The AmWritingFantasy Podcast: Episode 143 – Tips on Book Marketing to Different Generations

Sure, you can target ads by keywords, age, and gender... but have you ever thought about what all that means? Not every generation is the same or will respond to the same tactics!

In this week's episode, we take a look at the different trends of Boomers, Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Z. Where do they hang out online? What are their spending habits? What key phrases will get them to buy your book... or cause them to run away in disgust? You might be surprised at which generation is the most ready to buy your book, what it takes to actually hook Gen X... or why KU might be the best fit if you write YA!

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Read the full transcript below. (Please note that it's automatically generated and while the AI is super cool, it isn't perfect. There may be misspellings or incorrect words on occasion).

Narrator (1s):
You're listening to the Am Writing Fantasy podcast. In today's publishing landscape, you can reach fans all over the world. Query letters are a thing of the past. You don't even need an literary agent. There is nothing standing in the way of making a living from writing. Join two best selling authors who have self published more than 20 books between them now on to the show with your hosts, Autumn Birt and Jesper Schmidt.

Jesper (30s):
Hello, I am Jesper

Autumn (32s):
and I'm Autumn.

Jesper (35s):
This is episode 143 of the Am Writing Fantasy podcast. And this is a bit of a different topic that I actually haven't seen covered anywhere else. And Autumn, you wrote this a really interesting block series for our patron supporters. So perhaps I can just hand it over to you to share what we're talking about here today.

Autumn (60s):
So you want me to do all the work again? I see how it is. Well,

Jesper (1m 6s):
I prefer it that way.

Autumn (1m 8s):
Well, you've been busy, so that's fair enough. But yeah, I don't even, honestly, I don't even know where this idea came from, but there was at some point I was like, what would it be interesting to look at marketing book marketing by generation? Like, is it different to market, to boomers? Should you be marketing your books to boomers? Cause you know, when you do your Facebook ads, it almost, almost all the trainings, like say two 60 and under, well, why are boomers not buying books on Facebook? Are they not on Facebook? So I'm always curious. And you know, I like to question the status quo and see, well, why does it work this way? So I wrote a series of four Patreon posts looking at marketing to boomers, marketing to gen X, go gen X marketing to millennials and gen Z.

Autumn (1m 57s):
So I was actually really interesting and it did influence all of my thoughts on marketing. So it'll be really fun to dig into that today,

Jesper (2m 6s):
For sure. It should be a quite interesting and yeah, maybe we'll learn some stuff that we need to think about here.

Autumn (2m 16s):
No, I, I, I have to admit that it made me even rethink some of the stuff I'm doing my entrepreneurial sphere in my own life. And I think there is one generation that is like the ideal of who you should be marketing to. And I'm like, oh, I want to try this. So we'll have to get there.

Jesper (2m 38s):
Wow. Nice. Yes.

Autumn (2m 41s):
So anyway, how are things for you over in Denmark?

Jesper (2m 47s):
Well, as you said, pretty busy, I would say. And we also really still struggling with the potty who selling the house that we put in an offer for still

Autumn (2m 60s):
No definite there.

Jesper (3m 4s):
Well, we are pretty far from each other when it comes to the price at the moment, we probably have a gap like 45, 50,000 us dollars between us at the moment, which is quite a lot. And if I'm honest, I'm not really sure that we are going to be able to agree. Yeah, we did increase our offer with around 17,000 us dollars, but because the house needs a new roof, which will be very expensive to fix. Like I, like I mentioned in a podcast episode, a couple of weeks back, we have more or less offered now as much as we're willing to offer.

Jesper (3m 51s):
And if we offer more, we basically risk losing too much money if we won one day, want to sell the house again. So I think with the increased offer, we made, honestly, we're probably, if we want to sell the house again, we're probably going to lose around 50,000 us dollars the day we sell the house. And I don't like that, of course, but it's sort of within F acceptable acceptable range. I mean, we can live with that, but it cannot be any more than that. Right. And, and still, if I didn't look at that, then the selling party still needed to drop their price around 45,000 us dollars to meet us, which I don't think that'll happen to be honest,

Autumn (4m 37s):
Too bad. Cause I know you guys liked that one, so that's really unfortunate. Maybe they'll change their mind. You know, you're going, we're going into winter. And most people, most houses don't sell in winter. I know in the United States. So I can't imagine that they're selling like hotcakes in Denmark. So maybe they'll rethink that.

Jesper (4m 57s):
Yeah, usually, usually there's no problem selling houses in the winter here in Denmark that does, it goes year round. But I did talk to the real estate agent today and you know that the selling parties real estate agent, because she called me to sort of ask how things were going and what we were thinking. And I was sort of explaining to her like, you know, you're asking way too much money. And the fact that you had to put in a new roof, you need to account for that in the price, which you're not doing. And then I also told her, you know, find if he doesn't want to drop the price, but at the end of the day, the next buying party, if it's not going to be us, but the next party will have the same problem as we have now.

Jesper (5m 40s):
So you're not going to sell the house. If you keep insisting on chatting this much for it, because other people will also figure out that, okay, we need to put in a new roof, that's very expensive. We want a price reduction because of it. So you're going to end up in the same place next time. And he's been, they've had it for sale for about six months now. Right. So it's also about time that you start questioning. Maybe your price is too high after six months and you still haven't sold it. Yes.

