In a short period of time, Toni and Shannon have established themselves in the center of the book marketing universe. Their email newsletter, their blog content and their helpful attitude have all
combined to create a growing following.
‘Building Your Fanbase’ builds on their core idea of ‘reader-centered marketing’ and offers a number of tips to growing your fan base. The most important of these is quite obvious but often overlooked … and that is to treat your reader like you’d like to be treated. The book also offers suggestions on connecting with readers by generous sharing of content.
The section on finding your target market (hint: keep narrowing focus until you find that one reader who is a fan of your writings) is extremely useful. The advice to dig deeper and actually interview a real, live breathing fan to create a reader profile is spot on. The book is also filled with links to resources such as downloadable worksheets and tools (example: this reader profile PDF.)
The metaphors in the book keep the content engaging. Here’s one example that I loved:
“Think of yourself as a blob of peanut butter. The locations where you’re looking for readers are each represented by a piece of bread. The more places you hang out, the less peanut butter you’ll have for each piece of bread. You’re literally spreading yourself too thin!”
This book is big on focusing your attention and going deep into just a few activities rather than trying to do too many things or being all things to all people. And the clear tips that it provides will help you to cull out your least value adding activities and double up your efforts on those that are likelier to give you results. Yes, there is a fair amount of work that you will need to put in upfront when you first begin your efforts to streamline your fan building efforts. But this effort is more than worth it and will pay off in the long run.
