Book Marketing Tips and Author Success Podcast

The Data-Driven Author: The Real Secret Behind Author Success

• Penny C. Sansevieri and Amy Cornell Author Marketing Experts • Season 4 • Episode 42

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Hate refreshing your Amazon rank only to feel stuck? We walk through a saner, smarter way to measure progress—one that puts you back in control of your author career. Instead of chasing daily sales blips, we focus on the data you can influence: podcast bookings, media hits, website traffic spikes, newsletter clicks, and the kind of social engagement that signals real interest. Along the way, we share how to build a simple marketing journal that captures what you did, when you did it, and what happened next, so you can repeat what works and ditch what doesn’t.

We also get honest about the myths that drain energy. Amazon rankings are noisy; follower counts can be hollow; daily review checks erode morale. The better path is tracking visibility and engagement that compounds: comments and shares over likes, replies and click‑throughs over opens alone, and local wins that build trust fast. We dive into practical ways to use Google Analytics to spot post‑placement traffic, test subject lines that drive action, and turn lead magnets and bonus content into measurable signals. Plus, Goodreads strategies and why targeted communities often outperform broad blasts.

If you’ve ever asked, “Am I doing the right things?” this conversation offers a roadmap. Sales will come—on their schedule—not because of one big splash, but because your visibility stacked up over time. 


Want to shape future topics or get tailored advice? Text the word podcast to 888-402-8940 to subscribe and send your questions. If this helped, follow the show, share it with an author friend, and leave an honest review—we’re pushing for 100 and cheering you on.

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SPEAKER_00:

Hello and welcome back to the book marketing tips and author success podcast. This is Penny Sansember and Amy Cornell. And so first up, we're super stoked. We have their um we've we've just launched the ability to text us. And um, Amy, do you want to kind of explain how that works and uh how to how to text Amy and Penny?

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, it's all the details are in the show notes in terms of the number, but you can text the word podcast to our number, and that will be subscribe. And then once you're subscribed, you can actually submit questions, you know, lightful moments, frustrations, episode ideas, topic ideas, things like that. So anything like if you've been listening, because I do this when I listen to podcasts all the time, if there have been times where you're listening to a show and you're like talking at us while we are speaking and you're listening to the episode and you're like, I wish they would cover this, or I would ask them this right now if I could, those kind of things, please text us those. Yeah. There's so much we can do with this. We will make sure to incorporate as much of what you send us into future episodes. So that's also really fun too. So if you do text us an idea, a question, anything like that, Penny and I will make a point. Once those start rolling in, we're going to start working those into our episodes going forward and addressing some of those whenever we can. So that's also a fun element of this, is that you'll get to hear us kind of bring up your feedback or your comments or your questions. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

I'm really excited about this. So text the word podcast to 8888-402-8940. So that number again, 888-402-8940. And it, as Amy said, it's in the show notes. So you should, if you didn't have something to write with, um, if you're listening to us on the go or cleaning house or whatever, it's in the show notes. So you can definitely grab it there. But we love your ideas. And and part of the reason why I am so excited about this is because it was a great, we've built a lot of shows around your, you know, listener ideas and challenges that they face and things like that. But this gives you a much quicker, I think, and potentially more efficient way to drop some of your ideas and your show feedback to us. So we hope you'll use it. We're really excited about it. I um we've already gotten a couple um folks that are even just in early days that we that we launched this. And I'm like, oh my gosh, you guys are so smart. You're reading the show notes, you're finding out all the things. So we're we're always really excited to hear hear from you. This idea, speaking of ideas that come from listeners, this idea was actually an idea that was sent to us about um data. And you know, the thing about so we've never really done a show. Well, actually, we've never done a show on um how to track book sales. Because if you've listened to us for any length of time and we've had the show for five years, so those of you who are long-term listeners, you know this. We never go down the slippery slope of here's how many books that you're gonna sell if you do XYZ strategy. Sorry, Amy, did you just pass out?

unknown:

I know, right?

