BookMarketingBuzzBlog

Wednesday, October 28, 2026

What's Your Book Marketing Strategy?

I hear all kinds of things from authors who seek glory for their books. Here is a sampling:

“I need to do something big, something different from what everyone else is doing.”

But they ignore tackling the things that are more easily achievable.

“I want to write and have others promote my books.”

It is good to get help, but authors must still do some things on their own.

“I have done everything that could be done to market my book, but have few sales to show for it.”

Chances are you did not do everything, nor did you do it as well as it should be done.

“The book is great and should sell itself.”

Don’t we wish! It takes time, money, help, persistence, hard work, connections, and luck to break through — not randomness. Hope is not a strategy.

My approach to book marketing is simple: Start with the low-hanging fruit and obvious stuff that one needs to build an author brand. Then experiment and try a few long-shot approaches. Maybe you will get lucky.

Start with creating the tools needed to build a platform. This means:

Open several social media accounts: improve your profile, increase your posting frequency, improve the quality content, use the platform to network with your targeted readers.

Have a web site — and not just a social media presence or an amazon page. Use words, charts, photos, reviews, book excerpts, blog posts, book giveaways, free content, media, and anything that you can create or buy that gets your message across powerfully.

Craft targeted pitch letters for the news media, seeking speaking engagements, and soliciting testimonials.

Research your lists of the people and institutions that you plan to reach out to, such as targeted media outlets, book awards, bookstores, and family and friends.

Join writer associations based on your location, such as Florida Writers Association, your book’s genre, such as Romance Writers Association of America, or general ones, like IBPA.

Identify the keywords and terms needed for string SEO on your website, social media, and Amazon page. Develop the hashtags, and headlines you will want to incorporate in your messaging.

Get third-party validation: Ask for testimonials, get paid reviews, and apply to book awards and writing contests.

Develop a strong elevator pitch and be prepared to succinctly play your book up anywhere, anytime.

Pursue news media coverage, including local media where you live and where you grew up. Create a press kit and research the media to pursue appropriate feature stories, interviews, and byline article opportunities.

Hire a professional to help you with certain marketing aspects, but do not expect to outsource everything.

In short, no matter what you think book marketing is or should be, I can guarantee you that some measure of savvy book marketing will be needed to give your book a competitive chance to succeed.

What is your book marketing strategy?

Marketing Help?

Brian Feinblum can be reached at brianfeinblum@gmail.com He is available to help authors like you to promote your story, sell your book, and grow your brand. He has over 30 years of experience in successfully helping thousands of authors in all genres. Let him be your advocate, teacher, and motivator!

About Brian Feinblum

This award-winning blog has generated over 11 million page views. With over 5,700+ posts over the past 15 years, it was named one of the best book marketing blogs by BookBaby http://blog.bookbaby.com/2013/09/the-best-book-marketing-blogs and recognized by Feedspot in 2026, 2021 and 2018 as one of the top book marketing blogs. It was also named by www.WinningWriters.com as a "best resource.” Copyright 2026.

For the past three decades, Brian Feinblum has helped thousands of authors. He formed his own book publicity firm in 2020. Prior to that, for 21 years as the head of marketing for the nation’s largest book publicity firm, and as the director of publicity at two independent presses, Brian has worked with many first-time, self-published, authors of all genres, right along with best-selling authors and celebrities such as: Dr. Ruth, Mark Victor Hansen, Joseph Finder, Katherine Spurway, Neil Rackham, Harvey Mackay, Ken Blanchard, Stephen Covey, Warren Adler, Cindy Adams, Todd Duncan, Susan RoAne, John C. Maxwell, Jeff Foxworthy, Seth Godin, and Henry Winkler.

His writings are often featured in The Writer and IBPA’s The Independent (https://pubspot.ibpa-online.org/article/whats-needed-to-promote-a-book-successfully) and (https://pubspot.ibpa-online.org/article/10-things-my-dog-taught-me-about-marketing-books). He was recently interviewed by the IBPA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0BhO9m8jbs

He hosted a panel on book publicity for Book Expo America several years ago, and has spoken at ASJA, three times at BookCAMP, Independent Book Publishers Association, Sarah Lawrence College, Nonfiction Writers Association, Cape Cod Writers Association, Willamette (Portland) Writers Association, APEX, five times at Morgan James Publishing Red Carpet, and Connecticut Authors and Publishers Association. He served as a judge for the 2024 IBPA Book Awards.

His letters-to-the-editor have been published in The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, New York Post, NY Daily News, Newsday, The Journal News (Westchester) and The Washington Post. His first published book was The Florida Homeowner, Condo, & Co-Op Association Handbook. It was featured in The Sun Sentinel and Miami Herald.

