Novel Marketing

Little Golden Books have sold billions of copies with almost no advertising. You might guess it's the cute animals or the cheap price. But plenty of books try that and fail. The real reason is a piece of marketing psychology so powerful it works on babies who can't read yet. It works even better on adults. It's called the Diderot Effect, and most authors have never heard of it. In this week's episode of Novel Marketing, you'll discover: The one detail on the back of a Little Golden Book that ...

In my recent episode The Shopify Trap, I explained why selling direct doesn’t always pay off for authors. When you’re selling dozens of books instead of thousands, monthly fees and sales tax paperwork can eat your profits. Meanwhile, Amazon takes a substantial cut of every sale. So, is there a better way to sell directly to readers without giving up your margins or adding another monthly bill? I asked Greg Keogh, co-founder of Curios, a direct-sales platform used by thousands of authors. Greg...

Most authors know only one kind of Kickstarter campaign, and for many of them, it isn't the best one. This week on Novel Marketing, you’ll hear from Russell Nohelty, a USA Today bestselling author of over 70 books who has run dozens of successful Kickstarter campaigns. Russell wrote the book on the subject, How to Launch Your Book on Kickstarter, and he didn't hold back, even when he disagreed with me. In this week’s episode, you’ll learn Five different types of Kickstarter campaigns you can ...

The chatbot told him his manuscript was brilliant. The humans gave his manuscript a C. That's what happened to one author who trusted AI as his editor. If you use AI to help with your editing, it's probably lying to you too, and not just once in a while. In this week’s episode, I talked with Matthew Bowman, a freelance science fiction and fantasy editor who has worked with authors for 16 years and runs the Novel Ninja blog. Matthew helped me develop many of the anti-flattery techniques behind...

Your book may not be dead. As Miracle Max would say, it might only be mostly dead. A book that flopped three years ago could sell better today than it did on launch day, but only if you fix what actually broke. This week, I talked with Julie Broad, founder of Book Launchers and host of BookLaunchers.TV. Julie is a #1 Amazon bestselling author, and her team has helped more than 400 authors write, publish, and market their books. When her clients publish second editions, her team moves their re...