Autumn (6m 8s):
Especially in the current.

Jesper (6m 13s):
Yeah. W w we'll see how it goes. But honestly, I, I don't know. Yeah. So we will, we've submitted the, a slight increase in our offer. And then also said in the email that this is our last offer. So we're not gonna increase the price any more than this. So either you take it off or that's

Autumn (6m 31s):
It, well, I'll keep my fingers crossed. We'll see what they say.

Jesper (6m 35s):
Yeah. I think it'll be a no, but, but maybe who knows, maybe they changed their mind in, in four or five months when they still haven't sold it. And maybe they'll come back and say, okay, are you still interested? Who knows? You know,

Autumn (6m 46s):
Maybe you'll find the perfect house coming up. I know you guys are so busy, so it's hard to look for houses at the same time, but you never know. You might find something else you like even more.

Jesper (6m 58s):
Yeah. Yeah. Who knows, but you're also trying to work out what to do and what not. So I know you are busy as well. Autumn.

Autumn (7m 4s):
Yeah. Yeah. Just a, I think it's so funny because we were just joking. I mean, it looks like I'm in the middle. It's like midnight here that we're somehow on the same continent, but it's only three in the afternoon and it is just like gray and raining. We got the fall rains coming into Vermont. But yeah, our housing where we're kind of wanting to leave here around November, you know, my husband spent all summer working in Maine. He's got some good job offers up that way. So we're kind of up in the air trying to look around too. But the housing market, the rental apartment market and the U S is just insane. So we're like, well, you can want to change something, but sometimes it's not as easy as you expected. So I don't know why we're going to end up doing where we'll end up being.

Autumn (7m 47s):
But I know the next, I know the upcoming podcast will be slightly out of order, but I am going to go see my parents and that'll be fun. So I know one of our episodes we'll be recording soon. I'll have a whole different backdrop and maybe some overhead lighting. I won't look like I'm coming from like,

Jesper (8m 6s):
Just for a change

Autumn (8m 7s):
For a change just to, you know, make things exciting and keep my life exciting. It'll be good.

Jesper (8m 13s):
Oh yeah. Sounds like a good idea. Okay. Let's move on here

Narrator (8m 19s):
A week on the internet with the Am Writing Fantasy podcast.

Jesper (8m 25s):
So the most important thing first here, Autumn. Okay. Are you ready? Oh, I'm going to spring something on you.

Autumn (8m 34s):
I'm taking a deep breath. Okay. I'm ready.

Jesper (8m 39s):
So one of the YouTube comments on episode 141, that was the one where we went head to head trying to come up with the worst superpowers ever. But one of the comments was from Zayed and he actually declared a winner. Did you notice that?

Autumn (8m 54s):
I think I did...

Jesper (8m 56s):
See that one because it made me rather happy. You want to guess who he thought was the winner or him,

Autumn (9m 5s):
If it's the same post well, no, that's right. I saw a Facebook comment, not a YouTube one. Shoot. So you better not tell me he thought you were the winner.

Jesper (9m 15s):
Of course. Otherwise. Why would I bring it up? Otherwise I would just have ignored it

Autumn (9m 22s):
Really? I swear on Facebook he said I won

Jesper (9m 27s):
No, no, no. He actually said, he actually said, quote, I'm a practicing Christian. And I got to say, I'm confused about Bible Man. I think yes. But wins on that one alone.

Autumn (9m 41s):
I don't think so. You had, it was a pretty pathetic list. I have to say that you had, I don't know if it's the worst though.

Jesper (9m 49s):
Well, that was the point of it. It was supposed to be pathetic.

Autumn (9m 54s):
It was pathetic, but I wouldn't say it was worse, but the dog had weld, whatever that one was, dog welder. I just put the heck arm fall off point. Just know, I can't believe someone even came up with those as like characters ever much less actually wrote a comic where they're included. I mean really, really stretching, cutting the risk guys. There were some really good writers out there. They'll help you a lot.

Jesper (10m 31s):
Yeah. Yeah. So I thought that was an important YouTube comment into, and that's worth mentioning of course, here on the podcast as well, I

Autumn (10m 41s):
Think was

Jesper (10m 42s):
For, no, thank you. Say it for, for being so smart about your choices on who should win. I think that it was a good choice. I would just say that.

Autumn (10m 55s):
I think you guys have a deal going. I don't believe that one.

Jesper (11m 1s):
Okay. But something else I wanted to mention was a post I did for our Patrion supporters, because I actually wrote about whether or not Kindle unlimited is good for fantasy authors. So if people want to check out the details of that post, I can, of course join over on Patrion. There's a link in the show notes, but I thought it interesting how in the post that all the top 100 fantasy books in the top 100 chart in, on Amazon, all of them are available through Kindle unlimited. That

Autumn (11m 40s):
Is pretty impressive.

Jesper (11m 43s):
What do you think about that? Every single one on the top 100 chart is in Kindle unlimited

Autumn (11m 48s):
Pretty impressive. I think that is a high stat showing whether or not it's for fantasy. I would have to admit.

