Introduction

Each new Content Creation Quest focuses on creating content that you love to create, that aligns with who you are, the experience of your book, and creating a space that naturally appeals to the right people. Through these Quests, you’ll be creating content that fuels and extends your creativity in a way that supports your writing.

If you’ve been going through the Ideal Reader topic, then hopefully you’ve started to see marketing through a slightly different lens. It’s really not about sales messages or being performative. At its heart, the side of “marketing” you need to be focused on most are relationships and conversations. And shifting that focus reduces pressure, stress, and overwhelm, while also being far more effective and fun.

These Quests are about recognizing how to extend your writing and creativity into your visibility efforts.

Shaping your content calendar is covered in the Social Media Visibility topic, and we dig into the more nuanced content type specifics in Talk About Your Book. For now, know that no more than 20% of any content you create should be promotional in nature. By promotional I’m referring to anything that directly mentions purchasing or reading your book, and that includes adding the link or a ‘link in bio’ reference.

Constantly trying to sell your book is what makes marketing feel icky. It doesn’t mean that asking for the sale is wrong, it means that focusing on that ask too much is what turns you and your audience off your content.

So before you continue, make a promise to yourself right now that as you proceed with the Content Creation Quests you won’t give a single thought to selling books or asking people to buy or read your book (unless specifically directed to in the materials).

When your content is doing the job it’s meant to do, you will rarely need to explicitly try to convince anyone that they should want your book, they’ll come to that conclusion all on their own.

The other thing I want to address is the idea of creating viral content. That is also not the point of these Quests. Going viral on social media rarely achieves the outcome that an author hopes it will. Often, it can even have the reverse effect in that it might get you in front of a whole bunch of the wrong people, it can bring the trolls out of the woodwork, and it can spike both your stress and your overwhelm… all without gaining you significant sales for your book. I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t sound like much fun to me!

Going viral for the right reasons, at the right time, with the right people is fantastic and it’s the organic dream we hope for. But trying to chase the concept of going viral is most often when the wrong content attracts the wrong people.

Even if social media isn’t a primary component of your visibility efforts, I still recommend that you complete these Quests. They’ll help to shape the way you think about your book, which in turn will shape the way you talk about your book. But also, having one social media account to post your content to, even if you’re not actively participating in it, gives you some passive visibility for when readers go looking for you.

Core Content

Core content is a pool of evergreen content that you’ll be able to use and reuse over and over for the entire life of the book. It’s not time sensitive, meaning it’s not connected to any sort of event, sale, or launch.

Think about it, the main character in a particular book isn’t going to be any different no matter how much time passes… but the readership who is finding you will continue to change. The post you publish today can absolutely be reposted. Not only several times a year, but repeatedly for years and years to come.

That’s why this is your core content and why it’s called evergreen content; it never loses its relevancy. These aren’t posts you slap together on the fly. They’re the ones that you want to craft with the same care you put into crafting your story in the first place.

And it’s why they become an extension of your writing. Because these are the posts where you’re showing readers what they can expect when they choose to read your book. You’ll also find that crafting these types of posts will often fuel your writing creativity. You’ll get new ideas and inspiration that will propel you back into writing mode.

Creating Content

As mentioned, the point of this exercise is not to create viral content. If that happens, celebrate it as a happy coincidence. But the point is to create compelling content that speaks directly to your ideal reader in a way that draws them into your world.

By world I mean your: story, characters, setting, lore, writing process, research, etc… as an author you inherently have a bigger pool of content to pull from than many other types of content creators can even dream of.

A common reason you might get stuck when it comes to creating public content is because you stop thinking like the storyteller you are and try to become a selling machine. This can lead to focusing too much on the wrong things. What will the algorithm favour? What will go viral? What will make someone comment? What will make someone click the buy link?

Basically, you’re trying to get one post to do far more work than it’s capable of doing, which results in it falling flat and not being good at anything. The different types of posts and their purpose are covered in depth throughout other topics, but for now understand that each post has one specific job to do. That job will be to: raise awareness or generate interest or lead to conversion. A post should never be trying to achieve all three and only rarely will it overlap between two jobs. But there will always be one primary focus. 

So, when working with these prompts, put aside everything you think you know about what your content “should” be. Stick to one idea per post and resist the temptation to add your cover, purchase link, or even mentioning that they should read your book. None of that belongs in these particular posts.

Iterate Your Content

When creating this content don’t get hung up on perfection. Don’t think about whether this one post will gain you followers, subscribers, or book sales. Don’t agonize over making sure it has a great algorithm hook. 

Whenever you reuse this content, you can slowly work on refining the opening line into stronger hooks. But if you start by focusing on the hook, you’ll lose the essence and purpose of the content. 

The goal is to make this content align with the style and caliber of your book. Your core content is a direct window for potential readers to see and experience your world. The point is that when a reader lands on your profile they’re seeing content that draws them in because it feels like it was written specifically for them.

Which is where your Reader Language Bank comes into play. When you’re editing and iterating this content, refer back to your Reader Language Bank and then look for opportunities in your wording where you can naturally weave in the language your ideal reader is already using.

Technically speaking, the type of information you’re covering in these particular posts won’t change over time. But if you’re still drafting, don’t stress about it. You can still create these posts based on the truths of right now and revise them later if something changes. If your emphasis is on emotional resonance, people aren’t going to remember the details, but they will remember the way it made them feel. And the current information you’re sharing will always override past information.

You can start posting the content you create through these Quests whenever you feel like it, just don’t use it all up too quickly. If you’re posting regularly on social media, keep doing what you have been doing, and slide these new posts in maybe once a week for now.

Don’t forget to save each of them to your core content document, because you will reuse each piece many more times.

Other than the first prompt for Who is Your MC, the rest of the prompts are protected for Pathfinders only. The title of each prompt might give you some ideas to work with, but the protected content dives deeper into how to work with and expand on each of the prompts.

Who is Your MC?

Whether you’re still drafting or your book is published, this deceptively simple prompt can provide you with dozens of different posts.

If you have a character profile sheet, have it on hand for this one.

Start this exercise with brainstorming. Make a list of everything you can think of about your character. If you have multiple MCs, pick just one for now. You can repeat the exercise for every MC and every side character of interest as well. (Just think of how much content you’ll be able to tap into!)

This list should include physical descriptions, personality traits, idiosyncrasies, special abilities, things they love or hate, what gives them strength, their fears… literally anything you can think of that’s relevant, including spoilers (this list is for your eyes only).

Now, pick one trait from that list. Just one. You’re not creating a post that is nothing more than a laundry list of information.

Next, share the story of the item you picked. Does your MC have a scar or marking that comes with a backstory? Do they have a particular hairstyle that comes with a funny story? 

Are they particularly witty? Where did that come from and why? What does it look like on the page? 

This is also where your marketing helps with your writing and becomes an extension of your writing, because another fun exercise is to pick something about your character that never had a story of its own and create one.

For example, maybe you gave your character a catch-phrase that they’re always using but never really dug into why they use it. Now’s your chance to come up with that and weave it into a mini-story of its own.

But remember, you’re sharing the story of the thing you picked, not a history lesson. The more you can show that story over telling it, the more engaging it will be. Use the voice and style your book is written in. 

Write it. Set it aside. Come back and revise it. Exactly the way you do when writing your book.

Over time, repeat these steps for every interesting piece of information you can think of about your MC and other characters.

This one prompt is capable of creating dozens of unique pieces of content that you can reuse over and over.

Which Tropes Does Your Book Include?

Where Your Lore Started

The Origin Lore For Your Book

Ask Questions

Recommendation Requests

Quarter Turns