Born and raised in Brooklyn, he now resides in Westchester with his wife, two kids, and Ferris, a black lab rescue dog, and El Chapo, a pug rescue dog.

You can connect with him at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianfeinblum/ or https://www.facebook.com/brian.feinblum

Tuesday, October 27, 2026

Interview With Author Lois Requist

1. What inspired you to write this book? I’d already written much of my memoir when I began to hear news reports about White Supremist rallies with marchers chanting “Jews will not replace us” and the Christian Identity movement. I grew up in a church that was part of those beliefs. Though I’d left those teachings behind, I was appalled to learn how many people have
bought into these ideas. As a child I didn’t know; as an adult I learned how racist the movement was. The influence on our federal government is alarming, just one of many actions that have severely divided the country and caused many to fear for the survival of democracy. Americans need to understand what the white supremacists and the Christian Identity Movement are and their influence upon our government.

2. What exactly is it about and who is it written for? It is about my life—growing up, first in a hell-bent religion and then in a Christian Identity group—and where I went from there. How I questioned these beliefs. How writing enabled me to understand and express my feelings. I chose to leave the church, but I didn’t want to leave my family, so it is also about maintaining
relationships with people I love but don’t agree with. It’s for anyone interested in the impact of religious views on current politics and how to maneuver in this divided world.

3. What do you hope readers will get out of reading your book? That faith is a choice, one that everyone should be free to make for themselves. Everyone should learn what my mother taught me: basic goodness, kindness, and respect for oneself and others.

4. How did you decide on your book’s title and cover design? That was easy. I asked a local artist to draw a picture of a young woman walking away from a church.

5. What advice or words of wisdom do you have for fellow writers – other than run!? Whether you are writing for money or fulfillment or both, keep on keeping on. Join writing groups. Other writers are often excellent editors and supporters.

6. What trends in the book world do you see -- and where do you think the book publishing industry is heading? It’s easier than ever to get published but harder to get people to read what you’ve written. I expect that situation to persist. Still, book clubs proliferate around the country. That’s a good sign.

7. Were there experiences in your personal life or career that came in handy when writing this book? My book is about my life, so all the experiences I wrote about made me what I am today. I’m 87 and I have many friends and family with whom I have good relationships. I enjoy life! I’m heathy, active, and want to share that, leaving my faith expanded my horizons.

8. How would you describe your writing style? Which writers or books is your writing similar to? My writing style is direct, down-to-earth, and easily accessible. I don’t write about faith from as theology, but simply, what happened in my life.

9. What challenges did you overcome in the writing of this book? My sister is a preacher in a Christian Identity group. I worried about her reading it and being upset, but when I gave her the manuscript, she read it, she didn’t argue. She just said it reflected my viewpoint. Getting published is always challenging, unless you are one of those selected by the few top publishers. I had a publisher but eventually broke the contract and chose to publish it myself.

10. If people can buy or read one book this week or month, why should it be yours? It’s relevant to what is happening in the United States right now! The book speaks of challenges with beliefs, with family relationships, with my own understanding of the world. It is hopeful and not judgmental. As I mentioned before, people need to understand the goals of the White Supremicists and the Christian Identity Movement. They would like a Christian nation without any place for anyone who isn’t Christian. The separation of church and state is extremely important! Wikipedia has quite a
good, historical account of the Christian Identity Movement. Leaving the Faith of our Fathers doesn’t dodge reality! It provides hope in a divided world.

About The Author: Requist received her BA and MA in English/Creative Writing from San Francisco State University. Her four published books are Where Lilacs Bloom, RVing Solo Across America, without a cat, dog, man, or gun, Late Harvest Green, and Leaving the Faith of our Fathers. She is a founder of Benicia Literary Arts, a nonprofit which promotes writing and publishing in the community. She’s published many articles for magazines and regional newspapers including the San Francisco Chronicle and the Benicia Herald. She was poet laureate of Benicia, California
from 2012-2014. For more info, please see: www.loisrequist.com.

Marketing Help?

About Brian Feinblum

Born and raised in Brooklyn, he now resides in Westchester with his wife, two kids, and Ferris, a black lab rescue dog, and El Chapo, a pug rescue dog.

