Ready to hear my thoughts about writing a book to market and writing a marketable book? This is what I’ve observed from helping over a hundred of authors figure out how to market their book, and deciding what to do about it. This is mainly geared towards Independently published authors, though traditionally published authors may benefit from the knowledge as well.
Let’s hop to it!
Writing a Marketable book
This might be confusing as some people say “You need to write to market” but there is a BIG difference between writing “to market” and writing something “Marketable”.
You see, your goal as an author is to find and nurture relationships with readers until you have loyal reader who will buy your book. That means that you need to do a few things.
- Write a really good book
- Find your target audience and market to them
- Leave them wanting more
Let’s break down step one though. Because you don’t have to follow social norms to write a good book, but you do need to be able to identify WHY your book is good and WHY readers are going to want to read it.
So let’s break that down.
Making your book Marketable.
Listen, literary people like to not be defined by boxes and tropes.
Spoiler alert – that’s impossible.
Double spoiler alert – if you don’t identify your boxes and tropes it’s going to be HARDER to market your book and find your readers. So lets start with YOU as an author.
What boxes do you fit?
Author:
- Genre you write in – be specific (clean romcoms, fairytale retellings, epic fantasy etc.)
- Romance Levels – chaste kisses to makeouts to spice (will not be addressing that as I’m a clean romance writer)
- Swearing levels (quick plug that people never ask for more swearing but do ask for less, so I suggest zero)
Your readers
- What do they like to read?
- What are their favorite tropes?
- What books do well in that market (in your niche)?
- Where can you find your readers? (Instagram, booktok, Facebook)
- How are YOU going to focus on reaching those readers?
Okay once you’ve figured that out let’s talk about the BOOK
Marketable book
Listen, write the book however you want for your first draft. We’re going to be talking second draft editing right here. These are things you need to determine and be easily able to tell your audience.
- What is the first major trope in the book?
- What microtropes (lesser known or less prominent) tropes are in your book?
- What’s the MMC like personality wise? Cinnamon roll or alpha male?
- What’s your FMC like? Strong and independent? Damsel who distresses others? Feminine and strong in non traditional ways?
- Your plot, what’s it like? Is there angst? Is there a third act break-up? Is there something that readers are going to love?
- What are your different settings? Are there ones that people love? A kiss in a dungeon? A hilarious first date at the beach? Write all of these down so readers can identify with them.
- When do they kiss? (I’m a romance writer, of course they kiss). Is it a slow-burn? Is there an almost kiss? Do they kiss in the 3rd chapter?
And the list goes on and on and on.
But then…. once you have that list, you can either
- Decide to edit your book to add MORE marketable things- or to refine a swoony line – or to beef up a scene with more things that readers love.
- Realize that you were writing a marketable book in the first place and keep going with your edits.
Let’s be real, we should all do number 1. Sometimes that’s just editing a line to be more punchy, something people are more likely to highlight. Do your research, see what are popular highlights in other books in your genre and work from there.
And then we get to my favorite part.
content creation
Once you have your details you can start finding your readers with posts that say things like:
“Hey clean romance reader, I heard you love romcoms where they go on a hilarious date and he saves her from a creep.”
“Hey clean fantasy reader, I heard you love fantasy books where he falls first and harder.”
“He falls first and harder but make it a fairytale retelling where he’s Snow White and she’s Robin Hood.”
See where I’m going with this? Use your book and make it marketable, so that you find readers who love what you write so that they’ll keep coming back for me.
Is that enough of an author tips and tricks rant for you? Fantastic!
Until next time
💖Madelyn
ps. If you’re looking for hooks to use on your social media, I started an Etsy shop with downloadable hooks for clean and Christian authors. Find it HERE
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