Book Marketing
Without Paid Ads
Learn to market your books without paid ads and take your first steps during this FREE online course!
Build your Platform
During the course, you’ll put in real work to build the platform you need to reach readers.
Find Readers
You’ll learn the methods to find readers without the use of paid ads.
Gain Support
The course is designed to be interactive with us and other authors—so you won’t do it alone!
SKILL BOOSTER
Book Marketing
Without Paid Ads
Maybe you’ve tried book marketing…
- And it never worked out. You never managed to complete the multitude of steps it takes to tweak and refine your ads to get to the point where the results earned more than you were spending.
- Or maybe they just didn’t earn more than if you saved all that time and just wrote instead of marketing.
Or maybe you got those ads to work…
- And then they suddenly stopped working because of “saturation”
- Or they doubled in price
- Or your keywords became too popular and too expensive
Paid ads require a lot of effort, even when they are working
And when they aren’t working, they require a lot more work. Oh, and money. Don’t forget the money. Yes, you need to let readers know about your book, but paid ads aren’t the only way to do so. You don’t have to “pay to play.” Whoever made up that rule?
There are a lot of ways to reach readers and paid ads are only one of them
We’ve been there. We have run Facebook ads, Instagram ads, AMS ads, Bookbub ads… you name it, we probably at least tried it as an experiment. Some of them worked great. Some of them never seemed to kick in. Some fizzled and some just keep going and going.
No matter how much we try to reproduce great ads, they don’t always translate well across books or genres. Some are winners, some are duds. No matter what though, they all take time. A lot of time. And it is time you don’t get back.
Worse, it is time spent adding money to another businesses’ account and relying on their platform. Not yours. Those aren’t your readers to contact and woo into becoming fans. Not unless they find your website and signup there to join your mailing list. Until that point, all you’ve done is spent a lot of time and a lot of money to get people to look at your book while building up the revenue of another mega-business.
There has to be a better way. Right?
That’s what we thought and then it hit us. Content marketing. It isn’t anything new. It once was our sole method of reaching readers before we jumped on the paid ads bandwagon. So why not go back to it with some modern tactics thrown in? After all, the idea might not be new but the web has changed a lot over the last decade. Throwing up a blog article isn’t enough, not to reach readers and grow an audience. There are skills you need to do well and you must not get disheartened. But it is possible!
Why not build your platform and use your time to create something that will interest readers which you can also reuse, instead of just pumping money into someone else’s mega-website?
That is what we do in this Skill Booster. Teach you the methods to reach readers without paid ads while using all the modern tools we can throw in. Plus, you’ll walk out of these 5 days with the framework of your online platform in place, a content marketing funnel ready to go, and a nice dose of support from fellow authors.
Are you in?
LEARN
What you’ll learn
Content Marketing Essentials
Foundational Lessons
Learn what content marketing is, the core components, and how you will use them as an author in order to reach readers. We’ll cover topics such as how to attract the right readers, marketing funnels, and website SEO.
How to Find the RIGHT Readers
Finding readers
Not every reader is the perfect fit for your book. So we break down how to discover who is your ideal reader and where to find them. Plus, we’ll get into how to attract these readers to your book effectively.
Build Your Foundation
Finish with essentials in place
During the course, we’ll give tips and advice as you build the essentials you’ll need to begin your content marketing as soon as the course ends, such as an author website, email automations, reader magnet, and more.
FREE
This Course is Free Thanks to World Anvil!
World Anvil is already an awesome platform—a place where you can worldbuild, create characters, monsters, and more AND keep it all organized. Oh yeah, did you know you can write your novel in the platform as well. If that isn’t enough, World Anvil also is sponsoring this Skill Booster, so it can be free for everyone! There is nothing more awesome than that.
Haven’t heard of World Anvil? Go check it out!
WHY
Why Not Just Use Paid Ads?
Paid Ads require time and $ to fine tune
You can’t just launch into paid ads and be successful. You have to take time and money to test the waters, fine tuning your ads until you get them right.
content marketing starts on day 1
Every piece of content marketing you create will continue to attract readers—no part of content marketing is ever wasted. At least not if you start out with a strategy!
Paid ads build someone else’s platform
When you pay for ads, you are bringing more revenue and traffic to someone else’s website, making you dependent on how well they are doing.
Content marketing builds your platform
Content marketing helps you build your platform, making you easier to find with every post you make as you grow your audience in a way you control.
Paid ads lose effectiveness
Over time, your carefully vetted and created paid advertisements will lose their effectiveness. You’ll have to go through the whole process to tweak them and, hopefully, find new ones that will work.
Content marketing only grows
With every piece of content you create, you are adding to a marketing portfolio that will continue to expand your reach and platform. No time or effort is lost!