Jesper (11m 57s):
Yeah. Yeah. The post I wrote was based on an article written by a written word media and it's based on some research as well, which I always like when I, she stuff that is based on research rather than on opinions. So, so I think that was a very interesting, and in fact, we have recently enrolled some of our books in Kindle unlimited as well. And I have to say, I'm not very happy about the exclusivity demand for Kindle unlimited or from Amazon there, but we do want to see how it affects sales. So yeah.

Autumn (12m 34s):
Yeah. I, you know, I'm always up for testing, but it is interesting that, you know, you brought up your path, Patreon posts on Kindle unlimited and then today's podcast is based off of four posts and Patreon. So in if I want to, yeah. If you want to hear more about read those posts, which are in depth and have a lot of market research and links to other sources. Yeah. That's on Patreon. If you want to join. And really, if you were inspired by this episode today, and once you check it out and really get into the links and the stats, that's waiting for you on there for just a dollar a month.

Jesper (13m 9s):
Indeed. Yeah. And also of course, if, if the, if you, dear listeners should be interested in knowing sort of, if we got any results from placing our books in Kindle unlimited, then do let us know. And I dunno, maybe we can dedicate like a future podcast episode to that topic or something. But yeah, if that interests you, then let us know. Sounds good.

Narrator (13m 33s):
And onto today's topic.

Jesper (13m 37s):
So we have some different generations to cover here today. We have boomers, gen X, millennials, and gen C. So I don't know, do we just want to start with the boomers and then sort of work down the list of these generations? Or how do you want to do it on them?

Autumn (13m 55s):
I, that makes sense. Or I guess maybe at times we can compare and contrast, but I think as boomers are a great place to start because they were, it was not the, what I expected was the result of what came up with boomers. It was kind of fun to get a different perspective on who the boomer generation is, especially with marketing and fantasy book marketing.

Jesper (14m 21s):
Yeah. So boomers are born between 1946 and 1964. So those are the people we are talking about. So this also means that they are an older generation.

Autumn (14m 32s):
They are they're my, my parents' generation though. Some people have, you know, there are still a few people alive who are known as the silent generation, which is older than boomers, but I left them off our little marketing analysis. We were letting them be, let them be, but they're still readers, but the boomers, they're the, I said, if you're going onto Facebook and you were choosing your targeting audience on your Shane saying 60 and under, you're totally leaving out the boomers. The boomers are the ones who are actually 60 and older. So they're an older generation and you might be surprised. Cause I think the perception is that they're not online. Maybe they do a lot of research, but there's some interesting stats about where they hang out, how often they buy and what it takes them to actually buy something, which I didn't expect.

Jesper (15m 24s):
Yeah. And also worth pointing out. Like you said, in the article that the boomers hold almost 50% of the total wealth in the us. So yeah. They have money. These people,

Autumn (15m 38s):
Yes. There's 72 million boomers still alive. This was a massive generation there and they're called boomers. It's from the baby boom that happened post world war II. So there was a huge amount of children born, still a large base of the population, 72 million. The only one that is larger than this as gen of millennials are also really large generation. So lots of people, they hold around 50% of the U S well, that's a lot of money. And I guess the question is, well, you know, do they read fantasy? Do they buy books online? Those are really the big questions of if they're worth marketing to.

Autumn (16m 20s):
And what I started to think about it, I mean, this is the generation that the first, when their Lord of the rings was published, these were the kids reading them, this teenagers, they were reading token. I would love that. Can you imagine being alive and Tolkien was writing and producing his books. That would be so cool. But they were alive with Isaac Asimov, if you like. Saifai so a lot of the clot, what we consider now, classic, they were the original fans. They were my parents who, you know, took me to see star wars and were fine with it and thought it was so cool. So they saw the moon landing. They are not anti fantasy. So I I've definitely heard that of some people saying, well, they don't read fantasy kidding.

Autumn (17m 3s):
They may talk in popular. They love fantasy. They just didn't like Dungeons and dragons. Well, that's another story.

Jesper (17m 12s):
Yeah, that's true. But the one thing that I'm thinking about, at least I, well, I don't have like a statistical research of it, but at least if I compare to my own parents, for example, I'm reading on the Kindle, for example, that took some convincing. You know, I, I don't know. I mean, of course my parents might not be like the stereotypical, you know, version of, of the boom was meaning that, that this is how all the boomers are not, I'm not saying that at all, but I could speculate, at least that might prefer to have the book in their hands, like paperbacks or hot packs and stuff like that, that I could speculate that.

Autumn (17m 56s):
I think it would be not disingenuous to say that, that if you want to market to boomers, it would probably be a good idea to make sure you have a paperback version, but they have taken, unlike the perception they have taken to computers and the internet age actually extremely well. A lot of them are like, oh, Facebook is the number one place. If you want to go market to boomers, just go to Facebook. That's where they are. But it was the stats on them. I mean, it was 70% of like boomers are online or on a computer. And of those 70%, like 90% of them are on Facebook. So they're online and what my favorite thing about them.

