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Strangers to Superfans: A Marketing Guide to the Reader Journey by David Gaughran (book review)

May 21, 2022 by Karin Beery Leave a Comment

From the author of Let’s Get Digital and Amazon Decoded, this book will change how you think about marketing. Strangers to Superfans puts you in the shoes of your Ideal Readers, and forces you to view your marketing from their perspective.

*Learn the five stages in the Readers’ Journey.
*Identify where your blockages are and how to fix them.
*Optimize each stage to increase conversion.
*Boost sales by making the process more frictionless.
*Build an army of passionate readers who do the selling for you.

It’s not enough to know who your Ideal Readers are, you also need to imagine how they feel when a recommendation email arrives containing your cover. You must figure out why they hesitated before clicking the Buy button. And it’s crucial to determine why they liked your book enough to finish it… but not sufficiently to recommend it to their friends.

The Reader Journey is a new marketing paradigm that maps out the journey your Ideal Readers take in their transformation from strangers to superfans.


I’ve been a fan of David Gaurghran’s articles/posts online for a while now, so I thought I’d take the plunge and read one of his books. I’ve heard amazing things about Amazon Decoded, but this book’s shorter, so I decided to read this one first.

It’s okay, but I don’t feel like I finished the book with much more knowledge or strategy than when I started it. He quickly identifies the five stages of a reader/buyer’s journey toward becoming a fan, but he repeats the information many times without providing any concrete strategies for improving each (there are vague guidelines).

Two things particularly frustrated me. First, that you have to visit a website to get more info (I bought the book for that info). Second, his “case study” in how everything works doesn’t start with an unknown author — it’s the case study of a well-known author with a large following who had already been working with a publicity specialist before Gaughran stepped in. That’s not overly encouraging for an author who doesn’t have any of that yet.

Overall, there’s some good information in here, but you have to dig for it, and if you want more specific information you have to go somewhere else. If you have some free time and money to spend, it’s worth a try to read this, but I might encourage you to save your money and use it on one of his other books.

Get your copy here.

As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

Filed Under: book reviews Tagged With: Amazon ads, book marketing, book publishing, book review, marketing strategy, selling books, writing a book

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