Novel Marketing

Are your book sales starting to dip a bit? Perhaps your book sales were once great and are now starting to fall. You may see this drop in sales for several reasons, but you don’t have to stand by and watch them drop indefinitely. Most bestselling books see their highest sales during the pre-order period, followed by the launch month, and then experience a slow, steady decline. But you can extend a...

The Holy Grail for many authors is to write a popular book series where readers of book one go on to read book two and so on. Writing a popular book series provides many marketing advantages, namely that your advertising is far more profitable. But writing a series is also risky. Generally, you can only sell subsequent books to folks who purchased, read, and enjoyed the first book in the series. F...

I'm excited to announce that tickets are now for sale for the 2025 Novel Marketing Conference. The conference will be held in Austin, Texas, on January 17th and 18th. This event is not a typical writer's conference where you learn how to write and publish a book. Our conference is focused on book marketing, and our goal is to help you make 2025 the best year of your author career so far!...

A few weeks ago, Dazed Digital published an article asking why men no longer read novels. The article itself had no satisfying answers, but the question triggered a big discussion online, particularly on X, where everyone had a hot take. But men are buying and reading books. And authors who write what men want to read are making millions of dollars. In this week’s episode , you’ll hear from Alexan...

Authors often refer to their books as "babies." As I've worked in the publishing world with authors and now that we are awaiting the birth of our fourth child, I'm starting to see a lot of similarities between birthing a book baby and a human baby. We can learn a lot about delivering a book baby by looking at the process of delivering a real baby. In this week's episode ,...

Novelists often struggle with what to write or say in their email newsletters, blogs, and podcasts. Unpublished novelists often feel like they have nothing to talk about, and published authors know readers tire of constant book promotion emails. So, what should novelists write about? Writing a novel is a bit like woodworking. When you craft something from wood, you often have leftover pieces of lu...

Have you ever wondered if a course would be a better way to present the material in your book? Have your readers asked you to develop your book into an online course? You probably know that online courses tend to sell at higher price points than books, but you also know they are a lot of work. Will it be worth it for you? For your readers? I’ve been creating and teaching online courses for over a...

You probably know that offering a reader magnet on your website is imperative to growing your email list, tantalizing readers with a sample of your writing, and eventually getting them to buy your book. If you write novels, your reader magnet should be a short story, but if you don’t know how to write a great one, you’ll miss out on the many advantages short stories provide. In this week’s episode...

Your website is one of your most critical book marketing assets . It’s where you manage your online reputation, grow your email list, and sell books. But before you build a website, you need web hosting. You have thousands of web hosting options, which can feel a bit overwhelming. How do you know what kind of host you need for your website? In this week’s episode , you’ll discover What a web host...

Feeling overwhelmed by book marketing can lead authors to look for shortcuts. Shortcuts lead to expensive complications. Expensive complications lead to dead ends. Dead ends lead to suffering. Yoda would call this “The path to the dark side.” Does this sound familiar? How do you escape this overwhelming cycle? There are ten different stressors that can lead to book-marketing overwhelm. Most author...

Being an author requires you to have hundreds of online accounts for different software and services. Websites such as Amazon, ConvertKit, Publisher Rocket, Patreon, K-lytics, Bookvault, AuthorMedia.social, AuthorsXP, BookBub, Kickstarter, Teachable, Bluehost, WordPress, Grammarly, and Plottr (to name a few) all require a username and password. Some authors avoid using helpful tools simply because...

Can you make a living as an author without selling through Amazon? Many authors wonder. Amazon is the sole revenue source for many indie authors, but Amazon’s algorithms can disable your KDP accounts and cut off your income without any human reviewing the action. Authors find themselves pleading with a computer to reactivate their accounts while their livelihoods hang in the balance. While this sc...

With the rise of AI authors, how do you prove you are a human author? Most authors prove their humanity with their names and photos. Your identity protects you from being called a bot writer. But what if you use a pen name? Will AI bring the age of pen names to an end?  While pen names are going out of style, there are some reasons you might still consider using one. In this week’s episode , you’l...

I remember watching Steve Jobs's keynote presentation for the original iPhone. This magical new device, he said, would revolutionize our productivity. And at first, it did. But then, along came apps. Soon, user experiences were scientifically optimized to be as addictive as possible. An author's productive output is inversely correlated with time spent on the phone. In this week's e...

Authors around the world are trying to reduce their reliance on Amazon. However, most of us still use and like Amazon. In fact, many authors earn most of their money from Amazon. But any company with a 90% market share can't be fully trusted. One way indie authors can reduce their reliance on Amazon is by selling directly from their own author websites. Selling directly provides protection fr...

One key to becoming a best selling author is the selling . And one element of sales is the sales pitch. Some authors think pitches are only to be used for pitching agents at writers conferences, but you can actually use a sales pitch whenever you talk about your book. Your sales pitch convinces readers to care about and read your book. The stronger your pitch, the better your sales. I’ve talked a...

My first DOS computer had no mouse. Its screen had two colors: green and white. Today, computers have mice and complex graphics, and there is no need to be a computer programmer in order to use a computer. Technology gets easier to use each year. Even though it's easier than it used to be, sometimes you still need help. Many authors find that the biggest obstacle keeping them from writing, pu...

A few months ago, we released an episode called The Starving Author: How to Market Books When You Have No Money . After the episode aired, several authors asked me a similar question: “What do we do if we do have money to spend?” You see, not all authors are starving. Some writers have spent years saving money, and they want to know how to get the best return on that money when they invest it in b...

Author Media has a list of over 10,000 subscribers, and around half of them open our emails, which means our open rates hover around 50%. That’s a high open rate! It’s partly because new subscribers join our email list through webinars I present for writers and authors. By the end of each webinar, attendees know enough to want to open emails from Author Media and me. Plus, the comments, questions,...

An Uber driver's most valuable asset is his car. A photographer's camera is critical. An Uber driver with a broken car can't make money, and a photographer with a cheap camera will slowly starve. What is the critical tool for an author? What tool will help you earn money and keep you from starving? Your laptop! You write, edit, and promote your book on your laptop. A reliable, compa...

When readers browse Amazon, they have already decided to purchase a book. The only question is: Which book will they choose? What if there was a way to reach readers at this pivotal moment and persuade them to pick your book from the list they're considering? There is! It is called Amazon Advertising, and it has become one of the most popular forms of book promotion for indie authors. However...

The tools we use for writing have evolved over the centuries, from quill and inkpot to the printing press, to the word processor to AI. Recent developments in AI tools for writers have sparked everything from laughable images to controversy and fear. Is AI evil? Is it safe? In this week’s episode , we’ll discuss what you need to know about AI in our current day. You’ll learn How (and how early) it...

Almost every traditionally published book goes up for preorder before it comes out. However, the advice surrounding preorders can be confusing for indie authors. Some indies say preorders are critical. Others say having a preorder for your book can hurt sales. Who is right? Should you set up a preorder for your book? Are preorders a good idea or a bad idea? Preorders can help or hurt, depending on...

You’ve heard me talk about the Five Ps of Marketing, and in this week’s episode, we tackle the third P: Place. In other words, where should you sell your book? Many authors struggle to find the right place to sell their books. Whether you're an indie or traditional author, you must discover the best places to sell. So, how can you unlock the power of place for your book? In this episode , you...

The term "self-publishing" doesn't mean that you sit in a cabin in the woods all by yourself and emerge with a published book as if you'd done it all singlehandedly. It's rare to find one person who has all the skills required to turn an idea into a physical book. We need cover designers, formatters, web designers, assistants, and more. You might be self-publishing, but yo...