5 Questions to Answer to Ensure Marketability for Authors| Six Figure Author Coach
Many of authors express how much they have worked on their craft. They cite their glowing reviews, point out their professional book covers, and tell us about their fantastic editors. And sure, sometimes authors are disillusioned, but there's plenty of authors who have done "all the right things" … but just aren't getting the expected results for their efforts.
After helping countless authors become six and seven figure earners (and helping over 550 authors become USA Today, New York Times, and Wall Street Journal bestsellers), author coach Rebecca Hamilton with her team discovered the key element to marketability.
And it's not about "writing the latest fads" or "trying the latest marketing trends." There's many ways you can sell a book (and most of them are very easy), but none of them will give an output of book sales equal to the input of money and effort from an author if their product isn't marketable.
The key to marketability goes beyond book covers, blurbs, and editing, too. Yes, all of those elements are part of a book's marketability, but you already knew that. What we want to offer you here today are five questions you need to answer to test your book's marketability–and once you do that, you can focus on sending traffic to your high quality product, and watching your conversions soar.
These five questions all trace back to one core principle: Alignment.
Understanding Reader Psychology and Alignment
Rebecca Hamilton and her team are best known for her incredible publishing strategies, next level advertising abilities, and most of all, results. But the reason her methods work is because she understands every facet of self-publishing…and how these facets work together.
Every approach she teaches is based in Reader Psychology (a term she coined herself and has since been adopted more widely in the self publishing world, though vastly under-representated as many lack a true understanding of the subject.
And while Reader Psychology is the driving force behind all of Rebecca's methods, even those who master an understanding of it can still sometimes struggle, which comes from a lack of ALIGNMENT.
Alignment ensures that authors don't just have a great book cover, a great story, a great book, a great blurb, and a great understanding of their audience, but that all of these things are aligned for the same ideal reader.
The Importance of Alignment in Book Marketing
This might be putting the cart before the horse for some (as most authors vastly mistake who their audience is), but it may, at the same time, better help you understand who your audience is as you ask yourself these questions to check for alignment.
The best way to think about alignment is if you were shooting a bow and arrow toward a target, but to reach the target, you have to go through several hoops first. Most authors set up these hoops with their eyes closed, making it impossible for them to get through all the hoops to hit the target.
This means they may get through some hoops but not others, or even if they do manage to circumvent the hoops to hit the target anyway, they'll still "miss the mark" once the readers start reading.
1. Example of Misalignment
An extreme version of an alignment issue would be if an author has a beautiful cover and it looks like a Dystopian novel. Then you read the blurb, which is incredibly well written and engaging…though it sounds like a Fantasy novel. Many people who like Dystopian novels also like Fantasy novels, but then the reader starts reading, only to discover the book is a dark romance novel. On top of that, some authors may think they write horror, yet might be targeting mystery and thriller readers, and their ad may make the reader think the book is actually a romantic comedy.
2. Consequences of Misalignment
This dilutes the results at every turn. Your ads go to a mystery and thriller reader, who see the romantic comedy ad copy. Some may like that too, so they click, but then the cover looks like a dystopian novel. Maybe they're widely read, so they dig in more, and the blurb is fantasy. Which easy passing "checkpoint," the author is losing more readers.
Real-World Alignment Issues
Now, that's an exaggerated example for sure. What we actually see more of is something like an author writing Paranormal Romance, but the writing reads like an Urban Fantasy Romance, but they think their audience is Fantasy Romance. Similar, yes, but without alignment, your conversions drop, and there's no easy fix.
Because if you try to sell the book based on the cover, the Fantasy Romance reader may buy it only to be disappointed with the writing and story. If you try to sell it based on the writing (to Urban Fantasy Romance readers), they may see the book cover and blurb and not start reading to begin with. And if they try to sell based on the blurb, the cover and writing may change their mind.
You can approach fixing this (or not making this mistake to begin with) from two angles. You can either decide what you want to write, learn about the genre, and meet those genre expectations, OR, you want write what you love, and learn enough about all the genres you think you may be writing in to understand which one you truly align with, and then build your other author career decisions around that.
