Chanticleer Book Reviews

Tag: Advertising

  • I See You! How to Identify Your Book’s Target Audience

    Every genre is a competition

    Let’s face it, finding those who are looking for a book just like yours isn’t always easy. But finding your target audience is key to creating a base of loyal fans clamoring for your next novel. Understanding of your target audience allows you to tailor your messages to more effectively gain their attention and improve your marketing return on investment (ROI). You’ll be able to create content that resonates with your target readers, boosts engagement, and ultimately drives conversions. A win, win, win!!

    Whether you’re launching your debut novel or running a marketing campaign, understanding your readers can make all the difference in your success. Here’s a guide to help you effectively identify your target audience.

    Glasses, men, windows, icons

    Identifiers That Will Help You Find Your Target Readers

    Analyze Your Current Readers

    Start by examining your existing readers. That can be family, friends, co-workers, or anyone that you’ve shared your work with and know they want to read more. Look for common characteristics such as age, gender, location, income level, and interests. Once you get your website set up, tools like Google Analytics and social media insights can provide valuable data about who is already engaging with your brand.

    Conduct Market Research

    Talk to your current readers to find out what initially interested them enough to read your book. This can be done informally through conversations with pointed questions that will help you understand what drives your readers’ purchasing decisions.

    hand, design, measuring tape, thread, spool, button, paper, dress, woman, man, pencils

    Create Buyer Personas

    Once you have sufficient data about your readers, develop a reader character description. Just like the character descriptions you create when developing your characters, these are semi-fictional representations of your ideal readers. The information should include the demographics, behaviors, goals, and challenges your readers experience. A well-crafted reader persona is an asset to guide your marketing strategies and content creation, making them more interesting to your readers.

    Analyze Other Authors in Your Genre

    We all want our books to land on the bookshelves next to the best writers in our genre, so you better have a good understanding of your neighbors on that shelf will be. Study other writers’ books to see how they market their novels. Look at their covers, size, messaging on the cover, how they present the content, and then look those authors up on the web to see how they extend their marketing to their online presence.

    hands, wood, cell phones, fingers

    Engage on Social Media

    Using tools you already have in place gives you a leg up on identifying your ideal reader. Using your social media platforms as a goldmine for understanding your audience can really bring in a payload of new readers. Pay attention to the conversations happening in your genre, join relevant groups, regularly post, engage with your followers, and encourage them to share your content across their social media channels. Their comments and feedback can provide insights into their preferences and pain points.

    Test and Iterate

    Identifying your target audience is an ongoing process. Launch small campaigns or create content tailored to different segments of your audience, then analyze the results. Use A/B testing to determine what resonates best, and be prepared to adjust your strategies based on feedback and performance metrics. The better the campaign the more readers it will reach!

    “A/B testing, at its most basic, is a way to compare two versions of something to figure out which performs better.” Learn more from the Harvard Business Review here!

    Red, Green, black background, apple

    Considerations to Remember

    • Segmentation: Your audience is likely diverse, so consider segmenting it into smaller groups based on specific characteristics. This allows for more personalized marketing strategies.
    • Adaptability: Audience preferences can change over time. Stay informed about trends and be willing to adapt your approach as needed.
    • Feedback Loop: Encourage and monitor feedback regularly. This ongoing dialogue can provide invaluable insights into your audience’s evolving needs.

    Identifying your target audience is a crucial step toward building a successful brand. By taking the time to understand who your customers are, what they need, and how they think, you’ll be better equipped to create meaningful connections that drive engagement and sales.

    Remember, your audience is the heart of your business as an author! Knowing your audience is key to unlocking your full potential.

    Chanticleer Editorial Services – We’re ready when you are ready!

    Did you know that Chanticleer offers editorial services?

    We do and have been doing so since 2011!

    Tools of the Editing Trade

    Our professional editors are top-notch and are experts in the Chicago Manual of Style. They have and are working for the top publishing houses (TOR, McMillian, Thomas Mercer, Penguin Random House, Simon Schuster, etc.).

    If you would like more information, we invite you to email Kiffer or Sharon at KBrown@ChantiReviews.com or SAnderson@ChantiReviews.com for more information, testimonials, and fees.

    We work with a small number of exclusive clients who want to collaborate with our team of top-editors on an on-going basis.Contact us today!

    Chanticleer Editorial Services also offers writing craft sessions and masterclasses. Sign up to find out where, when, and how sessions being held.

    A great way to get started is with our manuscript evaluation service. Here are some handy links about this tried and true service: https://test.chantireviews.com/manuscript-reviews/

  • Where are the 2023 CIBA Winner Posts?

