why we might resist marketing. It might be a sense of imposter syndrome; we're just not able to go out there and be our own book's best advocate.
There's a lot of myths as well that marketing is kind of hard sell.
The craft of writing is something different.
Understanding Marketing vs. Promotion
Orna Ross: We talk a little bit about that at the beginning, but I think one of the main things to say as well, and again, this is something that regular listeners may be familiar with, we do not cover at all promotion in this book. We see marketing and promotion as very different things.
Do you want to talk a little bit about that, Roz?
Roz Morris: Yes, it is probably an area where people get confused, but the way we're defining it is marketing is ongoing, long-term positioning. It's where you set up your book to be found by the right people because it's got the right cover. It's got a blurb that's just right for those kinds of readers. It's got the metadata and keywords and all those sorts of things. We do talk about these in the book, and we promise not to give you a headache, we'll make them really easy to understand. But promotion is different because promotion tends to be just short bursts of a campaign for a particular time or for a series for a particular short time.
It might be a special offer, it might be a launch, but it's short term, and you might do lots of things in that short time to get attention for the book, and then you can just have a rest, leave it alone, your campaign's done. You've raised the book's profile. You don't have to be on all the time.
Marketing is more low-level. It kind of murmurs on in the background. It's precisely configured so that it catches the right people, but it tends to be at a lower volume. I think that's the difference between them, isn't it? Promotion is a short burst and really standing up and getting the book noticed and marketing is more low key, just ongoing.
Orna Ross: Yeah, that is it. Promotion tends to have a start date and a finish date, whereas marketing lives on and on.
It's about things like your author platform as well as positioning the book and all those good things.
The other thing that we talk about at the beginning of the book, before we get into the nitty gritty of all really important stuff to get into the right place, so much about marketing is getting into the right mindset and understanding what the job is, and that's why it does feel very useful to put the promotion stuff; there's a lot of work to be done before you should ever even begin to think about promoting the book. There's a lot of marketing hardware you have to put in place so that when you do go out there with a promotion, you are optimized and you're most likely to reach the right readers and then be able to keep those readers.
The other thing we talk about at the beginning, just before we do get into the nitty gritty, is paid marketing services. A lot of authors want to give this away and get somebody to do it for them. I think the two things we get asked most of all is, can't I just write my books? The other one is, can I get somebody to do this for me?
Short answer: no, not until you're totally able to do it for yourself, because there are a lot of confusing services out there, and if you don't understand your exact needs, you can very easily spend a lot of time and a lot of money on the wrong people.
Of course, people listening are receiving those emails where people are promising to elevate your wonderful book, they've picked out all the things from your book description that make your book so special and promising the sun, moon, and stars, and of course, it sounds too good to be true because it is too good to be true. These are scam merchants who are pulling you in with your book.
We do have in the guide general principles about paid marketing and how to approach it, and of course, we have the ALLi Watchdog Desk, which vets marketing services as well as other kinds of publishing services. So, it's something to really think about before diving into the meat and potatoes of the book.
Roz Morris: With that section, we also aim to show you what might be worth paying for, but we'll also educate you so that you can see exactly what value you'd be getting if you did spend the money.
Orna Ross: Yeah, exactly.
Finding Your Readers and Exploring Discoverability
Orna Ross: Then we get into finding your readers, and this is this whole concept of discoverability, which everybody in publishing talks about.
At this point in your marketing journey, you are just setting out to be known, liked, and trusted, which is a classic saying in marketing in all industries. For book marketing, there are various ways in which you can become more known, liked, and trusted. That's where you begin, with the author.
Then we talk about the reader journey. Once you have worked out how you're going to do that, we talk about the different kinds of publisher.
If you are a productivity publisher, somebody who wants to sell a lot of books, write in series, you're in a popular genre, fiction, non-fiction. Even poetry, there are people who have this productivity model. You're going to approach things very differently to somebody who has more of a craft business model, where they're more concerned with what's inside the book in terms of the writing, the language, and maybe illustrations. You're going to approach it very differently and the reader's going to find you in different ways.