Autumn (18m 36s):
So they have their huge population base. So if you want to say, even 10% of them like fantasy and you know, or maybe 10% of will read on a Kindle, that's still a huge number of people. They have a ton of wealth they're retired. So they, they might work part-time but they don't need to work because they already have money and they're in retirement. So they have time to read which show that's fantastic. And they are, tend to be impulsive buyers and they're very brand centric. So if you say something to them that they like, they will immediately go and buy because they've got the money. They're not worried. They just learn what they don't have is time. So they want to make sure, you know, they have, they enjoy their lives.

Autumn (19m 20s):
They're not going to sit there and him and hall, if they think they're going to like a book, they'll go and buy the book. And then if they like you, they love brands. So they will stay with you and be a loyal follower. I mean, they sound like the perfect person to try to sell your book to, you might want to tailor your ads though, specifically to them, they're going to want different wording. And remember they were alive when token was writing. So you don't want to say, hi, as good as a token. Well, you know, you better, gosh, darn be as good as token. Cause they know who that is. And they were reading it before you were born. So make your ads honest, but make it something where they're like, oh my goodness, I want to go and try this out.

Autumn (20m 4s):
And they click and they may very well just going by like that.

Jesper (20m 9s):
Yeah. Yeah. I think you're right. It might be sometimes a bit harder to get them to read the books, but yeah, the various debt, but I was a bit surprised in your post-test worlds that your post pointed out that a lot of them is actually using YouTube as well. That w I mean, not, not creating videos, but watching YouTube. I mean, that actually surprised me a bit because that's not normally what I would think about this generation that they would be watching YouTube. Yeah.

Autumn (20m 38s):
And we'll see that across all of them. That YouTube is a really big player often next to Facebook, or a little bit better than Facebook. So YouTube, if you can find a way that taps into that market that is engaging. And I think that's the tough thing with selling books is finding a way of selling your books on YouTube. I don't think anyone has hit the perfect formula for that yet, but at the very least you can, if you can try out some videos, you could try them on Facebook and YouTube and see if you can kind of get people hooked in, try your book trailers, just make sure they're really, really good and really engaging and not boring.

Jesper (21m 17s):
Yeah. I would not spend time on that to be honest. But yeah. Well we had our little spell with YouTube already. Autumn. So yeah, we gave up on that quite a long time ago.

Autumn (21m 30s):
I don't, as I said, I don't think anyone, there's some people who do very well on YouTube and it takes a ton of work, more work than I think most people appreciate. And I still don't think when it comes to selling actual books, like being there as an author, not trying to sell a service, I don't think anyone has cracked that nut. So Hey, you could be the first one. Good luck.

Jesper (21m 51s):
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, okay. Should we move on to gen X? Yeah. These people are born between 1965 and 1979. So this,

Autumn (22m 9s):
Yes, this is us. This is ours. And it's even includes my husband. If you count as you, the years you gave also includes something called they call them Zen, not millennials zinnias, which is starts with an X because they are the, a group that's, they're not really millennials. They're not really gen X. They're kind of squished in between. They call them a micro-generation, but they tend to go both ways. It can be a little bit more millennial. They can be a little more or gen X. And that's my husband. He's a little younger than me. There are some differences, but not much. But what is neat about these two generations or this generation micro-generation is we are the first ones who have an analog childhood.

Autumn (22m 51s):
We had a childhood of books and playing outside and hearing about computers in the basement of giant colleges, you know, but never seeing one until we hit our teenage years. So our adulthood has been taken over by the internet and the digital age, but our childhood, we remember playing war and kick the can and running through hayfields. At least I do. It was much more, much more a hands-on and physical. And as I say, analog, and we're the last generation who has that memory of the time before computers, which is kind of Sky Net App or something.

Jesper (23m 28s):
Yeah. Nobody, it's actually quite funny because as well, sometimes I've been, I've been talking to my sons about, you know, when we got the very first computer at home, when I was a kid or like teenage young teenager, we've got the very first computer. And I was trying to explain to them how it actually felt, you know, to get the first compete because they don't understand because computers has always been part of their life and they don't get the fact that once you sit down and for the first time ever, you use this kind of machine that has never existed before. And then I was showing them on YouTube. I found some old clips of what the games looked like back then.

Jesper (24m 9s):
And they were looking at me like, are you crazy? I was like, but you don't understand. That was amazing back then. Yeah. Just some pixels moving on a screen was amazing.

Autumn (24m 21s):
If you've been that the first time I did a, a game, that was, it was mushing. So multi-user shared hallucination. I did the college. And the fact that, you know, you could be on at 1:00 AM and you're talking to someone in New Zealand and all you had literally was texts on a screen. We didn't even have pixels for the, some of the sites I was on. And I was just like, oh my gosh, you're in Australia, New Zealand, you're in Asia. This is amazing. I can't, I still have an email that I found recently from my dad, one of the first ones on my account that somehow got saved. And it was like, I can't believe it was when I was studying abroad in Manchester, UK. And I was like, I can't believe you, you know, you asked me for this and I just sent it to you and you have it instantly.