You can connect with him at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianfeinblum/ or https://www.facebook.com/brian.feinblum

Interview With Author E. Aspen

1. What inspired you to write this book?

One word: "dysregulated." It showed up everywhere at once, in captions, in coaching ads, in the way people described a perfectly ordinary bad day. I wanted to know when a normal stress response turned into a malfunction, and who was selling the repair. That question led me to the websites of neck gadgets and ear clips. The moment it became a book was the bottom of one of those pages. Up top, in big letters: "Clinically Proven." Down below, in small gray type, the study turned out to be forty people with no placebo group. I laughed, and then I started reading what the research actually says.

2. What exactly is it about and who is it written for?

It's a funny, sourced tour of the nervous system industry: the gadgets, the subscription apps, the six-week resets that end with a certificate, and the one theory most of them lean on. It doesn't claim stress is imaginary, and it doesn't call the vagus nerve a myth. A long, slow exhale genuinely settles people down, sleep does a lot of the heavy lifting, and doctors use vagus nerve stimulation as a legitimate treatment for specific conditions. What the book pulls apart is everything layered on top of that real science. Then it hands over the free version: the things that calm a body down and cost nothing. Greg, the hustle guru from book two, buys every gadget along the way so the reader can keep their wallet closed.

It's written for anyone whose heart has raced before a deadline and who then got told by an ad that their body is broken. It's also for the skeptic in every group chat, the one who replies to a wellness post with a single word: "source?"

3. What do you hope readers will get out of reading your series of books?

A habit, more than any single fact. Each book takes advice the internet treats as settled (set SMART goals, grind now and rest later, memorize the red flags, regulate your nervous system) and checks how much of it survives. Some of it usually does, and I keep that part. What I hope sticks is the reflex: when something promises to fix you, find the source, scroll to the fine print, and ask what the free version looks like. If a reader closes one of my books and skips the next shiny fix, or simply feels a little less broken, the book did its job.

4. How did you decide on your book's title and cover design?

The title follows the series formula: F#ck, then the thing everyone is selling, then what to do instead. "Calm Down for Free" is the whole argument in four words, and probably the cheapest promise in the self-help aisle. The hash sign where a vowel should be lets the title make its point and still get printed, and on the cover it's red, so nobody misses the joke.

The cover is built like a case file. A label at the top reads FILE No. 04, the background is plain mint, and in the middle sits a red rubber stamp that says NOT BROKEN. That stamp is the thesis. A lot of people who reach for this book have been told their nervous system is damaged, and the cover disagrees with that before page one.

5. What advice or words of wisdom do you have for fellow writers, other than run!?

Run toward the fine print, maybe. For nonfiction in particular, keep your source list while you write, not afterward. If a claim can't be traced back to where it started, it doesn't go in, no matter how good the joke on top of it is. Cutting a great line hurts. Being caught out by a reader hurts a lot more.

Second, write the shortest book that does the job. I have never met anyone who finished a self-help book wishing it had ten more chapters of anecdotes. And third, treat your cover as a thumbnail from day one, because that's how almost everybody will meet it: a tiny square on a phone screen.

6. What trends in the book world do you see, and where do you think the book publishing industry is heading?

The obvious one is the flood. Online stores are filling up with AI-written books produced faster than anyone could fact-check them. Some are fine. Plenty read like a confident summary of a summary. The side effect, though, is a healthy one: readers are getting suspicious in the best possible way. They want to know where a claim came from, and "source?" has become a fair question to ask a book, not only a person at dinner. That pushes nonfiction toward writing you can check, with specific claims, named studies, and a list at the back a curious reader can actually follow.

The second trend I notice is a taste for short, focused, evidence-based nonfiction. A slim book that does one job well feels respectful of people's evenings in a way a padded 300-page version of the same idea doesn't.

Where it's heading, I think, is that trust turns into the thing readers shop for. Words are cheap now. A book that shows its work is the one people will keep passing to a friend.

7. Were there experiences in your personal life or career that came in handy when writing this book?

My life story stays behind the pen name, and I'd rather leave that line blank than decorate it. What I can show you is the process, which probably says enough about whoever is behind it. Each book starts as a pile of claims and a running list of where every one of them came from. For this book I visited the product pages myself and copied the marketing and the fine print word for word, with the date I saw it. I searched the FDA's warning letters and the FTC's cases from 2023 through September 2026 for this whole category of gadgets and found nothing, which turned out to be a finding of its own. So the experience that came in handy most is a stubborn reflex: I always read the bottom of the page.

8. How would you describe your writing style? Which writers or books is your writing similar to?

Short sentences, specific numbers, and a joke every few lines that has to survive a fact check. I write the way I'd explain something to a smart friend who has about ten minutes: jargon gets translated or cut, and no chapter runs longer than it needs to. One rule never bends. The joke lands on the claim or the sales pitch, never on the person who believed it.