FEATURED
About the Course
5+ Day Course
Learn the Basics FAST
This course is designed to get you up and running to tackle content marketing on your own in one quick sprint. Of course, that means you’ll need to put time aside to tackle the lessons, ask questions in the group, and do your homework to get the full benefits.
Interactive
Learn Along with Other Authors
This course is hosted as a sprint where we release a post and video for you each morning, giving you lessons and instructions to be completed that day (well, ok, there are some buffer days built in to catch up!). You’ll post updates, questions, and homework lessons in the course group and be able to connect with other authors as well as get help. In other words, you don’t just get a course you’ll want to do but never open—you’ll get to do it and have some fun at the same time.
CHOOSE US
Why Learn With Us?
7+ Years of Teaching Online Courses
With our first pilot course in 2015, we’ve had time to build, practice, and learn the best tactics to teach effectively.
Over 500 students
From self-paced to one-on-one coaching, we’ve helped more than 500 authors!
8+ existing courses
We want to help authors, so we keep expanding what we offer to keep up with author’s needs.
Teachers as well as authors
Autumn & Jesper have both taken courses to learn how to teach effectively. As authors, they have more than 30 books published between them.
Our Award Winning or Bestselling Books
Learn From Home
Learn Online—But Not Alone
This course is not your typical sign-in and work at your own pace. Yes, you’ll get an online video and post in the morning that you can get to during the day, but so will hundreds of other authors! Throughout the day, you can check in with the online group to ask them and other authors questions, find inspiration, and, of course, find support along with new friends!
About US
Our Story
Autumn and Jesper joined forces in 2017, after Autumn launched Am Writing Fantasy in the spring of that year. But the story begins far before that. Autumn first self-published in 2012. Jesper’s debut release was in 2016. Together, they have more than 30 books between them and over 17 years of writing, publishing, and book marketing experience. With a strong desire to help fellow authors, they’ve built Am Writing Fantasy as a place to provide tips, courses, podcasts, and more with the aim of helping authors achieve their dreams.
Students
Courses
Books Combined
Writing Awards or Bestselling Books
TESTIMONIALS
What Our Students Say
Darren
Ultimate Fantasy Writer’s Guide Starter Kit
As a direct result of taking your courses, I have rewritten an entire 1st chapter of a Women’s Fiction WIP, and I am becoming more confident in how to connect Character and Plot effectively in my Thriller WIP.
Mary
Character Development Essential Skills
I cannot thank you enough for your way of making sense of the writing process.
Stacey
Ultimate Fantasy Writer’s Guide
This is the first course that really made things click for me.
Naomi
Ultimate Fantasy Writer’s Guide
FAQ
Frequently Asked
Is this course really free?
Yes, this course is 100% free. We don’t charge anything for any part of it. There are no hidden costs, nothing you have to buy, and no surprise paywalls to access the material.
Is this course one of those online, at-your-own pace video courses?
Not really. We have designed this course to be interactive and in many aspects, it is more like a “live” course. We will release a video and webpage each morning of the course outlining the lessons for the day and homework. There will be a group where you can go and post questions, find inspiration, and post the results of your homework.
This course sounds like a lot of work. What if I don't have time to finish it?
We won’t lie—this mini-course is intense. You should plan on putting time aside for it so you have time to do the homework, ask questions, and focus on your book marketing.
However, there are extra days built into the course so that you have time to work between the lessons and catch up.
How often does this course run?
Since we are online helping students during the duration of the course, we only offer the course a few times a year. When you signup today, you will get into the schedule for the next session. That might be in a couple days, in might be in a month. We’ll stay in touch via email to give you updates and you can email us at any time.
What will I have when I finish this course?
When you finish this course, you will have not only a solid knowledge of what content marketing is and how to apply it to find readers, you’ll have:
- A knowledge of what content marketing for fiction is
- A reader magnet (or at least a good start on one)
- Know who your ideal reader is and what they like
- Know how to research good post topics
- An author website
- An email provider
- A welcome email sequence
- At least 5 pieces of content written
- Know how to (easily!) make images for your content marketing
- Understand how to create a content marketing schedule to stay on track as well as how to keep track of your most popular topics
Is this course just for fantasy authors?
No! It’s true we are “Am Writing Fantasy” but we try to help all authors. Some of our courses are fantasy specific, but many are open to authors of any genre. This is one of them!
You just need to be an author to take advantage of this material and join us. We can’t wait to meet you.
Sign Up Today!
Because the course is interactive, we only run the Skill Booster a couple of times a year. Signup so that you are sure not to miss the next session. Transform your book marketing by switching to or adding content marketing to your marketing plan so that you can reach new readers and keep growing your audience!