This week’s branding focus in Page Turner Planning is all about reader magnets—and more specifically, choosing the right kind of magnet for the readers you want to attract.
A magnet is a doorway into your fictional world. And before you create one, you have to answer a deceptively simple question: Who is this for?
Choosing Your Reader
In Page Turner Planning, I ask you to decide between two types of readers.
Entry Point Readers are brand new to your world. They don’t know your voice yet. They haven’t fallen in love with your characters. A magnet for them needs to lower the barrier to entry and make it easy to say yes.
Back of the Book Readers are already fans. They’ve finished a book and immediately want more. For them, a magnet deepens attachment and rewards loyalty.
That choice determines everything; what you write, how long it is, and where it lives in your ecosystem.
Enter Through the Front Door
For my Last Dragons series—six books about hot dragon shifters who abduct willing women from Earth to be their fated mates—I used a very intentional entry-point strategy.
After finishing the main series, I went back and invented (or retconned) new characters to tell the origin story: why the dragons had to resort to stealing women in the first place.
That book works incredibly well as a magnet.
I give it away whenever I can—ebook and print. The print book only costs me about two dollars to produce, which makes it a no-brainer as a physical giveaway. It introduces the world, explains the stakes, and makes readers curious enough to want the rest of the series.
That’s an entry-point magnet doing its job.
Bonus Epilogues at the Back
I’ve also had great success with bonus epilogues—short, emotionally satisfying scenes that readers can only access if they sign up for my newsletter.
Those are for back-of-the-book readers who already care because they already finished the story and they want one more hit of emotion, closure, or spice.
Bonus content like this doesn’t need to sell the world. It just needs to make readers feel rewarded for stepping closer.
Your Turn
So this week, your branding question is: Are you creating a magnet for readers who are just meeting you… or for readers who already love what you do?
If you haven’t created one yet, choose one lane and start there.
If you already have a magnet, look at it honestly and ask if it’s attracting the readers you actually want.
You don’t need both types right now. You need one clear doorway that works.
So tell me:
Which will you do next—an entry-point magnet or a back-of-the-book reward?
Or, if you’ve already tried one, which strategy has brought you the most success?
I decided that for the series I’m writing, each back door magnet would be an alternate pov, and I would label it in my newsletter segment “back matter cookie book 1” or 2 or whatever the book was to track read through.
I have a prequel to the series, and once I get to book 5 of the series making book 1 permanent free, also giving away the first book in print. Hello Trader Joe’s cashier, yes book 1 came out, would you like one with a book mark and some stickers?
I’m off most socials, so developing an audience one on one is a strong part of my marketing plan.
I appreciate the idea of back door and back door, two diff reader profiles for sure.
Was thinking of doing a bonus scene magnet for the romance novella I’m publishing in the spring!