Book Marketing Tips and Author Success Podcast

Consistency That Sells: How Clear Branding Converts Browsers Into Buyers

• Penny C. Sansevieri and Amy Cornell Author Marketing Experts • Season 6 • Episode 5

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A brand that doesn’t line up is a silent sales killer. We dig into why readers make snap judgments in under a second, how confusion and inconsistency create friction, and the small, practical moves that turn browsers into buyers. Think of branding as a trust filter: the clearer your patterns, the faster the “yes.”

We start with the highest leverage fix—your bio. Using a simple four-line framework, we show how to match voice to genre, humanize your profile, and direct readers to a next step. From there, we tackle a deceptively powerful change: one clear, current photo everywhere. In a world of spammy accounts and AI noise, visual consistency signals “this is real,” boosting recognition and engagement across Amazon, your site, newsletters, and social.

Then we sharpen your book description so it stops burying the lead. Open with the promise and stakes, align tone to category, and mirror the best version across your retail page and website. We move into visual cohesion with a lightweight (and easy to implement) brand kit. You’ll hear why evergreen banners can save you work, how to align promo assets to the book’s typography, and what makes a series instantly recognizable at thumbnail size.

Finally, we unlock Amazon Author Central’s underused fields—From the Author, From the Inside Flap, and more—to deepen connection and feed the algorithm with relevant, brand-aligned copy. Overwhelmed? Use our 1% rule: make one improvement per week. Update the bio, unify the photo, polish the hook, build the brand kit. These small, steady steps compound into trust, discoverability, and sales.

If this helped, subscribe, share with an author friend, and leave a quick review. Tell us the first 1% change you’ll make, and text “podcast” to 888-402-8940 with your questions and ideas.

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SPEAKER_01:

Hello and welcome back to the book marketing tips and author success podcast. This is Penny Sansaveri and Amy Cornell. And we are back for another January episode. I really, Amy, I really love the flow. Like I love how we're unpacking the new year with all of these episodes.

SPEAKER_00:

I know. It's really fun. I like that we've got such a solid trajectory of what we're covering and how they build off of each other. It feels really good because before, when we would come up with ideas, we look at recommendations. We'd always, we love when y'all send in emails and texts with ideas, and we kind of all put that together in a pile and tried to figure out how to balance everything out. And we really found a good rhythm for how to do that. Because a lot of times, you know, we're like, wait, have we talked about this recently? What haven't we talked about in a while? What haven't we touched on? You know, what are some of the ideas we've gotten? And we've really figured out a way to balance all of that.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Yeah, we really have. So, so we and and by the way, we've gotten some feedback on these shows. Y'all really love the way that we are uh rolling out the, you know, 2026 in terms of our show format. If you haven't already joined our podcast uh text network, please do so. Text the word podcast to 888-402-8940, and you can communicate with us directly. Send us your show ideas, let us know what you think of a particular episode, or if you're a new listener, what you'd like to see more of, um, what you're struggling with. And we actually got we get questions through uh the texting uh uh listeners text us questions. So we really love that too. So text us your questions, all the things, text the word podcast to 888-402-8940. And in the show notes, you'll see a link to our survey. We're still running the survey and we're getting some really great responses from y'all. So be sure to do that as well because we do build these shows around you guys. All right, so today's episode is we're so um new year, new brand, right? And and I think that branding is, you know, brand it's interesting when we look at the keywords that that authors search on Google. It's really funny how much branding actually comes up in terms of authors looking up author branding information and information on on uh what they need to do to have a strong author brand and things like that. But the problem is is that I think uh a lot of times uh authors assume that branding is optional because uh we, you know, we don't always see, and I as an author myself, like we don't always see the immediate penalty for getting it wrong. But branding is really a trust filter. So it's kind of like, and Amy, we've you and I have had this conversation, right? When an author's branding isn't consistent, it's not uh always an immediate red flag. But it comes up in things like I'm not sure what this book is, or the consumer doesn't feel comfortable buying it, or it looks a little amateurish. I mean, I hate to even say that, but that kind of hesitation is really a lost sale. So to some degree, branding does part of the reason why I think it's so misunderstood for authors is branding sometimes feels a little nebulous, right?

