Introduction

Examining the marketing strategy behind Karina Halle’s Discretion perfectly illustrates the nature of marketing within the romance genre and how it differs from the marketing of other genres. In The Book Business: What Everyone Needs to Know, Mike Shatzin and Robert Paris Riger write about the future of the publishing industry, and how romance is shaping it. Shatzin and Riger propose, “at a future date it would be fascinating to study the shift from the mass-market paperback-dominated romance industry to the robust e-book-controlled romance world of today (128).” This paper will tackle one facet of the “robust e-book-controlled romance world of today,” how marketing for these e-books is vastly different than the strategies and best practices for any other genre within the publishing industry.

Catherine Sheldrick Ross’ contract theory of genres states that readers have clear expectations of what they have signed up for (Broadhurst). A writer must satisfy the request of their reader, in the case of romance there are expectations around meet cutes and happily ever afters that authors need to fulfill to make their readers happy. For many romance authors they must market their books as fulfilling the contract in order to bring their readers back for more. Ursula K. Le Guin’s piece “Staying Awake: Notes on the Alleged Decline in Reading” describes the relationship between the reader and the writer as one of mutual necessity (Le Guin). A writer needs a reader in order to have a story and this is the case no matter the genre. A unique aspect of the romance genre is that the marketing strategy also relies heavily upon the reader, the reader as a reviewer is an essential marketing tool that the best romance authors take advantage of. Through examining the marketing done by Karina Halle herself, the publisher Montlake Romance/Amazon Publishing, and the countless reviewers including myself one can garner the uniqueness within the industry of marketing for romance titles.

Marketing Done by Karina Halle Herself

An essential marketer in the romance genre is the authors themselves. The nature of the genre puts pressure on many romance authors to release books at a rapid pace. Karina Halle herself has published close to fifty books in less than ten years of writing. So, for an author like Karina Halle much of her fan base supports her overall rather than latching onto a particular book, and it is up to her in many cases to market her own books. Karina Halle started independently publishing in 2011 with the first book in her Experiment in Terror series, Darkhouse (“Darkhouse (Experiment”) Jumping forward to today, close to fifty books later Karina Halle has amassed over 4,500 members in her Facebook Fan Group(Karina Halle’s (Anti)Heroes,over 37,000 likes on her Facebook page (Karina Halle), over 12,400 Twitter followers(@metalblonde),and 31,500 followers on Instagram (authorhalle). It is on these platforms where her marketing for her books will take place. In the case of Discretion there was a heavy marketing presence before the release.

The marketing began from the day Karina Halle announced that Montlake Romance had acquired The Dumonts series. All three books in the trilogy had Goodreads pages, which prompted fans to quickly add the new stories to their to be read shelves and they began to post about their anticipation online. This was quite strategic as now Karina Halle’s fans were anticipating the release for months and because of this they were generating buzz online for months prior to release. When marketing was to be done closer to the release date many potential readers would have already had a familiarity with the anticipated series.

This leads us to the most anticipating drops in the romance reader world, the cover and synopsis reveal. The day before the cover reveal, Karina Halle took to her Facebook Fan Group, Karina Halle’s (Anti)Heroes to announce the cover and synopsis. These Facebook Fan Groups are vital places in which marketing can occur as it is a space in which the people in it will be very suspectable to wanting to read what you’ve written. By posting the cover and synopsis a day early to fans within this group, Karina Halle makes the fans here feel special and she makes group membership look like an easy way to gain exclusive content. Facebook Fan Groups allow for readers to feel more connected to the authors, and this connection pays off. Facebook Fan Groups also provide the ability for author takeovers and promotion. In this example another author Melanie Harlow posted a giveaway for her latest release Insatiable in the Karina Halle’s (Anti)Heroes group. Karina Halle also posts in other author’s Facebook Fan Groups in order to promote her books. These types of posts support and grow the overall community of romance writers, readers, and stories. Then later, on the actual cover reveal day she posted about the release on her public facing social media accounts. Within her posts on the cover reveal she positions her release as “think Dynasty crossed with Crazy Rich Asians (but make it Fashion! And French!)” Piquing her readers interest through positioning she eludes the reader to what they have signed up for, yet still leaves room to put her own spin on it and surprise her readers with twists and turns.

The next significant phase in Karina Halle’s own personal marketing is the weeks before release in which she continually reminds her readers in a certain number of weeks or days that Discretion is coming. These types of posts tend to contain teasers of what is to come in the upcoming novel. The example post provided, showcases how the teasers not only states a quote or passage from the book, they also illuminate aspects of the story and characters through the chosen imagery. Hence the man in the teaser who is portraying Olivier is tan in skin tone to highlight his Western European roots. In all the teasers for the second book in The Dumonts series Disarm, the woman in the teasers is of Indian descent in order to accurately portray that the leading lady of the story, Seraphine is of Indian descent.

