Come On An Endless Beach Vacation With Me
The last pieces of the business are slotting into place as my plan to add guest gift bags should help the Airbnb near Lake Michigan roughly break even by end of year if bookings continue to be consistent. Now I'm turning my attention to the neglected media/publishing side of the business, where I learned 2 important things:
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utility vs. art brand positioning makes my brand discoverable on social media
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if I follow a content creator model for marketing the Airbnb with relaxing beach and nature content and then post creative content and fiction/poetry books set by Lake Michigan on the back end
Here's why those two factors make such a different recently as I start to scale up my marketing efforts:
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Utility means titling one of my relaxing beach videos something like "Relax by the Beach: 1 Hour of Calm Beach Waves To Sleep To" rather than "Take A Walk by Lake Michigan With Me" with excerpts or links to creative content. With this shift in positioning (suggested by AI as an agent business and marketing manager) I am seeing a large margin of improvement on social media and Youtube beach content posts.
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What's nice about learning the above is I also found that people equally like my new raw beach walk videos and my poems scrolling over the top of the same videos. The issue with social media is that book marketing is practically impossible to start from scratch with any speed these days, while content creation that more directly connects with my relaxing beach videos from the Airbnb gives me a viable way to build an audience and community. While book marketing efforts fell completely flat except marketing through the Airbnb gift bags and a few hard to scale options locally (because I can't keep up with in person marketing events as a disabled author), content creation on social media has a clearly defined path with clear monetization and traffic goals as well as a larger audience that more directly connects with my main revenue driver: the Airbnb.
The thing is, this isn't upsetting to me like I thought it would be, to have to put the books on the back end after trying for years to get it going on and off while life was lifing. It's more like the universe was building my perfect job while I was working as an author, but what I always wanted was to share this relaxing connection with nature and this is more direct as a way to do it, plus I don't have to give up the books: this enables an otherwise difficult endeavor. So, wish me luck! This year I have shifted from starting more content projects and the gift bag promotions and nailed down details of the fantasy/poetry brand and social media channels. Now I'm scaling content based on what worked so far. I'm hoping to create something that is a cross between a relaxing meditation beach walk type channel with something similar to my favorite videographers who have nature-based lifestyle channels about art, slow living, and nature:
Lost Lakes Jonna Jinton Cecilia Bloomdahl
It has taken me a while to settle into the idea that I can't take the business journalism forward with me except in a more narrative fashion with historical stories of business industries and the like. I hope you'll stay on the journey with me, as this is only just getting fun.
Links
Stay at my Airbnb near Lake Michigan: VRBO Silversides House https://www.vrbo.com/4333031
Like/follow/subscribe to @LorelaiAuthor / CroniclePress Channel on Youtube for more relaxing beach and writing/remote business journey content about Lake Michigan and historic Muskegon.
Buy the author's books about Muskegon (fantasy, nature poetry): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FMZQWYZR/ref=docs-os-doi_0
Follow on Social Media: IG Silversides House: https://www.instagram.com/silversideshouse/ IG Lorelai Author: https://www.instagram.com/lorelaiauthor/ TT Lorelai Author: https://www.tiktok.com/croniclepress
Subscribe To Cronicle Press Publisher/Remote Business Journey Blog: https://www.cronicle.press
(I’m also on X, LinkedIn, Goodreads, and FB if you are interested!: search @lorelaiauthor @croniclepress @silversideshouse)
Goodreads Lorelai Author Page: https://www.goodreads.com/author/list/51682968.By_Lorelai