Okay, so here’s a thing I keep running into. People, writers, mostly, but not only, come up to me, or email me, or corner me at a thing, and they say some version of: “Yeah, I put it out there. I posted about it. I told people.” And I say, “Great. When?” And they say, “When it came out. Back in… March.” And it’s October. And I just look at them. Because, you know, that’s not a campaign. That’s an announcement. An announcement is a moment. A campaign is a relationship. And nobody told them the difference, so they’re sitting there wondering why the book, the thing they bled on for two years, sold eleven copies, nine of which went to their aunt.
Here’s the deal. You mentioned your book once. Once is not a campaign. Once is a sneeze. And the world is full of dust and noise and a thousand other books and podcasts and whatever, and your one mention, your one brave little post, got swallowed whole. That’s not a failure of your book. That’s a failure of the thing after the book. The part nobody teaches you. The part where you have to keep showing up.
So let me give you some pointers, because I’ve been on both sides of this, the guy shouting into the void and the guy getting shouted at, and I’ve learned a few things the hard way.
1. Accept that repetition is not annoying, it’s the job. You know why you’re afraid to mention your book again? Because you remember mentioning it. You saw it. It’s seared into your brain. But here’s the thing about audiences: they don’t remember. They didn’t see it. Or they saw it and thought “cool” and scrolled past and then their kid needed dinner and their car made a noise and it was gone. The rule of thumb, and it’s uncomfortable, is that people need to hear a thing something like seven times before it registers. So your “I already told them” is, in reality, “I told them a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of them, one time, when they were distracted.” Say it again. Say it differently. Say it next week.
2. A campaign is a calendar, not a mood. Don’t wait until you “feel like” promoting. That feeling never comes. Sit down, actually sit down, and make a list. What can I share this week? Next week? Next month? A quote from the book. A story about writing it. A photo of the mess on your desk. A question for readers. A review someone left. A thing you got wrong and fixed. You’re not manufacturing content, you’re sharing the work, which is different, and easier, and more honest. Build a rhythm you can actually sustain. Once a week beats one heroic burst followed by six months of guilty silence.
3. Talk about the book, not at it. The fastest way to make promotion feel gross is to stand there like a signpost going “BUY MY BOOK.” Nobody wants to hang out with a signpost. What people respond to is the world around the thing, why you wrote it, the weird research rabbit hole you fell into, the part that scared you, the reader who told you it mattered to them. You’re inviting people in, not shouting at them. The book is the reason, but the story of the book is the doorway.
4. Don’t make every mention a sales pitch. This is the one people get wrong, and then they feel dirty, and then they stop. So: mix it up. Some posts are “here’s the link, it’s available, here’s what it costs.” Most posts should just be about the thing, interesting, human, generous. If ninety percent of what you share is worth someone’s attention for free, the ten percent that’s an ask lands just fine. The ask doesn’t have to be loud. It just has to be present.
5. Build a small list of people who actually want to hear from you. Social media is rented land, the algorithm changes and suddenly you’re shouting at a wall. An email list is yours. Even a modest one. When you have news, you tell those people directly, and it’s not spam, because they opted in. That’s the difference between a campaign and a nuisance: permission. Gather it. Respect it. Use it.
6. Ask, specifically and directly. “Check it out” is not a call to action. “It’s twelve dollars, here’s the link, it would mean a lot if you bought it or told one friend” is a call to action. Be concrete. Tell people exactly what you want them to do, and make it easy to do it. Vague asks get vague results. That’s just physics.
7. Let other people carry it. Reviews. Recommendations. A friend telling a friend. Word of mouth is the only marketing that actually works, and you can’t manufacture it, but you can ask for it. Politely. Specifically. “If you read it and liked it, a review helps more than you know.” Most people are happy to help. They just don’t think of it unless you bring it up.
8. Give it more than one season. A book isn’t a firework. It’s a slow burn, a thing that can find readers for years if you keep the door open. The paperback. The audio. The excerpt. The anniversary. The “here’s what I learned a year later” post. You’re not spamming, you’re staying in the conversation. That’s the whole game.
And look, I know this is the part that feels like a betrayal of the art. You wanted to make the thing, not be a salesperson. But the hard truth is that the making was only half the job. The other half is getting it to the people it was made for. And if you don’t do that half, if you mention it once, back in March, and then go quiet, the book doesn’t get rejected. It just never gets found. And that’s the real tragedy. Not the no’s. The silence.
So mention it again. And again. Not like a signpost, like a person who made a thing and believes in it and isn’t going to let it disappear because the algorithm was having a bad day.
That’s the campaign. That’s the job. Now go tell somebody. Then tell somebody else. And then tell some more people… and so on.
While I’m telling you to tell people, I’m going to tell you that both my books are still available. Digital Marketing for Creatives and The 21 Marketing Lies Creatives Tell Themselves are both still availabe on Amazon. Both books are designed to help you create a marketing system that allows you to market effectively without sucking huge amounts of time that you could have used to create something. And what creative doesn’t want that?
Leave a Reply