Marketing Tips for Authors

On this episode I chat with Sandra Nomoto about her recent release and we discuss marketing tips. She’s a fantastic person, and we had a great conversation.

Madilynn Dale: Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of The Book Chat today. I have another fantastic author for you guys to meet, and I’m going to bring her in and let her introduce herself. Hi, Sandra. Hey. So go ahead and tell our viewers and listeners a little bit about you and the book we’re going to be discussing.

Sandra Nomoto: Sure. So professionally, I’ve been a communicator for most of my life. So I ran my own public relations agency from 2008 to 2018, and when I closed that business, I didn’t think I was going to stay in the marketing field. I wanted a good 10-foot pole between me and the practice, but the year I closed my business was the year I went vegan.

So yeah, as I was sort of paying attention to what was happening in the industry in the last few years. I sat down to meditate at the end of 2019 and my intuition just really told me, you know, you’re going to be writing forever, and you’re vegan now. So put those two things together.

So at the start of 2020, I launched the business that I run today. So I operate as The Content Doctor. So I do writing and editing for vegan businesses. And because of the pandemic, I had some more time on my hands, and I took some courses in book editing, formatting, indexing. So now I have a whole suite of services that I offer to self-published authors like me.

And then, yeah, as you said, I just put out my second book. It literally launched yesterday, the paperback and audio formats, and that’s called Vegan Marketing Success Stories. And it’s the first book in the world about marketing specifically for the vegan industry.

MD: That is awesome. And I’ve actually, I haven’t got to read all of it yet, but I’ve been reading through it, and it’s fascinating, because you can tell you put a lot of research into making this book, and that fascinates me. Like, what was your biggest struggle in finding all this information to share?

SN: Well, in terms of the information, I came up with the idea for the book because I knew I had this public relations background, and I’ve always been fascinated about the marketing practice, and, more recently, how vegan businesses market themselves. So yeah, so that sort of inspired the book, and I knew that I wanted to make it like a practical guide, so that any business could pick it up and learn how to, yeah, to market their business.

But a good chunk of the book, thankfully, was, was sort of collaborative in that, yeah, I reached out to almost 280 companies in order to get the stories that I wanted to fill in this book. Yeah. So thankfully, thanks to the 47 contributing companies that submitted their stories in the book. And then I also pulled examples that I found online. So in total, there are about 80 companies that are mentioned in the book and‌ that really took a lot of the work off my hands in terms of filling in the gaps in terms of examples.

So I wouldn’t say—yes, there were challenges, but‌ because of the nature of this book, yeah, it really relied a lot on the stories that I received from the companies.

MD: That is awesome. So what was your biggest challenge starting the book? Like, how did you organize yourself to begin the process of creating this manuscript? Yeah.

SN: So thankfully, I’m quite organized, so I always come up with sort of, yeah, like a timeline. So my idea was, my goal was to have the book finished by the end of last year. So I figured if I start reaching out to companies and asking for case studies at the end of September, hopefully in three months, I would have all of the information and have this book written. And that’s really how it turned out.

So I thought if I aimed for 50 case studies, I probably would need to reach out to about 200 companies. And as I said, that number ended up being a lot more, because, as companies either said, no, hey didn’t have time to participate, or I just didn’t hear back from them.

I just started, I just kept sending more emails out and asking for stories. So I reached out to a lot more than I thought I would. But again, yeah, as soon as the first couple of stories started coming in, I just started getting inspired to write, so I already started the manuscript and started filling in those stories.

Yeah, I really didn’t want to wait until I received 50 stories and then, all right, now, let’s go and write the book. It would have just taken a lot longer if I had waited. But yeah, I would‌ say that was probably the biggest challenge. Just being on top of reaching out to all of the companies that I needed to feel like I have a substantial number of stories for this book.

And the other thing that I was hoping for was to get a range of solopreneur businesses all the way up to big corporations. Unfortunately, none of the big corporations participated, which is not necessarily a bad thing. So this book is very much focused on the startup founder, the small to medium business owner, and yeah, so I hope a lot of those folks will pick up this book.

