You are here because you want to change the world.
You have a message. You’ve written a book to share that message. You are eager to reach and impact thousands, if not tens of thousands of lives.
There’s just one problem.
Books don’t sell themselves.
Why Books Don’t Sell Themselves
The book market is not just oversaturated. It’s drenched.
If you tally up both traditionally published and self-published books, around 3 million new book titles are added to the US market every year.
Each of those new titles are competing not just with each other, but with all the existing books already out there—a number estimated to be around 40 million.
To put that in perspective: In 2024, there were 16,000 book categories listed on Amazon for the United States.
That means that even if your book is in an uber-specific sub-sub-sub-category (for example, Business & Money > Human Resources > Conflict Resolution & Mediation), your book is still competing with, on average, 2,500 other titles!
Your book could be the best book every written on its subject, but that doesn’t matter if no one knows about it. And as 1 in 2,500, the chances of your book getting picked up by physical bookstores, or for readers to stumble upon it on Amazon or Google, by itself on its own merits, are next to 0.
That’s the problem.
But it gets worse.
Most Traditional Marketing Methods Don’t Work
“Okay,” you say after reading the above. “Simple. I’ll just post on social media about my book, and everyone will buy it.”
Well, that’s another problem. Social media doesn’t sell books. The percentage of followers who ever see your content, much less engage with it, much less click on your link and buy your book, are abysmal. If you are extremely lucky, you might have 0.5% of your followers buy your book—but the odds are closer to 0.1%.
So if you want to sell 1,000 books through social media, you would need between 2 million and 10 million followers. And unless you already have that, the road to build that would take years.
“Okay,” you say. “I’ll just hire a PR firm.”
But in most cases, publicity—even if you can get it, which is getting harder and harder in an environment with more and more competition over fewer and fewer media outlets—doesn’t sell books, either.
And every other traditional marketing tactic likely running through your head right now—big-name endorsements, book awards, print ads,—doesn’t have a high ROI for book sales, either.
Phew. Deep breath.
Are you ready for the good news?
There is a formula for effective book marketing
It’s not our proprietary “secret sauce.” But it is often ignored and underutilized. It’s a focused, effective approach taught by the world’s leading book marketing experts, from Jane Friedman to Nick Stephenson to Tim Grahl.
Ready for it?
Build an email list of people who value your work.
That’s it.
Okay, but to break that down a bit more, here’s how you do that:
- Figure out your audience and your message
- Figure out who you are trying to serve
- Figure out what their problems are
- Get super clear on how you solve their problem
- Build a subscriber-getting system
- Create a lead magnet – Something that provides a ton of value to your audience, for free, in return for their email
- Create a simple but effective landing page, subscribe form, email software, and welcome email to guide people onto your list
- Create Valuable Content
- Create free, consistent, valuable content for your audience
- In all your content, consistently point people to your lead magnet
- Distribute That Content
- Pick 2–3 channels where you can consistently get your content in front of new people (podcasts, LinkedIn, guest articles, speaking, YouTube, conventions, etc.)
- Build clear systems and plans for showing up on those channels in a sustainable, consistent way
- Offer More Value to Your Email List
- Periodically invite your email subscribers to get more value from your paid services: your coaching, consulting, courses, and, the reason we’re all here, YOUR BOOKS!
So how do you develop the skills to follow this formula?
At BookPlan, our annual nonfiction book marketing workshop, you’ll learn how to
- Define exactly who is your audience is, what they need, and what you provide them that no one else does.
- Build a reader magnet and subscription system to effortlessly turn leads into loyal email subscribers
- Simplify and sharpen your message
- Write compelling emails to your list to build their trust
- Use AI tools to repurpose your content for social media posts, videos, and more.
- Create an outreach strategy to get your content in front of new readers.
- And more!
BookPlan is a 3-day event held over Zoom, with about 80–100 authors in attendance.
Our next BookPlan workshop runs April 22–24, 2026. Register today!
This article was written by Jeremy Madsen, operations manager for BK Authors, administrative contractor for Berrett-Koehler Publishers, former operations manager for LDSPMA, and founder of Iron Rock Press. It was vetted by the 2025 BookPlan committee.