    Dude, Where’s my List?

    Two white guys looking for a car outside of tow service.
    Ashton Kutcher and Seann William Scott in the 2000 film Dude, Where’s my Car?

    A Frequently Asked Question

    With the 2023 CIBAs all wrapped up and the winners having been announced at the Four Points by Sheraton in beautiful Bellingham, WA on April 20, 2024, many people have the very reasonable question: Where are the official announcements, and why didn’t they all come out on that Saturday or on Sunday-the next day? (We are staffing the Books By the Bay Book Fair on Sunday).

    First off, you can see all CIBA Winner Lists as they come out on our website here!

    On our home page, these are all under the top center section labeled Book Awards News – CIBAs.

    Playing the Social Media Game

    While a PDF with a list of the winners could easily be posted, that wouldn’t uphold our promise to help with long-tail marketing and increasing our authors’ digital footprints. We are committed to maximizing promotion for authors.

    How do we maximize your promotion?

    The tiers of achievement for the CIBAs

     

    Our normal posts, when not during our conference season, tend to have double the response and interaction rate of comparable businesses. During the Chanticleer Int’l Book Awards, these rates rise to seven times the standard engagement of those other posts, and is still double the posts during similarly busy times at other companies. And that is for each Awards post that goes out. The way we do this is simple.

    First, we give each division breathing room on Social Media, on our high traffic Website, and our e-Newsletter in our flurry of daily email blasts that are sent out until all the lists have been posted. The consistent promotion over the course of two weeks allows for each set of winners to have their moment in the sun, and it keeps every post prioritized instead of being devalued by search engines for over-posting.

    We also try to tag each winner on Facebook per CIBA division. Again, if we post more than three posts per day, FB devalues the posts which means less exposure.

    Under the Hood with SEO

     

    One of the best parts of Chanticleer is our emphasis on being ahead of the technological curve. The main way we do this is through a robust SEO package that we usually talk about with regards to our Editorial Reviews, but we use all those same tools to promote the authors who advance in our Book Awards as well.

    You can see the article we put out specifically about the All In One Search Engine Optimization tool (AIOSEO) we use here.

    Argus Brown and David Beaumier presented a coffee klatch on this at CAC24 to help explain the ins and outs of promotion, specifically looking at different author websites and giving feedback right there in the moment!

    While most SEO tools recommend a score between 60-80, we always strive to exceed that, with many of our Book Award posts receiving a AIOSEO score above 90. We do this through our usual rigorous attention to detail surrounding the optimization of heading distribution, sentence length, alternative text, key phrases, meta data, tagging, and much more. There’s no replacement for basic elbow grease (or clicking away?) when it comes to maximizing our posts so that web crawlers love them and promote our authors writing as much as possible. We know from client feedback that it really makes a difference!

    Human Beings at Work

    A rare photo of the Chanticleer staff all in one place and, yes, that is a bagpipe under the Chanticleer table’s banner.

    Of course, it’s important to remember that we are a small business with huge reach that works hard to address every question, email, and comment we receive directly with care, empathy, and expertise. Putting together an internationally attended conference with authors from India, Australia, and the UK takes hours of dedication and careful planning. As we move into the follow up phase, we are just as determined to provide the excellent service that is a hallmark of Chanticleer. We double-check our work before putting the lists out, maximizing SEO, looking to see that names and titles are written correctly, and scheduling out posts to have the strongest online impact.

    Then, we promote all the CIBA winners again with our Overall Posts for the CIBA Fiction Book Awards, the CIBA Non-Fiction Book Awards, and the SERIES, SHORTS, and COLLECTIONS Awards.

    And then, the CIBA lists are kept on the HOMEPAGE of the Chanticleer Website for  a year with all those links!

    And then, we recognize the Division Winners in periodic SPOTLIGHT posts with links!

    And then, well we could go on, but I think you are getting the picture.

    Most of all the Chanticleer International Book Awards is a labor of love!

    Love of books, love of words, love of storytelling, love of authors,

    and love of the writing community! 

    We are passionate about what we do! 

    Finally, Thank You

    Thank you so much to everyone who submitted to the 2023 CIBAs and to the hundreds who have already submitted to the 2024 CIBAs. Every year, the quality and intensity of the competition is better than the year before, and we are always blown away by the incredible work you send our way. We will do everything we can to wrap up the 2023 CIBAs in the best way possible and get the ribbons and rewards out to all the winners before we dive into another year of Discovering Today’s Best Books.

    Thank you for making Chanticleer possible and for trusting us with your work!

    Team Chanticleer!