The Question…
Brad of LifeOnPurpose.com has a moderate-sized list on living your true life purpose. His other passion is speculative fiction and talking about his writing experiences on www.wbradfordswift.com. How can he leverage his list as a life coach?
Biggest Takeaway…
[Tweet “It’s hard to cross-promote to two markets. Light promotion and explanations go a long way.”]
Steve’s Answer…
This is a hard question to answer because everyone has their own tastes when it comes to fiction vs. nonfiction. Steve loves to read personal development books and business nonfiction, but his fiction tastes tend to be in the horror, fantasy, and science fiction niches.
It’s possible to do some cross-promotion, but it’s tough. Steve recommends building a brand for each platform. Each business should have its own email list, content, and social media accounts. Episode 13 includes detailed information on building an author platform.
There are a few ways to cross-promote to both audiences. Create a piece of fictional content that is directly related to whatever you’re writing. Brad tends to write speculative fiction, so he should write a piece of content in the speculative fiction style. This piece of content should be tied in to his nonfiction market.
Use the content to pre-sell your fiction books by putting it in your autoresponder sequence or add it to Amazon as a perma-free book. Be sure to recommend your fiction books to your nonfiction audience.
When Steve launched this podcast, he reached out to people who are directly interested in this market. He also reached out to the people on his Develop Good Habits list, who are not necessarily interested in self-publishing, to let them know about the podcast.
In Brad’s case, Steve recommends writing an engaging piece of fiction content that would appeal to his life purpose audience. Promote it to the nonfiction group, but don’t beat them over the head with a fiction book. By lightly promoting other titles, members of the nonfiction audience might buy some fiction books.
Again, it is hard to cross-promote to two markets. If you do a good job explaining how content developed for one market can help people in another market, you might be able to generate more sales.
Resources and Links
SPQ013: Steve discusses the importance of building an author platform.