Book Marketing: It’s Not About You (or Even Your Book)

Why does book marketing feel uncomfortable or unnatural for so many authors?

It’s because most of us are doing it all wrong.

Too often, we think that “marketing” means standing on a soapbox (*cough*cough*LinkedIn post*), raising our book in the air, and shouting, “Hey, everybody, look at me! I wrote a book! Look at my book! It has a fancy cover and an A-B-tested title! You should buy it! In fact, it’s 20% off this week!”

But here’s the truth many of us learn too late:

If your marketing is about you—or even about your book—you’re doing it all wrong.

Readers (beyond your immediate circle) don’t care about you. They definitely don’t care about your book. You know what they do care about?

Their problems.

The best marketing activities you can do are the ones where you get out there and use the amazing ideas from your incredible book to solve peoples’ problems:

• Appear on a podcast in your niche and share lessons you wish you learned sooner in your career
• Write a guest magazine article applying your area of research to a pressing national issue
• Film a series of YouTube Shorts sharing real-life case studies from your consulting work
• Spend five minutes responding with your insights to a hot-button LinkedIn thread

As you consistently show up to solve people’s problems, they will remember you, trust your ideas, and come looking for more. They’ll check out your website. They’ll follow you on social media. They’ll sign up for your newsletter.

They’ll buy your book.

Not convinced? Check out these examples:

• James Clear writes a weekly newsletter with 3 short ideas, 2 quotes, and 1 question. No fluff. No sales pitches. Just pure value. His newsletter has over 2 million subscribers and has been a major driver behind the runaway success of Atomic Habits (25 million copies sold)

• Chris Kohler posts humorous YouTube shorts (half a million subscribers) exposing the many corrupt ways companies trick your money out of you. No gimmicks. No dance moves. Just pure value. Each short video shows his book, How They Get You, for a split second at the end—helping drive it to over 400 Amazon reviews less than five months out from launch.

• Lily Zheng writes several high-value LinkedIn posts each week. No self-promoting plugs. No outbound links. Just pure value. These posts, over time, have helped them grow a highly engaged audience of 176,000 followers—powering the successful launch and sustained ongoing sales of their 2022 book DEI Deconstructed.

“Sounds well and good,” you say. “But how do you actually do this?”

At BookPlan 2026, our annual nonfiction book marketing workshop, we’ve lined up experts to show you how to:

• Write value-packed emails your readers want to open
• Get booked on podcasts and shine as a guest
• Deliver speeches that move your audience to action
• Host online events that engage and delight

And more!

BookPlan runs April 22–24, 2026. As a thank-you for reading this article, get $50 off with the code NotAboutYou.

Remember:

Good marketing isn’t noise about you. It’s real impact on others’ lives.

Keep making that impact, and we hope to see you at one of our events!

BK Authors is a 501(c)3 nonprofit dedicated to helping nonfiction authors magnify their voices, reach, and impact. This article was contributed by Jeremy P. Madsen, BK Authors’ operations manager.

Photo by Pixabay via Pexels.com.