SPEAKER_00:

Exactly. Yeah. I know, and you know, when Amy first sent me this idea, because she actually developed it, I was like, I was, I have to say, as you know, Amy, I was a little bit lukewarm because I was like, uh, this sounds so scary. But it's really very different from it, it it's gonna challenge, I think, how a lot of authors feel about tracking book sales slash data, right?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, tracking just in general, because that is essentially the the gist of what our clients said is that, you know, I'm I'm a data person. And so I want to know I'm doing all the right things where I feel like I am. How do I know that it's paying off in ways that are beyond just sales? Because I will say, at least this client is very much, they realize this is a long game, you know, they're building their brand, they're building their platform. This is an author that is booking speaking engagements and things like that. And so they know that there's so much more going on and they have many different goals outside of just sales alone, but they were very smart to say, I'm a data person. How can I make that work for me in terms of improving what I'm doing for my marketing and things like that? And we've got, you know, we've got someone on the team that is very much a data person. She would love to make Excels all day long. I'm probably not even using the right terms. And for what it's worth, talk about converting, you know, someone because I am not necessarily a data person in that regard. So I was even surprised that when we started outlining this episode, I'm like, this is actually super useful because I'm not the target market for this, but it even it even surprised me and got me on board with this is actually something that could benefit a lot of authors.

SPEAKER_00:

Right, exactly. And you know, I mean, look, the the relatable truth is that we all love tracking book sales. Okay. We love checking our KDP stats. We as a as an author, I can tell you that firsthand. I'm like, let me see what, you know, um, how many books did I hit at launch and things like that. But as a marketing firm, sales are really just a snapshot of a bear story. And the other challenge with sales, with tracking sales, is they generally don't, there's they generally don't happen on top of something, right? So you did an interview, let's say you did a podcast, and you immediately after recording the podcast, you hop on to Amazon to check your to check your sales rank, and you're gonna be, well, maybe you'll be disappointed, but it's probably you're probably not gonna see a bump in it. So what we're really talking about today is the data points that you should, you know, the data points that you should be tracking um to track your author brand progress, as well as what we encourage you to stop obsessing over. Um, and then the other piece of it is that this data will also show you where and how to plan your next move. One thing that I want to say as we start out with this is, and I know I've talked about this on the podcast before. I've certainly put it in my books. Keep a marketing journal. Keep a marketing journal about what you did. And I'll dig into in a minute why and it's useful and and uh how it's useful. Um, part of the other thing though, too, Amy, that we've seen is sales is a little bit misleading, right? Because they, you know, sales typically, and I just mentioned this a minute ago, don't happen on top of whatever is going on. Part of the reason for that, I think, is just because, you know, maybe it didn't land the way maybe the interview didn't land the way that you had hoped it would. Okay, so that's possible. But the other piece is that our listening and viewering habits have changed. Right. The majority of us don't listen, read, watch on top of I mean, there are certain exceptions to that, but on top of something being released.

SPEAKER_01:

Right. Well, and this is something that we've said all the time. Just because you can't control when sales happen, don't doesn't mean they're not going to happen. Right. It's it's not like a vending machine where it's like, I do this, I get this back. That is not how book marketing works because people are going to buy your book. You know, if you write in fiction, a lot of times people are going to buy a new book when they need a new book, quite literally.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

You know, that's how it works. And then if you write nonfiction, people buy nonfiction when they are ready to make the next move. Typically, people buy nonfiction when they're looking to solve a problem, fix something, learn something, but they really need to be ready to take action. And so that doesn't, that's nothing against what you're doing. You could be doing everything right. And that person is still not going to pick up your book until they are ready to make that next move. But that is why marketing is so important because you need to be the book that is staying top of mind. So when they're ready, you're the first person they think of. Yeah. But in order to stay on track with that visibility, that is where, you know, tracking, like Penny said, keeping a journal of what you're doing, tracking some of the data points that do make sense that show you that you're making progress. So you know that even though sales may come in unpredictably and in waves that you can't make sense of, which is fine because that's how it typically works, you can still feel confident that what you're doing is moving the needle and pushing you forward. Right. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00:

