We were lucky to catch up with Stephanie Moon recently and have shared our conversation below.

Stephanie , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Alright, so we’d love to hear about how you got your first client or customer. What’s the story?

Thinking about to my first client, it really all came back to personal relationships. Steph Moon Co is a book marketing + consulting business. I help authors + publishers reach more of their ideal readers so that they can sell more books. Before I started my own business, I worked in Traditional Publishing for over 12 years.

Over that time, I had built up a network of old colleagues and people I had gotten to know over the years. When I first started my business, I was determined to reconnect with them and let them know that I had started my own business and that getting author’s stories into more readers hands was my goal!

As I reconnected with people from my past, it was a nice reminder that relationships are more important than ads and complex funnels. Relationships are really the bedrock of good marketing.

My first client ended up being a publisher that one of my past colleagues was working for. They needed help on a few key titles that were releasing later that years. The titles were high up on the priority list and needed a more senior marketing person to take the lead. They also did not have any time to train a new person on the systems, processes and intricacies of publishing. So I was the perfect fit. This was my first big client.

Personal connections and relationships still are one of the biggest sources of my clients. When publishers and authors are hiring someone, they want to have a personal referral since the needs are usually urgent and the price is not trivial. They want to know that I am who I say I am and that I can do what I say I can do. That said, for every business and brand, relationships are the things that make marketing shine. If you’re just starting out, spend the time getting to know your readers and customers. This connection will make it easy for you to create products and content that really connect with your readers.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

Books always played such a huge role in my life. I was always reading at the breakfast table, in the car and anywhere I could. When my jobs were in publishing, I felt like the luckiest person. I was helping authors tell their stories and making their dreams come true.
Over the years in traditional publishing, I worked with hundreds of authors and so many of them knew so little about marketing their book. It was a mix of not knowing that they had to market themselves and their book but also what they should actually do to market themselves. I started my business to help them understand both what marketing is and how to do it because the authors that sell the most books are often the ones who know how to continually market themselves.
These authors had spent years conceiving of, writing and editing their books – literally poured their hearts and souls into the book. Then when it was time to tell people about their book, they got shy and weren’t able to put the amount of effort required to truly get their book out into the world.

I’m here to change that story! Through my digital products and 1-1 consulting, I give authors the education, tools and accountability to get their story out into the world.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

The first thing to remember is that growing your social media takes time!!! It takes time for everyone. When you discover someone who you feel like was an “overnight” success, I guarantee that this person has been creating content for a lot longer than you think.

The best ways I have grown my audience is by speaking at conferences. When I first started my business, I had no idea how many events and conferences there were for writers. But as soon as I found out, I started researching them. Then I figured out what these writers and authors were looking for so that I could come up with speaking session pitch. It worked. I started speaking at conferences and events aimed at writers and of course at the end of my talk, I always told them about my newsletter + social media handles. Since this was an audience who had seen me talk about publishing and book marketing, they either liked what I had to say or didn’t. And if they did, it was an easy follow for them.

For those just starting out being on social media, my advice is to just get used to be out there. Get used to being visible. It can be weird to be so open and out there at first. It feels vulnerable. But, what it’s really doing is giving your audience a chance to get to know you. And, by posting more on social media, its giving you a chance to get used to creating content, using the app and just being out in the digital world.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

For me, building relationships + my past work has definitely helped me build my reputation in the market. I had worked at so many large publishers through so many changes and upswings and downswings. This was really clear when I started talking to potential clients. I always had a story to tell about something that I had worked on in the past. I had colleagues recommending me to people they ran into professionally.

What it all comes down to is that being able to do the work you say you do is a huge part of building your reputation. I love helping authors – but I also know not every author is ready or the right person for me to work with. I used to try and figure out how i could work the authors that weren’t an exact right fit but it usually did not end up going well. So instead, I built up my suite of digital products. The digital products were an easy way for me to still be a resource for authors who needed an education and context around publishing and what they could do to set themselves up for success marketingwise. My digital products are really an answer to the most popular questions I get asked and what I really wished authors knew about marketing their book. For instance, The Author’s Agenda is a resource that gives authors the ideal milestones they should be working towards in the year before their book comes out. The Author’s Atlas shows authors how to create content to help draw readers in and then get the reader to know, like and trust them. And The Breakout Builder is for an author who wants their book to set their book apart from all the other ones their publisher is working on.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.stephmoonco.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stephmoonco
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephmoonco/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@stephmoonco9682

Image Credits

Photo by Darcy Rogers