One of the things that might have been stopping you from starting to write a book is the idea that it will take a whole lot of time and energy, distracting you from actually making money in your business.
I get it! And that’s why a key part of the Unbound Writing approach is the idea that you don’t have to wait until your book is out there in the world to start creating an income and benefiting from it. In fact, you can start to do this right from the beginning of the process.
I would love for your book-writing journey to be as abundant as possible. So, in this article I’m giving you ten different ways you can be attracting new people and opportunities to you at every stage of writing your book. The invitation (as with all things unbound!) is to take what feels good and sidestep anything that doesn’t.
Ready to be inspired? Let’s dive in…
1) Take Your Audience Behind-The-Scenes
The first tip is to take your audience behind the scenes of your book writing journey. This ties in nicely with the first stage of the Unbound Writing process, which is to make a strong and clear commitment to writing your book, so you don’t get distracted, drift off and never end up completing it. Inviting your audience to come along on the journey with you can be a super-powerful way of making this commitment.
As well as creating a sense of accountability, sharing with your people that you’re writing a book, letting them know how it’s going, what you’re writing about and also any challenges that might be coming up, creates a deeper connection with you. It can also elevate your status and amplify the work you’re doing in the world, which means that whenever you share details of how people can work with you, they’re far more likely to take the next step.
2) Create a Mastermind Based on What You’re Sharing In Your Book
Tip number two is to create some kind of mastermind or group experience as you’re writing your book. Obviously you can do this once your book is ‘out there’ but you don’t have to wait. (And you don’t need to know exactly what you’re going to be writing about – you can use a group like this to explore and experiment with themes that are coming up in your writing).
When The Unbound Press author, Jo Gifford was writing her book, Brilliance Unboxed, she created a small mastermind group during the writing process where she was sharing the themes that were coming through in her writing. One of our newest authors, Melina Abbott, is doing something similar as she writes her book, Sacred Selling.
The powerful thing about doing this is that not only do you attract clients, but your whole writing journey becomes this dynamic, two-way process. When you’re working with people specifically around what you’re sharing in your book, it sparks off different layers of insight. Something that one of your clients or group members may ask gives you an idea for what you could be writing about and what people really want to hear from you.
So you get to be both inspired and know you’re being deeply of service to your clients and group members as well.
3) Podcasts
Tip number three is all about podcasting! Now there are two ways to approach this – firstly, you could create your own podcast related to your book. This is something I’ve done personally a couple of times – once when I was releasing my first book, Heal Your Inner Good Girl, and also as I was writing my latest one, Unbound Writing. I started The Unbound Writer’s Club podcast five months before the book was released and it was very much inspired by what I experienced during the writing process.
If you don’t want to start your own, you could be a guest on other people’s podcasts, talking about what you’re sharing in your book. As you’re writing your book and once it’s out in the world, you can pitch to be a guest on the podcasts your soul family readers and clients are listening to. If you’re new to this, I recommend Jo Casey’s brilliant, Attract Clients With Podcasts course. I did this myself in May 2020 and it’s a short and super-powerful process that’s designed to get you into action.
When someone hears you in conversation, either on your own podcast or as a guest on someone else’s, it helps them to get a deeper sense of what you’re about and whether they resonate with you. It takes them a step closer to either reaching out to work with you or at least buying your book.
4) Host a Retreat
Tip number four is to host a retreat related to what you’re writing about in your book.
During a retreat, whether it’s one day or a couple of weeks, you have the potential to work in a way which is so much deeper and richer than we can experience when working in other ways. The retreat creates a magical container of support, where your participants are able to access deeper levels of transformation and activation.
It could be that the retreat is based on everything you’re sharing in your book and the general themes, or you could hone into one specific aspect of what you’re sharing. Whatever you choose, this is a great way to attract clients who want to go deeper with you. And this could be existing clients where you invite them to take part in a retreat, or it could be new people where they get that first taste of working with you. It could be a free experience or a high-level offering. If the idea is lighting you up, go for it! (I recommend Darla LeDoux’s book, Retreat and Grow Rich as a good starting place for inspiration.)
5) Host a Book Club
Number five is to run some kind of book club or book circle that’s related to your book. You could do this once your book is actually released, in advance of the release for a group of preview readers, or you could even do this as you’re writing your book and share each chapter as you go.
The club could be a free or paid experience and again, it’s a way of creating a deeper relationship with your people and holding space for them to connect with the ideas you’re bringing through in your book.