MD: Yes, I actually have learned quite a bit because I didn’t realize there were so many different vegan industries out there. But I’m also still kind of learning about it. I’ve been inspired, not so much, to completely cut meat out of my diet yet, but like, try to incorporate ways to bring better tasting like vegetable based products into our diet and my family’s diet, because there’s so many things that are added into a lot of processed foods these days, having to really pay attention to what you’re taking in is a lot so and it’s fascinating that those companies are growing like they are.

SN: Yeah, thank you for pointing that out. I’ve been on a lot of vegan podcasts, and this is naturally the conversation we ended up going to, so I didn’t expect that. But yeah, I really didn’t want to make this book about how to go vegan, because there’s so many books already out there about that topic.

This is very much a business book. It’s a marketing book. It just happens to have examples of vegan businesses that are out there, so that if you want to lean more into this lifestyle and take more animals out of your, you know, out of your life, because you know, they’re really dying for consumerism.

And, like you said, if you want to just start adding some‌ meat alternatives, yeah, this book has a few examples of the companies out there that are offering that and how they market themselves. It’s so interesting. I was just blown away by some of the examples. And they’re all very different about how they market themselves. And I would say meat alternatives are a great way to substitute for meat, seafood, dairy, and all those animal products.

But in the end, the healthiest diet, if you want to call it that, is really the whole food. Whole food plant-based. So yeah, you really got to just learn how to cook vegetables so that they taste good. That’s really the key. Yes, a processed diet is just not a very healthy one.

MD: No. And I also found it fascinating your story of like how you had to change your brand and everything at the start of a novel, and how you became you said The Content Doctor.

SN: Yeah. I started out as The Vegan Copywriter because it’s just a perfect description of what I wanted to do. But I realized that, you know, vegans are still a very small percentage of the world. And I had a former PR client come to me and said, “Hey, I want to work with you again. Do I have to be vegan?” And I went, “No, absolutely not.”

As long as your business is vegan, that’s my ideal client. And so I realized that the V word might be turning away some potential clients, and that’s why I changed my title over to The Content Doctor because it’s a little bit more inclusive.

I still have that, you know, cruelty-free vegan businesses only type of ideal client, but yeah, but at least people aren’t turned away at the very start with the V word.

MD: Yeah, and it’s so crazy that they would turn away from that, honestly. But the world is what the world is right now. Yeah, so how long did it take you to write from start to finish?

SN: So it was about those three months that I was aiming for. So soon as the first set of stories started coming in, in early October, I would say, probably by the second week of January, the manuscript was pretty much finished, and then, and then it was off to—I actually did a beta, beta reading period, and then my manuscript was off to my editor in March. So yeah, so I stuck pretty well to the timeline that I was hoping for.

MD: That is impressive. Did you have a specific plan that you followed to write it down? I know some people have a very strict writing schedule. Did you have something like that?

SN: No, not really, but I knew that would be working on this manuscript during off hours. So if I didn’t have any more client work to do that day I would go back and work on the manuscript. The nice thing about using Google Forms is that you get the alerts as soon as a form has been submitted, right?

So I knew, like every time I got that email, ooh, another story’s come in. So I always had something to work on. If I saw that email came in.

MD: That’s good. That makes it very convenient. I love using Google Forms for that reason, so it makes it way easier to keep up with all the information. So with this being a nonfiction book, I don’t have a lot of information background on publishing nonfiction. What are some of the things that you had to go through to publish it as a nonfiction piece?

SN: So my first book, I self-published as well, and that’s also nonfiction. I don’t know if there’s a huge difference between self-publishing fiction and nonfiction, but with the second book, I knew that I just wanted to have somebody like a coach to make sure that I was doing everything right. Because my first book, I just did everything through Amazon, and I did everything myself, and then I learned all of the mistakes that I made afterwards.

So I actually hired The Vegan Publisher, Mitali Deypurkaystha. So her story is actually in the book as well, and she has a program called The Expert, where she’s—it’s a self paced course, and you just go, you know, take the modules online at your own pace. And she sort of tells you step by step how to structure your book, some of the things that need to be in it. And, yeah, how to approach beta readers and get their feedback, and so on.

