What do You Want to Get from Your Writing? (Beginner Book Marketing Guide from WriteZero)

This post is part of the Beginner Book Marketing Guide from WriteZero. This post is part of the ‘Why Do You Write’ Pillar

The first post in the Pillar is – Why Do You Write?

This is the second post and will help you list out What You Want to Get from Your Writing. It is divided into 6 sections

1. What do you want to get from your writing?
2. If you want to get what you want from Writing, you need to understand the Market
3. If you want to get what you want from Writing, you need to understand your Customers
4. Publishing has been around for centuries, Books have been around Forever
5. Publishing is in a state of crisis, which means opportunities
6. For You, it means the opportunity to get what you want

Essential Prerequisites: The Motivations & Desires List you created in the Why Do You Write post

In the previous post, Why Do You Write, you created a Motivations and Desires List and then cleaned and distilled it. That will be required to work your way through this post

There were actually three separate lists

1. Your Deep Internal Motivations
   1. Including The One Thing (your single most important Internal Motivation)
   2. Including Top 5 Motivations (your 5 most important Internal Motivations)
2.  Your Surface Level Motivations
   1. Including The One Thing (your single most important Surface Level Motivation)
   2. Including Top 5 Motivations (your 5 most important Surface Level Motivations)
3.  Your Surface Level Motivations derived from Other People
   1. Including The One Thing (your single most important Surface Level Motivation derived from Other People)
   2. Including Top 5 Motivations (your 5 most important Surface Level Motivations derived from Other People)

In this post we will discuss how to build more on that and figure out Exactly What You Want from Your Writing and from Your Books

What do You Want to Get from Your Writing?

You’ve already spent considerable time and effort and listed out your Internal Motivations and Surface Level Motivations

From these you should be able to create a pretty clear picture of what you want from your Career as an Author

1. Above all else, keep refining your 3 lists
   1. Within the Motivations on these lists, focus on achieving your The One Thing for each list
   2. Whenever possible, also achieve your Top 5 Motivations
2. During day to day work, focus on your Surface Level Motivations
3. During tough times, or when feeling stuck, focus on your Deep Internal Motivations

The totality of these 3 lists is ‘What You Want from Your Writing’

Build as much clarity as possible

The more clarity you have about your Motivations and Goals

1. The higher the chance you will achieve success
2. The stronger your motivation will be
3. The clearer next steps will be to you, as to what you should work on next
4. The better you will deal with temporary setbacks
5. The happier you will be

Think of your Motivations and Goals as a Roadmap to where you want to get to. The better and more detailed the Roadmap, the higher the chance you will actually get there

Now it’s time to dig deeper and understand some key aspects of Books and Publishing

If you want to get what you want from Writing, you need to understand the Market very well and understand that giving the Market what it is asking for, will give you everything you desire

If You Want to Get What You Want from Writing You Need to Understand the Market

Getting what you want from Writing requires you to create a product and then you have to sell that product

To sell successfully, you have to Understand the Market

For an Author, the Market is Books & Publishing. Within that Market are various Markets – You have to find the specific Market that is the Perfect Market for you

Here are a few starting principles

1. You have to have a lot of respect for the market
2. There are well tested principles of what works and what doesn’t work
   1. Learn from other people’s mistakes and learn these core principles
   2. Don’t try to reinvent the wheel
3. The Market dictates EVERYTHING
   1. This is the toughest thing for people to understand
      1. We live in a world of instant wish gratification where the world is supposed to behave in the manner you want it to behave
      2. Then you face the harsh reality that in Books & Publishing, you have to create what people want to buy
      3. It doesn’t work if you just create the product you want, or if you randomly create a product
   2. You cannot force the market to buy the product you want it to buy
   3. You have to give it the product that the market is asking for
4. You have to find The Right Market
5. You have to find The Right Product for that Right Market
6. Respect for the Market also means respect for the Clients in the Market and the Participants in the Market
   1. A lot more insight on Clients and Customers in the next section
7. The better you understand the Market, and what each participant in the Market is looking for, the higher the chance you will get what you want from the Market
8. Zig Ziglar – You can get whatever you desire from life, if you give enough other people what they desire