SPEAKER_00:

Right. And I would say branding is definitely really important if you have what, you know, uh we kind of considered next level goals for the kind of coverage you're looking for, especially if you want to pitch media. You know, we see that a lot too, where an author will come to us and they may have it, a really stellar professional background in their topic, but zero brand, zero platform. And it's really hard to go from that to getting big media coverage.

SPEAKER_01:

Right. And and I I totally agree with that. But I just I think even just making the sale, like so let's so the media great, and I know a lot of authors aspire to getting big media, but even just as simple as making the sale, because if so, uh you know I love brain science, but I'm such a nerd about this stuff, and our brains are really pattern recognition machines. So, one of the things that we always tell authors, in particular with the Amazon retail pages, is don't make the consumer, don't make the potential reader try to figure out what you've written about. Be really clear on that, be clear on that in your book description, in your cover, uh, in the title of your book, obviously. But the reason that branding is so important is the consistency reduces what they call in brain science, like the cognitive load. Now I know I'm going really far down the rabbit hole, but uh in when you create friction, like when you when you throw something at somebody and they don't immediately know what it is or they can't, their brain can't figure it out, your brain wants to slot this into something that it it understands, right? So we there have been studies that show that consumers form impressions in under a second. And when we we think about yourself, right? Like even if you're scrolling on Instagram or whatever, it takes us uh actually a fraction of a second to know whether or not we want to look at dig into something deeper, right?

SPEAKER_00:

Oh yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01:

Um so I think that I think the really easy way to kind of put this into words, and again, I could I could go down the nerd rabbit hole for hours, as Amy knows. Um, but if your bio sounds like one person and your website sounds like another, and your cover sounds like yet another, and your social profiles feel disconnected, now you've caused people, you've just completely lost the reader. And that pause kills all your conversions. So it's really not so much about like when we talk about branding, we're really not talking about like, oh, Coca-Cola branding or what you know, think of all these big major brands that are out there, right? That's not at all what we're talking about. We're talking about really consistency. I mean, Amy, if we had to break it down to one thing, would you say?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, absolutely. The the consistency across the board to like you said, as soon as a potential buyer feels confused or feel you know what I mean, it's over. It's really hard to get them back.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah, it's hard. It's really, it's very much hard to get them back. So, um so branding is really when it comes to specifically to author brands, branding is really what readers expect from you. So, and they expect from you and from your genre. Um, Amy, do you want to tackle do you want to tackle the first piece of this uh under that umbrella? Because I think it's I think it's definitely a good place to start off with.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. So, and this is funny because it it kind of connects with what we were talking about yesterday with mood boards and things like that. You're right, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So branding really is. It's what readers are expecting. Because again, the less friction, like you said, Penny, that you create, the better, the more likely they are to click by. So branding, yes, I mean, there's a lot that comes into it in terms of visuals, but it's just not you, it's not about you, right? It sounds very simple. I mean, it is about you, right? It's like you guys are like, what are you talking about? No, it is about you, but it's the version of you that people are expecting to see. You know what I mean? It can't just be about like, I like this, so I'm gonna put this all over my Instagram. It's like that doesn't work because if you're sending somebody to your Instagram account, it has nothing to do with your genre or being a fan of your genre and they don't immediately see an author presence there. They're gonna think they got to the wrong spot. And again, that's when you lose somebody. So visual consistency is huge. Covers, photos, colors, fonts, these are all very easy things to keep consistent, believe it or not. I realize if you're already down the path and you've been an author for a while, sometimes refreshing those can be a little labor-intensive, but it's absolutely worth it. The difference when somebody lands on an author page and they see covers that are have some sort of consistent branding in terms of how fonts are used, the imagery used, it's night and day in terms of professionalism.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

You know, exactly. And you know that doesn't work.