Autumn (25m 2s):
I mean, mail was two weeks long and I could chat with my dad, like, and get information, something I needed from him like that. Well, as long as it took the attachment to upload and download, which is like still an eternity compared to today, but back then 10 minutes for an attachment, you're like, cut, thank you so much. You just saved my life. It was amazing. And I still have one of those original emails and it's just cool. It's cool to think back saying this was huge, huge, huge, huge.

Jesper (25m 31s):
Yeah, it is. Yeah. And it's so difficult to explain to people who are not gen Xs, what that felt like, but, but it, I think it's

Autumn (25m 40s):
Pretty cool. It is. I am sure there is.

Jesper (25m 42s):
And you also pointed out in your post how sorry I interrupted you

Autumn (25m 48s):
And I'm sure there's listeners who are like, yeah, this is so cool. This thing. No.

Jesper (25m 53s):
Yeah, yeah. And also you pointed out in your post to how during the teenage years of G annexes, we were influenced by dragon lands and dragons RPG and stuff. And I instantly thought, yes, that's right.

Autumn (26m 10s):
Yes. That is, that came out usually most of our formative years. So if we're a fantasy fan, it might've started before dragon lands. For me, it started before dragon lands with Anne McCaffrey. But when it came out, it became this huge phenomenon, especially getting to play the role-playing game. Of course, on the side of that, our parents, we were going through the satanic panic, which I mentioned later in some of the other generations. But yeah, it was such a big donor that we, you know, we often hid the fact that we're into Dungeons and dragons from our parents. Lest we be have our games taken away or not be allowed to see your friends anymore, but it was sort of one of the first, I mean, token was big, but I think dragon lands really defines a lot of our generation and our love of fantasy and the type of fantasy.

Autumn (26m 57s):
Maybe we still enjoy because it's changed a lot, but there's still a core of those stories that have the ELs, the dwarves that are still so much a derivative of token very closely.

Jesper (27m 10s):
Yeah. And, and the whole thing about a, you know, like an adventure group, like in, in dragon lands, like there, they are a group that goes out together and all that stuff. Right. That's very trophy nowadays as well. And I also liked, which I also felt like hit home in your article was that we like to do research before we buy. So we are checking on the internet for reviews and, and you know, other competitors, other products and stuff like that, which I definitely recognize because I do that myself, whenever I need to buy something, I'm going to check reviews. I'm going to do some, a bit of internet research to see, you know, is there some, a better alternatives or is this really the best product and stuff like that?

Jesper (27m 52s):
So, so I definitely recognize myself in, in that as well.

Autumn (27m 57s):
Yes. I think that is a very funny trait. We weren't born into the internet age, but we helped shape it. And we certainly helped shape it as a marketing platform. So a lot of us that are entrepreneurs, we know our way in and out of the marketplace and in and out of running businesses online and we do our research, we will check out comparisons. We will look at competitors, we will check the reviews, we'll read the reviews. So we're not a spontaneous buyer. We are the one that when they say it takes at least seven to 11 times of seeing an ad before someone will go and look at your book, that's us. Yeah. We will not go buy your book just because you sell it on. Instagram will be like, yeah, that's nice. You don't hook us on the first bite.

Autumn (28m 38s):
Not even close, we're going to check you out. We'll think about it. And compared to boomers. So was it a lot of more research and we are a smaller generation. We're not 72 million. We're like 68, I think. So there's less of us. And I can't remember what percentage of the wealth we have, but obviously boomers have almost half. And we have about half of what's left somewhere around 25%. So we're doing pretty

Jesper (29m 1s):
Good. We're doing pretty

Autumn (29m 2s):
Good. We were getting into our, you know, forties now and we're, we're okay. We're doing well. You know, our most famous, I think gen X-er is Elon Musks. So we, you know, some of us have done really well. None of the rest of us are working on that. We're definitely a generation of doing our research. We have some money, but we're pretty much, we've worked really hard to earn our money at this point. And we don't let it go as quickly. So you can get us with a coupon. We will launch, we will jump into an email marketing to get a coupon. That's fine. We know how email marketing works because we probably set it up ourselves. That's just how we, we know how it all works.

Autumn (29m 44s):
So we'll sign up for something. We'll get on a list. And I thought it was funny. One of the biggest things about our generation is we'll stick with you. We like brands. We like people until they say something we don't like. And then it was like, you're gone. You have one chance to lose us. And you say something we find offensive, or we don't agree with like, you're gone unsubscribe. So we're the, also the unsubscribed generation,

Jesper (30m 7s):
Right? Yeah. So I think in overall from a book selling perspective, this is where you're, you know, building up your reviews are really important. That's at least that's going to help to convince a gen X person to actually buy your book.

Autumn (30m 22s):
Yes.

Jesper (30m 24s):
Move on to millennials.

Autumn (30m 25s):
Okay. Well, I want to wrap up one quick thing. So gen X is, are on Facebook, so you can still market to them. We're also on Instagram. And I agree if you're going to try to hook a gen X-er, you're probably gonna have to spend a lot more money than you would with a boomer and reviews. Being able to say other people have liked this, be very open with your reviews. That's how you're going to get them more interested than saying we're great. I write just like token and they're not going to buy that

Jesper (30m 53s):
Molina. Millennial. Stan is born from 1981 to 1996. So these are the people who actually grew up fully in the internet age. And probably most of them probably don't even know what life before computers.

