Feb 8 — Find and Engage Readers for Your Books

The advantage of the internet is that anyone can write and sell a book. The drawback is that anyone can write and sell a book. The challenge has shifted from distributing one’s work to distinguishing oneself amidst a glut of content. This is the stark reality even if one lands a publisher, as marketing budgets continue to shrink across the industry. An enterprising author must also be a publicist, creating related content that establishes a cohesive brand and organically builds a readership. On February 8, Bill Belew will guide us step by step through this essential process.

Bill and his daughter Mia are the creators of the Growing Up Aimi series (1300+ pages). Within the first 6 months of launching the series in March of 2020, their books had been downloaded more than 5,500 times and counting. Bill will dive into the practical steps of getting eyeballs on your books by building a subscriber base that is engaged with a newsletter that is about you, your brand, and your books. The steps to take are free and they work … but you must put in the work. Bill and Mia began last March with twenty friends and family on their newsletter lists. They now have more than 3600 readers and are growing daily.

Bill served as a communications and intelligence officer in the US Navy. Following that experience, he lived and taught in Japan for nearly 20 years. In his 3rd career, he has lived in Silicon Valley, where he paid his sizable mortgage as a professional blogger, garnering more than 150 million views. He was eventually dragged into serving companies wanting to build their online brands after receiving too many probing inquiries: “How did you do that?” Bill has taught content marketing from SF to NYC to Bangkok to Singapore to Shanghai and back for multinational companies as well as aspiring authors. He holds an MFA in Creative Nonfiction.