Roz Morris: Also, there'll be certain aspects of the marketing that you will naturally take to, and certain aspects that you might have to remind yourself to do. We analyze these, it's almost like the personality test in a way, isn't it, Orna? If you do this, you're probably likely to forget about that.
Orna Ross: Exactly. Marketing advice is aimed at everybody, and in the same way that you can't aim your book at everybody, you can't aim your marketing at everybody. Whittling down and getting to know your reader, what your reader values, what your own publishing values are, your own writing values are, all of that work is something that happens in the doing. It's not something you can think out upfront.
I'm a craft publisher. These kinds of things will tell you which way you should lean.
So, in the book, it's very much about you going into you and what works for you, both in terms of getting readers to you, and you have ways of measuring that, but also what works in terms of how you feel about it and whether you're enjoying it or not; whether it feels like it is you.
Roz Morris: That's absolutely it, because it's got to be something that you can keep up. What you need to do is find a method of marketing that is going to suit you, and you'll feel comfortable with, and then you'll naturally start getting ideas for what would work.
This book is the starting point to let you build your kind of marketing for your kind of books, your kind of readers, your temperament, and your whole body of work.
Orna Ross: Exactly. It's best viewed like you're writing something that you know is going to grow and develop with you over time and change as you change, rather than getting loads of readers as quickly as possible, getting a thousand people onto my mailing list.
Starting from that place, is actually going to slow you down. Taking the time to go into it in a deeper way will actually move you forward faster.
Social Media and Alternative Marketing Strategies
Orna Ross: Another question that we have made sure to cover, because it's another one that we get, this book is essentially built around what we have witnessed and observed over the years in terms of the challenges that authors tend to face, and another one that we hear often is, I hate social media. Do I have to do social media to market a book?
The short answer to that is no. But if you don't do social media, then you're going to have another method whereby you can make that book discoverable and bring readers to you.
Roz Morris: But social media, it's a massive world. I could never do TikTok, for instance, but I love Facebook. The one reason I love Facebook is that I can actually write paragraphs. For me, that suits the way I want to market because I want to draw people into my writing.
Others might find that the short immediacy of something like TikTok or Instagram as well, it might be exactly what they need.
So, we hope to encourage people to try different kinds of social media because they are very different beasts for very different temperaments. Again, very different kinds of writer, very different kinds of reader.
Orna Ross: Absolutely. As you're thinking across the different ways of reaching the reader in terms of text, audio, we're doing audio here right now, video, so you've got those three ways.
Then you're thinking about, am I an engagement publisher, as we discussed earlier, productivity publisher, a craft publisher; what kind of publisher am I?
These things are intersecting in your marketing. They're crossover points that are going to make certain things work for you and certain things not, and a great clue to whether it's something that is likely to work you is, do I like it? Am I enjoying it? Does it fit the book, and does it fit me? Because as you so rightly said, Roz, sustainability is everything in marketing. It's not a do it today and done forever kind of thing.
There are a few things you can put in place that will keep working for you away in the background, we'll talk about those in a few moments, but mostly you're going to have to keep putting something out there for a social media audience or influencers like booksellers, librarians, festivals, literary events; those kinds of things are pleasing the algorithm. You're going to have to think about something that you enjoy doing.
Reading data and hits; if that's your thing, then you're going to have a completely different approach.
Roz Morris: It has to be said that this is totally necessary because a book that's released, it's a bit like a tree that's fallen over in a wood. If no one heard it, no one knows it's there, and that is why we have to find some way of showing people what we do and drawing them towards our books.
They won't sell themselves, which is a great pity, but they won't.
Orna Ross: There was at a time when eBooks were very new, that eBooks almost did sell themselves, but that ship sailed a very long time ago.
Roz Morris: But they only sold because Amazon was actually promoting them. Amazon was doing the marketing and promotion. They weren't selling just because they had been published.
