Summary: Introduction<br> James L Rubart: And in this episode, we’re going to talk about how to use content to promote your book.<br> Thomas Umstattd Jr.: Joanna Penn is an award-nominated, New York Times bestselling author of thrillers under J.F.Penn. She has sold over half a million books all over the world. Her site, <a href="http://TheCreativePenn.com">TheCreativePenn.com</a> is regularly voted one of the top 10 sites for writers and self-publishers.<br> Joanna and I got started blogging about marketing for authors at about the same time in 2007. Joanna smartly focused on independent authors while we at <a href="http://www.authortechtips.com">Author Tech Tips</a> and <a href="http://www.authormedia.com">Author Media</a> focused too much on traditional authors. She got on the ship that was rising and I got on the ship that was sinking. So I have since drunk the indie author Kool-Aid, but Joanna, welcome to the show.<br> Joanna Penn: Oh thanks for having me guys. And it’s so funny you say that, because someone was asking me the other day “why does your blog always come up when people Google stuff” and I’m like it’s because I started in 2008 blogging about self-publishing when seriously nobody wanted to know about self-publishing. So if you get early on something that’s not popular, then when it finally becomes popular, you know you’ll be out in front. But yeah it’s great. We’re talking about this today.<br> James Rubart: Well and it’s not only the fact that you got in early, but you have excellent content. Thomas and I are both fans of your show. So congratulations on doing it for a long time, but also doing it so well.<br> Joanna Penn: Thank you so much. I was also saying to someone “check out the Wayback Machine. You guys know the Wayback Machine, when you can look at websites what they looked like. My site in 2009 was a lot different. So again, we will get better over time, right?<br> What is content?<br> Thomas Umstattd: I want to talk about content, and Joanna, it’s really easy for those of us in the industry to just assume we know what content means.<br> I was working at a radio station, I had a radio show. And they were struggling, and I was like “you need to be focusing on creating content.” And one of the staff people at the radio station, looked at me and said “What do you mean by content?” And I was like…”what do you mean, ‘what do you mean by content?’?”<br> So what is content?<br> Joanna Penn: So, for me, content as it relates to marketing, so let’s call it Content Marketing, is basically creating and sharing online material, like articles, video, audio, images, that don’t explicitly market your products. Not “buy my book” type stuff, but instead, attract attention to your Web site or your profile with the aim that some of the people who check out your content is a bit of a full-on approach.<br> So lots of people might look at a blog post and then some of them may end up joining your email list, following you on social media and may eventually buy your books. So I find it very attractive as an introvert, which is why I’ve always done it because it’s an attraction form of marketing. So in nonfiction it’s putting out useful stuff and fiction we’ll be talking about more in detail. But you know it’s attracting your ideal readers when it comes to being an author.<br> How does content marketing work for introverted authors?<br> James Rubart: Joanna, talk to us for a second, because you just said a keyword that I relate to and a lot of our listeners relate to, and that is introvert. A lot of people just do not want to do the marketing. But you’re saying this is a way for introverted authors to actually do marketing.<br> Joanna Penn: This is something I care a lot about as well.