Autumn (31m 11s):
No, if they have any interesting to me. Yeah. I can't imagine. So they have any recollection of life before computers. They will have memories of life before smartphones. So they might remember flip phones and cell phones. So that's kind of, you know, I can at least relate to that a little bit, but they grew up knowing computers, building computers, and they they're pretty snazzy and know their way around the marketing. What's surprised me is I thought, for sure, all the millennials, they get such a bad rap as being like the more self-centered generation. But at the same time, the oldest ones are in their forties. You know, they're taking their kids to college, they've grown up, but they are really still really good online.

Autumn (31m 56s):
And I thought they'd all be off of Facebook, but there's still a majority of them on Facebook. And after that Instagram, I mean, those are the two big ones of where you can find still millennials somehow. I don't know how Facebook keeps everyone, but they do.

Jesper (32m 12s):
Yeah, they do. Yeah. But also things like Twitter and Twitter and tick-tock and that kind of place, they also hanging out.

Autumn (32m 19s):
Yeah. They're sick talk is especially coming up, but there are, yeah, there are a little more broad spectrum. So it's harder to find out exactly like in what was interesting. It doesn't that study this statistic. I was quoting didn't show if they were on Facebook and Instagram and Twitter, which most likely they are, but there could be some orders. Like, are you here or here or here? I mean, this is one of the ones. If you're marketing to them, you're going to have to market to our broad base. Cause I'm not quite sure where they are and how often they're seeing you.

Jesper (32m 53s):
Yeah. And again, the majority is watching YouTube here. Amazing. Again, I'm not so sure about this. I mean, it's interesting of course, to know that the majority is watching YouTube, but I don't think that they are watching YouTube from a book perspective. So they're just using it as it as entertainment. So there's also means that I I'm not, I don't think that you want you to conclude out of this, that you should try to sell books on YouTube to these people. That's not the point here. No.

Autumn (33m 21s):
Oh, I think you'll good luck with that. If you can find a way, but yeah. I think they're pretty much on YouTube. Like you said, for entertainment, maybe tutorials. I mean, my that's my favorite use of YouTube. I must be so boring, but I'm on it to watch tutorials on how to, to stuff. Yeah. I wouldn't do it yourself or that's how it works.

Jesper (33m 41s):
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, and also for the millennials, you know, they have a very, very large population-based there even lots of than the boomers, but as you pointed out in your article as well, they, on the other hand, they don't have that much cash compared to our gen Xs. We have like five, five times the wealth of the millennials and they are many more than we are. So I think money wise, they usually operate with a fairly limited budget. Yes.

Autumn (34m 16s):
I agree. There tend to be educated. And I think gen Z are even going to be more educated than millennials, but millennials tend to be educated. Their careers really haven't taken off, even though, I mean, they can be as old as 40, but they're still struggling. We'll get to the statistic when we talk to gen Z, but gen Z and millennials combined, combined, which has a huge amount of population. That's 68 million plus like 72 million somewhere in there. They only have 6% of the U S wealth 6%. So if you're a marketing to anyone who is 40 and younger, we're talking about someone who has only 6% of the U S wealth. They're going to be inheriting quite a lot from baby boomer parents.

Autumn (34m 57s):
I think it was like 68 trillion. But again, the wealthiest are going to inherit. The most, most people are going to just inherit, maybe a nice modest sum. And then you take out the inheritance tax, which is like 50%. They're not going to be made wealthy overnight. And that was 68 trillion by 2030. So they still have some ears and that's a good a statistic. So that's going to be up and down. It's going to be some sooner. Some later may remind me later. So they're not a very wealthy generation. If you're marketing to them, this is the one you want to be trying free giveaways. They will sign up for free giveaways and free coupons. And again, these are people who have grown up with the internet.

Autumn (35m 37s):
They have probably started their own businesses in high school. They know how it works. They know what happens when they sign up. Most often they've done it probably a million times and they, but they will do it. They will sign up to check out something and to give a sample, they'll go for the free sample. It might be the best way to hook them. However, they might not be able to afford to go buy all your books right away. They might have the budget for them. They might be the ones on Kindle unlimited. That's going to be the best deal for them because they don't have a ton of money. You want to keep these aspects in mind that, you know, they're the ones who are looking for things. But the nice thing is, is since I grew up in the internet age and because they have a limited amount of money, they're also really good at research.

Autumn (36m 19s):
They're really into reading reviews. And they're huge at social media, leaving reviews and telling people if they loved or hated you. So these are the influencer generation. They're the ones who, if they like you, they're going to show the unboxing. They're going to give you reviews. They're going to give you a huge shout out. However, they are definitely not brand second shirt. They are quality centric. So they might stick to you for a while. But if they find something better, they're going to move to something better. So you might not be able to hold on to these as tightly, as you might a boomer who was going to basically keep you in cherished for the last breath.