SPEAKER_01:

And you know, there have been like again, this is me with my with all my nerds, my nerdy geek out stuff, but there have been studies that show that consistent branding um can increase author revenue by 20 to 30 percent. And and the reason but the reason that that number is so high is because you are you're as you said, yes, the brand is about you, but it's really about the reader, right? What the reader, you are you're living up to the reader expectations. And if you're you know, 10 minutes if we're 10 minutes into this podcast, you're just like, oh my gosh, this sounds really overwhelming. We're gonna really break it down for you because the brand refresh that we're talking about doesn't have to take up a lot of time. And it doesn't, we and we talked about this actually in the green room. And Amy said a lot of times when we talk about brands, authors think that they have to burn everything to the ground. Like that's not what we're that's not what we're suggesting here. We're suggesting really um tweaks and easy fixes and things that you can do over time. And it also, this also does not have to be done all at once. I mean, Amy's alright. I mean to sell your line about burning to the ground. But truly, yeah, I think a lot of people got kind of go there, right?

SPEAKER_00:

Right. They assume that, and and I think that's why a lot of authors perhaps hesitate in doing a brand refresh because they put the pressure, like they kind of feel this pressure to fix everything at once. You know, I have to go from where I am now to best-selling author. I have to make all these moves, and then that's you know what I mean? And so at some point it's like, oh, that's just too much. Yeah, I believe it is too much. Like that, but these small tweaks, the thing, things that we're gonna talk about are relatively straightforward and pretty simple to fix, and it's amazing the difference it can make.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, it absolutely is. So let's start with your author bio. And I'll tell you something. This is one of the fastest, highest ROI brand refreshes. I mean, start with your bio. Um, the majority of bios that we see on Amazon and elsewhere are outdated, or they're too long, or they're too generic. Like, you know, Mary, who is from Portland, who loves coffee and her dogs, like, okay, well, that doesn't tell me anything about why you wrote the book or why you like the genre or why you're the best person to teach me about whatever it is, right? Right.

SPEAKER_00:

So one of my biggest pet peeves, Penny, and sorry to anybody listening, but is that when you have a fiction author and their bio sounds like a resume.

SPEAKER_01:

Thank you. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

It's like that is not the vibe. If you write fiction, that is not the vibe. It doesn't mean, I mean, if you have some very cool, unique background that contributes to your ability to write in the genre you write in or to write the stories you do, that's fantastic. But there are fun, interesting, intriguing ways to incorporate that without sounding like you're writing the intro to your CV, you know?

SPEAKER_01:

10,000%. I completely agree with that. And I think that, you know, if you need a like a mini template, um just jot this down, right? Write one line about who you are as an author, one line about what you write and for who do you write, one line about something that humanizes you, and one line in pointing readers where to go next, which obviously ideally should be your website. Drop that down and then from there start to craft your start to craft your bio. And the other thing that I want to mention too about bios is that your bio can match. So if you wrote, and I use this example in my book for book to from book to bestseller, if you wrote a funny book, so I the example I used was this humorous parenting book, your bio should be humorous because if you wrote this humorous book, this funny book about parenting and your bio is like a super serious C V, right, there is that's a brand mismatch. Do you know what I mean? And if you wrote uh the the same thing is true, like if you wrote a you know, if you wrote a true crime book, just let and Amy and I both love the true crime genre, so that was kind of easy to pull out of here. You wrote a true crime book, but your bio is super Pollyanna. I mean not that you have to have this dark, gloomy bio, like I really like talking about death. It's not you know what I mean, but I mean you should like what what what draws you to the genre? Like, why do you like to write about these true crime cases or crime suspense or poetry or whatever that is? Like that's the thing that your bio should do. So if you're not and and also the other thing is too, is not only is oftentimes these bios are outdated, but they're inconsistent. So your the bio on your social media doesn't match the bio on your website, and the bio on your author central page looks very different. And that's what I said in the beginning, right? If your bio looks like one person, and sometimes your bio looks like three or four different people because they don't match across all these platforms, right? So exactly. All right, Amy, you get to take on the next one, which is also my favorite. It was really hard. Really hard to dive into this one. I have really strong feelings about this, but anyway, go for it.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes. So making sure your profile photo is the same everywhere. It sounds very simple, but you'd be surprised at how often this doesn't happen. Oh my god. And we've done shows on this. Uh, it was actually, I think it was one of our top shows of the year, but about don't be a gray box on Amazon, right? Thank you. So if you don't have a photo at all, shame on you.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