Orna Ross: The issue with Amazon and all of the retail platforms, and Google search now, is the quantity and the volume of books that are coming out all the time, which makes it more challenging to stand out and be seen in that forest when you fall over.
But it definitely doesn't mean, and I hear authors saying there's no point now, there are too many books, it's not possible.
None of that is actually true because we see all the time authors who come in and who have a clear idea of who their reader is and how to be discoverable, and understanding the reader journey, and how to capture those readers when they do come close to them through an email marketing system, a newsletter, whatever it may be.
It is totally possible, but you have to understand that it isn't a matter of just putting it out there.
The Importance of Metadata in Marketing
Orna Ross: It begins with metadata, which is not a sexy subject, but we do have a chapter about that, of course, because the keywords and the categories and your BISAC codes; that's the basic of discoverability.
In and of itself, it won't mean that many readers will discover your book. But without it, or if any of those steps are broken, then you are not discoverable. What you're trying to do with that end of the system is make sure that nothing is broken.
Roz Morris: You have got to make sure the machines can find you. I often think that searching now is as much about machines finding it was people finding you.
Orna Ross: And as we move into generative AI search, GEO is becoming as important as SEO. This is just a fact of life, and authors who are not overly keen on AI may find that one a hard pill to swallow. But if you are not easily searchable and findable by the chat bots as well as the search engines, then that's going to affect your discoverability.
Roz Morris: We are aware that everyone has their own feelings about AI, their own thresholds for how much they want to get involved with it. So, what we've done with this book is provide suggestions for where you could use it if you want to, but all the methods that we're talking about will work in old fashioned ways.
This book is for everyone, no matter what your comfort level with AI is.
Orna Ross: What's happening is that, even pre-indie revolution tactics are now reviving, and people are becoming more interested in physical engagement with readers at craft fairs in their local town, or traveling around doing craft fair tours is something that I've heard a number of our members discussing.
Recently hand selling, book binding, creating beautiful things, physical objects around the book. All of these things seem to be rising up side by side with the machine.
The point we're trying to emphasize is there really is a place for everybody. The book is about guiding you to find your place.
Roz Morris: We hope there'll be something for everybody to improve the chances of their books being found and read, which is why we publish.
Orna Ross: To pre-order the book, you'll find it at selfpublishingadvice.org/reachmorereaders. If you have any questions arising from this podcast, you want to know more about the book, you can drop a line to [email protected].
Orna Ross: Any more thoughts, Roz, before we wrap up?
Roz Morris: Yes, we are taking this big subject, we're making it as digestible as possible. You heard terms like metadata, that makes some people just cringe. Other people probably delighting because it's actual scientific stuff that they can use to do something real.
We are aiming to make this book usable for everybody, no matter what you publish, whether you publish a lot of books in a very easily marketable niche, lots of series, or whether you publish a title every other year and you're what we would call a craft publisher.
We've covered every kind of publishing, every kind of author temperament, and we hope to bring you something that you can use to get your books out to readers.
Orna Ross: Fantastic, thank you. Finally, if anybody's interested in reviewing the book, again, that address: [email protected]. We will get you a copy and we'll be delighted if you felt you'd like to read and review.
That's it for this week. Thank you so much to Roz Morris. Tell the people where they can find a little bit more about you, for those who may not have met you before and where they can find you.
Roz Morris: I am, what am I? I'm loads of things. I am an editor, developmental editor, book coach. I have a series of writing craft books. I also write plot driven literary fiction and branched into humorous literary memoir, which meant I had my own marketing challenges trying to market a new genre.
If you change track and find yourself doing something new, this book will tell you how to get that out to readers as well.
You can find me, probably the easiest place is on my website, which is rozmorris.org.
Orna Ross: That's great. Thanks so much for dropping by to talk to us about Reach More Readers and thank you so much for all your hard work on it.
Take care. Happy publishing, everyone. Happy writing till we see you next time.
Bye-bye.