Jesper (37m 3s):
Yeah. And of course the good news is that the eBooks, at least, I mean, these people are very used to the, you know, technology and so on. So eBooks is not a problem. And then the other part of it is of course as well that they might not have a lot of wealth, but eBooks are like a couple of bucks. So for most of them, they, I think they should be able to afford a couple of bucks for an ebook. Otherwise they have a lot of problems, but not to say that some don't of course, but, but I think there's quite a big, I mean, because they aren't, there are so many of these that a lot of them will have the money to buy a three, four, $5 ebook. So yeah, it's good to know of course, to be mindful that they are operating on a limited budget.

Jesper (37m 48s):
And like you just said, autumn, this, just to me, that doesn't mean so much about them not being able to afford the books. I think it more speaks to the fact that you have to write really good books too, to keep these people reading. Otherwise they they'll just not buy any more from you. Then they'll go jump on onto another author or something instead, and try to read some other books. But because they might, you might be able to hook them to buy one book, but they're not going to continue reading the series unless they really find it really good. Yeah. So for me, I think that's the important part. Yeah.

Autumn (38m 21s):
Yeah. I agree. And I'm though, I do, I have met a, quite a few that have mentioned that, you know, they have a book budget, you know, they can only, they, everything is budgeted in their life because they only have so much money and you know, the good ones don't go over, but that's why things like Kindle unlimited are such good deals and they're going for the deals. So if there's a way, if they love reading and they want to be able to read as many books as possible in a month, they're going to read Kindle unlimited. And that's why I think you see Kindle unlimited being such a huge, you know, inducement, why so many people are a part of it because it's a good deal. If you're a serial reader and you only have like 4% of the entire U S wealth. Yeah, I do it. Not a problem.

Jesper (38m 60s):
Yeah. Okay. So Jen C born between 1997 and two, 2012. So that basically makes them between six years old and 24 at this point in time, they are so there's a lot of them, nearly 68 million people in the U S here.

Autumn (39m 21s):
So this is another big generation, almost the same as a gen X. So this is like our, our shadow copy gen Z and admittedly they're young. So there's not a ton of market research on them yet, but it's up and coming. They're starting to make their waves known in the world. But again, combined gen Z combined with gen with millennials, only 6% of the U S well, so tiny amount. So they're even less. They have even less than millennials because they're just getting into the workforce. If they finish their education, they almost, all of them have at least one parent that graduated from college and a lot of them are going on to do master's program. They're going to be one of the highest educated generations.

Autumn (40m 2s):
And so because of that, a lot of them are not in the workforce or working full time. So they have even less money going around. They have also never known a world without smartphones, and that's just terrible by amazing, amazing. They are, you know, they're going to, the next generation is going to come with USB plugs installed. I swear. They just know their way around. Exactly. So they're there. The biggest thing I think in the reason I included them, even though they're not much marketing research is that if you are targeting Y a young adult readers, you're targeting gen Z. So go and look and see what they're doing.

Autumn (40m 43s):
Of course, I thought it was so funny when I looked at why stats 50% of why readers are adults they're older than 24. So that's, you know, gen X of even boomers, millennials, they're all reading. Why are they just doing a secretly? But technically gen Z is your target audience. If you're Yia. So you should know where they are, what they're doing, how they buy books. This is really important for you to take a look at it and see where they're hanging out, which again is pretty much all over from Tik TOK to F to Facebook, to YouTube, to Snapchat. Tick-tock rising pretty quickly.

Jesper (41m 26s):
Yeah. I think for these people, you know, think of somebody who's grown up with computers, they grown up with smartphones, they grown up with apps. So it's really important if you want to engage with these people online, which is like the main place where you should be engaging with them, all the, like, you know, nice images, nice user interfaces, eh, corresponding with them through commons and in chats and you know, the whole community building thing. That's the key here. So yeah, to me, like for, for somebody, a, a gen X person, I already feel like, oh, this sounds stressful.

Jesper (42m 9s):
All the, all the million interactions in commenting on all these different social media platforms. I don't know. It's not my thing to be honest. But I think for these people, for the GNCs, it's important for them, this, this is how they, to a last degree, that's how they view relationships. A lot of their relationships are online. So it's, it's yeah. For, for, for somebody from a gen X, this is just like a different planet kind of thing.

Autumn (42m 41s):
I mean, they consider their life online almost equal to their physical life. It is about equally important, 50 50, which yeah. As a gen X or having remembered like life offline that I still prefer, you know, to be offline quite a lot. We're the, we're the generation that's like, I'm digging a social media break. I mean, I think gen Z is like, that's half of my life. I would never go offline, but they want the fine touch. They want the, they want community. If you want to get gen Z ears into loving your WIA books, you have to build community. You have to have interaction and beautiful photos and you have to have video. They like video. So they want to see all of these things and you've got to be chatting with them and you've got to be dynamic.

Autumn (43m 21s):
And you've got to also be really aware. And this is what I've been reading some way books. And the change is so non they're, non token, not at all. If you want to go read like the shadow and bone, the Grisha series of Krisha verse, it's so different from what I was reading as a teenager, there's very few elves, very few dwarves, very few overs. It's almost all humans and different races and their interactions. And, you know, they'll have issues of transgender and homosexuality. It's all there and it's very open. And those are the concerns rather than, you know, a quest group it's totally different. And it's kind of, to me, it was really a refreshing to read.