You haven't been listening to our shows. But no, truly, it matters. And the photo, it doesn't mean you have to go get professional headshots, but you know, if if you've already listened to our show from last week, we had a great reader question or a listener question, excuse me, about this. And we answered it. It came in at the end of the show. So we really kind of went into this. But it doesn't have to be a professional headshot, but it should be something clear. It should be something relatively close up, you know, so they can get a sense of who you are. You know, don't have your friend cropped out of it just because it happened to be a good picture of you. I know it's really tempting, but you know, having an extra arm or leg in the photo is really confusing, especially when you think about the fact that a lot of times people are seeing these in smaller thumbnails. So, like the big version that you're looking at on your phone or on your desktop, you know, you got to shrink that down pretty far and imagine what that looks like online. And there's a big, you know, a big disconnect there. But you also, and I'll just briefly touch on this, you really have to do some serious thinking about if you don't want to use a photo, whether you have a pen name or because of your branding and business goals, whether it's a logo or again a pen name. So you want to use some other imagery that represents you. We respect that there are reasons to do this, but you know, be really thoughtful about what still makes sense and what's professional. You know, don't take it so far as to use an emoji or anything like that because, you know, we've done shows on this, but there's a lot of books being created by AI. And one of the red flags is that they don't look like they belong to a real author. And you don't want to give that vibe by using overly silly, comical, unserious, vague imagery as your professional author photo.

SPEAKER_01:

Right. Right. I I come I absolutely and completely agree with that. You know, the other thing that I want to say is that if you have a photo that somebody took of you 20 years ago and you really love it, and I see this a lot. I know this is really awful that I'm gonna say this, but I see this a lot at writers' conferences where sometimes I will go and I want to meet some of the other speakers, and I literally don't recognize them because their bio photo was taken when they were, I don't know, 18. And look, we all age. It's unfortunate. Although, by the way, just my little glow up for the new year, a red light mask is amazing. But anyway, I digress. Yeah, you yes, use a current photo. Use use a current photo, you know what I mean? And if you go ahead. No, but I mean, if you dyed your hair, you know, if you went from brown to blonde or something, then you need to up, you know, you need to update your photo. I mean, just keep keep it current.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, keep it current and keep it consistent. You know, this is just the short list of places, but definitely Amazon, your website, any of your social media. If you're using a photo in your newsletter, which is actually a really personal way to create that deeper connection just psychologically with your readers, you know, it's it's in it it's one of those things, or in your, I see a lot of people doing this more and more now that are putting them in their email signatures as well, a small photo, which I think is brilliant. And the reason this is really so important is again, there's been such an increase in spam, in box, in and I I hate to say it, it's really unfair, but the reality is the more inconsistencies there are in your brand in terms of all the places you're trying to show up online, the more hesitant people will be to follow you, to engage with you, to believe that that's actually your account. Again, it doesn't make it fair, but it's the reality of the internet that we're dealing with now. So using a consistent, clear, current photo across the board, everywhere that you have a profile option just really instantly solidifies in the potential buyer and reader that this is a brand, this is real, this is worth my time.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, no, I I completely agree with that. Um, and so the next one is refresh your about the book. Right. And and I think that the majority of authors, whenever and I love doing, I love looking at book descriptions. I love looking at the about the book, I love evaluating those and talking about you know, helping authors make those better. But one of the biggest pieces of this that I see is that they bury the lead. Yep. Right. So they bury the lead and just a language refresh. I mean, it it's a language, a lot of times it's a language clarity problem. Right. Because we wrote the book description, and you know, look, I Get it when I release the book. Like I write the book description, I'm super excited, the book is done. Yay! But I will tell you that you know, a month after the book is out on Amazon, I'm looking at that book description and I'm like, well, I I I wrote it in the in the glow of having the book done, right? And this, you know, this book could have been, you know, this book description could have been uh could have been much better. But but I think that it's really it, it's also, I mean, it's not just about tinkering with your about the book. I get it, that's important. And we've done a ton of shows on that, but it's also, again, it's much like your your picture. Make it consistent, right? Make make sure that it's consistent across the board. And don't, again, don't bury the lead, right? Lead with the lead with your book hook. Don't force readers to figure it out because they literally won't.