The final stage of the marketing campaign from Karina Halle’s perspective takes place on the actual release day. On August 6^th, Karina Halle took to her social media accounts and shared her excitement about her latest release. Her Instagram featured a picture of herself with a finished trade paperback edition of Discretion. Karina advertises the book as a standalone romance in order to make the book seem approachable to new readers. Karina Halle also shouts out how to read her book, specifically she highlights the fact that it is available for free as a part of Kindle Unlimited. As well as referencing the fact that it is available in eBook, paperback, and audiobook in order to satisfy every readers preference for format. Karina Halle’s marketing starts to taper off here, she does naturally mention the book and celebrate any successes it sees on the Amazon charts. She does have to move on though pretty quickly as her next release followed soon after. Karina Halle does not go on a publicity tour or get any media attention. She moved on to discussing writing The Younger Man an independent published story she was working on, now releasing on December 11^th, 2019 (“The Younger”). As well as another independent release that came out on October 19^th, 2019, The Royal Rogue the fourth standalone story in her Nordic Royals series (“The Royal”). Karina Halle soon also began marketing the standalone sequel to Discretion, Disarm which released on November 19^th, 2019 (“Disarm (The”). Karina Halle has to repeat this process: cover reveal, teasers, and release day marketing with every new story. With a case like Discretion she even got another boost of marketing as upon the release of Disarm, she was once again able to market Discretion to new readers.

Marketing Done by Amazon Publishing

In most cases, romance authors do not have a publishing company behind them. Mike Shatzin and Robert Paris Riger write, “Romance, a huge category overall selling 156 million units… is now 96 percent e-books, and a controlling share of these—55 percent of romance units—are self-published independently (128).” For much of Karina Halle’s career, she was self-published and relied upon her own marketing and the enthusiasm of her fans through word of mouth to spread information about her latest releases. Many more authors are turning towards Amazon for help as through programs such as Kindle Unlimited and Audible exclusive releases romance authors are being rewarded for their dedication to their craft and the hard work they put into every story.

In Discretion’s case it was published under the Montlake Romance imprint of Amazon Publishing. Montlake Romance lacks its own social media presence so all marketing from the publisher is done on Amazon Publishing’s pages. During the release month of August, Amazon Publishing did market Discretion to their followers through promotional imagery and videos. Leading into September, Amazon Publishing began to include Discretion in videos as a part of a lineup of some of their other recent releases.

Amazon Publishing tagged Karina Halle in these posts and wrote similar body text to what Karina Halle wrote in her publicity posts for her own book. Yet Karina Halle’s social media posts have more engagement: more likes, comments, and shares. Karina Halle has spent years cultivating a fan base, while Amazon Publishing is still relatively new to the world of romance book publishing. Their strategies are good, they match the work that public relations companies such as Social Butterfly PR and InkSlinger PR have been doing quite effectively within the genre for years. It will take time for Amazon Publishing to become respected amongst the romance community due to the highs and lows of Amazon’s relationship with the community. Inventions like CreateSpace and Kindle Unlimited have gotten romance books into the hands of readers for which authors will be forever grateful. For every good side, there is bad though and Amazon has been bad to romance authors. Amazon has the power to decide if people see your book, specifically if the algorithm will show the book to potential readers. Lauren Blakely learned the hard way when months after her book The Engagement Gift had been released Amazon contacted her to let her know the book was deemed “erotica” based on a number of reviews that had described the book as such. Amazon refuses to recommend erotica to readers, so Lauren Blakely was told her book would no longer be recommended to potential readers. This forced Lauren Blakely to take the book off Amazon and to write more chapters in order to flush out the more love story aspects of the book to prove to Amazon it was not a hardcore erotica novel. Other authors, specifically Jay Crownover have had their release dates completely ruined when Amazon does not review their e-book in the timely manner, that they said they would and consequently the book does not go live on release day. It is cases such as these that have eroded the trust between Amazon and the romance community. In order for Montlake Romance to become successful at marketing to romance readers they will need to mend the broken relationship the community has with Amazon.

