What If Marketing Your Book Isn’t Really About Marketing?
Updated: 23 hours ago
Ask an author what they think about book marketing and, more often than not, the conversation quickly turns to numbers.
How do I get more followers? How do I become an Amazon bestseller? How do I get on a bestseller list? Which platforms should I be on? How often should I post?
I understand why authors ask these questions. Of course you want your book to be successful. You spent months, sometimes years, writing it. You want people to read it. But I think we’ve made marketing far more complicated, exhausting, and transactional than it needs to be.
What if marketing your book isn’t really about becoming good at marketing?
What if it’s about becoming good at connecting?
This is the perspective I encourage authors to begin with. You are not trying to become a marketer. You are an author trying to connect your book with a reader. That may sound like a small distinction, but I believe it changes everything. Imagine for a moment that you could walk into a room filled with hundreds of your ideal readers. Every person in that room has read your book and connected with it in some way. Maybe your story made someone laugh when they desperately needed to laugh. Maybe it transported them into a world they didn't want to leave. Maybe something you wrote made a reader feel understood. Maybe your book taught someone something, changed a perspective, inspired an idea, or helped a person find a way forward.
How would it feel to stand in that room?
You wouldn't care how many Instagram followers you had.
You would know your book had done exactly what you hoped it would do.
It had reached someone.
That, to me, is successful book marketing.
Yes, Your Book is A Product, but It Does Not Have to Be Marketed Like One.
A book is a remarkable thing. Words can entertain us, educate us, challenge us, comfort us, transport us, and introduce us to people and places that don't even exist. We keep certain books for decades. We reread them. We recommend them. We give them to people we care about. Sometimes we buy a book simply because it is beautiful and we want it on our shelf.
Books become part of our lives. So why, after putting so much care into creating one, would we suddenly reduce the book to a series of marketing tactics?
I believe a book is a work of art.
Yes, it needs to be professionally edited, designed, produced, distributed, positioned, and marketed. Those things matter enormously. But the marketing should grow out of the book rather than being imposed upon it.
The question shouldn't always be, What is everyone else doing to sell books?
A much more interesting question is:
What is it about this book that will make someone want to know more?
The Problem with Chasing Numbers
There is enormous pressure on authors today to accumulate visible markers of success. Followers. Rankings. Reviews. Bestseller labels. Engagement. Subscribers.
Some of those things can certainly help a book. I'm not suggesting that numbers don't matter or that authors shouldn't celebrate success when it comes. What concerns me is when authors begin to believe those numbers are the marketing strategy. A ranking can change tomorrow. Social media algorithms change constantly. A burst of attention can disappear almost as quickly as it arrives.
Connection is different.
A reader who genuinely responds to your work may tell someone else about it. They may buy your next book. They may come to hear you speak. They may follow your work for years. I would rather help an author build that kind of relationship with readers than exhaust themselves trying to manufacture the appearance of popularity.
Your Book Needs A Life Beyond Launch Day
Book launches matter.
Have the party. Visit bookstores. Go on podcasts. Talk about your book. Celebrate what you've accomplished. Give the book a strong introduction to the world.
But then what?
I think this is one of the most overlooked questions in book marketing. An author can expend an extraordinary amount of energy during the weeks surrounding publication. If the entire marketing plan depends upon maintaining that intensity indefinitely, eventually something has to give.
Usually, it's the author.
I want authors to think much further ahead. Books can have wonderfully long lives. A reader can discover your book six months from now, three years from now, or much later and still experience it for the first time.
Your marketing should leave room for that possibility.
The goal isn't simply to create the biggest possible moment. It's to create an ongoing path by which the right readers can continue discovering your work.
Start with Why You Wrote the Book
This is where marketing becomes much more interesting.
Instead of beginning with:
What should I post?
Start with:
Why did I write this book?
Where did the idea come from?
What happened while you were writing it?
What surprised you?
If you write fiction, where did your characters come from? Which characters changed as you wrote them? What scenes didn't make the final book? What world exists beyond what readers see on the page? If you write nonfiction, what made this subject important enough for you to spend months or years thinking and writing about it? What do you know now that you wish you'd known earlier? What conversations do you hope the book begins? There is so much material surrounding the creation of a book that never appears between its covers.
That's not marketing fluff.
That's the story behind the story. And readers who genuinely connect with your work may be fascinated by it.
Know Yourself as An Author
There is another piece of this that I don't think we talk about enough. Before you decide how you're going to market yourself as an author, it helps to know who you actually are.
What matters to you?
Why do you write?
What kinds of conversations do you enjoy having?
How do you naturally connect with other people?
Not every author needs to market the same way because not every author is the same. Some writers are wonderful in front of a room. Some thrive in intimate conversations. Some enjoy interviewing other people. Some write extraordinary essays. Some are natural teachers. Some create beautiful visual worlds. Some want to be deeply engaged with readers, while others are much more private. There is no reason all of those people should have identical marketing plans. The best marketing strategy is one an author can actually live with.
Find The People Who Want Your Book
This is ultimately what I want authors to remember.
You don't need to become a marketing machine.
You don't need to manufacture a version of yourself that you think the internet wants. And you don't need to spend the life of your book chasing every new platform, tactic, hack, or algorithm. You need to make a good book. You need to produce it professionally. And then you need to help the people who might genuinely value that book find their way to it.
Marketing is connecting.
And once you begin there, the question changes from:
How do I get more people to pay attention to me?
to:
How can I create a meaningful connection with the readers who will care about what I have created?
I think that's a much better place for an author to begin.
Thank you for reading this blog post.
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