Book Marketing Secrets with Kate Larking
[00:00:00] Aicila: Welcome to episode four of season four of businesses. Unusual. Today
[00:00:06] Aicila: join me as I delve into the world of indie book marketing with expert Kate lurking. Discover how Kate helps authors navigate the complex landscape of publishing. . With tailored strategies that align with their unique strengths and values. Kate shares, invaluable insights for both new and seasoned authors.
[00:00:27] Aicila: Tune in to learn why there isn't a one size fits all method in book marketing.
[00:00:32] Aicila: And get inspired by real life case studies and practical advice on finding your own path to success in the literary world.
[00:00:40] Aicila: Welcome to business as unusual. I am really excited to introduce you to Kate Larking. I, she and I have been talking for a few months about doing this episode and I can't wait for you guys all to meet her.
[00:00:52] Aicila: Welcome to the show, Kate.
[00:00:54] Kate: Thank you for having me.
[00:00:57] Aicila: Could you talk, say what your business [00:01:00] is and a little bit about what you do
[00:01:01] Kate: I am a book marketing specialist. So usually I work with indie authors. However, I've also worked with some traditionally published authors, hybrid authors, some writing organizations, some publishers. But my specialty is in finding ways to market and advertise books and author brands that really work with the people who are creating them.
[00:01:28] Kate: Doing the work behind it. So my focus in what I do is making sure that the values of the person and the strengths of the person who are doing the marketing actually matches up with what marketing and advertising efforts are being executed. Which I feel a lot of the time there's, there's a mismatch or there's an overwhelm as people are like, oh, my gosh, I have to do video marketing in order to have my book succeed.
[00:01:58] Kate: And that is [00:02:00] absolutely not the answer. You don't have to force yourself into something you absolutely don't want to do. There are ways to look at what's happening with you. Inside and what your goals are for your writing and your career in general and working with those to find out the ways that will work best for you.
[00:02:21] Aicila: That's a drum I beat a lot with people - start with what you feel like that authenticity and that comfort are, really key, I think, to success and, and to being willing to do it, honestly, the more you're stepping away from what feels aligned, the more resistance you have to overcome.. And So, is there a surprising fact that you could share with people about book marketing or publishing?
[00:02:50] Kate: I would say one of the most surprising facts there is, and honestly it's almost not as surprising, is it should be [00:03:00] given recent events with AI and, and publishing with ai. In 2022 the metrics for publishing in the U. S. said that 500, 000 books a year were getting published in the U. S. However, depending on where that information came from, the number recorded was up to 4 million books per year were getting published.
[00:03:31] Kate: And It's really hard to look at those types of numbers every year that's happening and it's probably scaled up quite a bit since AI and generative AI has come on and there's a lot of murkiness in the market now that there is a lot of AI books and content present. Being a single author.
[00:03:54] Kate: With a single book and looking at that statistic, it's, it's really [00:04:00] just disheartening because you're looking at all the things that you should be doing to stand out and that's how many books you have to stand out amongst every year getting added to the market. It, it can be really, really challenging for a lot of writers, a lot of publishers, even they have a rough time, even when they already have their processes already in place, you know, there's ongoing challenges and the market is evolving in terms of social communication and advertising.
[00:04:35] Kate: I mean, you can just look at Twitter. What's. potentially coming down with TikTok. There's so many international impacts that are happening that are changing the landscape that it can be really hard to figure out what you need to do and why that's the thing you should be doing.
[00:04:52] Aicila: yeah. Is there something you wish more people knew about book marketing?[00:05:00]
[00:05:00] Kate: The thing I wish more people knew about book marketing is that there isn't one way to do it. A lot of people that, are publishing, are looking at what's being published, and they're seeing a lot of fast fiction which is, there are authors out there who are able to produce books, at quite an elevated speed compared to traditional publishing.
[00:05:27] Kate: So traditional publishing, you would usually see one new book from an author, every 12 to 18 months, right? That, that would
[00:05:37] Aicila: Mm hmm.
[00:05:37] Kate: a rather quick pace for an author in traditional publishing. However, when you are looking at indie publishing, you're seeing publishing from a single author or a single, in a single series or a single brand, you're seeing that publishing happen. Sometimes as soon as every four weeks, every seven weeks, [00:06:00] right? That whole books are being produced, edited put together. Sometimes there are also concurrent audio books that are also being produced. Things are happening quite quickly. And there is a level of marketing that supports people who are approaching publishing in that manner.
[00:06:20] Kate: And that type of marketing is not compatible with people who are taking a slower burn approach. Right? So you will see a lot of information on the internet where people are telling you, you have to do X, Y, and Z in order to be successful. I'm Canadian, so I say zed. You have to do X, Y, and Z in order to have any measure of success.