Marketing Done by Fans (Specifically Reviewers)

With the Amazon dynamic described above, it should come as no surprise that I will argue that the most prevalent marketing comes from the readers themselves, in two ways through fan excitement and through the work of reviewers. The aforementioned Karina Halle’s (Anti)Heroes is where these fans congregate and form a succinct marketing strategy. That strategy is the teasers to share, the promotional images to spread, the book cover to swoon over, and the release day celebrations. Karina Halle’s fans are encouraged by positive interactions with her and with other fans to pick up Discretion, review Discretion, and share their love for Discretion with other readers across the social internet. The nature of today’s internet has allowed for almost any fan to naturally and easily transition into a reviewer, thanks to such platforms as Goodreads. It is these fans that demonstrate where and how to get your hands on a copy.

The nature of the romance genre is that not every store will be able to carry all fifty books Karina Halle has ever published. Some authors have more success regionally, for example Helena Hunting a hockey romance writer from Ontario has many of her books in store in the Indigos of the greater Toronto area (“MEET CUTE”). While for someone like Karina Halle despite being a born and bred Vancouverite not a single trade paperback was available at any of the Indigo locations in the lower mainland (“DISCRETION by Karina”). This is common with every Karina Halle release, but is truly the norm with most romance authors. The best retailers for romance novels remain independent speciality stores, such as The Ripped Bodice in Los Angeles, California or Amazon for both the trade paperback and e-book format. BookNet data may demonstrate this book as a break-even book, maybe even a flop. BookNet data from September 20^th, 2019 stipulates that the book sold thirteen copies in the first seven weeks it was on sale (Broadhurst).Then compare that to two days after release on August 8^th, 2019 the book was a number one bestseller in the Billionaire Romance category on Amazon. This is marketing at work there was so many teasers and posts spread around about Discretion being on Amazon and being in Kindle Unlimited that much of the book’s success was on that platform. Despite Karina Halle’s Canadian heritage there was no considerable Canadian campaign, she chose to work with an American publisher, and the top retailer in Canada never carries any of her backlist.

The most influential marketers for romance authors, such as Karina Halle are her reviewers. As a reviewer myself I can speak to the process of obtaining the advance reader copy (ARC), writing the review, and sharing the review on social media. It was within the Karina Halle (Anti)Heroes Facebook Group that I first saw talk surrounding the ability to request the ARC on NetGalley. As Mike Shatzkin and Robert Paris Riger describe it, “a service… which makes it easy and much cheaper than it would otherwise be to distribute physical proofs to get the book in front of potential reviewers (40).” NetGalley is a great bridge between the publishers and the reviewers, as the publishers such as Montlake Romance can directly send a reviewer an e-galley that will transfer directly onto the reviewer’s Kindle device. Once you have been approved for an ARC by the publisher a reviewer is contacted by email with both a link to download the book on NetGalley and any specific notes from the publisher. Romance reviewers are used to a fast pace of reading, reviewing, and posting. In many cases an author will work with a PR company rather than with NetGalley and in many of those cases reviewers will have less than a week to read the book. NetGalley on the other hand caters more to traditionally published books so the books are actually finished months before release, which is not always the case with independent published books. For Karina Halle’s next release, The Younger Man, for which I am also reviewing I received the ARC on December 4^th and are expected to produce a review for the 11^th of December. While for Discretion I was given over a month to read the story and then craft a review. Montlake Romance was an immense help during the review writing process. Similarly, to the PR companies I am used to traditionally working with the reviewer is provided with a release blitz or a blog tour promotional package. This promotional package contains all the necessary information used to inform aspects of a review blog post, such as promotional images and teasers, excerpts from the story, links to the author’s social media, the author’s bio, and links to where the book can be purchased. These media promotion kits are essential as they promote a succinct strategy for the marketing campaign for an author’s new release. Reviewers are able to market the book using the teasers and excerpts that the author and the publisher wants people to get excited about. The final step in this process is to have all the reviewers post their reviews, collect them up through NetGalley or a Google Form, and interact with these reviewers on social media. Karina Halle will spend the days after a new book releases interacting with reviewers online, on Twitter for example she will like, comment on and re-tweet, reviewers’ tweets about their reviews. Reviewers will post their reviewers all over the internet from their blogs, to Twitter, to Goodreads, to NetGalley, to Amazon, and to BookBub. Fans ultimately trust reviewers over publishers when it comes to recommendations, so working with a well-established and well-loved reviewer goes a long way towards an effective marketing strategy.

Conclusion

Through examining the marketing of Karina Halle’s Discretion, one can gather just how unique marketing and publicity are in the world of romance publishing. The reader plays an essential role in the marketing of romance novels through interaction with the author, through spreading excitement about an upcoming release, and ultimately through dedication in reviewing. This does not discount the marketing done by the author herself, as Karina Halle is her best advocate online. As for Amazon Publishing, in a romance community dominated by independent publishing developing their marketing strategy will be an uphill battle. The hegemony of Amazon has not been stopped by traditional retailers and traditional formats in the face of digitally disruptive technology such as eBooks, Kindle Unlimited, and CreateSpace. I have no doubt that the hegemony of Amazon will make its impact felt in the romance publishing world as it has in the wider publishing industry.