SPEAKER_00:

I know, or expect them to spend more than five seconds assessing whether or not they want to continue, you know. Yeah, exactly. If you think, oh, I'm gonna build this anticipation for how amazing this book is, that's the exact opposite approach you need to be taking. Yeah, you really want to get their attention in those first couple sentences. And you know what bums me out, Penny? I see this a lot. Um, where I go to Amazon and I read the book description. It's like, well, that's okay, it could be better. But then I go to the author's website and they've got this fabulous book description. You know what I mean? It's like I actually see that a lot where there is, to your point, a disconnect in the consistency across the board in terms of the the time and attention and details spent on describing the book. Yeah. And it's like one of those things where, oh my gosh, like the book description on your website gets me really excited. And then you get to Amazon and it's almost like they figured, like, oh, once they're on Amazon, they're already gonna buy it. It's like, no, it really needs to wow people everywhere, you know. So don't save the best stuff for just your website or just your social or anything like that. You really, you know what I mean? You really want to take it up a notch across the board.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Um so unifying one.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, unifying one or two brand elements. And I love it. It's like in our notes, we put this sounds fancy, but it's actually very simple.

SPEAKER_01:

And I yeah, because when I saw that, I was like, whoa, now we're talking about going down the rabbit hole. All right.

SPEAKER_00:

Now we're unifying that sounds right.

SPEAKER_01:

So simplify.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, using like now we're using really big words. Um big, intense words. But no, but these are like, you know, simple tweaks to visual elements that really make a big difference. And again, we've touched on this a few times, but using similar fonts across the board, you know, trying to stick to a similar font style approach, size, all those things, it's amazing the difference it makes. Yeah. You know, if you use different fonts for different things, that is showing that nothing is actually really dialed in to what your book is about, the genre, you know, what readers are expecting. If it's just kind of a crapshoot, that's not intentional or thoughtful. You know what I mean? If, like if you just happen to like the font in the moment, or that was the default one that whatever program you were on suggested you use, that's not enough thought, you know? And the same goes for brand colors. You know, stick to similar color themes when you're creating new places online that you're trying to show up. So that's, you know, obviously your cover on Amazon, that's pretty much set in stone. But, you know, we talked about A plus content recently. That's a big one. Like in your A plus content, stick with colors that make sense for your book cover, that makes sense for your website. And then again, on your website, and we talked about this too yesterday, the tone really matters. You know, to Penny's point, if you wrote, if you write in true crime or you write thrillers, if you go to the website and you've got like pinks and lavenders and all this stuff, you're really gonna confuse people.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

You know, that's that's not what they're expecting to see. And so, and again, it's it's like you may love that color, but it's not about you in a vacuum. It's about the you that is going to appeal to your target market.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, and I'll tell you something else. So I'm I'm gonna get I'm gonna not get the word, the verbiage correctly on this because there's a name for it, but a uh a brand book. So this it's again, much like the word unifying. I know this is sending people like they're just oh my gosh, this is too much for me. So basically, what it is is it's a document. So you can use a word document or whatever it is, and I highly suggest this. Um, just make a list of your the fonts that you're using, right? Uh, your color palette, right? The color palette you're using, and just keep that. And it's really interesting how because I mean I cannot tell you how many conversations that Amy and I have had over the years about like what font did we use for this? And what I mean, it it's really, really good to create that kind of a reminder for yourself. And this is like if you have a cover person that comes in and they're doing a cover for you. And here's an example of somebody we worked with, an author, her name is Jenny Hale, and you should look her up on Amazon. She has a lot of books out, she does really, really well. But Jenny Hale has a really great brand because her color palette, right? Even though her book colors are all different, right? She stays with the same font for her name and the book title. And the colors of her books are all kind of out of the same sort of color palette. Again, again, sorry, not throw out a bunch of$5 words on this thing. And her consistency, and you can pick out a Jenny Hale book from a mile away.