[00:06:47] Kate: And those are the things that you absolutely must be doing. And the answer is, No not necessarily, right? If one of those factors being, you know, paraded about is saying, okay, you [00:07:00] have to be on video. You have to be doing reels. It's very time consuming. And there are people who don't have that amount of time to put forward to, you know social media marketing to try and get virality and get organic reach there's people who can't take that approach based on the values that they have.
[00:07:20] Kate: Maybe their parents and they have a really busy schedule and they have a career that is supporting their writing and they're able to spend more money. Right so they might have an approach where they can spend some money on advertising instead. So
[00:07:38] Kate: I, I think that the main thing is that there really isn't one way to do marketing and book marketing.
[00:07:49] Kate: Well there are ways that will compliment what you need and there are ways that might not work out for you based [00:08:00] on what you value and what you actually want to be doing with your time.
[00:08:06] Aicila: I think that's great advice. You know, it's our time, time is our only non renewable resource, so it's
[00:08:12] Aicila: a,
[00:08:12] Kate: is.
[00:08:14] Aicila: right? Engage it as, as joyfully and effectively as possible. Hmm.
[00:08:19] Aicila: Well, so do, do you have like a case study or a personal anecdote that kind of outlines this, the time that you've seen that be effective?
[00:08:30] Aicila: Yeah,
[00:08:33] Kate: first time authors who are publishing and they reach out to me, especially through readsy. That's where I get a lot of my leads from for my book marketing.
[00:08:46] Kate: And, they'll reach out and say, look, like, I, I really want this to be successful, but, you know, I've spent this much on a cover and this much on editing already.
[00:08:56] Kate: And I need, I know I need to do some marketing and I want to try [00:09:00] advertising and they're, they're reaching out to me and I'm like, okay, I understand that you want to do all of these things. However, playing in the advertising space is quite challenging. You need to have. more than one book on board in order to make back what you are spending on advertising.
[00:09:24] Kate: Because a lot of times books are, their retail price isn't very high. Um, so even though the margin that you get from selling a book can be, you know, let's say you're selling at 4. 99, you know, you're getting 70 percent of that of an ebook, right? And you have low delivery costs and things. Even though you're, you're getting back money on each of those sales, in order to get a sales, it, it may take more than that, to [00:10:00] pay for that many clicks on whether you're doing Amazon advertising or Facebook advertising.
[00:10:05] Kate: And you need to have the subsequent books in a series. You need to have read through in order to earn back the money overall for what you're spending on advertising, let alone paying for. A marketer with their expertise to manage an advertising campaign for you. So the cost can be quite high for advertising services.
[00:10:32] Kate: So a lot of what I do is when I. I meet debut authors, and I'm working with them on their first book they're overwhelmed by all the marketing and advertising information and choices that they have a lot of times, what I offer is consulting. So I will offer for a one hour call and make sure that I send follow up notes.
[00:10:56] Kate: And these calls can be quite overwhelming for [00:11:00] some new authors because we go through everything. I send out a questionnaire before with about 20 questions to give me an idea of where the person is at, what their goals and values are, and what they have already tried and whether they've seen success or not. And a lot of the time I, I distill that information down and I find out. Where they have opportunities where they need some solid foundational pieces. That's the 1 that comes up quite a bit is okay. We do need to make sure that this person has a home on the Internet and that they have a newsletter so that they can reach the people that they need to reach who like their work when they have that new book coming out, because social media doesn't deliver to all the people who are following you.
[00:11:54] Kate: I usually work in the sci fi and fantasy genre which I love. [00:12:00] And so guiding people in the right direction there is relatively easy. However, I do work with some clients who have very unique pieces. And they, they come into the marketing console and they're like, I haven't seen anything like my book.
[00:12:18] Kate: And I'm like, okay, this, this is going to be very challenging. For a marketer. There's a reason why you're finding it difficult to market and it's because you're not able to place your book in the market in order to find people who have already purchased something like this. There was one gentleman I spoke with in August of last year, and, he had a very personal book that was also very ethereal and very psychedelic, I would say. and. It was kind of a sci fi fantasy adventure, but it was very [00:13:00] rooted in the journey of his own psyche and his own identity. And in the end, what it came down to was he was extremely passionate speaking about his book. And that was where his strength was. that he had this magnetism that could just bring people in.