And I think that it's really important. So the first piece of this is track your visibility metrics. Okay. So track, so if you're booking yourself on podcasts, track how many podcasts that you've been booked on and keep track of also when they air, because typically a podcast will record, but not necessarily air on the same date that you record. And sometimes I know there's some podcasts are live, but some of the newsy podcasts are live, but majority of them are not. Okay. So um media coverage um is another one to track as well. You know, how much media coverage, when did it hit? Um, and and what falls under kind of the media. I mean, media coverage umbrella could could also be blog features and um influencer outreach and you know, those kinds of things. Um and also I think how your social media has grown. So a lot of times authors don't track social media because I know it feels I realize it feels a little discouraging sometimes to track social media, but and Amy, I know we'll talk in a second about the engagement metrics, but tracking where you started is gonna really show you if you're on the right track. Um and I think the final one really is so website traffic. We did a whole show on SEO that you can that you can find in our feed. So we don't want to spend a huge amount of time on website traffic and search and SEO being search engine optimization. But I think that having Google Analytics on your website is a really smart move and to track spikes after, like, say, for example, after you that podcast hit or after you did an event or after you you were featured in a in a particular newspaper, Mac article, whatever, is also really good to get a sense of where, you know, again, and I hate to keep using this phrase, but how something landed with the audience, right? Did your interview land in such a way that the that the person listening, viewing whatever, wanted to click and go to your website? Was your call to action strong enough at the end of whatever interview that you did to get people to your website? And maybe they just went to Amazon and look, that's fine. Like some people would just go to, especially like if you've written fiction. So a lot of times, you know, you may say, Well, look, I have all this stuff on my website and you can visit my website, et cetera. But if somebody is really compelled and they like, oh my gosh, this book sounds great, they may go straight to Amazon, and that's fine, right? That's going to be a little bit obviously that's gonna be on the back end of your KDB or however you track sales on Amazon, but that's not specifically what we're talking about here. We're talking about how has your visibility expanded and your author brand expanded in the work that you're doing.

SPEAKER_01:

Right. I think that's such a good point, Penny. You know, it's about can you make sense of what's happening after you put in the effort? And that is not, like we said, it's not always going to be immediate sales. Right. Those come, but you can't control that. You know, so what you control is putting yourself out there and then watching how, you know, and even to your point about tracking what you're doing, tracking who you're pitching. If you are getting better and putting in the effort to improve your pitch, to improve your elevator pitch, we did an episode on that. If you are actively trying to present yourself in a better, more positive, more interesting way to the world, you are going to start seeing more conversions on, well, like I used to be pitching 20 people and I'd be lucky to hear from one. And now even my response rate is better, my interest rate is better when I reach out to people. That is huge, and you should celebrate those kind of wins as well because that matters. That kind of feedback shows people are interested. And I think a lot of authors don't give themselves enough credit for the fact that they are getting that interest because not everybody gets that.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, that's very true. And and you know, I think that the other piece of this though, too, is that um, and before we talk about the before you talk about the engagement stuff, is that sales typically, I mean, you know, I I've had authors ask me, how many books do you think that I could sell potentially from this one placement? Right. Sales typically don't happen on top of one great thing that happened. Okay, so you got a podcast, you got an interview, you did an event, whatever that is. Sales typically don't happen, you know, on top of a singular event. Book sales are cumulative, and that's what I tell authors all the time. But the the accumulation of visibility is the thing that sells books. And that's part of the reason why this episode is so important because you've got to track your visibility. If you're not tracking your visibility, then and you're just tracking your book sales, it's a little bit backwards. What? What were you gonna say? I said sad. Right, but it's you know what I'm saying? And that's a lot of times what happens is so sometimes like I'll get on the phone with an author and I'll say, Well, what have you done so far to market your book? And sometimes authors rattle that off, and other times they say, I haven't really done much, which I get, I totally understand, because it's a confusing landscape out there. And then sometimes they'll say, Well, I've done a lot of stuff, but I don't really remember everything just because I was so fast and furious. And again, I understand that you feel the pressure, like, oh, the book is out, I have to do a bunch of stuff. Keeping track of it, not to like pound the journal conversation into the ground, which apparently I think maybe I've already done, but um keep track of everything because that is one of the best ways to know. Also, the other piece of it though, too, and I guess I'll just jump right into this is when something works, you want to know what you did to make it work. Right, right. Hugely important. Like, oh my gosh, I did this. And sometimes I've had authors on the phone tell me this, and that's actually what inspired this whole years ago, me having this conversation about tracking, you know, a marketing journal. I did this one thing and it was so great. And just this one thing, and I sold 500 books in an hour. And I'm like, what was that one thing? Oh, I don't remember. And I felt really bad because I'm like, if you remembered, you could recreate it, potentially. I mean, sometimes like you just get like something happens and boom, right? Um, so anyway, that's I will I know I've been blah, blah, blah talking a lot, and you should just shut me up. But let's talk a little bit about engagement.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, no, I mean, but I think what you're saying is definitely valid. And to that point, sorry, now I'm doing it, but to that point, Penny, it also keeps you on track so you don't make knee-jerk decisions to just drop something before it has a chance to work for you, you know.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, we see that a lot. That's a really, really, really good point. I and that would be something that, you know, um, if there's time in this episode to to to go into, because a lot of times authors drop like it didn't hit right out of the gate, and all of a sudden they've just like, well, I'm I'm done with that now. Right.

SPEAKER_01:

It yeah, it it's it takes more TLC than that. So engagement metrics, what we're talking about here, and these are really great because this also shows this is kind of that next level of people putting in the effort. I I like to categorize it as that. You know, people are putting in more effort to engage with you, which is huge and should not be taken lightly. So, for example, if you're on LinkedIn and you're posting things, you want to look at comments and shares more than just likes, because anybody listening that uses social media knows how easy it is to get in like that muscle memory where you're scrolling and liking and scrolling and liking. And it's like, how much of that do you actually remember if somebody gave you a quiz five minutes later? Not a lot. So those comments and those shares, that is next level engagement. Those kind of things are huge. That's a huge difference. If you're on, again, if you're using social media and that is a metric that you want to start tracking. Are you posting content that is encouraging your followers to comment more often or share, depending on the platform, versus just getting the likes, because that's huge. Email opens and click rates. You know, if you're doing a newsletter, we've done shows on that, you should have a newsletter. I won't preach on that right now, but definitely track that data. Pretty much unless you're just sending it from your Gmail address. And even then, Gmail, there are office/slash business solutions for Gmail that are really affordable. So this is not, you know, not an ad, but still, if you're not using a big CRM platform for your newsletter and you're just using your email, there are ways to do that as well. But definitely track that data. Check your open rate, check your click rate, check your unsubscribe rate, even because we use all that kind of data to tell us is this working? Is this the kind of content people like? You really got to think about it. Uh obviously, direct messages or replies. And we mentioned this previously, you know, the response rate to your pitching, as that gets better, you should celebrate that. That is a huge deal. If you're actually getting responses, because most people, if they're not interested, they simply delete. They delete the email. Like, do not expect people to respond until you thank you, but no, thank you. That's not really a thing. So the fact that somebody's even bothering to respond is huge and you are automatically put in a higher tier than somebody that's not even getting responses. So that's another win. I know these don't seem like it, but it's like, wow, these really are. These are huge wins. Um, if you happen to do webinars or if you have a function on this is probably more, you know, appropriate for nonfiction, but if you have a function on your website where you actually actively get people to engage, whether it's a poll or maybe a free download, or I've seen plenty of authors that do audio clips on their websites, Penny, you know, that have like play this. Uh oh, we worked with an author at one point that had some cool meditations on their website so you can download or play their like that's right.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

