Practical Next Steps for Marketing
By Sarah Brandt

In my last blog post I shared about the thought process I went through when facing self-promotion and marketing my book, Blossom Like Eden. The post covered the 5 lies I was believing to be true about marketing and how I unraveled them to find truth. You can read that post here. Today, I want to share with you how I created the marketing platform I now use. The steps I took toward creating something eye-catching and functional, despite my general lack of tech savviness. If I can do it, you can too.

When my book arrived, I wanted a way to connect to readers and give them a space to dig deeper and apply the message for themselves, in a tangible and practical way. I decided to write an accompanying study guide for Blossom Like Eden and have it available to readers for their own personal use, as well as in group settings. For each chapter, I wrote discussion questions that would open a door for a conversation on the topics at hand. Once those were written, I needed to find a space to keep them available for readers to use when they saw fit. I quickly realized I would need to create a website.

The website creation felt intimidating to me. I didn’t know where to start, so I had to ask for help! I was led to the site, wix.com, which is a free website builder. The site guided me along with simple instructions until I had the bones of my Blossom Like Eden website. After asking more questions and receiving more help, I found out that I could buy the domain “www.blossomlikeeden.com” for a reasonable price through GoDaddy. The best thing I did was to ask for help. It took a few questions, and I was up and running. Check it out here.

Once the website was up, I could offer the book study for free to anyone who was interested. Groups of women can come together now and study the book. To compliment the book study, a friend of mine and I decided to create videos that accompanied each chapter. We dreamt of two women, casual and approachable, sharing their stories and applying the truth inside each chapter in an easy to join in way, through video. I didn’t know how to set up recordings or post them on YouTube, let alone link them to my website, but it wasn’t hard once I decided to try! I ordered a simple camera stand for my iPhone on Amazon and my friend and I sat at my kitchen table and recorded. I used my iPhone to edit the video and then downloaded the app called YouTube Studio to create a channel and upload to it. You can see the Blossom Like Eden channel on YouTube here.

Since we live in fast paced world, where sitting down to watch a video required free time, the next step was to find a way for women to hear the message while on the go. That way, they could read the chapter and then listen to the conversation when they could, like when driving or in the background at home. A podcast seemed like the perfect solution. I researched online and found an app called Anchor, which allowed me to create a podcast following their easy, guided steps. Once that was set up, I downloaded an app called MyMP3-Converter and stripped the audio from the chapter videos I had already created. It took some time and patience, but with the combined function of each of the two apps, I could now share a podcast with my readers. The Anchor app also sends your podcast to bigger platforms like Spotify for no charge. Check out the podcast here.

It can look intimidating to create something like a website, YouTube channel or podcast, but with today’s technology and easy to use Apps it can be simple. It requires a focus. A vision for your book and creative ways to share, but once the website is up and your resources readily available, its there for good! It’s like a one stop shop for all things regarding your book!

Take time to figure out what your vision is and how you can partner with your book to take it farther than the pages and into the visual, online world. With these helpful hints, and sharing my process, I cheer you on!  Here’s to stepping out and trying this for yourself!

About this Contributor:

Sarah Brandt is a wife and a homeschooling mom to three daughters. Her passion for writing, fused with her message of identity, has opened doors for her to minister to women through her blog and various other writing projects.

Visit Sarah’s website, blossomlikeeden.com.
Subscribe to her podcast.
Watch an interview with Sarah, here.