[00:13:23] Kate: He had charisma when he was speaking about it, and he had this unending well of enthusiasm for the book that he had. And the advice that I gave him wasn't, okay, you know, let's talk about some Amazon advertising and things that you can do here. No, it was, have you ever considered hand selling books in person? Because the reason for him publishing wasn't, I want to make this a full time career. I, it wasn't, I need to replace a full [00:14:00] time income from employment with this book and any subsequent work that I do. That wasn't his goal. His goal really was to connect with people. And to share this experience and in the end I was advising him like you can look into Christmas markets.
[00:14:18] Kate: And. I knew that he could sell books if he was speaking in person to people and working with the dynamic of standing before them, showing their His work and really bringing them into his world.
[00:14:36] Kate: And that was the type of recommendation that I had for him, because it would offer him personal fulfillment that he wouldn't be getting. If he was trying to manage metrics on advertising, or if he was repeatedly posting on social media and just kind of waiting for people to come back to him and connect with [00:15:00] him.
[00:15:00] Kate: , there are a lot of people who enter the, in the author space and, you know, they have a parallel career. And that means that they can draw on the income and the money from that career in order to subsidize. Their, their books and moving those books, whether it be with advertising or, formatting into new formats.
[00:15:29] Kate: So producing audio, you know, there's, there's a lot of pieces that people with more. More funding, basically can do, and that funding usually comes from other endeavors. It does take a very long time, to build a career in publishing. There, there, I'm sure there are some unicorns out there, but you're not gonna see people who are indie [00:16:00] publishing put out one book and immediately make back their investment and then also have a sustainable income from it, without putting in a huge amount of time or money, depending what their resources are.
[00:16:24] Kate: Most indie authors that I see are sending requests and they honestly don't know what to expect. From working with a marketer, right? They're just like, I don't know what I'm doing. I know there's all these things that I should be doing. I mean, really, the platform that I work on has a lot of articles about a lot of different things and people can look at that and then just get very overwhelmed.
[00:16:56] Kate: Because if you're looking for support in building [00:17:00] something, usually you. You want it from a skill set that you don't have that you you can't just if you put in a little bit of time, you can kind of, you know, get it out there.
[00:17:13] Kate: So I do try to. Work well with the people who do approach me. I, I do give away some information from the get go. If I notice that, you know, they're talking about advertising and I'm like, okay, you don't have the book published yet. Right,
[00:17:34] Kate: let's, let's talk about the baseline things that you need to prioritize in order to support that.
[00:17:43] Kate: advertising down the road, right?
[00:17:46] Aicila: Right. No, that's smart. Order of operations matters. What advice would you give your 18 year old self?
[00:17:54] Kate: Oh, what a loaded question.
[00:17:59] Aicila: [00:18:00] That's why I like it!
[00:18:03] Kate: Oh, because there is so much, that I would tell her. The first thing that I would tell her, I've, I've, I've done this exercise before, and the first thing I would tell her is love yourself first. As part of the queer community and I've also, had some diagnoses of some mood conditions and, you know, Going through life and, and always having this career vision where I would work in publishing.
[00:18:48] Kate: I don't live in an area where publishing is hot and happening. And I didn't want to move. I, I was [00:19:00] always like this isn't going to be feasible. in my life when I was 18. And I, I did the best with what I had in the beginning, and I think my advice for, for me at 18 would be to just dive in and do the things, to just step out of my own way, and don't lean on the fact that there is very little industry around me as an excuse. The truth of it is, when, you know, when I turned 18, it was, it was only just a few years later that Kindle started. And, you know, I, I wish I could have more creative work as well and executed on some of that [00:20:00] creative work right in the beginning. But, yeah, so. My advice would just be to, to dive in and, and do the things.
[00:20:11] Kate: And those things could be a lot of things, whether it's creative work or connect with some arts organizations to execute some campaigns, or try to support some marketing efforts for some nonprofits and whatnot, especially when I was younger. Just build that portfolio of work. Oh, and save everything you work on.
[00:20:42] Kate: If you work on something and you complete it, and you're proud of it and you're not like, Oh, I never want to see that again. Save it somehow. I ended up in a position. I was laid off in September of 2023. [00:21:00] I was laid off and I didn't have a portfolio. And it made it very hard and intimidating to go on this path because I didn't have much that I could actually show people because I hadn't saved things as I'd been going along.
[00:21:17] Kate: So, Even if you're working within a company, don't trust that you're going to be with that company forever. Always save copies of your successes and your achievements to have that on hand for when you potentially do need to lean on that, either getting a job with another company or or arts organization or applying for school, you know, if you want to do some graduate work, you got it.
[00:21:49] Kate: You got to stand out. You have to give them something to work with. Or if you're gonna go on your own and freelance and build a business, you want to have that [00:22:00] portfolio in hand.
