Writing a book can be such a challenge in itself that many authors prefer to tell themselves they can “figure out the book marketing strategy stuff later.” But well before the launch—often while you’re still drafting—you must decide on some of the most crucial factors that will shape your book’s success.
From title clarity to audience alignment, the foundation of a strong book marketing strategy starts early. And if you’ve already published and you’re not seeing the traction you hoped for? Don’t panic—there’s still a path forward. We’ll talk about that too.
Whether you’re still writing or you’ve already released your book and are realizing things aren’t clicking, this post is here to help you avoid regret (or recover from it) by building a marketing strategy that actually supports your goals.
Here’s what most authors don’t realize until it’s too late: writing and editing aren’t just about getting the words right. This is where the strategic bones of your book should start taking shape.
Why “Figure It Out Later” Doesn’t Work
We’ve worked with countless authors who poured everything into writing their book… only to realize too late that the title didn’t resonate, the reader wasn’t clearly defined, or the book’s positioning didn’t support their larger goals.
That’s not a craft problem—it’s a book marketing strategy problem.
When you leave audience clarity, messaging, and platform strategy for “later,” you set yourself up for extra work and lackluster results.
5 Key Decisions to Make Early
If you’re still in the writing/revising stage, this is the time to set yourself up for long-term success. These five decisions lay the groundwork for a book marketing strategy that actually builds momentum and doesn’t leave you straining to hear over the sound of crickets. If you want results from your book, not to mention an audience who gives great reviews, answering these questions is essential.
1. Who is the book really for?
Yes, your book might appeal to a wide audience. But here’s the part about marketing that’s a little counterintuitive: If you’re trying to speak to everyone, you’re connecting with no one. You simply cannot serve a broad range of readers in the same way you can go deep with a narrowly defined set of readers. That’s why successful books speak clearly to one reader first. When you know who you’re talking to—what they need, what they’re searching for, and what matters to them—it becomes much easier to write something that resonates and sells.
Consider Amy, a career coach who wrote a book about how to be a better leader. But is it for mid-level professionals trying to demonstrate their leadership skills to advance their careers? Does she want to connect with burnt-out executives looking for reinvention through fresh tactics? Perhaps start-up founders learning how to lead their first teams? The core content about being a strong leader might shift only slightly—but the title, tone, examples, and marketing would shift dramatically based on the choice of primary audience or ideal reader.
She chose the first group, by the way, and we helped her reposition her book as helping middle managers both become good leaders and understand what projects to pursue for greater C-suite notice, as well as how to communicate their results as the natural consequence of their leadership. Those elements, tailored specifically to her ideal reader, helped her book stand out among a sea of leadership titles and gave her book marketing strategy the focus it needed to succeed.
2. What outcome does the book support?
What should your reader walk away with? What result are they hoping for? And just as important: what outcome do you want this book to deliver for you?
Whether it’s leads, opportunities, career growth, or reader loyalty, defining this early will help shape both content and marketing.
Judy wanted to inspire women navigating divorce. She’d had a really difficult divorce from an emotionally abusive and narcissistic man, and she wanted to share her experiences in hopes of helping women in similar situations feel less alone. She also wanted to empower those women to leave their marriages, just as she had, so she decided to write a memoir to launch a new career as a speaker in women’s wellness spaces.
The problem: the initial draft of the memoir focused too much on Judy’s pain and the internal landscape of her suffering, which could have forged a connection with her readers, but not so much with event hosts looking for inspirational speakers for wellness-themed events. In other words, she primarily focused on the immediate feelings and challenges of the situation instead of the solutions or recovery she experienced, which is what people seek to learn in wellness spaces.
But when we helped her refine her stories to produce clearer themes of resilience, trusting your intuition, setting boundaries, and healing, plus helped her come up with a reading line for the book that highlighted those themes, it placed her book more squarely in the wellness space. It showed event hosts that she had what their audiences wanted. That alignment between message and audience was what transformed Judy’s launch into a more effective book marketing strategy and a powerful tool for her speaking goals.
3. How does your brand or business connect to the book?
Even for memoirists or novelists, your book doesn’t exist in isolation. It’s part of your author brand, and maybe even your larger body of work or business.
William–an engineer with a long career in the sciences–had written the first two novels in his scifi trilogy before he came to us with a draft of his third book. But, surprisingly, the third book was not the conclusion of his series. Instead, it was the start of a new trilogy set in post-Civil War Texas. William told me that he’d gotten a bit bored with the first series and needed a break, so he let his love of Westerns carry him into a new genre.
William’s career in the sciences and his work in science fiction had a deep connection to his author brand and the audience he had built. Creatively, it makes total sense to pursue the ideas you’re most passionate about. But switching to a new trilogy in a totally new genre without finishing the first is an absolute kiss of death marketing-wise for any author who doesn’t already have a large and very, very loyal fan base.
A percentage of his existing audience might have been interested in following him into historical Westerns, but it would likely be a small percentage. Worse, his existing audience might be upset that he decided to start something new without first giving them the satisfaction of an ending for the stories he’d already released, abandoning him long before he ever had a chance to write that trilogy wrap-up.
If you’re writing nonfiction, this connection is even more direct—your book should support your offers, visibility, and positioning in your space. It’s one of the most overlooked parts of a successful book marketing strategy. The sooner you identify this relationship, the more seamless your strategy becomes.