Works Cited

Broadhurst, Jamie. “Readers and Genres.” Pub 350, 20 Sept. 2019, SFU Harbour Centre, Vancouver. Lecture.

“Darkhouse (Experiment in Terror #1) by Karina Halle.” Goodreads, Goodreads, Inc., www.goodreads.com/book/show/11356211-darkhouse.

“Disarm (The Dumonts #2) by Karina Halle.” Goodreads, Goodreads, Inc., www.goodreads.com/book/show/45693765-disarm.

“DISCRETION by Karina Halle (Paperback).” Indigo, www.chapters.indigo.ca/en-ca/books/discretion/9781542008532-item.html?ikwid=discretion&ikwsec=Home&ikwidx=0.

Halle, Karina. Karina Halle’s (Anti)Heroes, Facebook , www.facebook.com/groups/912577838806567/.

Halle, Karina. “authorhalle.” Instagram, www.instagram.com/authorhalle/.

Halle, Karina. Discretion. Seattle, Montlake Romance, 2019.

Halle, Karina. “Karina Halle.” Facebook, www.facebook.com/authorkarinahalle/.

Halle, Karina. “@MetalBlonde’s Twitter Bio.” Twitter, twitter.com/MetalBlonde.

“MEET CUTE by Helena Hunting (Paperback).” Indigo, www.chapters.indigo.ca/en-ca/books/meet-cute/9781538760185-item.html?ikwid=meet+cute&ikwsec=Home&ikwidx=1.

“Montlake Romance Media Kits.” Montlake Romance Media Kits, Amazon , montlakeromancemediakits.com/book/9781542008532.

Morden, Christina. “Karina Halle’s Discretion ARC Review.” ClaryNathanWill, 14 august 2019, clarynathanwill.com/.

“The Royal Rogue (Nordic Royals #4) by Karina Halle.” Goodreads, Goodreads, Inc., www.goodreads.com/book/show/48196387-the-royal-rogue.

Ursula K. Le Guin, Staying Awake: Notes on the alleged decline in reading, Harper’s Magazine, February 2008

“The Younger Man by Karina Halle.” Goodreads, Goodreads, Inc., www.goodreads.com/book/show/45446297-the-younger-man?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=arfk8AWsb8&rank=1.

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Discretion by Karina Halle is the first book in The Dumonts series. The Dumonts series is a three-book deal Karina Halle signed with Montlake Romance, an imprint of Amazon Publishing. Karina Halle is a New York Times bestselling author of fifty novels in the contemporary romance, romantic suspense, and horror romance genres. Looking at Discretion’s packaging and positioning by Montlake Romance, and the larger Amazon publishing team reveals a book that was deliberately designed as a follow up to what fans of Karina Halle and the romance genre agree upon as how a novel within the romance genre should be packaged and positioned.

Packaging

Amazon made the decision to publish the book as a trade paperback, foregoing the decision to publish the first edition in hardback. This choice is aligned with those of publishers who publish equivalent romance novels such as Forever, Atria, William and Morrow. Montlake positioned the book as valuable as an e-Book by selling it at a low price on the Kindle Store and by placing the book in the Kindle Unlimited program. The package design is the same across all markets, as Amazon is selling an English language version across its various global sites.

In terms of cover design, Montlake Romance went with the work of Hang Le (Halle), an industry leader in romance novel cover design. Hang Le has done many covers for Karina Halle before including, My Life in Shambles, Nothing Personal, The Swedish Prince, After All, Before I Ever Met You, and A Nordic King to name just a few (@byhangle). Leading romance authors such as Sierra Simone, Sarina Bowen, Melanie Harlow, Jay Crownover, Emma Chase, and Jennifer L. Armentrout (@byhangle).

Hang Le’s style is to make a series or an author’s books have a coherent style through the use of similar fonts and placements. In the case of Karina Halle, many of her books designed by Hang Le follow the style below

The covers of The Dumonts series that have been released so far are Discretion and its sequel Disarm.

There is a consistency of font choices with Karina Halle’s name appearing in Bodoni and the respective titles appearing in Versus Regular (“WhatTheFont”). The font choices are perfect as Bodoni’s history sees it used all over high fashion magazines, and the story features the Dumont family that works within Paris’ high fashion industry. The cover image for Discretion, is in line with both Karina Halle’s cover history, as well as many of the covers of bestselling romance novels. The classic imagery of featuring the male protagonist on the cover can be seen across the genre. Discretion’s cover model is Mitchell Wick and the photo was taken by Wong Sim (Halle).