[00:22:01] Aicila: That's great advice. Both of it, actually. I love it. I wish I'd met you when I was 18 and gotten that advice.
[00:22:09] Kate: Okay, okay, you mean meet me now?
[00:22:13] Aicila: Yeah, like, you know,
[00:22:14] Aicila: You know, I go back in
[00:22:16] Kate: I was a hot mess.
[00:22:19] Aicila: I mean, if you're not a hot mess at 18, you're lying.
[00:22:21] Kate: True. True. Yeah
[00:22:24] Aicila: What's something you were excited about in your business?
[00:22:28] Kate: Let's see, what am I excited about? I'm excited to, to keep learning and growing. Of course the learning comes with huge heatings of anxiety, as I learn more about, my value as I go through. This entire process of having my own business. When it comes to offerings, I am [00:23:00] excited to do more consultations.
[00:23:03] Kate: I love working with people just to find out. where the opportunities are for them that maybe are not on their radar at all. Like that one client I mentioned where in person sales was going to be such a fit for this person's personality, that it, but it wasn't on their radar at all. Cause they were just like, Oh, it's digital publishing.
[00:23:29] Kate: And I'm like, okay, that's great. But let's, let's talk about those physical books that you can move to people. And really connect with them and know that they have made a connection with you. And now they have your work in their hand. So, doing more consultations. I'm really excited for that. I am slower to pick up services clients.
[00:23:55] Kate: So I do have a couple of slots left for services clients. [00:24:00] The issue there is that I really, really try to make sure that it's a good fit. I don't, I don't say yes to everybody. I really look at the products that people have what the market is looking like, what has been done so far, and how I can really compliment the Marketing that they have already done with the expertise that I have and can bring to the table.
[00:24:33] Kate: So if there are people out there who have, you know, published some books in a series and are looking to learn about advertising or. Possibly, or just facing a wall when it comes to marketing. The big thing for me when it comes to marketing is when authors approach me often, they're [00:25:00] just like, this makes no sense to me.
[00:25:02] Kate: I'm not good at it. You know, it's, it's just not in my wheelhouse and I'm like, okay, but actually it is in your wheelhouse because marketing in itself is communication. Yeah. That's all it is, right? Whether that communication is being amplified by money is a different concern, right? It just means that some creative things have already been tested.
[00:25:31] Kate: And then you're, you're putting some money behind them to try and have them reach further. But marketing itself is. communication. Your covers communicate things. Your price point communicates things. Your blurb about your books communicates things. How you interact with potential readers, communication.
[00:25:53] Kate: You're a writer already, right? You know how to craft a story, right? [00:26:00] What we have to do is we just have to find a way of marketing, a way of communicating about your product, about your story, about your book. everything that that entails in a way that fits with you and feels comfortable and feels like you own it and own the process and can feel confident in it going forward.
[00:26:22] Aicila: Ah, I mean that is, I love that. Really helpful way to explain what marketing is. Because a lot of times people look at it as sort of like a fairy dust. Like, oh, we're gonna put some marketing on it.
[00:26:32] Aicila: So for folks that are listening, how do they learn more, follow you, get in touch? What's the best way for them to, to keep up with what you're doing?
[00:26:41] Kate: Yeah, so the best way to reach out to me and to find me is at my website, which is katelarking. com. I'm not incredibly active on any social media channels at this time. I, I just don't need to be [00:27:00] yet with the way my business is going. Which is great. It kind of tells you about my approach. I have profiles, but they will tell you where to find me and where to connect with me.
[00:27:13] Kate: So yeah, definitely reach out through my website. I just have forms in there. You can send me an email and I, I'll send a reply and talk back. If you are more comfortable working through read. See they do tons of work. charge a bit of a premium on any quotes because that's how they fund themselves.
[00:27:32] Kate: But you can also find me on Readsie. So just type in Kate Larking and Readsie into Google and it'll pop up.
[00:27:41] Aicila: Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to us today, to me and the listeners.
[00:27:45] Kate: Yes, thank you as well. This has been a wonderful experience and I really appreciate it.
[00:27:51] Aicila: Thanks for joining Kate and I today, as we dove into the world of book marketing, if you are ready to take your book marketing to the next level, or know [00:28:00] someone who is. visit katelarking.com to explore more about her comprehensive consultations and expert advice.
[00:28:06] Aicila: Next week I'm chatting with Ian and Karyl marriage therapists. who focus on the emotional health of husbands in traditional marriages.
[00:28:15] Aicila: Thank you for tuning into business. As unusual. Remember in this ever evolving world of modern business. It's not about fitting in. It's about standing out. See you next time, stay curious, stay innovative and always keep it unusual.
