WWN55 : The Biggest Listbuilding Mistake Writers Make

Launching straight into our newsletter issue two-parter trilogy quadrilogy of posts on creative side projects that by now needs no introduction.

If you done missed it all then:

Part one covered the unsexy but essential advice to build a financial foundation before starting a creative side project.

WWN52 : Starting a creative project on the side 

Part two covered a clarification of that advice, and went on to discuss the importance of expertise before you start teaching.

WWN53 : Creative Side Projects 

Part three covered becoming a niche unto yourself, featuring a conversation I had with Ben Settle and some others on email marketing.

WWN54 : Two approaches to list-building for creative side projects 

And part four now opens back in the middle of that conversation with Ben Settle et al. where I chipped in with what I think is the biggest mistake a writer can make building an audience…

…doing what I do.

i.e. building a brand around their writing, instead of around their writing.

The sum result of which is attracting an audience of writers, not readers. Or in the copywriting case, attracting an audience of copywriters, not clients.

Something that will be especially relevant to Codename Phantom, as he wrote to me after part two above to say this:

Which shows that Codename Phantom gets the whole focus of this issue of the Write Way Newsletter, without me even having written it yet.

But here’s what I said to Ben and Josh, and then we’ll unpack that some more…

James:

I think one of the biggest mistakes I see is writers who are like, I'm just gonna talk about writing from a writer's perspective. And it's like, yeah, great. You build a list of writers, but you're not actually attracting anyone who wants to read your novel.

So, like, putting that interest of, the movie magic kind of stuff where it's like, what would a reader find interesting in how I write this rather than trying to be like, oh, let me talk about this specific technique or whatever and how you can use it in your book.

Ben:

Well, it all goes back to what we were saying before. What's right for them? Why are they on your list?

What do you give away as a bribe to get on your list? Right? All these things relate, and there's no one size fits all answer to it. But at the end of the day, you just gotta be your own niche. Right?

And so there's a lot of stuff you can sell if you're a writer, no matter who you're selling to. It’s just you have to put some thought into it, but it doesn't have to be you know, you're not gonna live off just selling a $5 or $10 novel, right? I mean, unless you're Stephen King or something, you know, you have that going on for you but most of us don't, right? So if I was if I was in that position, I would find something else to sell as related as possible to whatever the fiction's about and sell that.

And then when you have stuff to talk about your novel, sell it. Like I sell my novel stuff maybe once a month. I don't spend a lot of time on it, but, you know, every writer is different. Y'all have different goals, but that's where I look at it. Just be that niche unto yourself.

Did you catch the important nuances there?

Because this is the stuff that is going to

make or break your list!

Get this wrong and profitability will be zero, the impact on your sales of all this list-building work will be zero, your chance of long term success will be zero.

Let me break out the important bits for you, dear reader.

From me: You build a list of writers, but you're not actually attracting anyone who wants to read your novel… it's like, what would a reader find interesting in how I write this

From Ben: I would find something else to sell as related as possible to whatever the fiction's about

See, the biggest problem most writers have is that they think about the writing a lot…

…So they post about the writing a lot.

And they don’t know much else other than writing…

…and they talk mostly to writers…

…so they attract an audience of…

…writers.

And that’s fine, writers are mostly nice people, but an audience of writers does not equate to an audience that buys romance novels, or science fiction books, or sings hymns or hires copywriters or need I keep belabouring the point?

The first lesson you need to learn in seeking to build an audience around your creative projects is that you need to serve the people who buy that kind of creative project.

You do NOT serve the people who create that kind of creative project.

Now, yes, you might be thinking…

“James, that’s a nice glass house you got there. Shame if somebody was to start…

…throwing stones in it!

After all, I’ve built a pretty effective brand doing exactly what I cautioned you about.

I write for writers, I teach writing, I sell writing courses and so on. Unlike the CAW-CAWs, I do all that from a bed of experience as a real writer, but my audience is still focused on writing.

And that works for me, because I’m obsessive about writing. I can talk about writing all day because I do a dozen different projects in different areas from the children’s book that started it all…

…to running a men’s literary magazine with friends…

…to writing theological poetry…

…to writing fiction…

…to writing nonfiction like this newsletter…

…to major editing projects for big publishers…

…to all the content you’re familiar with and so on.