The back cover features the lede “There’s rich. Then there’s filthy rich,” then the book description, and some imagery of the French Riviera where the book is set. The lede on the physical edition of the book differs from the lede online. On both Goodreads and Amazon, the lede is as follows, “From New York Times bestselling author Karina Halle comes a delicious saga of wealth, luxury, and scandal—and the wicked secrets of success behind an envied family dynasty.” (Goodreads and Amazon.ca)

The lede on the trade paperback edition has problems connecting to the image on the cover. The man pictured on the cover does not immediately scream wealth to me, maybe him pictured in a suit with an expensive watch on his wrist. There is even a scene in the book where the male protagonist, Olivier goes to a masquerade ball. If that scene was depicted on the cover it would have better reflected the wealth of the Dumont family as stipulated in the lede. The use of the word filthy here has a double entendre. Olivier Dumont is filthy rich, being the son of a wealthy family dynasty. The word is also supposed to allude to Olivier’s talents in the bedroom. A staple of the romance genre, the man is experienced in the bedroom and brings great pleasure to the female protagonist.

Turning the tables now to look at the online lede, which is longer and eludes to symbolic capital. Within the online lede of the description Karina Halle is highlighted as a New York Times Bestselling author. This mention is an appeal to Karina Halle’s symbolic capital, as your book appearing on the New York Times bestseller list is a great honour. It demonstrates to a larger audience that your book is reaching a wider audience, as Everett Rogers would say the book is reaching the early majority or even late majority, not just the innovators and early adopters. (Broadhurst) Karina Halle made the New York Times Bestseller list back in March of 2016, when she hit the number three spot on the E-Book Fiction list (“The New York Times Best Sellers”). This lede is longer first explaining that Discretion is first in a saga, as it is the first book in a three-book series. The choice not to display that the book is the first in the series on the cover is deliberate. In order to attract a wider readership, the series is one of related standalones with different protagonists set in the same world, in order to encourage readers to read any of the books in the series in any order. This lede also mentions the nature of secrets which is a big part of Discretion. The cover model can be seen as quite mysterious, the nature of him in profile rather than staring at the reader in a straightforward manner illustrates that he has something to hide.

Positioning

Discretion is positioned as a suspense romance book by Amazon. As a piece of genre fiction, the story is not positioned for a literary fiction crowd, rather it would be categorized as commercial fiction. The focus for Discretion is ultimately on the story, rather than on the writing style placing it firmly in the commercial fiction category. Discretion perfectly fits within the contract theory of genre fiction outlined by Catherine Sheldrick Ross (Broadhurst). It honours the rules around a happily ever after or HEA and a meet-cute that are essential requirements in a romance story, requirements that the reader expects the author to fulfill.

The book description eloquently displays how Montlake Romance is positioning Discretion. Following the different versions of the lede is the book description:

“The Riviera means indulgence—if you’ve got money. For Sadie Reynolds, a down-on-her-luck student, the Riviera means dingy hostels and back streets. When a wrong turn puts her in jeopardy, the last thing she expects is to be saved by the most handsome stranger she’s ever locked eyes with. When she later wakes up in a luxury suite with a Mediterranean view, she’s in the tender care of her rescuer: Olivier Dumont, France’s most eligible bachelor, billionaire hotelier, and heir to the Dumont fashion fortune.

Olivier also owns his reputation for scandal. But Sadie is unlike any woman he’s ever met. Her humble persona and wild innocence promise real passion. He’s promising Sadie something too: anything she wants. From Bordeaux to Cannes to Paris, Sadie’s past in America is swept away and replaced with a fantasy too good to be true.

Pulled into Olivier’s orbit of wealth, glamour, and excess, Sadie discovers that the Dumont dynasty comes with a legacy of wicked secrets. And Olivier’s secrets may be the most damning of all…” (Goodreads and Amazon.ca)

The description of Discretion positions it as a book that will fulfill the task of the escape. Clayton M. Christensen discusses how “we ‘hire’ products for a specific ‘job’ (Broadhurst).” Discretion, other books by Karina Halle and many stories within the romance genre are “hired” for the “jobs” of independence and escapism. The independence of a mother taking time away from her busy life and family, the book provides escapism taking her away to a foreign place, to a life of luxury she can only dream of. Sadie, the protagonist is the gateway to this escapism as she is a young woman who is rescued by a dreamy French billionaire.

