Starting a website, finding an audience on social media, and getting Google search engine juice must be self-started. You might wonder if you can do it successfully, but that’s normal. Remember how you felt when you started writing your first book? And that early messiness worked out just fine!

Starting an online business is a hurdle to get over, just as beginning your book was a challenge. You’ve gotten over the first threshold of writing a book. This next book won’t be nearly as difficult due to the confidence you’ve gained.

Fearing the next steps is natural. That’s human. Let’s look at the coming challenges to understand the reality of successfully addressing them.

If you’ve self-published, you own your content. There may be details here that matter, like being a children’s author where the words are yours, but the illustrations are owned by someone else you’d hired. Or you didn’t self-publish, so you need the publisher’s permission to use the contents of your book.

Worst case, you create new content which becomes your next, yet unpublished, book. And once you have content, you’re off and running with your online business. The mental challenge for authors is to become a businessperson who sells something more than the book.

Try to re-imagine what your book can do for your fans. The door has now swung wide to offer consultations, online courses, speaking engagements, and so much else. What might you offer your audience to turn them into willing or enthusiastic clients?

Your website is home base. It’s the center of your author business. But why?

It’s where you collect emails from future clients. With fans voluntarily providing their email addresses, perhaps in exchange for something worthwhile (a lead magnet), you can subsequently send notifications about other valuable items. You won’t get such an opportunity when they purchase your book from book distribution companies, which retain that valuable business asset for themselves.

With a fan’s email, you can support their goals with an email series. It’s not sell, sell, sell, sell, but rather nurture, nurture, nurture, sell. Use your emails to empower them, make recommendations, direct them to resources, survey them, and, yes, occasionally offer them a big-ticket product of your own making.

Having a YouTube channel serves your business in two ways. First, embedded videos add a multimedia element to your website posts, pages, and emails to fans. Second, YouTube can generate revenue from views if you’re one of the 6% of YouTube creators who have been monetized.

Go where your fans are. That’s how you find and get more fans. Do your fans, meaning potential clients, watch YouTube videos? Or do they prefer TikTok? Or perhaps they like to listen while they drive to work.

Do your fans prefer audio? If so, start a podcast. It’s not hard.

Having a podcast is a good practice for eventually converting your book into an audio version. Audio books have strict quality requirements, such as very low background noise and limited breathing sounds. Podcasts have neither of those quality requirements, partly because most podcast listeners are in their cars, where road noise is much louder than static or breathing sounds.

Further, podcasts are far less complicated than videos, which have lighting and scene issues to overcome. If you have limited content, then interview your fans and clients. It’s easier because you’ll only be talking for about half the podcast episode.

After you collect a few fans using the subscribe link on your website, survey them to ask which social media sites they use most. That’s how you learn which social media sites you must frequent the most. Go where your fans are!

What do you post on social media? Links to website articles, YouTube videos, and podcast episodes. Other details include finding the best time to post and using tools like Buffer and other services to help schedule posts on social media.

Post on social media daily. Doing so takes just a few minutes, and since most fans are on just one channel, posting similar content on each channel is a great way to multitask. Even YouTube has posts.

A small portion of marketing is advertising. Yes, you’ll want to advertise. It’s part of your marketing strategy. But what else? Oh, so much else!

Do you have professional photographs of yourself? No? Get them – they’ll be the best money you’ll ever spend.

Do you have a media kit? Take the time to put one together for your business so that it’s ready when reporters or investors call. Or if you win an award!

Marketing is so important and diverse that you’ll likely end up with a marketing team. When that happens, not to overwhelm you if you’re just getting started, consider setting it up with:

• team transparency and trust
• tools to foster connection
• team collaboration
• performance management
• time tracking
• peer-to-peer recognition

Starting a website, finding an audience on social media, and getting Google search engine juice must be self-started. Wondering if you can do it successfully is normal.

• Previous: Connecting with Fans Through Emails for Them, Mostly
• Next: Forthcoming!