4. Where will you promote the book?
You don’t need a massive audience to succeed, but you do need to know where your audience already spends time. Choosing the right channels early (podcasts, email, partnerships, social media, local events, etc.) means you can start growing those spaces now, instead of scrambling later.
So, for example, imagine your target reader is most active on LinkedIn and attends niche industry conferences. Still, you’ve spent all year building up your presence on Instagram because it’s the platform you already use personally, and you like it best. What value does a popular Instagram account hold if it doesn’t reach your intended audience? That’s a mismatch you can’t correct quickly. Knowing your audience’s habits early helps you focus your visibility where it actually matters.
This kind of clarity shapes your pre-launch book marketing strategy so you don’t waste time building the wrong audience on the wrong platform.
5. When should you start building visibility?
As the saying goes, the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second-best time is today. You should start building your visibility much sooner than you probably think.
You don’t need to post “My book is coming!” every week—in fact, please, please don’t—but you should be steadily growing your presence, building trust, and priming your future readers. And you should start doing it as early as you possibly can.
One of my early ghostwriting clients started appearing more frequently on blogs and podcasts while we worked on his manuscript. The topic of his book was closely tied to his coaching work, so I encouraged him to pitch himself as an expert on that topic, leveraging his personal and career journeys. I also counseled him to set up a landing page for the upcoming book on his website, featuring an opt-in form, and to mention at the end of every podcast interview that he was writing a book on the topics he and the host had just discussed. Of course, he also shared the URL for his landing page, which the hosts included in their show notes.
Without the opt-in to join his mailing list, this would not have been as effective, since no one could have yet purchased the book, and they’d certainly not have remembered it almost a year later when it was published. But because we’d mapped out a clear strategy to accomplish the immediate goal—building a list in advance of publication—my client enjoyed several benefits.
First, by the time his book launched, he had already secured dozens of interviews and invitations to return to those shows for further discussions about the book. Second, he had a growing email list and warm leads who already saw him as a trusted voice. And finally, he had a base group of people he could solicit to join his launch team, which helped him get positive reviews up on Amazon quickly and helped him sell more copies faster.
A slow and steady platform-building effort in the background will do more for your book marketing strategy than a last-minute flurry ever could.
Already Published Without These in Place?
If you’re reading this after your book is already out and your launch didn’t go the way you hoped, you’re not alone—and you’re not stuck.
We’ve worked with numerous authors who launched their first books without a clear strategy. The good news? In most cases, you can relaunch, refresh, or reposition your book to better serve your goals without having to rewrite and republish it completely. Book repositioning is often one of the most effective post-launch book marketing strategies available—especially when your message and audience just weren’t quite aligned the first time.
So how do you know if these key foundational steps are at the heart of your book sales problem? Well, here are four signs that point in that direction:
- Your audience isn’t engaging or converting.
- The book isn’t gaining traction beyond your personal network.
- You struggle to talk about the book in a succinct, compelling way.
- You’re feeling stuck about what to do next now that the book is out.
This is all fixable. And often, the second wind—when your book marketing strategy finally aligns—is where the biggest results show up.
What We’ll Be Working On in the Author Advantage Mastermind
If your book is still in progress, tackle these questions yourself first and seek out a developmental editor, a type of book professional that can edit your draft with an eye toward these same issues and much more. Contact us today to see if this is right for you.
If your book is already published, this is exactly the kind of work we dive into in the Author Advantage Mastermind. Inside the program, we help you:
- Clarify your ideal audience and what your book needs to say to them
- Refine your messaging, positioning, and platform strategy
- Build post-launch visibility systems that keep your book working for you
- Leverage your book into bigger results for your brand or business
If you’re ready to stop winging it and start building a book marketing strategy that supports the book and your business goals, we’d love to support you. Your book deserves to reach its fullest potential as the most powerful tool in your business toolbox, but it can’t if it’s just sitting in your Zoom background gathering virtual dust.
Your Next Step
If you haven’t launched yet, this is your opportunity to build a stronger foundation by addressing these five elements in your book draft.
If you have launched, and it didn’t land the way you hoped, you can start fresh—with the clarity and book marketing strategy you were missing the first time.
Apply for the Author Advantage Mastermind here. Applications are taken on a year-round rolling basis.
Frequently Asked Questions About Book Marketing Strategy
1. When should I start building a book marketing strategy?
The best time is while you’re still writing or editing your manuscript. Early decisions about audience, messaging, and positioning have a major impact on how effective your launch will be.
2. Can I relaunch a book that didn’t do well at first?
Yes! Many authors successfully reposition their book with new messaging, a refreshed description, or a different audience strategy—even without republishing.
3. Do I need a big following to have a successful book launch?
Not necessarily. What you need is a clear strategy that connects your message to the right audience—and channels that actually reach them.
4. What are the biggest book marketing mistakes new authors make?
Waiting until after the book is written to think about marketing, trying to target too broad an audience, and investing in the wrong platforms too late in the game.
Ally Machate is on a mission to help authors make great books and reach more readers. A bestselling author and expert publishing consultant, Ally has served small and “Big Five” publishers, including Simon & Schuster, where she acquired and edited books on staff. Her clients include authors with such companies as Simon & Schuster, Penguin Random House, Rodale Inc., Chronicle Books, Kaplan Publishing, Sourcebooks, and Hay House, as well as independently published bestsellers. As founder & CEO of The Writer’s Ally, Ally and her team lead serious authors to write, publish, and sell more high-quality books.