Discretion has been positioned without endorsements from other authors or any leading publications such as Publishers Weekly, Booklist, or the New York Times Book Review. Positioning within the romance genre tends to follow the weak theory of positioning. As John Phillip Jones stipulates the average consumer is intelligent but apathetic (Broadhurst). The same is for the book consumer, so spending lots of money, time, and effort on glowing endorsements is not effective in the industry. The huge majority of romance novels feature endorsements from readers either from Goodreads reviews or book blogs rather than industry elites. Though many authors still end up endorsing books through social media buzz, rather than having endorsements appear on the physical package.

The trade paperback edition of Discretion from Amazon lacks any mention on a suggested retail price or SRP. This may deliberately relate to how Montlake Romance has positioned the book. Discretion within the Canadian market was only easily available through the Amazon website. No physical copies were available in any of Indigo stores in Vancouver’s lower mainland. I could find one store in the Toronto area that may have had one copy of the book. The only route Indigo had for purchasing this book was through their online store, for the price of $18.95 (Indigo). While on Amazon.ca the trade paperback costs $15.35 and the E-book only $1.99 (Amazon.ca) Amazon has positioned this book deliberately to be read by many as a part of the Kindle Unlimited program. The Kindle Unlimited program offers unlimited access to over a million E-books that can be read on the Kindle or on the Kindle App for the price of $9.99 a month (Amazon.ca). This program is positioned for the avid reader and Discretion along with the romance genre in general is as well. Speaking from experiences I have had with romance readers online they read so many books and that gets expensive. So, a program like Kindle Unlimited is so popular within the genre as a way for romance readers to save money while still getting to read all the steamy stories they love.

Montlake Romance has positioned Discretion to an audience of Karina Halle fans and loyal romance genre readers. The physical package has its issues, at least the copy I was sent the image and lettering on spine does not properly line up with the physical width of the spine. This book was not positioned to be bought and sold in a physical trade paperback, the E-book is priced at a reduced rate and is available in Kindle Unlimited. These choices display how Amazon has positioned this book in the Canadian market as a fun, adventurous, escapist e-book read.

Bibliography

Amazon.ca. “Discretion (The Dumonts Book 1).” Amazon.ca, Amazon.com Inc and affiliates, www.amazon.ca/Discretion-Dumonts-Book-Karina-Halle-ebook/dp/B07MYXWMQW/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1RABYVY8NI5H&keywords=discretion+karina+halle&qid=1571086941&sprefix=discretion%2Caps%2C215&sr=8-1.

Broadhurst, Jamie. “Harry Potter and the Perils of the Blockbuster.” Pub 350, 11 Oct. 2019, SFU Harbour Centre, Vancouver. Lecture.

Broadhurst, Jamie. “Readers and Genres.” Pub 350, 20 Sept. 2019, SFU Harbour Centre, Vancouver. Lecture.

@byhangle, Hang. “byhangle.” Instagram, www.instagram.com/byhangle/?hl=en.

Goodreads. “Discretion (The Dumonts, #1) by Karina Halle.” Goodreads, Goodreads, Inc., www.goodreads.com/book/show/43806074-discretion?ac=1&from_search=true.

Halle, Karina. Discretion. Seattle, Montlake Romance, 2019.

Indigo. “Discretion, Book by Karina Halle.” Indigo, www.chapters.indigo.ca/en-ca/books/discretion/9781542008532-item.html?ikwid=discretion&ikwsec=Home&ikwidx=4.

“The New York Times Best Sellers.” The New York Times [New York], 5 Mar. 2016, www.nytimes.com/books/best-sellers/2016/03/05/.

“WhatTheFont.” My Fonts, My Fonts Inc., www.myfonts.com/WhatTheFont/.

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Week 1: My take away from the first week of the course surrounds building and maintaining my audience. Most important to me is building an audience of dedicated fans rather than building a large audience.

Week 2: The benefit of sitting down and actually producing my business canvas became very apparent this week. It really helped me hone exactly what I am providing for my audience and the value they gain from that knowledge.

Week 3: I began this week to look at my website’s name ClaryNathanWill as a brand, as the brand of everything I do online. There is power in my name and what it represents.

Week 4: I found it very valuable when we discussed creating a style guide for my brand. This past month I took this to heart and honed a style guide for my posts. I have it organized down to which sections are which heading style and which sections have a certain background colour. This uniformity is really pleasing to me.

Week 5: The line that stuck out to me that lecture was one pertaining to writing an effective business canvas, “value propositions should answer the question why.” In my second business canvas, I mentioned specifically the why behind what I am providing. As an example, that I provide resource style posts in order to bring new readers into the know and make them dedicated readers.

Week 6: This week centered on storytelling and the power of it. It really made me look at my own story and why I am running this book blog. It caused me to grapple with my past as a reader and the future I want to build as a leader in the community.