SPEAKER_00:

Right. A thumbnail, you don't even need to read who the who the author is, honestly.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. But I mean, if you're just like it don't, because a lot of times we get covers designed by people, and then these people vanish, or we don't use that same publisher again or whatever. Get all those font names and and put them, and hopefully they're consistent, but put them in a document and keep them somewhere because that will be really helpful for you know, just absolutely.

SPEAKER_00:

And one last piece of this, too, I wanted to mention just quickly, if you are on social or if you are using banners anywhere. I mean, and this includes LinkedIn, you have the option to use banners on LinkedIn. So this is not just like, oh, I don't worry, I'm not on social media. This doesn't apply to me. Believe it or not, there are banner options in a lot of places. Make sure you keep them current. Like, I know it can be potentially a lot of work, but it should be fun work. You know, when you release a new book, make sure you update your banner image. If that's a lot of work for you, then maybe go with something that's a little more timeless, a little more evergreen. You know, but there's nothing worse than seeing than going through to an author's Facebook page and the banner is announcing their new release and that book's been out for six months, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. It's one of those things. So make smart decisions. If it's something that you're not able to keep up with or you feel like is a lot of work, but you've already gone down that path, then regroup and do something that is just more brand focused than versus title focused. And that way you can keep everything, but kind of right up there with the photo you use. Just anywhere that you have banner or imagery or logos, just make sure those are all the same as well.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, and that's where keeping all of your fonts, because the other piece of it though, too, is that if you're designing a book cover with a specific font, part of brand consistency is that any imagery that you're using to support the launch or the promotion of that book should look like the book. Like you know what I mean? So that's really where, and I can't tell you how much those tiny little details matter to readers, not just matter to readers, but really help books sell better because of that, because of the way our minds work and because of that consistency across the board.

unknown:

Right.

SPEAKER_01:

Because again, when you break that connection and you force somebody to figure something, to figure out what something is, you basically lost the sale.

SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely. Yep. Those brand elements are really important. And again, like readers, and then beyond that, because your brand and how you're presenting yourself matters to thought leaders, to you know, influencers, to media. Everybody's looking. You know what I mean? So don't assume anything is a throwaway. Right. It doesn't have to be overly complicated, but nothing is a throwaway. If it's out there, it represents you. You know what I mean? Like hold yourself to a high enough standard that it's representing you really well, no matter who's looking at it.

SPEAKER_01:

You know, well, and when I teach brand classes, I the first thing that I tell authors is your brand is talking about you, whether you want it to or not. And do you really like what it's saying?

SPEAKER_00:

So yeah. All right, do you want to take the next one? Like that frenemy, cousin. Yes. Okay. So the brand story, also known as your author central content, if we're really going to simplify this, you know, your author central content. This is something that a lot of authors don't use. It's free. You know, if you you get your author central account and start exploring, there are a lot of different fields you can fill out. And the one thing that I definitely, if you take away from this, you can be much more creative than what it kind of implies, if that makes sense. You know, it there's from the author, about the author, from the back cover, from the inside flap. I realize those sound very um like direct and like, well, but I just have a Kindle. I don't have a back cover. Ignore that. From the back cover is just another space to talk about your book. You know, from the inside flap is a very exciting, cinematic, punchy way to talk about your book. From the authors, where you talk about why you write in this genre, you know, what your books give readers, the themes that you like to explore. You know what I mean? Like these are free places to add content that 100% elevate not only the reader and shopper experience, but it improves your first impression, it triggers the Amazon algorithm. It is just a really great way to show that you're putting in the effort, right, Penny?

