Marketing your debut novel: A multi-part guide from someone with a decade’s marketing experience

I remember receiving that fated phone call from my agent. I happened to take the day off work and woke to the phone ringing. I wasn’t supposed to hear from her for another week at least; we had made arrangements that we would have check-ins every two weeks while the manuscript was on submission to publishers.

But that morning, more than a week before our scheduled check in, she called to say that a publisher had offered to publish my book, the book that would become A Wolf for a Spell.

I burst into tears.

In the months that followed I went through the intense revision process that all debut authors go through: developmental edits, line edits, copy edits, pass pages. . .

Throughout all of this, lurking in the back of my mind, were thoughts about the book’s marketing. Not because I didn’t trust my publisher, but because as someone with nearly a decade’s experience in marketing, I was excited to see what the future held.

Typically, marketing is one of the reasons why an author chooses to pursue traditional publishing (having a publisher print and distribute the book and then give the author a royalty) versus self-publishing. In self-publishing, an author gets ultimate control over the book as a final product, including the cover, the price point, any illustrations, the font and formatting, even the title — all things that can and do get changed by publishers in the interest of selling more books (though hopefully in consultation with the author). With this freedom also comes the pressure of selling books. The marketing, press, store and library outreach, awards applications, all of it falls on the shoulders of a self-published author.

This gets especially tricky for authors of children’s books, like myself. Schools and children’s librarians are often hesitant to purchase self-published children’s books, using the publisher’s brand and reputation as a way of vetting books for quality. Given how busy teachers and librarians are, this is understandable, even if the unfortunate result is that some excellent self-published books are overlooked.

For me, this meant that my goal was to be traditionally published, even as someone who loves marketing and would happily do the work of marketing my own book.

Whoops, I did a bunch of marketing experiments anyway!

In the months leading up to my publication day and the year since, I have built up a list of things that I’ve tried. Some failed tests, some never intended to be more than experiments. I wanted to begin noting down what I’d done in preparation for my second book. Since I’m noting down all of this anyway, I’d like to share it with other authors, in case there’s anything useful.

Before we begin, a few caveats:

• First, I am a middle grade author, so much of my experience is focused on books for children. There will be more relevance for picture book and young adult authors than adult, perhaps, though I tried to call out things that I think are relevant for authors of all age groups.
• Second. As mentioned, I was traditionally published, so some of this advice is probably less relevant to self-published authors. I have a lot of admiration for what self-published authors are able to do in marketing for their books, and I’ll admit that my advice probably falls far short of the incredible advice that already exists for self-publishing.
• Third, in listing all of these things I am in no way saying that you should do all of them. In fact, I think that is probably impossible. Most authors are juggling writing as well as full-time jobs and family obligations. Trying to be a full-time marketer on top of that is not a good use of your time. You are better off writing more books, which earns you more money and also markets your back-catalogue of already-published work. My hope though is I might be able to help you prioritize, and decide which things you feel more able to succeed at doing.
• Finally, while I am someone with a lot of marketing experience, I can’t say that my own marketing for my books is flawless. I know there are many areas in which my own marketing and my past marketing elsewhere in the entertainment industry could have been improved, but my experience does make me more aware of industry best practices and norms so I feel comfortable speaking to many of these things, even if they are things that I personally am not very good at.

There is enough content here that I think it should be spread across multiple articles so I will theme each article over a subset of activities, which are usually considered as part of a marketing plan. These are:

• Advertising: This can include both traditional advertising (newspapers, billboards, the side of a bus), but most people who ask me questions about advertising are usually referring to digital advertising (running ads on Facebook, Google, and elsewhere). I’ll go into more depth as to why I think traditional authors should not run digital ads, but I will also give some tips on how to do it if it’s something you want to experiment with.
• Social media: We all have heard the phrase “building a platform.” I’ll talk more about different channels, how their audiences differ, and why it’s better to have an excellent presence on one platform than a mediocre one on several. Once you think about the reasons behind building a social media presence, it might also have you rethink things that feel very different but actually serve a similar purpose, such as email newsletters and podcasts.
• Press: If you’re traditionally published, you will hopefully have a publicist. But it’s still super valuable to understand how pitching works and what materials are useful to have in your back pocket, and why you will get a lot further if you do the research into the publications you’re pitching to and the kinds of content they like (what does that remind you of? Oh, that’s right, it’s a lot like querying). I tend to include influencers in this group because the processes are pretty similar.
• Sales: I’ll be honest, this is the area that I don’t really cover in my day job, so it’s more of a mystery to me than the others. But what I basically mean by this for individual authors (instead of a Sales Department) is the work a lot of authors consider the hardest and most terrifying, which is speaking to individuals and asking them (or convincing them) to buy your book.

But beyond these things, there are a lot of other activities that a marketing/PR/sales department at a company might be responsible for, which you can consider as part of your marketing presence and plan. Some examples:

• Your author website
• Your presence on other websites, such as GoodReads
• Giveaways
• Conference talks and panels
• Book Clubs
• School Visits
• Book Crates
• Awards (yes, they are a marketing tool)

That’s a lot to cover!

There is a reality that even traditionally-published authors still need to do a lot of their own marketing work. Hopefully I can help demystify some of that, and also help you avoid sinking too much time into things that might not be strategically sound. Some of the confusion and stress for authors comes from authors being uncertain. What marketing is handled by my publisher and what is my responsibility? I’m hoping this will provide some clarity.

Let’s get started!

You will find the next article, ‘Facebook and Google Ads for Authors’ here.

If you find any of this useful, please consider sharing, or check out my book A Wolf for a Spell.