So yeah, so that was really helpful, because there were things that I learned that I hadn’t incorporated in my book, things like how to introduce the chapter and then how to close the chapter, and then things that should be in your introduction. You know, tell the reader what to expect, and then in your conclusion, you’re going to wrap up everything you’ve just presented in the book. So things like that that I hadn’t thought of before were so helpful. And then she’s in the UK, so she offers these weekly Zoom sessions. If you wanted, yeah, hop on and join. And because of the time difference, I wasn’t able to utilize that. But she’s got a Slack workspace, so every time I ran into a roadblock I would pop my question in there in the Slack workspace, and she was so great at responding.

And there are other authors that can pitch in and offer their advice or expertise as well. So having that sort of a program to guide me was super helpful, I would say.

MD: That’s great. So did you find that everything seemed to flow easier and was easier on you working with a coach?

SN: I would say it more so gave me just the reassurance that I was on the right track. Because, yeah, I could have done the same sort of process on my own, I think, but yeah, having that sort of reassurance that I’m doing it properly gave me that sense of confidence that I was on the right track.

MD: And confidence is important when it comes to publishing anything, because I feel like a lot of authors kind of defeat themselves by beating themselves down and lose that confidence. It’s just like a head game. Did you have any writer’s block issues or anything? Or come into a mindset where you’re like, “Oh, what do I do next?” once the manuscript was done?

SN: Not really. I don’t seem to have a writer’s block problem. As soon as I know I need to sit down and write something, I’ll do it. A great way to bust that imposter syndrome, though, is the beta reading period and that was probably the most nervous part, except for maybe asking for endorsements. That can be nerve-wracking as well.

But, yeah, just having the manuscript finished and then sending it off to a bunch of readers who, you don’t know what they’re going to say, but I would say a lot of the feedback I got was super constructive. Most of it was quite positive and any areas that they felt needed to be fixed, they just told me outright.

And then it’s your choice as the author to incorporate that or not. So I found that really gave me probably the biggest confidence booster, also, aside from just getting really cool stories from businesses that I didn’t expect. But yeah, I would say having beta readers really helps with that, too.

MD: Fantastic. Let’s talk more about getting the endorsements for the book. How did that process work for you, and what were the struggles in that?

SN: Yeah, I just came up with a list of folks who I thought were experts in vegan business and might want to read my book and say some nice things. There were some contributors who were part of the beta reading period, and they said some nice things. And I figured, hey, you know, if they really like it, basically, they’re nice words. I was like, “That sounds like an endorsement.” So I just asked them, “You know, can I use this as one?” Some of them wanted to change it a little bit, make it sound nicer.

So some of those contributors also contributed endorsements. Everybody that I asked didn’t respond, just because they’re too busy. One woman was actually working on her own book, so she was too busy with that. But yeah, I was really fortunate to get some really cool ones. And Victoria Moran, who has been in the business for a very, very long time, was one, probably one of the first vegans to appear on The Oprah Winfrey Show, I believe.

So she was so amazing. And so I put her endorsement right on the front cover, just because when you get a good one from somebody notable like that in your industry, that goes on the front cover.

MD: So, yeah, that’s like, number one market move right there. Like, here, this person was on Oprah, hello.

SN: Yeah. And then I also reached out to, like, the managers of a few vegan celebrities, so Alicia Silverstone, Natalie Portman. I think Alicia Silverstone’s manager said, “No, she’s not going to participate.” But just the fact that, like, they responded and told me, that is kind of cool, and then I didn’t hear back from Natalie Portman’s.

But you know, you just never know. You got to give these things a try, because you never know what you’re going to get back.

MD: That is true. You have to ask. You have to ask no matter what, because even if you’re scared, you’re like, you will never know if you will be given that opportunity or not if you don’t ask, right?

SN: Yeah, if you don’t ask, the answer is always no.

MD: That is so true. And I feel like that is one of the biggest pieces that of advice that has been kind of percolating in my brain lately because, I’m trying to step up my author game and really hit the writing game harder, and write every day, and all that stuff, but learning the business side of it, because that doesn’t come easy. That’s one of the things I’m like, okay, ask, just ask. Just do it. Yes, it’s terrifying to a point because it’s taking you out of your comfort zone. But you have to ask.