Five Questions to Ensure Marketability
Without further ado, here's FIVE QUESTIONS To get you started in ensuring you have the alignment necessary for your product to be marketable. (And again, we are assuming that QUALITY is a given for each of these!)
Story Idea Alignment
Is the idea for my story aligned with the same audience that would take interest in my plot, characters, book cover, and blurb?
Go beyond the basics and dig into the specifics. While some audiences cross over with others, ask yourself why they don't completely cross over. What makes someone choose a Psychological Thriller over a Legal Thriller? What makes someone prefer Fantasy Romance to Paranormal Romance?
Plot Alignment
Does the plot for my story align with the same audience that would take interest in this idea, my characters, my book cover, and my blurb?
What are some plotting conventions that make readers prefer this genre over that one? For example, Police Procedural plots generally start with finding a body. Fantasy novels usually begin in a fantasy setting, where paranormal novels generally begin in the human realm (or may even stay there).
As another example, most romances will start with the couple having their meet cute in Chapter 1. Sometimes, instead, we may see the setup from the girl's POV and then from the guy's POV, with them meeting by the end of Chapter 2. If your audience is romance readers, having the meet cute in Chapter 7 is going to hurt you!
Character Archetype Alignment
Are the archetypes for the primary characters of my story aligned with the same audience that would take interest in my idea, my book cover, my blurb, and my plot?
Sometimes the reader why readers prefer one subgenre over another is because of character archetypes in one genre versus another. For example, while some may find Fantasy Romance and Urban Fantasy Romance interchangeable, some may prefer one or the other depending on how snarky they like a FMC to be (or how much they hate snarky FMCs).
Book Cover Alignment
Does your book cover convey your genre and attract the same readers who would be interested in your idea, blurb, plot, and characters?
Look for details such as: do readers of this audience look for a male, female, or both on the cover? Sometimes this can even be an indicator for heat level. Romance with FMC only can either indicate sweet romance, low romance, or in some cases, even erotica designed for male readers (depending on the cover image), whereas a cover with a shirtless male only may convey the book has a higher heat. If the guy is brooding, it may convey a darker read, and if the guy is smiling, it may be steamy romantic comedy.
Blurb Alignment
How effective is your blurb in conveying your story in such a way that clearly aligns with the same readers who would take interest in your book cover, idea, plot, and characters?
Things like mood and heat level can be conveyed in the blurb. A blurb's tone could be humorous and steamy (for a sexy rom com, for example) or it could be dark and action-packed (perhaps for an action thriller).
Additional Considerations for Alignment
1. Ad Alignment
If all of the above is aligned: Are your ads designed for that same audience? (Ad Copy, Headlines, Media)
2. Audience Targeting
Are you targeting the right people? (Audience) Many authors think they are, but once they understand more about alignment, realize they haven't been!
3. Breaking Genre Norms
Can you break genre norms? Of course! Though I would caution choosing a) when in your career to do it, and/or b) which genre norms to break. If you break one of the genres norms that basically ARE the genre and WHY that genre exists, does that really make sense? Especially if, in breaking those norms, you essentially are now writing a different genre that already exists and could just market your book under that genre instead? This isn't about "writing to market" - it's about understanding the market. You can do that before or after you write, but once you know which genre is most likely to buy, the key is to make sure you're sending all the right "signals" to the right readers.
Get Help with Your Book Marketing Strategy
If you're not sure where to find your audience, need help implementing the above advice, OR you think you've got all locked down but your ads still aren't working, we're here to help!
Hop on a call with our team (if you qualify) and we'll send you some free resources after the call to help you even further! (And on the call, we can even lay out some options on how we can help you with guaranteed results if you prefer to have someone help you every step of the way.)
We can only help authors who are committed to quality, though, so you'll have to apply for a call below to see if you're a good fit!
👉 Apply for a Free Strategy Call to see how alignment can unlock your book sales.
