Numbers Are Relative To Market Size And Lead Quality

There is a YouTuber named abookolive who is a big deal in the world of BookTube.

She is a book enthusiast capable of speed reading at a rate that puts most of us avid readers to shame. We feel like you folk out there who never read books feel when we flex our reading on you. Along the way she started this thing called Non-Fiction November to promote the non-fiction genre because apparently most of y’all are not like me, you read for fun and escape.

I much prefer non-fiction, as I say to the book in my head each morning, “train my brain mothafucka, train my brain,” that’s facts.

Now Olive’s campaign over the course of a decade she, on her own, influenced book sales and increased the profit margin of the non-fiction genre (my girlfriend who’s an Olive-Head assured me this is fact, I did not check it).

All of this is relevant because if you were to look at her social media numbers, many of you would overlook her as a nobody with no value. 

Even though she’s had more impact on influencing behaviour than most of us have or will.

The world of books does not make numbers like other entertainment

When you hear something is a NY Times bestseller I bet you picture a lot of books sold.

Most of the time that number is in the 5 figure range. The best of the best can do 6 figures, and occasionally someone will sell millions of copies. But if you can flip between 1000-10000 copies a week, you are top-tier. 

Now it’s very hard to sell thousands of anything. But relative to music, video games and landscape of differing visual content, which are recreationally comparable hobbies, the threshold for charting requires way less people. What it does require, is an innate understanding of how to write to an audience that will buy it. 

The thing about book people is they are seriously dedicated/

Dedicated enough to throw down dollars.

When you have a social media influencer like Olive, who has organically curated an audience of loyal book lovers, its value is completely different than what you’d expect.

In a niche field like Olive, the % of people watching who are hot leads is extremely high. There may not be a lot of book people nominally, but it is a billion dollar industry.

Audience size varies in quality

Looking at a book influencer’s social media with the lens of typical marketing would make the industry look invisible.

The bigger reality is most people in book land tend to be introverts on social media. It’s a weird habit to discuss with others since so few people do it. Plus if you do read, the chances of two people discussing reading, reading the same things organically are smaller than you’d think.

There are a lot of books out there. 

Book people are also into buying books. If you can get someone to buy from you once, chances are they will buy again if they liked it the first time. Book people are really loyal like that.

This means if you have a social media influencer, who has access to a max reach of a hundred thousand people, and the majority of them would buy something from you, you are in a position to make bank.

There are plenty of people who can accrue lots of views but the content doesn’t get real engagement. Or the people who consume and engage are never going to be consumers. Awareness is cool, but people who do brand deals track performance. 

If no one in your audience buys anything, your numbers are meaningless.

Even having 50 viewers and selling to 10 of them habitually, you may get some low end paper.

By creating a very specific expertise set that attracts a niche audience, you’ll find better brand deals

Companies hire people to look for influencers that would be the right fit for their marketing.

Threadable teamed up with Olive because she’s a powerful pipeline to get people to read books on Threadable. If Olive is there, then the actually engaged audience can join her. It’s basic organic community marketing in motion. 

It has nothing to do with views, likes or comments. Threadable was able to recognize that Olive has influence and can reshape reading habits. By tapping into the most hardcore of book nerds, they can potentially turn Threadable into a real regular term in the book community.I wonder if it could really reach the same level as a Kindle. I would imagine that’s their end goal, but they are probably going to compete with Goodreads for the home of nerd love. Regular folk won’t give a fuck especially now that audiobooks are the wave.

Still there’s a lesson in seeing how impactful a single person who curates a strong and specific audience. Olive made good content sharing what she loves, but is also an expert on. Over time, real lengthy time, she built a following worth something.

That my friends is what organic marketing is really about.

Live Long and Prosper Everyone