SN: Yeah. So yesterday was, yeah, as I said at the top, I launched my ebook first, and then my paperback and audio launched yesterday. And yeah, one of the things that I have to do is email all the contributors and the folks—the other companies that are used as examples of the book and say, “Hey, you know, my book just launched. Can you help me post on social?”

Because otherwise they’re not going to so you gotta. I would say the writing of my book was the easiest, one of the easiest parts, the hardest part is the marketing of it, especially when you’re self-publishing. So yeah, let me tell you, the last four months, yeah, three months have been yeah, some of the—I wouldn’t say it’s like difficult to post on social media, but yeah, you really got to hustle and do things like this, get on podcasts so your book can get into the hands of the folks who‌ need to buy it. So yeah, marketing is ‌no joke.

MD: That is true. Do you have any tips that you would recommend to other authors about marketing?

SN: Have a solid strategy and publicity plan in place. So initially I was going to invest in a publicist, but because I have a PR background, I figured what I need more help with is a marketing strategy. So somebody to tell me, like, here’s what to post when, because I’ve got 80 companies in this book, and I couldn’t even wrap my brain around like, how am I going to mention all of these and when, right?

So I’m really glad that I went that route. So I’m doing all of my own, you know, interview bookings myself, but I hired a vegan owner of a digital marketing agency in town, and she came up with a 90-day strategy for me. So she was basically, here are your posts every day, and here’s what to blog about every week, and here’s what to put in your newsletter every week.

So yeah, again, I’m an organized person, right? So to have that plan in place and then just go in and actually do the writing and the posting was so helpful. And‌ then I’m actually continuing that 90 day strategy right through to the end of the month, because my‌ book has just come out, and so of course, I want to continue talking about it, but yeah, I would say the strategy is key. If you’re not that kind of person that is going to sit down and plan what you’re going to post and how you’re going to market yourself, you’re going to have to hire either a publicist, a marketing strategist, or both. And if you’re not the type of person who’s going to actually post on social media and you want somebody to do that for you, that’s another person that you’re going to have to hire on your team.

MD: That’s actually great advice. I love it because it’s a lot doing that. Posting on social media and keeping that strategy going is extremely difficult. Do you have anything that you use to plan, post, or schedule posts to go out?

SN: Yeah, I use a software called Buffer. Yeah, because scheduling is your friend, you can do it a lot. You can do it in real time if you want. But, yeah, I’m the kind of person that I like to do at least a week in advance. So yeah, I’ll just go ahead and schedule all those posts, yeah, in Buffer, in advance. And same thing with your newsletters and blogs. You can schedule those things to go out in advance.

MD: Scheduling is so much better to do with newsletters. How often are you sending newsletters out?

SN: They’re going out weekly and I used to send out newsletters quarterly. So, I was the person that—I don’t want to bug people and get in their inbox. But yeah, my strategist was basically like, you’ve got to start adding people to your list. And here’s the plan for doing that weekly. So every time a new blog comes out on Thursday that’s the same day the newsletter will go out as well and feature that blog for the week. So that’s sort of how we’ve been doing it. And yeah, I don’t think I’m going to, after this month, I’m probably going to do it monthly. But yeah, it’s weekly right now, just because of the momentum for the book that we want to build.

MD: And regarding social media, do you stick with, like, a small group of social media applications, or do you have a wide variety of them? What do you use?

SN: I don’t know if it’s small or wide. I guess it’s, it’s all relative, right? But I’m on Twitter, Facebook page, and my personal Facebook, and then same with LinkedIn, personal and company, and then Instagram. That’s really all I can manage. I know folks out there using TikTok and that’s the newest platform to be on, but I don’t have the capacity to learn a new platform right now. So yeah, that’s about it.

MD: And the reason I asked that is because I am trying to narrow down my social media to the ones that I can really focus on. Because I recently sat in on a panel, listened to it with a business related panel about posting on social media, and they’re like, if you’re going to be on an app, don’t just let your profile sit there, like you need to be actively doing it. So I’m like, “Okay, wait a second,” and I’m trying to stick with the TikTok. TikTok’s so hard. But like you, I’ve narrowed it down to Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are really like my main three. But I went from having like, five or six to…

SN: Yeah, you’ve got to really be aware of your own capacity and time constraints. Again, if you can —if you’ve got the budget to hire a social media manager to do all that for you, great. But yeah, if you’re, if you’re like me, and my name is my brand, right? And so it’s important to me to be kind of on the front lines of my own accounts. And so yeah, you just have to be aware about what you can manage.

