Novel Marketing

Sometimes in marketing, it pays to zig when everyone else is zagging. In this digital age, when authors race to do everything online, it's easy to forget the magic of face-to-face interactions. Personal connections can transform your relationship with your readers and fellow authors.
A book festival is a fantastic way to meet with readers and writers at the same time in real life. But what is a book festival, and how can you organize one?
In this week's episode, I asked Dave Cohen to talk with us about book festivals. He's a British writer with more than four decades of experience writing comedy for the BBC. He saw a void in his community and stepped up to the plate for readers and authors_._ You'll learn
·      What a book festival is
·      Three types of book festivals (and which might fit your book best)
·      How the format could boost your book sales
If you've wished for an in-person venue to sell books and connect with readers and authors, listen in or read the blog version and see how you might be able to grant your own wish. 

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As Yoda says, “Difficult to see the future is.” But difficult is not impossible. Causes have effects, and the more you have a sense of the rhythms of the past, the better you can sense the future.
If it takes you two years to write a book, you owe it to yourself to ask, “What kinds of books will be popular in two years?” Reader preferences change over time, but sometimes they change rapidly. If you don’t keep up, you may get stuck writing a book people no longer want to read.
So, how can you determine what will be popular in a few years?
In this week’s episode, I speak with Alexander Macris about how history’s cyclical patterns can give us clues about what types of literature will resonate in the future. You’ll learn

• Why certain themes and plots are failing miserably in our current moment
• Where to find past ideas that are likely to resonate in the future
• Why certain themes resonate at different times in history

Listen in or read the blog version of this episode to get a head start on writing a book with themes that will resonate with readers in the future.

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Has inflation eaten away at your book profits? Perhaps you want to start advertising and need some margin. Or maybe readers are not taking you seriously with your book's current low price.
You need to raise the price of your book, but how should you do it?
Most authors raise prices quietly. One day, the price just goes up, and they hope no one notices. But that approach is a massive mistake and a missed opportunity.
A future price increase is a rare opportunity, and in this week's episode, you'll learn how to

• Increase your price the right way
• Gain favor with readers by announcing a price increase
• Make the current price seem like a bargain

Listen in or read the blog version of this episode to discover how you can do a kindness for your readers, help them take action, and sell more books at a higher price with a reverse coupon.

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The last time I visited Barnes and Noble, I marveled at the comic book section. Western comic books only filled a couple of shelves, while around the corner, there was an entire aisle of manga comic books.
I wondered, “Why is Eastern manga so much more popular than Western comic books from DC and Marvel?” As I investigated, I discovered an interesting and shockingly ancient answer.
Western storytelling is typically based on the three-act structure, which dates back to Aristotle. But one ancient story structure that dates back to the time of oral storytelling and is still popular in the East, yet it appeals to modern Western readers.
Many Western storytellers have rediscovered it and used it to write some of the most enduring bestsellers in the English language, including Pride and Prejudice, Goodnight Moon, and Dracula.
In this week’s episode, we’ll discuss

• A story structure based on only two acts
• How to create a two-act structure for a sentence or a series
• How this structure might rescue a story you’ve been struggling to finish

Listen in or check out the blog post version of this episode to learn about this ancient story structure and how can you use it to make your book more appealing to readers.

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Reader magnets are like real magnets. Sometimes, they aren't very magnetic, and other times, they're so magnetic that we can rapidly grow an email list of tens of thousands of readers.
A reader magnet is supposed to magnetically draw readers onto your list so that when you have a book to announce, lots of folks are ready and eager to learn more or buy.
But what if your reader magnet doesn't seem to be working?
In this week's episode, I interviewed Jonathan Shuerger to learn how his company, The Strategic Author, can help authors target their ideal market and create super magnetic reader magnets.
You'll learn

• How to gather intelligence on your target reader
• What questions you should ask to gather useful data
• How to use that intel to create a reader magnet they'll love

Listen in or check out the blog post version of this episode to discover why your reader magnet might not be having the impact you want and how you can make it more attractive.

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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 book sales lifecycle.
In this week’s episode, we’ll talk about

• Why your sales may be declining
• Which sales problems you can fix (or not)
• How to reinvigorate your sales (sometimes with very little extra investment!)

Listen in or check out the blog post to discover why your sales might drop and get a robust list of marketing strategies to boost them back up.

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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.
For some authors, writing books in a series has shackled their otherwise good books to a relatively unappealing freshman effort.
So, how do you know if your book is a good fit for a series?
In this week’s episode, you’ll hear from Kristina Stanley, best-selling, award-winning author and the founder of Fictionary.co. We discuss

• Two types of series
• How to know if your idea can sustain a series
• Strategies for release and promotion of books in a series

Listen in or check out the blog version of this episode to learn about the many marketing advantages a completed series provides and how you can write a successful series.

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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!
In this episode, you'll find out
·      Three special ingredients that make the Novel Marketing Conference unique
·      How this year's conference will differ from last year's
·      Why we've made certain deliberate choices for this year's conference
Listen in or check out the blog version of this episode to get details about the 2025 Novel Marketing Conference.

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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 Alexander Macris, who wrote a rebuttal of sorts to the assumption that men don’t read novels.
In our conversation, you’ll learn
·      What men are (and are not) reading and why
·      How to write for male readers
·      Which storylines male and female readers want to read
·      How to market books to men
Listen in or check out the blog version of this episode for some surprising insight into what male readers are (and aren’t) looking for in a novel.

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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, you'll gain insight on

• The author's experience in each stage of book-baby development
• How to cover the expenses related to holding your book baby for the first time
• How to nourish your book baby and promote healthy growth

Listen in or check out the blog version of this episode to find out what to expect when publishing a book and what your "book baby" needs for a healthy gestation, birth, and life.

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