Autumn (44m 3s):
It was very exciting to read very different, but it is a completely different audience. And it's interesting. You got to go in and hang out with them and see what they're doing and be on Tik TOK and be very engaged and fun and have that community, and also have the coupons and the free books and Canon limited, because that is definitely how you're going to be able to hook them. At least have one series in Kindle unlimited. If you're doing WIA, because they're in school, they don't got much money. Don't make them pay for everything. They're probably getting it as a Christmas present from their parents.

Jesper (44m 38s):
It sounds like way too much work on them. I'm already tired.

Autumn (44m 42s):
And you have kids, your kids are technically gen Z or

Jesper (44m 48s):
Yeah, but I, yeah, that part is fine. But I marketing to these people sounds like way too much.

Autumn (44m 55s):
Yeah. I probably is. But just have your train, your kids to do it. You'll, there'll be naturals. That's why you have kids, maybe your marketing managers. True.

Jesper (45m 6s):
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I was talking to my oldest son because he's about to, he wants to start his own YouTube channel. He wants to do like a, well, like a true GNC, I guess. Right. So he wants to build a YouTube channel and he wants to, you know, do like those gaming videos and stuff like that. And then I was trying, I w I was trying to be like the good dad who has been, you know, I've been doing the YouTube thing for us as well and all that stuff. So I was, I started talking about something because we were talking about the intro and outro music thing that you put on videos and stuff like that. And I was sort of saying to him, well, just be mindful that you know, that some of that is copyrighted.

Jesper (45m 49s):
You can't just take some music for wherever. And he was like, yeah, yeah. I know all of that as you do. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And I also know where to find it. Okay. So he knows all of it. I bet you, like, in, in four months, you'll will know more about YouTube than I ever knew.

Autumn (46m 6s):
We're going to be hiring him as our social media manager. Just watch the,

Jesper (46m 11s):
Yes. They just, yeah. They notice stuff. They do know this stuff. Okay. But what can we sort of conclude out of all this order,

Autumn (46m 19s):
That if you're a gen X-er and marketing to G and you're not doing Y a and marketing to gen Z and millennial sounds too much market to boomers, try it. I would S I would love to know if anyone is specifically choosing like a Facebook audience saying, you know, 50 and older, and, you know, just finding the right words, because again, they will actually spend money. They will go buy your books. Possibly. Like I said, you should have paper books available, but they will read online. As lot of them have adapted to like the Kindle paper, whites and stuff that feel more like a book that look more like a book. I want to know if anyone's doing that because after reading this, I'm like, they have money. They're impulsive, they're brand centric.

Autumn (46m 60s):
They sound like they have, they're retired. They have time to read. They sound like the gift of book marketing right there. Go for boomers. I want to know if anyone else is because it's totally rethought. I'm like, I now see why, if you're marketing to gen X, you're going to be marketing forever to try to get them to get, you know, give you a try. They'll give you a try, but they're, you know, they're booked, they're tired. They've got kids, they do their research. They're going to be so hard sell to, and the rust, you know, they don't have much money. These are not a huge 6% of the wealth they're going to be. It's going to take some time to get gen Z and millennials to want to spend money on you, unless you've got a really good deal.

Autumn (47m 43s):
But boomers, you know, 50% of the U S wealth, lots of free time, impulsive shoppers. Oh, I love you. I have to admit in some of my best emails, I put that in the post, some of the best emails I've ever gotten and the lengthiest emails, because boomers will correspond with you and they will stick with you. My biggest fans have all been boomers, but it took until I wrote that article to valet, oh, this is why they care. And they want to get to know you and they will stay with you and they will love you. And maybe they're not going to give you as big as a shout-out as a millennial or a gen Z, because they're going to spread you all over the internet.

Autumn (48m 23s):
They're going to love you in a really compassionate way. So I want to know if anyone's marketing to boomers. Cause I think it's totally a way to go.

Jesper (48m 32s):
Yeah. So let us know. And hopefully you got a bit of a inspiration for, you know, well, at least on the Facebook ads, you can target different age brackets. So at least now, you know, for your Facebook ads, at least some things to consider and think about on Amazon ads, obviously there's no way to select certain age groups and so on. So there you, yeah, it doesn't help much, but yeah, but at least with the Facebook ads, I think this is very useful.

Autumn (49m 5s):
Yes. And in the posts on patron, I actually went into maybe some suggested images because each generation has different traits of the type of images that call to them. So again, come, go check out the post on Patriana. If you're a member or join for a dollar a month, then go check it out and see what the suggestions are.

Jesper (49m 24s):
Okay, good. So next Monday, autumn has a very special interview lined up for you. It's about how to write fight scenes. And for us fantasy authors that is highly relevant.

Narrator (49m 36s):
If you like what you just heard, there's a few things you can do to support the and writing fantasy podcast. Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at apple podcast and leave a rating and review. You can also join Autumn and Jesper on patreon.com/AmWritingFantasy for as little as a dollar a month, you'll get awesome rewards and keep the Am Writing Fantasy podcast going. Stay safe out there and see you next Monday.