It’s actually surprisingly easy to start understanding the market. Most people are so focused on what they want, they never even consider what other people want. Once you start looking at what everyone else in the Market is looking for, it’s quite straightforward to start working with them and benefiting by creating win-win situations

If You Want to Get What You Want from Writing You Need to Understand Your Clients & Your Customers

This is the easiest thing in the world. This is the toughest thing in the world

Your Customers are Readers

What do Readers want?

Please think about What Readers Want for some time, BEFORE reading the below list

Based on our experience of running $1.8 million of book promotion packages, and seeing the eBook market grow from Jan 2008 to 2020, here are some of the key things we have noticed

1. Above all else, readers want to read good books
   1. It’s really that simple – they just want to read good books and be entertained
   2. They are Readers. Their passion is reading books
2. Readers want reasonable value for money
   1. If you’re a world class writer like Stephen King, they don’t mind paying $10 for your book
   2. If you’re a very good writer they won’t mind paying $3 to $7
      1. Of course, to convince them you are a very good writer, you will first have to get one of your books into their hands for free or for a cheap price
   3. If you’re an unknown writer, then they are very reluctant
      1. You have to make the book cheap or free ($0.99 or $0)
      2. You have to convince them it is worth reading
      3. You have to convince them it is worth their time
3. Readers want zero tricks and they want you to be very forthright
   1. Don’t tell them the book is something it is not
   2. Don’t sell them half a book
   3. Don’t sell them a half finished book
   4. Don’t try to trick them into something
   5. Just be nice to them. They are human beings – just like you
4. You have to have respect for your readers’ time and money
   1. If you went to a restaurant and waited 45 minutes for a meal, and then the food came half cooked, how would you feel?
      1. Don’t waste readers’ time by selling them a half cooked book and wasting their reading time
      2. They might only have enough precious free time to read one book that month
      3. Don’t waste their entire month’s reading time by selling them a book that is half baked
   2. If you bought a sandwich for $5 and it tasted like cardboard, would you be happy?
      1. Don’t make readers waste their hard earned money
      2. If you are selling them a $3 book, make sure it’s worth $3
         1. If possible, make it worth $10
5. Readers will support you if you give them a good product
   1. The easiest way to build a loyal reader base is to give readers very high quality books at a reasonable price
   2. If you can do that consistently, no one can get in your way, PROVIDED you build some direct way to contact them
6. Readers are human – They will value you exactly the way you value yourself
   1. If you only send out very high quality books and show that you respect yourself as an author, they will respect you
   2. If you charge a reasonable amount, which is win-win for both you and your readers, they will gladly play along
   3. If you charge too little, or nothing, they will assume your work is worth nothing
      1. However, you might need a loss leader at $0 or $0.99 to give them a taste of your writing
      2. You must treat it as a loss leader which shows the value of your work
      3. Then start ramping up prices of our other books gradually
         1. Perhaps Book 2 is $0.99
         2. Perhaps Book 3 is $2.99
         3. Perhaps Book 4 is $3.99
7. Readers are human – don’t make everything free
   1. This is very tough for some authors to understand
   2. Making everything free is a bad idea
   3. People value things according to the amount of money they have to pay, or the amount of effort they have to give

Fundamentally, readers just want to read good books. They have a certain amount of money they can afford to spend. So they want the best quality books they can purchase

Readers are also human beings, and all principles of human psychology apply to readers, just as they do to other human beings

Publishing has been around for Centuries, Books have been around forever

We will say this again – You have to approach Books and Publishing with a lot of respect

1. Publishing in its current form has been around for Centuries
2. Books have been around forever – for thousands of years
3. The more Publishing changes, the more it stays the same

The single biggest mistake new authors make is that they think they can bypass the system. That there is an ‘Easy Button’