SPEAKER_01:

Like by adding Right it it really does, that you're showing up for your own, that you're showing up for your own product. True. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely. And I love this example. You know, I write thrillers because I'm I'm obsessed with the question, what would ordinary people do in extraordinary circumstances? I love that. I know, isn't that cool? But these are the kind of things that this, you know, your brand story or what all this great content you can put on your page through your author central account, these are the kind of things that you get to dive into that really aren't necessarily they're not appropriate for the description. They're not necessarily always appropriate for your bio either. But then here you're given this free, you know, content space to get creative and to make that deeper connection with who your readers are, why you write, what makes you an expert in your topic, or you know what I mean? It's it's oh, I I love the author-central content, as you can tell. I got all like excited about it, but it's just really such an underutilized feature. And again, we love anything that's free, right?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, and you know, that's a thing though, too, is that you wanna use it while it's free. But I'm not and I'm not suggesting that Amazon's getting ready to charge for it, but you never know what Amazon's gonna do next, right? Right.

SPEAKER_00:

They're gonna roll out some extra features that you know require some sort of, you know, firstborn or something like that.

SPEAKER_01:

Right, exactly. Now, if you've been if you've been listening to this episode and you're like, oh my gosh, I'm so overwhelmed. Here's the thing. Um, a lot of times brand fatigue, marketing fatigue, let's just call it marketing fatigue, happens when authors think that everything has to be updated all at once. So if we've been, if you've been listening to the show and you've been taking notes, you're like, oh my gosh, I need to do this and that. Don't, you don't have to do it all at once. Um readers rarely see everything all at once, anyway, right? So start with your bio, which we talked about. Um, and if you have some time, so if you're listening to the show on Friday, if you have some time this week and have somebody take some pictures of you, and I get it, like especially for you know, women, I don't know. Somebody can take 45 pictures of me and I'd be like, I hate all of them. Let's try another 45. It's not always it's not always easy. So give yourself a little bit of time with that. Maybe put that one at the bottom of your list because I feel you. Filters are your friends, right? Exactly. Um, but start with something make a list. And it in the last, I think it was last week's episode, we talked about a book that I read and being 1% better. And so these are 1% changes, right? Make changes to your, you know, Amazon author, you know, start with your bio, start with make, you know, and then change that across the board. That's enough for this week, right? Yes. Next week, tackle, you know, tackle your as Amy talked about, tackle your banners, tackle your and just make a list of things that all and hopefully we have given you a cohesive list in this podcast, that all fall kind of under that brand umbrella and then just start to chip away at it. Do not feel like you need to burn everything to the ground. Now, if you have, you know, six books out there or three books or whatever, and they're part of a series and they look completely disconnected and they look like they don't match, then I would suggest that you listen to our book cover episode from last year because then you probably do have to change those up. But the majority of the majority of you listening are probably not in that place. The majority of you listening probably are just trying to figure out where where are the gaps? Where are you losing readers? And that's how we wanted to roll out this year's show is let's pave the way for a really successful 2026. So we hope that um we hope that that you've taken some notes and we hope that we didn't lose everybody like 15 minutes ago. Start to use those bad difficult$5 words.

SPEAKER_00:

But um, did I cover everything, Amy? Did did we Yes? I love the new 1% rule. I think that should be, you know, the theme for this year. Because I think it's easy to think like, well, if I don't have time to do all of this, all of this, then it's not worth getting started. But that's the exact opposite, you know. It's the exact opposite, yeah. Every little piece that you can do really does matter, you know.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. So we want to thank you again so much for tuning in. And we uh we love your show ideas. So once again, um text the word podcast to 888-402-8940. You can communicate with us directly that way. We see them. We will take your questions and answer them uh on the show, show ideas and the reader, the sorry, the reader, the listener survey is there's a link in the show notes. So be sure to check that out. And I haven't asked for I haven't asked for reviews this year, but I'm I we love reviews wherever you listen to podcasts. So leave us a review, let us know. Um, let us know what you you know what you think. And like I said, what you'd like to see more of. And we'll see you next week. Bye bye.

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Penny Sansevieri

Host
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Amy Cornell

Co-host