That was so cool. But pay attention to that kind of data too. How much are people using all these extra features and cool content that you're putting out there? You should always, we've done a lot of shows on creating bonus content, creating other ways to get people engaged with your brand above and beyond your book. And it's always really smart to ensure you have some form or some way to track how much people are taking advantage of that. Yeah. You know, because it's great to put out free content, but if you don't know if people are using it, then what is that telling you? How is that moving the needle? You know, it's it's really tough. But again, increase in newsletter signups. And a lot of this comes with thinking about, and we say it all the time, if you have an idea or if you have a new feature, if you have something to offer, if something great happened to you, challenge yourself to use it or to promote it in three different ways. You know, so if you have a newsletter, are you sh are you making sure that that newsletter is getting out there and that sign up option is out there in three different ways on your platform somehow? You know, it's on your website, but it are you linking to it in your social media? Are you mentioning it on, you know, your LinkedIn? Are you trying to encourage people to sign up for it on your LinkedIn? Things like that, you know. So the engagement, it's not just set it and forget it, but you know, really put the effort into ensuring you're putting yourself out there and being smart about it because those those metrics are going to tell you that you're on the right track.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Yeah. I I agree with that. I think that it's um, and you know what's interesting is that to your point about the uh, you know, about the the pitches of getting responded to, I I've seen this even in my speaker topics. So if I have a top, so you know, I I change try to change up my topics every year as book marketing changes. I had one topic, and we actually did a show on this, how to market your book without social media. Hugely popular. It was crazy how many requests I got for that topic. You will, as you continue to explore different things that really resonate. And this is part of this, is also I think it really just resonated with authors, right? As you start to explore different topics, different pitches, different, like did that email newsletter subject line land? Did it not? Did people open it? That's part of the reason why tracking is so important because that's where that's where you start to really build your sales, you know. So I think I mean conversion signals we touched on a lot of this stuff in both of our both of our segments, Amy. I I don't know that there is a lot to add as opposed to jumping into kind of the things that we should be paying less attention to.

SPEAKER_01:

Um, I think we covered a lot of this organically just by, but I think the Goodreads one was another was a one that I should have included in mine. Um, Goodreads, you know, shelf ads, responses to commentary or putting in groups, things like that. You know, I in my brain, Goodreads is social media. It's just for readers and authors specifically, but in my head, it's all the same. But a lot of people don't think of Goodreads as social media. So for what it's worth, you know, get on Goodreads. And that is also a really great place to get some really target market engagement, you know, with with the exact right readers. It's so much more focused than on than most social media platforms. So uh that is a that's a big one that I recommend. If you're social media averse, um Goodreads is still a good place to be.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, absolutely. And you know, I think the final thing is we talked a lot about like media coverage and and obviously that can be national or or it can be local, but I I'm because I'm finishing up my book on local local book marketing. So I'm I'm a little bit hyper-local focused. I think that it's also good, even in a separate section, like all these things should have separate sections in your in your um your mark your book marketing journal, but how many local connections are you making is another really because authors oftentimes we overlook the you know, mining your local market, but that's also something that I think um is a really good idea to to you know to use to measure. And sometimes local metrics are easier to get, local hits are easier to get than they are national. So that could potentially increase your um visibility and then obviously your engagement, you know, your engagement metrics. So I think, and then I think that the things to watch less is so I know that when we put this list together, okay, so Amazon ranking with Lash, like we've all done it. I get it. I've watched my Amazon sales rank like a stock market junkie. It's not, it's not it's not a good mental space to be in. So just stop doing it. I say this as somebody who is a recovering Amazon ranking, like I would be on there all the time, oh look at this. And you know, that's not to say that when I release my next book, like I'm gonna, I'm not gonna do it because it's just, you know, it's just it's kind of it's kind of what we do, but don't let that determine whether or not something's working. Because as we said at the onset of this episode, sales, there's a sales, there's a sales leg not just in when somebody sees your article, podcast, open your newsletter, whatever, but there's also a we, you know, the Amazon sales ranking system is also weird. So let's just, you know. Um social, you know, I mean, social likes, I think that's a really tough one because you want to get people. I mean, I think that that your social media will show what resonates versus what doesn't. So I do think that, I mean, and Amy, feel free to push back if you disagree. I do think that your social reach is part of your likes, right? Because not everybody's gonna share your stuff all the time. Right. But I think likes and comments in terms of, you know, that I I I I think that matters. I mean, I know we have it on the list that that doesn't really matter. And when we were in the green room, I didn't spot that, but I I think it matters. Do you agree or disagree?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I think it just kind of goes back to, you know, we were talking about the social media part that on a lot of platforms, sometimes it just becomes muscle memory for people. And it doesn't mean they're actually, you know, if you quiz them later, are they gonna remember that they like something of yours? Right. Are they gonna remember that it was that author with that book that they potentially might want to read? But so I think that's kind of what's the gist of what to watch less of is that just because you're getting lots of likes doesn't necessarily mean that's not everything. So I mean, really likes are great, but you really want to focus on ensuring you're putting out content that gets shares or saves or replies, just comments, even. Even a comment is just really fantastic. And then the it's a quality over quantity thing, I think. You know, because like we say, when you're pitching influencers, just because they have a boatload of followers doesn't necessarily mean that those followers are your people. And then at that point, why does it matter?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, that's very that's really, you know, and this is something that we've had endless, we've done a ton of shows on this. The follower count obsession is a myth, right? So I would rather have somebody, I would rather have an Instagram quote unquote influencer feature me who has 500 followers and they're all commenting and they're all active versus you know, 10 million, where you know, 80% of them are just bots. And you could remember you can buy followers for anything. I have people emailing me all the time, like, oh, we saw your Instagram. We can build you more followers. I'm like, no, thanks. Right. Right? Because yeah, we've known we had an author who did that actually on their Facebook page, and I forget now what the number was. This was years ago, but they bought it was like 78,000 followers on their Facebook page, right? And they were like, they came to us and they were like, Well, I don't get a lot of responses on my Facebook page. And I think Amy, who's very good, like if you ever want to hire a detective, you should reach out to Amy. Um, Amy went on and deep dived on their Facebook page and looked at some of their followers. And I'm sorry, but they were not, I'm just gonna put this really nicely, they were not legitimate followers. Like they were not no, it was scary. It was very, very, very scary. So this person ended up having to like burn their Facebook page, all 78,000 just down to the ground and start over again, which is a very painful conversation to have. Not to go down a rabbit hole, which I realize I already did. Now I'm trying to claw my way back, but follower count obsession can lead to problems. So just you know. Um, and you know, the other thing though, too, is like I have a ton of followers on my personal Facebook page. Like I got, I just had a birthday. I must have gotten, and Amy, this is just gonna make you crazy, but I must have gotten like, I don't know, 300 birthday messages from people, and literally like 95% of them have no idea who they are. That's special.

unknown:

Right.