MD: Good for you. So when it comes to interacting with your followers and your readers, what are some of the things you’ve noticed that’s easier to chat with them about?

SN: Hmm, that’s a good question. I mean, before I started launching this book, I had a pretty set schedule, or, yeah, sort of content calendar, I would say. So on Mondays, I usually do like an Instagram reel, so some sort of short video, either a tip or kind of what I’m working on.

And then I’ll sprinkle throughout the week, kind of like what other vegan businesses are doing, because, yeah, that’s sort of my industry. And then Thursdays, I’ll do, like, because I’m The Content Doctor, I’ll do like, a content prescription tip. And then Fridays, I like to support Greta and #FridaysForFuture. So I’ll always do some sort of sustainability post on Fridays. And I find because my audience is quite diverse, so some folks, there’s obviously the vegans, and then others are more into business and marketing.

So it kind of varies—the engagement varies. So some are more into the marketing tips, others the vegan stuff and #FridaysForFuture. Soon as I started posting about my book, it’s sort of been the folks who are interested in the book, they’re the ones engaging more. So the ebook came out, and then they’re like, “Oh, I’m going to wait for the audio,” or “I’m going to wait for the paperback,” so it’s great feedback for me to know what people want.

And then, of course, there are some folks who got the ebook and posted reviews. And that’s great because you can see exactly who has bought your book as a result of all the marketing that you’re doing. So, yeah, it’s been interesting. It’s been a whole wide range since I launched the book, but I expect it to go back to probably some sort of normalcy once the book launch phase is over. And yeah, and start going back to more of my normal content. I’ll probably throw in maybe once a week I’ll do an excerpt from the book, because, yeah, you want to continue to market your book as well, right?

MD: Yeah, and you can always add it, spread it out, but keep it going for the—I want to call it a backlog of your work. Do you have anything planned out moving forward after the book launch?

SN: Not really, I mean, I’m continuing to do podcast interviews and things like this, yeah, because some podcasts book months in advance, and so I won’t appear until 2023, but I’m going to continue to do that. But yeah, I’ll probably scale back the content about the book quite a bit starting in December. And then same thing with my newsletter. I’ll go back to a monthly frequency instead of weekly. And then, yeah, and then my blogs return to the normal content of blogs that I do.

MD: Cool. Do you have another book? Do you have another book idea in your head that you might want to publish later on?

SN: Not right now, but some folks have been telling me, you know, you should do a part two of this book. Because, yeah, like I said, the big corporations didn’t participate. So some folks are saying, “Well, you should do another book that are, you know, million dollar marketing budgets,” So there’s, I mean, it really depends on whether they want to, you know, give me all of that insight. The other potential is, yeah, there were some folks who I invited to participate, but they were just too new in their business, like, still less than a year, they didn’t really have too much data in terms of what works for them in terms of marketing. So yeah, there’s a potential to do maybe a part two of Vegan Marketing Success Stories. So who knows, but I do think, yeah, at some point maybe I’ll release another book.

MD: That would be awesome. I have to say, if you could give a tip to an aspiring author or somebody who’s just started out their writing journey, what kind of tip would you share with them?

SN: In addition to, you know, doing your own writing, I think it’s important to read, and that might seem like super obvious, because most writers do read, but I think the more that you get immersed in your genre. So for me, you know, I read a lot of business books, and there was no marketing book about the vegan industry that existed, so I knew that I had to write it. So yeah, I think the more that you read what you want to write, the more that you’ll get into that mindset of what your readers want to learn. And memoir is another genre that I love. Not personally to write, but I would love to work with memoir authors. So, that’s another genre that I really enjoy reading as well.

MD: We’ll go ahead and tell our listeners and viewers where they can find you in your work.

SN: I’m everywhere with my name. So SandraNomoto.com. Same thing on social media and the Products page on my website is where you can find all of the links to my book.

MD: Awesome. Well, thank you so much for being on The Chapter Goddess today.

SN: Thanks so much. Maddie, it was my pleasure.