What's a lead magnet, and how can it help you establish your career as an author? Get valuable insights on creating an effective lead magnet, building your email marketing list and engaging potential readers.

Publishers expect writers to do the brunt of the marketing work. But they don’t tell you how.

There’s a better, easier, less stressful path toward career-making visibility, and you don’t need to have a book launch on the horizon to take advantage of it. Get a strategy to confidently market your work—and give your writing a fighting chance in a crowded marketplace. Good Story Marketing will give you a personalized plan that works with your unique strengths as a writer.

Lead Magnet for Unpublished Writers Video Transcript

This is Mary Kole with Good Story Company. And today, I wanted to talk about a little bit more of an advanced topic, a marketing topic, and that is creating a lead magnet as an unpublished writer.

So lead magnets are PDFs. In the business world, they're often called whitepapers or reports, PDFs that somebody can download as a result of signing up for an email newsletter. The logic behind them is that you want to entice somebody to sign up by giving them a little bit.

So my lead magnet is a submission cheat sheet, which is 26 or so pages of information, and best practices, and resources for submitting to agents and publishers. This is a very popular topic with writers and so that's why I chose it to sort of entice people onto the Good Story Company mailing list. For the longest time, 10 years, I did not have a lead magnet. I had this kind of cocky attitude of like, well, you know, like, I don't need to give stuff away. And I forgot all about that very quickly because it turns out, people like a little enticement, especially if it has value. It communicates that that's the kind of relationship we're gonna have. I'm gonna give you value and you're gonna get something out of it. And you'll see that this is well-made, and thoughtfully created, and the advice is good. And maybe, we'll have a relationship down the road where I edit your manuscripts or you take one of my classes.

And that's kind of the point of the lead magnet. It's not just like some fun stuff or some quickly thrown together stuff that you just give away, to like trick people onto your mailing list because that's not starting the relationship off on a great foot. You really want to think about and be intentional about what you give away as your lead magnet because it's sort of the first impression, the opening of a conversation that you hope to have with your reader.

Now, I am very, very outspoken that an email marketing list is very important to build, especially as early as you can start, even if you are not published and you don't have anything to necessarily market or sell with your newsletter. But those emails, those people who have, you know, raised a hand and said, "I want to hear from you," they're going to be very, very important for your career going forward. And so, thinking about a lead magnet as an unpublished writer is a little bit different than thinking about a lead magnet when you already have a book out. In that case, you can do like a character dossier, or a hidden chapter, or an alternate ending for people who are already your readers. You sort of have a little bit more of a built-in audience when you have a book out, so you can easily generate lead magnet ideas.

But when you're not published, should you still have a lead magnet? And I would say that if you can figure out a clever way to do it that adds value and brings value to your potential readers, absolutely. It's not too premature. But the question becomes nobody really knows you. Nobody really knows your book. And you don't necessarily want to release kind of a raw manuscript as a lead magnet because people don't know it yet. They don't know whether they should be intrigued or not.

So what do you really put out in the world as a lead magnet to try and entice people to learn about you and to sign up for your email newsletter? So it's a lot easier if you write nonfiction or if there's anything in your novel or your kind of proposed brand that lends itself well to something people are interested in. So, for example, if you're writing nonfiction about butterflies, you could do a lead magnet of, you know, a dozen really cool butterfly facts. And if you're writing for kids, you could do it as a sort of downloadable for parents to sort of teach their kids about butterflies. It could be like a teacher resource, a parent resource. A classroom resource would be a really great lead magnet. Even if your book is not out yet, people can find it and get value from you. And then once on your mailing list, then once your book does come out, you can let them know. And they'll probably be eager to follow whatever you're doing because you've given them value.

Now, fiction writers have a little bit of a more difficult road home because what's my lead magnet gonna be? It's not gonna be my manuscript because nobody really knows the story or is invested in those characters yet. But is there anything about your story world or the topic you're writing about that would lend itself to a cool and maybe outside the box lead magnet? Now, I'm thinking you're writing women's fiction about a beach town. And maybe you put together a really cool guide to decorating your beach house. Obviously, not everyone has a beach house. It's a little tongue-in-cheek and it doesn't necessarily 100,000% have to do with your book or you, but it communicates a little personality, a little outside the box thinking. And it could sort of get people who are gonna be readers of a fun beach read set in a beach town who, down the road, you know, they've volunteered their interest in your subject matter, will buy your book once it's published because you have an interest in common.

My husband started a catering company. And for his lead magnet, I want him to do a guide to elegant party planning so people get really in the mood to throw a party. And maybe, they decide to hire the food out once they're in the mood to throw a dinner party. That's what he specializes in, is doing these sort of elevated dinner parties in backyards now, because of COVID, rather than, you know, catering a business lunch or whatever. And so, get people in the mood for what you're doing with your lead magnet, and then, down the road, it could pay off. It's like you got me in the mood to throw a party, why don't you handle the food? Bang. That lead magnet did not draw a direct line but indirectly, it paid off and they got somebody to sign up for your email list.

So think outside the box if you're a fiction writer, if you're an unpublished writer. You can always switch out what your lead magnet is once you have a better idea. But I would recommend having one in place just to see what happens and to see who you catch for your email newsletter. It's never too early to start thinking in that direction because ideally, you will have something to market one day soon.

My name is Mary Kole. This is Good Story Company, and here's to a good story.

You may still be on the submission trail, but want to begin building your platform. More and more, agents and publishers will be looking to review your platform. Whether you’re starting from scratch or want to nurture seeds you’ve already planted, it’s never too early to start marketing yourself and your writing!