SPEAKER_00:

Felt super warm and fuzzy. So I but you know, I mean, I share a lot of I do, I share author memes, I share a lot of stuff, but I also share a lot of really fun, funny stuff because that's kind of my vibe on my personal page, right? Um, so yeah, follower counts. I would I would try to steer clear of that. Um daily review counts. Amy, do you want to take this one? Because I this is my personal favorite, and I'm totally being facetious right now.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, reviews are tough. I realize, I mean, everybody listening by now knows you need lots of reviews until the end of time. As many reviews as you can get. There's no such thing as too many reviews. But at the same time, this is kind of along with the sales. You cannot predict, you cannot force people to review your book, but you can do a lot of things proactively that absolutely. Absolutely, do lead to better review conversions. And so this kind of goes back to a lot of what we said throughout the episode is that you really have to be doing the right things. And then once you're doing that, you can start tracking, like, okay, like Penny said in the journal, and we're gonna talk about we will talk about this before the show closes, but about the importance of that consistency and being able to say, wow, I've been doing X, Y, and Z for six months, and I actually ended up doubling my reviews. It's like that is when you start knowing things are working. Yeah. Can't just say, like, I've gotten you know, especially when there's like, I don't have enough reviews. And sometimes I not that we like to have the sales conversation, but I would love to find the statistics, Penny, on like what the typical percentage or the ratio of reviews to sales really is because it's like, well, you're it's not a one-to-one. We know that, right?

unknown:

Right.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, like that would be ideal. That would be amazing.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes. We know it's not a one-to-one. So that's also something to keep in mind is that one, you have to be putting in the effort and doing the right things to proactively engage with people to make it easy for them to review. That's a huge part of it. We've done shows on this. Maybe we can revisit it again in a future episode. But once you start doing the right things, that's when you can keep track and start seeing, you know, that, oh, this really does lead to more reviews. I need to do this more consistently.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Exactly. Um, so the the the homework. So I know we're now we're gonna we're gonna give you all homework. Amy, do you wanna do it?

SPEAKER_01:

It's fun homework. I mean, if you made it this far in the episode, you had to have expected a little bit of homework, otherwise you would have shut us off, you know, five, 10 minutes ago. But so for your homework, pick three metrics that you'll track for the next 30 days. Right. Like not sales metrics, but literally anything else we've talked about, or maybe something that's super specific to your brand and your platform that you've done to put yourself out there or to make available to potential readers or people in your buyer market. But commit to tracking them and seeing how that is improving for you as you're putting in the effort, you know. Yeah. And then at the end of the month, you know, you can look back and you say, okay, look, this is what I've been doing. Have I seen any spikes? I mean, candidly, I think 30 days is a little short. I mean, I guess it kind of goes hand in hand. It really depends on what you're tracking, but again, no knee-jerk reactions to this. And it really does, if if you take away anything from this, the data only works if you're putting in the effort. And that doesn't mean you need to, you know, pick up marketing as your second job, but it's really the consistency. The consistency is the effort. So if you're consistently doing high quality things to increase the visibility of, you know, your brand and your book, then that is when the data is going to start showing you uh what your next move should be. Right. Right. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00:

Um, and I mean, to that end, I I'm a huge like if somebody people have asked me over the years, so we're um by the time this episode actually hits, we will have crossed our 25th year in business, which is amazing. Yeah, as exhaust it. Alright. But um, amazing. I know it's really it's it's kind of mind blowing. But people ask me all the time, they've said, you know, how are you how do you stay stay, you know, what's what's your secret to longevity? And I I will tell you the one word is consistency. Whatever you do, do it consistently. And this is a problem I know a lot of times, you know, we're uh it's it's a little bit like you're you, you know, the squirrel, look, there's this and then there's that, and then this is changing, and this is new, and I have to try this, and I get it. The lure of the new is strong and it's very tempting. And it's not to say that you can't do new things, I get it, but consistency in whatever you are doing. So, like Amy said, okay, so pick three metrics, right? I'm gonna consistently focus on these three things. This is what I'm gonna focus on for the next 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, whatever. Whatever you do, do it with consistency. And it's sometimes I really realize it's not always easy to kind of keep the mojo because when you're spending your time watching book sales and nothing's happening, you feel more consistent to go to the beach or to spend the day at to spend the day at the zoo or the coffee shop or whatever, anything but book marketing. Hopefully, this has kind of flipped the script a little bit and focusing instead on metrics that you absolutely can control to some extent. Like you can't necessarily control how many interviews you get, but how much that you're out there, how much have you pitched, what's come back to you? Focusing on the things that are building your exposure is so much better and gonna be so much better. Uh actually, this is a mental health episode now, y'all. So much better for your mental health and focusing on you know on focusing on book sales. Okay. Um, but yeah, I would say, I mean, that's literally like obviously, look, not to undermine Amy's just chomping at the bed, I can already tell. Like, we do great work. Like, that's if we were doing shoddy work and poor work and treating authors horribly, obviously we wouldn't make be making 25 years. But consistency is the key to your success. I I don't, there's no other way to really to really put that. And obviously, you know, put out a great book and a great cover, and we have episodes on all of those. If you want to go back, if you don't hate us now at the end of this episode, like, oh my gosh, they're such a best skills. Um, Amy, what did I miss?