Week 7: SEO! I knew absolutely nothing about SEO, so I was so grateful for all the information I took in that week. I applied the advice in how I structure my posts, through changing up the variety of paragraph styles and using headings that I was not using before.

Week 8: The discussion that week that surrounded the differences between content marketing, editorial, and advertising. These discussions were important for me as I took away advice on how to label my content, and to confirm that what I write is in fact sponsored content.

Week 9: This week brought great resources that I made use of over the course of the semester such as Giphy, Biteable, and Hemingway. This week will always be one I go back to in the future for the resources I was provided with.

Week 10: This week we looked at monetization and our look at it actually steered me even further away from considering it on my blog. The use of the barter system is what works for me right now, and is what will work for me for at least the next six to twelve months. I get free books that I want to read early, and in exchange I write an honest review.

Week 11: This week we did examine a business website in full detail, and through this process I was reminded about double checking that all my images and links work. A broken link or a picture that will not show up is annoying, but in some cases your audience could be led to something you do not want to be reflecting your brand.

This course has been so rewarding, as it has made my blog stronger and has infused me with a passion to continue to grow and strengthen the audience I am building into my imagined community.

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Here is my score…

I am pretty happy with a B+ for my SEO as I have only begun to strive to consider how good my SEO as I develop and grow my site.

Some of the sites recommendations are…

I had no idea that my heading tags are actually too short, such as About Me, Subscribe, and Contact Me. I want to do further research around just how long these headings should be. If I do decide to change them, I will make them more conversational. Similar to changes I made in my actual posts where the subheadings are now in phrase form.

iFrame content is the biteable video I created as a part of the assignment to explain my brand narrative without visuals. The format of the video does not lend itself nicely to my homepage, so I have debated removing it many times. This has convinced me to do so.

My tagline “Avid NA Reader Turned Avid NA Reviewer” is also too short according to this SEO Analyzer. I was under the impression that taglines should be on the shorter side, but I will admit to never being happy with my tagline so I am looking at alternatives and are debating changing it.

I am aware that many images on my blog are missing descriptive alt tags. I plan to do an overall site maintenance soon in which I add these descriptive alt tags and double check that none of my images are broken.

Using SEO Analyzer was very helpful as it brought to my attention problems I had not even identified as problems yet.

The post Process Post Week 11: SEO Analyzer appeared first on ClaryNathanWill.

I fear advertising on my blog would chase away my audience for a few reasons.

1. Ads would distract from my content
2. Ads would not always benefit my content
3. Other NA book blogs also refrain from traditional digital advertising

Ads would distract from my content as they would steal away someone’s attention, maybe someone would even click on the ad bringing them away from my website entirely.

Ads would not benefit my content as the even with all the controls google provides, there is no guarantee that every ad I get on my site actually mirrors what my audience would be interested in. Worse case scenario the ads depict practices or products I staunchly disagree with.

Other NA book blogs also refrain from traditional digital advertising, and this was the largest factor in my choice to not advertise on my blog. NA book bloggers are sent ARCs and in exchange for them we provide honest reviews, this barter interaction provides me with a sort of revenue.

For these reasons I am not going to consider placing advertisements on my website.

The post Process Post Week 10: Monetization appeared first on ClaryNathanWill.

Business Plan and Monetization

Shar’s apparent business plan is to bring enjoyment to her audience. I do not see anything that produces revenue for Shar on her website right now. I think there are options for monetization for Shar. She can always try advertising, I understand if she wants to avoid cluttering the website with ads, I feel the same way towards my website. It still is a legitimate option she could look at. Shar could also look to partnerships with companies that are also related to music. I noticed that Shar has a Spotify playlist linked at the top of her blog, it would be really cool if she could foster a partnership with Spotify surrounding the creation of playlists. I know at this stage that might be a faraway dream, but it is important to not lose sight of any monetization goal. Shar herself is writing music, and there are definitely a lot of smaller musicians that could benefit from a having their song featured in a Dissected Songs post on Shar’s website. Shar could barter a featured post for copies of their music, as a way to receive some sort of revenue from her site.

Engaged in a Call to Action

Shar tends to ask for direct actions from her audience. In her blog post in which she dissects the lyrics to Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper’s Shallow, Shar asks her audience to comment any song requests they may have.

This call to action allows for Shar to respond to what her audience wants and helps her to better understand who they are through the music they listen to. Shar would benefit from consistently asking her audience for their contributions.

