Novel Marketing
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© 2025 Novel Marketing
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The longest-running book marketing podcast in the world. This is the show for writers who want to build their platform, sell more books, and change the world with writing worth talking about. Whether you self publish or are with a traditional house, this podcast will make book promotion fun and easy. Thomas Umstattd Jr. interviews publishers, indie authors, and bestselling traditional authors about how to get published and sell more books.
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Authors talk about “the algorithm” the way the little aliens in Toy Story talk about “the claw.” Does the algorithm randomly choose your book, or is someone else controlling the claw? In this week’s episode, you’ll discover what we know about how Amazon decides which books to show, and how to get your book in front of the readers most likely to love it. In this episode, you’ll learn: How Amazon “decides” which book recommendations to give shoppersWhich readers you should persuade to click Ama...
Lately, I’ve been getting swamped with emails from authors asking about Shopify. Many are losing money and wondering what went wrong and how to fix it. Here’s the truth most authors don’t want to hear: Shopify is usually a bad deal for most authors. In this week’s episode, you’ll learn ✅ Why Shopify sounds so good but often backfires ✅ The math behind why most authors lose money by using it ✅ Better alternatives that save time, stress, and money Shopify is lauded as an attractive option ...
Are you wasting money, time, and paper by using the wrong printer? Before you buy your next printer, make sure it has the features every author needs. The wrong setup can cost you hundreds of dollars a year or, worse, stop working altogether when your Wi-Fi service fails. In this week’s episode, you’ll learn: The critical printer features authors needHow to cut your paper use (and clutter) in halfHow to make your printer more reliable and easier to useThe subtle trap you must avoid when pur...
Audiobooks have been the fastest-growing segment in publishing for a decade, and for many readers, an audiobook signals a real, human-written book. In fact, audiobook sales have recently outpaced ebook sales! Now is the time to get your book on audio. But where do you even begin? In this week’s episode, audiobook consultant Bryan Canter gives us an overview of the entire process of how ACX (Audiobook Creative Exchange) works and how to publish your book on audio without blowing your budget. Y...
Many authors make the mistake of writing a book first and then trying to find readers. This is backwards and rarely works. However, if you follow these three steps, your book will be set up for success. Step #1: Identify your target reader.Step #2: Start growing an audience of readers like that person.Step #3: Launch your book.But how do you find your Timothy? How do you grow your audience? And how do you write the kind of book they'll love? In this week's episode, you'll hear from Josiah DeG...
The faster you write, the more books you can publish and the more money you can make from your writing. We all type slower than we speak, and if you’re typing and creating a story at the same time, you type even slower. But what if you could regularly produce 50 words or more per minute? You’d be able to write a 120,000-word book in a 40-hour work week! Authors who can write that fast all use dictation. So why do so many authors hesitate to use it? If you’ve ever tried dictation and felt awkw...
Giving away your hard work for free doesn’t seem to make good business sense. So why do authors give away ebooks for free? What if “free” didn’t kill your revenue, but primed it? In this week’s episode, we’ll dig into the permafree strategy with Dale Roberts, author of Secrets of the Permafree Book. You’ll learn: Where permafree works (and where it flops)How to make Amazon price-match a free bookHow to determine whether the permafree strategy is working for youWhich kinds of standalone books ...
So you wrote a good book, but you can’t seem to get reviews. Do you just throw up your hands? Why do reviews and ratings even matter? Well, the more reviews a book has, the better it will sell and the more reviews it will get. Without the social proof of reviews, readers scroll past your book listing, algorithms ignore you, and sales flatline. So, how do you get more book reviews? In this week’s episode, we’ll hear from Joe Walter of Independent Book Review. You’ll learn Three different kinds...
Most authors either avoid AI or use it badly. Let’s fix that. Authors who learn to use AI find that they have more time to write better books. In this week’s episode, Joanna Penn and I break down where to start, which tools are actually worth using, and how to get useful output instead of bland tasteless, voiceless, AI slop. You’ll learn How to prompt ChatGPT like a coworkerThe best tools for images, deep research reports, audio, and marketing tasksWays to use AI that you probably haven’t con...
Every author needs editorial feedback. But not all feedback is good. If you accept every edit, you risk losing your voice and writing something bland. If you ignore all edits, you risk writing something sloppy that readers won’t buy. So how do you know which edits to take and which to toss? In this week’s episode, you’ll learn: 7 “Bewares” to help you sort out good and bad editorial suggestionsWhether AI or human editors are helpful or hurtfulHow to develop good tastes that guide your writing...
Most writing conferences teach you how to write a better book or how to pursue a literary agent. But what if you have already written a great book and you need help selling it? Is there a conference for you? Yes! Announcing the 2026 Novel Marketing Conference, a live, in-person event focused on helping you market and sell more books. The 2026 conference is packed with innovations you won’t find anywhere else: 100% live, interactive sessionsA small group of writers who write in your genreG...