SPEAKER_01:

No, I think that was I think that was perfect. I think this was I I'm glad we did this episode because at first when we got the wreck, we were like, I don't know how we're gonna talk about that. Like, data, wow, that's that sounds intense and scary. Like you said at the beginning of the episode. But truly, I'm glad that we dug into it because it is a lot of what we say. And I I like that we were able to structure it in a way for those of you that do like that additional structure of or that are open to it, or that feel like you've been spinning your wheels. This episode is for you too. If you feel like you're doing all the things but nothing's coming back to you, maybe it's just a matter of tracking better and getting a little bit more organized so you can celebrate those wins along the way that we talked about that show up in different forms.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Yeah. Because you might be, you might be, you might be really totally surprised that you um, you know, that you've actually done a lot and and a lot of it is is paying off in ways that are not necessarily directly related to book sales. Obviously, you want to sell books like we get it, but I think um podcast spots booked and you know, interviews and things like that is a it's a it's that's that is something that is a great, that's a great thing to track in the shows that you're getting out there. And I gotta tell you, I mean, honestly, and I said this early on, totally shot this idea down. Amy was like, let's do an idea, let's do a show on data. I was like, eh, we're not doing that show. We're not doing a show on data. Thanks for playing. Next, next contestant, please. Um, but no, I'm glad that we did this because I think it's an important conversation to have, truly. Um, so and I want to remind everybody that um we do have a uh it's not really a call in line, but it is a you can text uh Amy and myself. Text the word podcast to 888-402-8940 and send us your ideas, your show feedback. Um, don't tell us that you hated the data episode because we'll cry, but just kidding. But anyway, um we we sorry, go ahead. What were you gonna say?

SPEAKER_01:

No, I thought that was funny. I love that. I listen to podcasts and it's how what they always say, and leave us a five-star review. I'm like, wow, that's so bold. I'm like, we're always like, please say something nice.

SPEAKER_00:

I know, please say something nice. Look, we love reviews. I don't think it's I mean, look, I we we listen to you and I both listen to a lot of podcasts with like leave us a five-star review. I don't think that's really ethical to say leave us a five-star review. Do we want five-star reviews? 10,000% we want all the five-star reviews, but it's not really ethical. Leave us leave us an honest review. That's really the only thing that we can ever ask.

SPEAKER_01:

We know 99 ratings and reviews were one away.

SPEAKER_00:

We are oh my gosh, we are one away. And we got a whole and you guys, I gotta tell you, seriously, we asked and y'all delivered. So get us to 100 before the end of the year. We are so excited. By the way, if you see that you're the 100th review video, could you email us and let us know because we have something very special for you? So, anyway, I just need that out there. 100th review, send us, let us know, and it could be something really fun to do. All right, until next time. Thank you so much for tuning in, and we'll see you next Friday. Bye bye.

People on this episode

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Penny Sansevieri

Host
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Amy Cornell

Co-host