1. That they can ‘pay’ their way to fast success
2. That they can ‘buy’ a secret that will help them bypass the traditional principles of success
3. That people who have spent a lifetime working in the Market have been ‘doing it wrong’, and there is a better, super easy way

There is no short cut

The only way to ‘succeed quickly’ is to sell ‘succeed quickly’ courses to other authors. That’s fine if you want to be a marketer. If you want to be an author, then you have to understand the Market, and you have to respect it

Publishing is in a State of Crisis, which means Opportunities

We are very uniquely situated. All of Publishing is in a State of Crisis

There are a few key factors over the last 50 years which have created this situation

1. The Rise of the Internet
2. The Rapid spread of Information over the Internet
3. The Rise of Large Book Store Chains such as Barnes & Noble which eroded the power of Publishers somewhat
4. The Rise of Large Online Book Stores such as Amazon which further eroded the power of Publishers
5. The Rise of eBooks via eReaders such as Amazon Kindle, Sony eReader, B&N Nook and via Phones and Tablets such as iPhone and iPad
6. The Rise of Self Publishing via online eBook Stores such as Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble Nook, Apple iBooks, and Kobo
7. The countermeasures taken by the Market Makers, who currently control Books and Publishing, to fight off the Rise of eBooks
   1. These countermeasures have actually created a crisis in the Market, as they have increased the gap between what readers are asking for, and what the bookstores are giving them
8. The Ability for ANYONE to Publish, basically for free
9. The Ability to get books to readers, basically for free
10. The Ability for Authors to reach readers DIRECTLY, at very low costs

Guess what happens when

1. Readers have gotten a taste of the Democratization of Everything due to the Internet, and want reasonably priced ebooks of good quality
2. Publishers and Bookstores want them to keep buying $10 to $20 ebooks and $10 to $30 hardcovers

It’s the perfect opportunity for new authors to give Readers ebooks for $0 to $5 and take over the ENTIRE market

$10 to $20 can NEVER compete with $0 to $5

1. Let that sink in for a second – $10 to $20 can NEVER compete with $0 to $5

Would you ever buy $15 Music Albums when you can buy $1 digital singles?

Would you ever buy $50 boxed software, when you can buy $1 to $10 apps instead?

Then why are readers expected to buy $14.99 ebooks?

1. When there are many authors making ebooks available for $0 to $5
2. When paperbacks are $7 to $15
3. When readers fundamentally understand that there is something wrong with the Bookstore and the Publisher wanting them to pay so much for an ebook which costs nothing to print and nothing to distribute

At some fundamental level, the bookstores understand this. That it is inevitable that cheap ebooks will take over 70% to 80% of the books market

Which is why we get the book subscription services (which are basically a hedge against the rise of low priced ebooks)

There is a brutal war for the Future of Books & Publishing

This war creates a lot of chaos. Chaos which presents you with once in a lifetime opportunities

For You, the Chaos in Publishing & Books, means an Opportunity to Get What You Want

There are things that you want from your Writing

There are things that readers want from Books & Authors

1. You can get whatever you desire, if you give enough readers what they desire

In a world where the large book stores and large Publishers want readers to pay $10 to $20 for very high quality books

1. If you give readers good quality books for $3 to $10, you can get many of the things you desire
2. If you give readers very high quality books for $0 to $5, you will get everything you desire
3. It’s really that simple

It really is THAT SIMPLE

1. Readers are looking for very high quality books at reasonable prices
2. Whichever authors give them that, will be very successful
3. Of course, the large established companies will attack you a lot, and put a lot of roadblocks in your way
4. However, in the end, nothing can stop readers from getting what they want
   1. The Market ALWAYS Wins
   2. The Market Always Gets What It is Asking For
   3. All Money Flows from Readers
      1. Authors are always under the delusion that money flows from the bookstore, or that money flows from Publishers
      2. All Money Flows from Readers
5. Nothing can stop authors from giving readers what they are looking for, if authors are smart enough to recognize what readers want, and brave enough to deliver it