Be Generous and Strategic in Book Marketing

A Sustainable Approach to Author Marketing

Many authors are overwhelmed by the idea of marketing their books. The learning curve is high, and much of it seems foreign. I’ve found that approaching marketing from a perspective of generosity changes everything about how it feels. This is the advice I give to new authors.

Before I started writing books, I had a career in marketing. As a result, I often speak about book marketing to various groups of writers.

Sometimes the writers all belong to a single genre (like Sisters in Crime). Sometimes everyone is self-publishing, but writing in different genres. And sometimes, as at the San Francisco Writer’s Conference, people write in all genres, following various paths to publication.

Here’s the catch when speaking to diverse audiences: a tactic that works for one author won’t necessarily work for another.

Heck, the same marketing tactics don’t perform evenly across my own four books.

Tactics are highly specific, but strategy has a broader reach.

There’s one book marketing strategy that works for every writer, no matter how you’re published or what your genre: be generous and strategic.