If you write picture books, chapter books, or middle-grade fiction, you know the challenge: kids read your books, but adults buy them. So how can you let young readers know about your books? Where can you connect with your readers? By meeting them in person in school classrooms! In this week's episode, award-winning author Becca Wierwille shares how school visits became her best book marketing strategy and how you can start doing them too. In this episode, you’ll discover: How to get your fir...
What’s up with ruthless heroes and romantasy? And what if the real reason your book isn’t selling has nothing to do with your writing and everything to do with the zeitgeist? In this week’s Novel Marketing episode, we’re featuring an episode of Author Update. We unpack the massive cultural shift that's changing what readers crave. From romantasy's domination to the hunger for noble dark heroes, we explore what sells and why in the new "spirit of the age." In this episode, you’ll discover: T...
Ever wonder how some authors consistently sell a thousand books a month? What marketing tactics are they using? How can I get those results too? In the latest episode of the Novel Marketing Podcast, I talk with Susan Neal, author of nine books and CEO of the Christian Indie Publishing Association. Susan shares how she layers her marketing efforts—from podcast interviews to press releases—to drive book sales month after month. Here’s a taste of what you’ll learn: Which tactics helped her sell ...
Publicity has always been important for authors. Mark Twain promoted his books by writing letters to the paper, and even Agatha Christie, who was known for being very private, still did interviews with prominent newspapers. Yet some authors think this kind of publicity is old-fashioned. In a world dominated by social media, do we even need traditional PR anymore? If you've ever wondered how to get your book featured in the media—or whether it's even worth trying—you won’t want to miss ...
You’ve optimized your book for AI, updated your website, polished your metadata, maybe even watched our AI Optimization for Authors episode. But how do you know if any of it is working? In this week’s episode, you’ll discover how to measure your AI optimization success. Because the hard truth is that if ChatGPT, Grok, or Gemini doesn’t know your book exists, it won’t recommend it to readers. In this episode, you’ll discover: How to find out if AI has read your book &n...
Well, this is embarrassing. After 12 years of teaching authors how to build better websites, I realized I’ve never covered the most important page on your site: your book page. Your book’s webpage isn’t just for selling your book anymore. It’s now key to showing up in Google search results and getting recommended by AI tools like ChatGPT. In this week’s episode, you’ll learn: The biggest mistake authors make when creating book pages (and the easy fix!)The elements your book page must have to ...
The publishing industry is facing significant challenges. We just went through a major zeitgeist shift, and reader preferences radically changed. AI also showed up in a big way, so it should be no surprise that several traditional publishers are struggling to adapt. What happens to you and your book if your publisher goes bankrupt? How will you know if your publisher is headed that way? In this week’s episode, we uncover eight warning signs your publisher might be on the brink and what you ...
You work hard to create content for your audience. But how do you get more mileage and reach out of each piece you create? One way is to adapt your content for another platform. I recently started adapting my podcast into a YouTube channel. But how do you do that? I learned the hard way how not to do it. To gain traction on YouTube, you have to respect YouTube as a platform. You can't just shovel your podcast audio onto it and expect good results. I had an interesting conversation about this ...
Have you been dreaming about publishing a book that actually sells? The hard truth is that most authors fail because they jump straight into writing. They spend months writing a book only to find out later they made a key mistake, and nobody wants to buy the book. I've helped thousands of authors go from blank page to profitable launch, and in this week's episode, I'm giving you the roadmap. You'll learn my complete six-step process as well as how to avoid common pitfalls and rookie mistakes....
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Listening to this with all the decisions to make, I'm grateful for the 2 self-publishers I've used. They edited, formatted, designed the cover, and even helped with marketing. Good results! Would this then be a hybrid publisher? Ann al2.coker@gmail
What a helpful episode! Thank you, Thomas and Amy! I write middle grade fiction and many of the same things that you talked about apply to me as well. By the way, I am an elementary school librarian who is a Christian and open to adding Bibles and Christian books to my public school library. I'm sure there are some in middle school and high school as well. You might be able to donate a copy to your neighborhood school and others in your city. God bless!
Thanks for this episode, Thomas! This was really useful, and I am already seeing growth through Story Origin. As of today, my email list has 117 new subscribers in 30 days!
This was an amazing episode. I'll probably need to listen to it several times to catch all of the information. I, personally, hope there are more of the coaching call episodes in the future!
The wisdom Thomas Umstattd Jr. brings in every episode is invaluable. The guests on this show are well-chosen experts who contribute actionable insights. Novel marketing is listener focused, relevant, and simply a must have for authors looking to be competitive in the publishing world. I cannot recommend this podcast enough!