Tag: seth godin

Woo Your Superfans

I do the bulk of the marketing
for my Romance Novels.
I buy the advertising.
I post on social media.
I send newsletters.

Superfans are responsible
for about 95%
of the remaining promo.

Fellow writers do the rest.

Casual readers
do sh*t all
regarding marketing.

So I design my promo
to appeal to new readers, yes,
but to also appeal
to my superfans.

As Seth Godin
shares

“It’s peer-to-peer interaction
that shapes our culture,
and culture that shapes our world.

The opportunity for anyone
seeking to make a change happen
is to enlist people
who are on a similar path
and give them the tools
and the motivation
to engage with
the people around them.”

Woo your superfans
and they will sell
your products/services
for you.

The Starting Price

One of the unwritten ‘rules’
in negotiations
is
the person who states a firm number
first
loses in negotiations.

They supply the anchor,
the starting price
(or salary).
And it is difficult for them
to move their price/salary
from that anchor
to benefit them.

As Seth Godin
shares

“The asking price
is a signal,
a way to message expectations
and begin a negotiation.
It’s simply a guess
about the future,
made by the person
who goes first.

It can anchor our thinking,
but if we’re not careful,
it can be an anchor
that also drags us down.”

One of the ways
to work around
sharing the starting price
is to state a range.

That provides a starting place
for discussions
but gives the negotiator
some flexibility.

State ranges,
not absolute numbers.

Skip Steps

When I first started
publishing my books,
Kindle Unlimited at Amazon
hadn’t been invented.
Amazon didn’t dominate
the book business
like it does now.
Sales were spread over
many booksellers.

If writers wanted healthy sales,
they had to list their books
at all these booksellers.
That cost time
and money.

Today, Amazon is, by far,
the biggest bookseller.
Many newer writers only
list their books there.
That saves them money
and time
and it focuses their efforts.

Skipping the step
of listing at all booksellers
gives them a huge advantage.

Seth Godin
shares
“I’m sure
there was a really good reason
twenty years ago
for all the steps
that are now involved
in the thing you do right now,
but your competitor,
the one who is starting from scratch,
is skipping most of them.”

If you’re starting your business
now,
YOU are the competitor
Seth Godin is talking about.

Skip the unnecessary steps.

What Is Your Enough?

Part of a marketer’s job
is convincing us
we don’t have enough.
We need more.
Ads, TV shows, magazines
are designed
to seed dissatisfaction,
to shift our expectations.

That is THEIR agenda.

Decades ago,
I sat down and decided
what level of investments,
of income,
of professional success,
of travel,
of other areas
was ‘enough.’

As I hit those targets,
I become immune
to much of the marketing out there.
I feel satisfaction,
peace,
joy with my life.

And it changes my actions.

If 3 business suits are ‘enough’ for me,
as one super simple example,
I stop shopping for business suits
once I have 3 of them.
That time and money
is freed
to do other things.

Seth Godin
shares
“Enough becomes a choice,
not a measure of science.

The essence of choice is that
it belongs to each of us.
And if you decide
you have enough,
then you do.

And with that choice
comes a remarkable sort of freedom.
The freedom to be still,
to become aware
and to stop hiding
from the living
that’s yet to be done.”

Figure out
what your ‘enough’ is,
Write it down.
Look at it every so often.

Live YOUR agenda.

Quality Issues Are Systems Issues

When I was working with
a large New York Publisher,
I was receiving complaints
from readers
about the quality of my stories.

My editors with this publisher
were overworked.
They didn’t have the time
to give my stories
a quality edit.

I couldn’t self-edit
any better
than I already was.

So I hired an editor.
I changed my publishing process,
my systems.
And the quality greatly improved.
The complaints stopped.

As Seth Godin
shares
“Persistent quality problems
are a systemic issue,
and if you’re not working
on your system,
you’re not going to
improve it.”

If you have quality issues,
take a closer look
at the systems
you have in place.
Ask yourself,
“How can I improve them?”

For Those That Constantly Revise

I tweak stories.
I constantly refine them.
I don’t stop doing this
after the final edit
and it drives my editor
up the wall
because I usually insert typos.

The only thing
that pulls me out
of the revising death spiral
is a deadline.

I will set up a story
for pre-order
and booksellers will insist
the final version
be loaded by X date.

That deadline is the ONLY reason
my stories get published.

Seth Godin
shares

“The benefit is that
once we agree to the deadline,
we don’t have to worry about it anymore.
We don’t have to negotiate,
come up with excuses
or
even stress about it.

It won’t ship
when it’s perfect.

It will ship
because we said it would.”

If you constantly revise
like I do,
consider setting a firm deadline.

The World Is Always Changing

Eleven years ago,
I pitched a romance
with an Asian-American heroine
to a big New York Publisher.

The heroine had been a character
in a popular series
I had published with this publisher
and readers had been asking for
her story.

The Publisher said no,
told me there was no market
for that type of heroine.
“That is just
the way it is,”
they said.

Today, one of my writing buddies
is in demand
by this same publisher
because ALL she writes
are romances with Asian-American heroines.

Seth Godin
shares

“That’s how culture perpetuates
injustice and indignity.
Because that’s just the way
things are around here.

But the status quo
isn’t permanent.
The world doesn’t stay
the way it was.
It changes.

And it’s been changing
faster than ever.”

There is no status quo.
The world is constantly changing.

Just because there wasn’t a market for
your product or business idea
today
doesn’t mean there won’t be a market for it
eleven years from now.

All Actions Have Consequences

Yesterday, I watched
as someone in a grocery store parking lot
didn’t return his shopping cart
to the cart holding area.
He, instead, left it
in a parking space.

Moments later,
a gray-haired, frail-looking driver
drove his car into that space,
crashed into the cart,
damaging his vehicle.

The gray-haired driver
bore the consequences
for his own actions
– not seeing the cart
and driving into it.

But he also bore
the consequences
for the lazy man’s actions
– not returning the cart
properly.

As Seth Godin
shares

“Our actions always
have consequences.
The question is:
who will bear them?”

Before taking an action,
think about
the possible consequences
and who will bear them.

The Right Industry Fit For You

I value my privacy.

So there are some writing niches
I will always avoid.
I don’t write self-help books, for example,
because self-help book readers expect
to see an author’s face,
to view footage of the author
on social media.
They want to feel they know
the person
they’re taking advice from.

Romance readers, in contrast,
are okay
with never seeing an author’s face.
They realize the need
and preference
for privacy.

Seth Godin
shares

“If you need to avoid
the front of the parade,
don’t pick an industry
or a cultural setting
where only the people
at the front
are treated well.”

Pick the right industry
and niche for you.
Ensure your preferences
don’t damage
your odds of success.

Starting Over And The Opportunity To Simplify

Recently, I changed the template
here at client k.
The result is
a super clean, super simple look.

The old template was cluttered.
Over the years
I had added more and more stuff
to it.

As Seth Godin
shares

“Over time,
every system becomes
increasingly complex.
That’s because
in order to make it better,
we tweak it.
We add exceptions.
We do things that are urgent,
essential or smart
for a particular use case.
We learn from what’s broken
and we fix that broken spot.”

New will always be
simpler, cleaner.

When you get the opportunity
to start over,
start with as simple as possible.