And I do that because it’s not about the projects for me, it’s the craft. Every new and different angle I take, every wild project, it’s all just a chance to learn to write better.

So I’m naturally suited to running a business like this, but that doesn’t mean it’s the best approach for everyone else.

And I have to fall on the sword here, mea culpa, I started my online presence to sell my children’s book. And yes, we passed over 10,000 copies sold last month, which puts me somewhere in the region of the top 5% of all authors ever…

…but the online brand hasn’t been the main driver of those sales. That’s been word of mouth sparked by the quality of the book. The brand, and especially my email list, has helped to amplify and consolidate that, but it’s primarily organic growth.

If I was to go back to 2020 with the knowledge I have now, and the explicit aim of shifting more copies of my book?

I’d scrap the engagement slop guides that I started with and their advice that insisted everything had to be health, wealth, relationships etc.

Instead, I’d build a newsletter that targeted Christian parents, pastors and Sunday school teachers (primarily the latter two, reasons incoming) and drew on my interests in theology and parenting. Then I’d weave talk about the book through it, but in ways that appeal to those people, not just writers.

Instead of talking how lessons applied to writing, I’d be talking communication principles and the importance of truth and beauty in teaching kids etc.

Oh, and the reason I’d target pastors and Sunday school teachers over parents? Win a parent and they buy one book for one family. Win a Sunday school teacher and they buy a score of books for a score of families.

You have to target mass-buyers to achieve critical mass.

(That throwaway is enough gold to build another five newsletters out of it, but maybe sometime in the future, we’re running long on this answer already.)

Now, I don’t regret my decision. Like I said, I’m obsessed with the craft of writing and this lets me weave a lot more threads into my tapestry.

But I’m breaking down the alternative for anyone like Codename Phantom who wants to attract an audience around their creative pursuits, or even their professional pursuits, because for most people - building the audience around genre and interests is the better way to go.

So sit down and brainstorm before you begin.

Make a list of every topic you could write about for a year without growing bored.

e.g. writing, theology, kids, poetry, literature, mythology etc.

Make another list of every topic related to your creative project, everything your target audience is interested in.

e.g. kids, theology, parenting, homeschooling, education, politics, finances

Focus your initial audience-building efforts on the overlap between your lists.

Yes, like Ben Settle taught us last week, you have to become the niche. But you don’t start out at the niche. The harsh truth is that:

Nobody cares about you…

…yet!

So you have to make them care.

If you want to catch a tiger, you put meat in the trap, even if you’re a vegetarian. It’s all about the reader, serving the reader, loving the reader. That’s how you draw them in.

You give them what they want, what they need.

You solve their problems.

And as you do that, you build a reputation, you earn trust.

Not so you can then turn around and change to talk about something else, you gotta do all this from the start in alignment with your principles and who you are, your personality. But so that you can start to open up like you do in any good friendship over time, showing more and more facets of your personality and building the relationship of trust until you become the niche, and you can sell whatever you like.

Like I mentioned I’m using Low Stress Trading to set a financial foundation and someone signed up while I was on holiday from this list. And I talked about audience building recommendations like Masterclass 24/7 and others joined us there.

Or I could recommend you join Kieran Drew’s excellent Magnetic Content Masterclass to get a better grasp on creating the kind of magnetic content that attracts potential clients and customers, and more people will join that.

It’s all about building the trust and the relationship so that you can help people by pointing them in the right direction.

But you do that by talking about what they want to learn about, not by talking to your fellow writers.

And heck, we had one more question during our Spaces session and yet here I am running out of space in part four of our series…

…so part five next week, huh?

We’ll cover some collected thoughts from Ben Settle and John Wood on the practicalities of email marketing, author style. And then maybe we’ll be done with this series and moving onto something else.

Y’all need to be asking more good and detailed questions like Codename Phantom and maybe you’ll get ten thousand word replies that you feel you should be paying for as well…

But until next week, may your pipe inspire prose that attracts buyers, not writers,

James Carran, Craftsman Writer

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