You could have your book circle running over a period of weeks and invite folks to read one or two chapters a week, and then you have some kind of gathering, most likely online where you talk about what you’re sharing in these chapters, open up the space for questions, or maybe take your members through some kind of exercise to help them connect more deeply with the content you’re sharing.
One of the unbound writers I’m working with currently, Sarika Jain, has been doing this as she has been writing her book. She invited her people to be part of the process and join her as she was bringing the chapters together, sharing one per week over 13 weeks. This helped her to keep a sense of momentum going in her writing, provided feedback from readers and also allowed her to be of service to the women in her circle.
What I love about the book club idea is that you can use it at any stage of your book-writing journey, even if your book has been out in the world for a length of time, to reignite interest.
6) Create a Product Related to Your Book
Number six is to create some kind of product that’s related to your book. So this could be something like an oracle card deck (something that we’re starting to support our Unbound Press authors with this year), a journal or anything else that gives your people a taste of what you’re bringing through in your book.
I created a set of Unbound Writing Prompts alongside my latest book, where I give you a hundred different transformational writing prompts designed to help you free your true voice and provide inspiration to write a book. It’s a relatively low cost product, but it’s something that gives people a different way of engaging with my content. And I’ve had people who’ve bought the Unbound Writing Prompts, and then go on to join the Unbound Writing Mastermind, or become an author with The Unbound Press.
7) Run a Workshop or Webinar
Number seven is to create a webinar, workshop or class that’s related to your book and what you’re sharing in it. Again, this could be paid or unpaid. Maybe there’s a particular chapter or process in your book that’s really powerful on its own, which you could create a webinar or a workshop around? Perhaps you could create a training where you’re sharing the key themes from your book and putting those together in a webinar, masterclass or a workshop?
When you have a book or you’re in the process of writing one, you have so much material and content that you can start to share and this is another win-win scenario, as people like to receive information in different ways.
8) Run a Community Project
Number eight is to run a community project. I love this idea, and it’s something I learned about from the amazing Eli Trier (definitely check her out if this idea appeals!). A community project involves bringing a group of contributors together, around a particular theme. You invite each person to contribute something – it could be an essay, a video, an interview or a piece of art – and you run your community project over a period of time, usually a month. You then invite people to sign up for the community project so that they can access all of the contributions and host some kind of community for the length of the project. (This could be a Facebook group or maybe a Mighty Network, for example).
With a community project you have a really gorgeous group dynamic where everyone’s coming together around a particular theme, topic or question, and you get to create conversation around that. I ran one when I was in the process of writing my latest book, Unbound Writing. It was called the Magical Portal Project and it was focused on how different authors have experienced transformation through writing a book. As well as creating community, this also provided some great inspiration for my book. Another win-win!
9) Invite Your Readers to Go Deeper
Tip number nine is to make sure that once the book is out there in the world you have a clear way that people can go deeper with you. This means that you’re inviting them to take a next step during the book. One simple way to do this is to create a page on your website where your reader can access some bonus resources that are related to what you’re sharing in the book.
When you create this page I recommend that you keep the title general, rather than naming it after a specific resource. This means you can change what you want to offer as you feel called.
For example, simply create a page called something like: nicolahumber.com/unbound-book-resources and then you have flexibility to evolve the resources you offer as your work shifts and changes. You may want to offer people access to worksheets, meditations or visualisations, or maybe you offer a free session or an exploratory call to your readers. A platform I use to host all of my free and paid resources is MemberVault – you can take a look at how I do this over here.
10) Host an Event
The final way to attract clients through writing a book is to host some kind of event, either online or in-person. This could be based around just you as the host or you could invite a number of speakers and facilitators. It could be small and intimate or a large gathering, but the idea is to speak about the different themes that are coming through in your book, and maybe invite other speakers who compliment what you’re sharing.
You may want to do something like this for your book launch, but again this kind of event can be held at any stage of your book-writing journey. Again the idea is to create connection with your people and give them a way to learn about and explore the themes you’re writing about in a more interactive way.
So, there you go! Ten different ideas for attracting new people to your magic, both during the writing of your book and once it’s out in the world.
Which one do you feel most called to? I invite you to take one small step right now to get started – come find me on Instagram and let me know what inspired action you’re choosing to take. My DMs are always open to hear from unbound writers like you!
