Authors Can Turn A Weakness Into A Strength!

 

 

Authors can improve their book marketing results and they should do so. Once you get past what is holding them back, they can flourish.

Authors under-perform because of one or more of the following reasons:

* Lack of encouragement
* Fear and insecurity
* Failure to set appropriate goals
* Don’t invest enough time
* Have not tried to learn new skills
* Shy and not great communicators
* Suffer from poor health or disability
* Do not know enough about book marketing
* A general discomfort with technology
* Don’t fully believe in their book
* Misspend their marketing money or don’t invest enough

Miracles won’t always happen, but measurable improvement in any of these areas is quite possible. Authors can learn how to do a lot of things. They can also designate time to execute marketing tasks. And they will gain more confidence and become more driven once they see some positive results. But they don’t. It is all mental and once one commits to making changes, good things can happen.

Let me give you an analogy from my life about how one can change their attitude, effort, strategy, and ability to turn a deficiency into an asset.

I am a middle-aged athlete warrior. This means I get aches and pains after, sometimes during, and even before undergoing physical activity. I am overweight and not the image of an Olympian. But I love competitive sports and for a little over the past year, I have found renewed life playing pickleball.

I know my weaknesses — I am slow-moving and don’t jump so high — but I employ good strategy and am crafty with a paddle in hand. However, early on I saw that my serve was very weak.

Too many did not make it onto the court consistently. I prayed before each one that the plastic ball would just land somewhere in the designated area. Often it did not. When it did find a piece of the court, it was easy to return by the opposition. I was losing plenty of point-scoring opportunities and burdening my partner.

Although I lacked confidence in my serve, I excelled at the rest of my game. I had to play harder to increase my strengths and compensate for my weaknesses.

For a good six months I played with the handicap of a bad serve. Teammates never said anything negative to me, though they had to be disappointed.

Then, one day, it just clicked, and I found a way to consistently get the ball in and not have it be a weak serve. Instead of being an automatic out, I started scoring points and turned a liability into an asset.

I continued to experiment, work hard, and improve to the point that I arguably have one of the strongest serves amongst the 75 or so different players that I have competed against. All teammates defer to me to start a game as a server.

I change speeds and location. I can get it to spin away or into a player. I can position the serve to set up a score after they struggle and fall out of place to return it. I get my share of aces too. What was my Achilles heel is now my Popeye’s spinach.

So, dear author, I implore you to find a way to change. Invest more time and effort into your marketing. Make a concerted effort to learn what you need to know in order to take ownership of your book marketing. Then, work collaboratively with a book marketer to attack any areas of marketing that still may be lacking.

Learn from my pickleball battles. It really is possible to go from being the ugly duckling into a beautiful swan. You can transform into something more — with effort, knowledge, inspiration, goals, and a desire to be better and do more.

 

Do You Need Book 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 5,400,000 page views. With 5,500+ posts over the past 14 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 2021 and 2018 as one of the top book marketing blogs. It was also named by www.WinningWriters.com as a "best resource.”  Copyright 2025.

 

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). 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, BookCAMP, Independent Book Publishers Association Sarah Lawrence College, Nonfiction Writers Association, Cape Cod Writers Association, Willamette (Portland) Writers Association, APEX, Morgan James Publishing, 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