People who enjoy Mary Roach's curiosity, Ben Goldacre's Bad Science, or Calling Bullshit by Carl Bergstrom and Jevin West will probably feel at home. I'm not putting myself in their league. Those are just the shelves I'd love to sit near.

9. What challenges did you overcome in the writing of this book?

Two, mainly. The first was staying fair to a theory I ended up criticizing. Polyvagal theory gave many therapists and their clients a gentle vocabulary for feeling unsafe, and that comfort was real. So in the chapter about the February 2026 paper where thirty-nine scientists called the theory untenable, I also quoted its author's reply and wrote a section on what the theory got right. Pure mockery would have been easier and worse.

The second was tone. This is a humor book about stress, and some people will open it during a genuinely hard stretch. Near the end there's one chapter with no jokes at all: how to tell a rough week from something that needs real help, and where to go for it. Knowing when to stop being funny was harder than being funny.

10. If people can buy or read one book this week or month, why should it be yours?

Because it might save you $269, and it will cost you roughly two evenings. You'll get a three-question test for telling a broken nervous system from a bad Wednesday, a breathing trick that's free and that you already know how to do, and a much sharper eye for small gray print. Every claim has a receipt at the back, so you can check me instead of trusting me. And if it turns out you really do need help, the book says so plainly and points you somewhere real. It's on Kindle now: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HLLTKYP8

About The Author: E. Aspen, a pen name, writes The F*ck It Files: compact nonfiction books with masked swear words in the titles and long source lists at the back. Each book picks one piece of advice that everybody repeats and checks it against the research, keeping what holds up and laughing at what doesn't. So far, the series covers goal setting, hustle culture and rest, dating red flags, and now the nervous system industry. Every book ends with a chapter-by-chapter Receipts section, and everyone is meant to be finished in an evening or two. A standalone book on overthinking, with a title you can say out loud, is on the way. For more info, please see: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HLLTKYP8

Marketing Help?

About Brian Feinblum

Born and raised in Brooklyn, he now resides in Westchester with his wife, two kids, and Ferris, a black lab rescue dog, and El Chapo, a pug rescue dog.

You can connect with him at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianfeinblum/ or https://www.facebook.com/brian.feinblum

Monday, October 26, 2026

What's Your Book Marketing Plan?

There are many pieces to the book marketing puzzle that are available to authors. The question is: What will work best for a specific book and author?

Most authors execute sone type of a grass roots campaign, to build interest locally and within their network of connections. Too many stop there.

Others may outsource every aspect of marketing, which is becoming financially untenable and just is not practical.

Some combine the best of both — the hiring of an expert to complement, support, or expand upon your efforts.

Some things are universal, regardless of a book’s genre or an author’s status. What is up for grabs is how well each author does in each of these areas— and to what percentage of their marketing mix is generated by each area.

Authors should ask themselves why they are marketing their books. They must know what their goals are so that they can judge whether an activity can potentially serve what they seek to accomplish.

Will the things that you plan to do serve the following needs — and are these your needs?

* Help you brand yourself

* Gain third-party validation

* Get your message out there

* Build a media or speaking resume

* Generate additional readers

* Lead to more customer book reviews

* Yield more sales

* Land you a literary agent or publishing deal

* Sell foreign language or film rights

Figure out, to what degree, that you will:

* Establish or revise a web site

* Launch or expand your own blog, podcast, or newsletter

* Craft a press kit and various pitch letters

* Develop an elevator pitch

* Submit to book awards

* Buy professional book reviews

* Seek out news media coverage/interviews

* Be active on social media

* Speak publicly about your book at conferences, fairs, events, bookstores, etc.

* Pay for advertising

* Network

* Secure testimonials and endorsements

Design your marketing approach based on your:

* Prioritized goals or needs

* Skills to execute marketing

* PR budget

* Time available to marketing

* Likelihood of success

Then identify:

* Who can help you, for free or a fee

* A marketing plan

* The timeline to execute the plan

* What resources will be needed

Are you pursuing to market:

* Locally

* Regionally

* Statewide

* Nationally

* Internationally

Book marketing is not easy but it becomes more productive and rewarding when you have a clear road map to get to a predetermined destination.

Do you know where you are going or how to get there?

Marketing Help?

About Brian Feinblum

Born and raised in Brooklyn, he now resides in Westchester with his wife, two kids, and Ferris, a black lab rescue dog, and El Chapo, a pug rescue dog.

You can connect with him at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianfeinblum/ or https://www.facebook.com/brian.feinblum