Addressing the Second Peer Review           

Shar’s second peer review was done by Vanessa. Vanessa outlined a few recommendations for Shar including, playing around with different fonts, and adjusting the size of her Song of the Week feature. I totally agree with Vanessa that the video player is huge and takes away from Shar’s written explanation. This may be too hard to address but is something Shar should look at when she has time to edit her site. Vanessa also pointed out Shar’s lack of diverse font use, I understand completely falling into complacency with the fonts the theme provides for you. Again, when time permits have a look at fooling around with them.

New Challenges

Shar’s site features this logo, and in having this logo front and center takes away from the title of her website, Millennial Speaks.

Upon seeing the logo, one may assume that MS is Shar’s initials it is only when you scroll down that the site name becomes apparent. I would recommend finding a way to enlarge the name of the website so that it is very obvious to new viewers that they are on Millennial Speaks.

I am excited to keep reading and to follow Shar’s music journey. Congrats on building such a compelling and personal voice, that is inspiring and relatable to a wide audience.

The post Peer Review #3: Millennial Speaks appeared first on ClaryNathanWill.

I chose to look at using Biteable. I have already made a traditional infographic back in Publishing 101, so Biteable represented a chance to expand upon what I previously learned.

Biteable allows for you to pinpoint what you are promoting within your brand, and then they suggest video templates for you to edit. I selected that I was explaining a concept from my brand, and I was given a template that I really liked. Biteable was easy to use and provided me with a quality video that explains where I am coming from and why I started my brand.

Check out the video below…

Background to ClaryNathanWill on Biteable.

The post Process Post Week 9: Creating a Brand Narrative appeared first on ClaryNathanWill.

Background to ClaryNathanWill on Biteable.

Thank you for watching and supporting my blog.

The post ClaryNathanWill: Brand Narrative appeared first on ClaryNathanWill.

Since I started my blog I have mentioned at the beginning of every post where I got any graphics, teasers, and advance reader copies from. I did this based on other book reviewers I have encountered, as they will always mention if and when they receive an early copy for review. I saw this practice being used on other blogs, on Goodreads reviews, and in the descriptions of YouTube video reviews.

As someone who read reviews for years before delving into reviewing myself, I already was aware of the importance and being straightforward when you are reviewing an advance reader copy. I can remember when reviewers would get in trouble for not crediting the fact that they received an advance reader company. Not only that but it can discredit you, your opinions look bought if you do not address that your content is sponsored and that recieving the book for free in no way effected the reviw.

The post Process Post Week 8: Examining How I Address Sponsored Posts appeared first on ClaryNathanWill.

Remy’s Social Media…

Remy’s use of Instagram is perfect for the style of blog she has, travel. Remy has used her Instagram for many years to showcase her many travels and adventures.

All the work she has done for years will pay off, as her Instagram already has major travel influencer vibes. Instagram is definitely the most relevant platform for Remy as writing about travel, lends itself to images of these places you can travel to. Remy does not link to her website on her Instagram though. She has over 1,000 followers so why not encourage them to read her site through having her Instagram bio link be the web address for her blog. Her posts do not coordinate with her blog posts when a new blog post goes live why not shout it out in the Instagram caption of an appropriate photo.

Remy also links on her blog to her Twitter account. Her Twitter is less consistent and less appropriate than her Instagram. Her Twitter appears to be mostly re-tweets rather and she does not link back to her website in any tweets. This makes sense as Instagram appears to be her preferred platform and is more appropriate for the style of her site anyways.

Pinterest is the final social media, Remy links to on her website. She has the least number of followers on this site, but the format does lend itself to her travel blog.  

Remy’s Online Growth…

I gave Remy’s first peer review from Helena a quick read and Helena gave Remy some great feedback. Remy still has some gaps in her actual site design.

The banner at the top of her site feels out of place, it does not scream travel blog to me. I love the images with her main offerings on them, but I was disappointed that when I clicked on them, I was not automatically brought to a feed of posts.

Remy forces the reader to click yet again to get to specific content and in some cases, people may because of this.

It was even more disappointing when I followed Remy’s instructions to click here to read more on her Behind the Scenes page and was met with “no posts found.”

Helena mentioned that this was empty in the last peer review as well. I cannot stress how important it is not to have empty pages or categories. If Remy plans to do some posts in Behind the Scenes at some point, there is nothing wrong with setting up the category for the future but keep it private until it is ready to launch with posts.

I do really think though that Remy has picked a great theme that matches book her Instagram aesthetic and lends itself nicely to a travel blog. Remy’s pictures are beautiful and do not take a long time to load which are both essential to this style of blog.

I am excited to see where Remy’s blog goes, I will definitely be checking back to see what place she discusses next.

The post Peer Review #2: Remy June appeared first on ClaryNathanWill.