Does Your Book Marketing Fall Victim To Patterns?

We all tend to fall into patterns of behavior that either help or hurt us.

This plays out when you look at your approach to book marketing.

Sometimes we don’t even realize what has become a habit or why we do what we do, but these patterns can become self-limiting. If you do A, you in essence, reject option B, or at the very least, you are denying yourself a chance to follow other paths.

There are patterns developed based on past choices and results. They come from patterns of our emotions, thinking, physicality, and how people treat us. Think about it. If you think a certain way, you will act accordingly. Afraid of something? You avoid it and limit your choices. If others treat us negatively based on our actions, we feel pressured to not repeat that path. Conversely, where we experience success, we will repeat everything that resembles that until it proves not to work, thus, creating a new pattern of avoidance.

What patterns of behavior do you exhibit when it comes to book marketing?

Do you tend to do nothing at all? Do you prefer to outsource all of your marketing? Do you do a few things, maybe some of them not very well, and then eventually give up? You may be the victim of your own pattern of attitudes, emotions, experience, and physicality.

Human nature can be highly complex but it is often simple and animalistic. You see an attractive person and you want to have sex with them. You see something valuable and you desire it. You feel good after drinking, eating, or smoking something, and so you want more of it.  And if something proves to be hard, involves risk, or could leave you in pain or a state of loss if you fail, you likely avoid it.

Ok, so you don’t need an armchair sociologist or an amateur psychologist to tell you these things. An honest assessment of your life either validates what I am saying or it doesn’t. There are exceptions to these rules, and it is in those moments of contrarian rebellion that we may see our biggest successes and experience ecstasy.

Writers almost always tell me that they:

* Would rather write than market
* Have little time or money to promote
* Are uncomfortable in talking about themselves
* Feel the odds are stacked against them
* See books of lower quality get lots of sales
* Believe their book is either great, important, entertaining, or inspiring but that no one knows it exists
* Are little aware of what specifically needs to be done to market successfully
* Are lacking skill and/or knowledge of how to execute the steps of a marketing campaign

So what do these writers do about their concerns?

Too many are paralyzed. Their pattern of behavior is to ignore and avoid what needs to be done because the thought of just getting started overwhelms them. They wish for sales, hope for discovery, and pray for success — but they take zero affirmative actions and do not take ownership of their book marketing.

Some will outsource their marketing, able and willing to pay for some of what needs to be done, but by not personally doing anything, they won’t learn how to market and will remain dependent on others for the next book and the next one. The truth is, authors can’t afford to just pay others to do everything — it is too cost-prohibitive — and some things are best done by the author.

Plenty will try to do some marketing, but they will start late, end too soon, and only give it a half-assed effort. They may ignore too many of the things that would actually benefit them. The results will reflect this.

These patterns repeat themselves daily. So, what is the answer?

* Be aware that patterns rule you.
* Identify which ones hold you hostage.
* Make changes and start new patterns.
* Give enough effort, time, and resources to nurture the development of these new patterns.
* Assess and review your results periodically, and where needed, make adjustments or wholesale changes

So, don’t get me wrong. It is not like everything that you think, say, or do is wrong or stuck in a harmful pattern, but recognize that not everything that you do or how you do it is actually helpful to you.

Diagnosing where you fall short, discerning how to change, and committing to doing what feels unfamiliar or uncomfortable is your challenge here.  But you have no choice. To continue as is will yield nothing new or better. Experiment and confront your patterns. That will already position you to see new results, likely for the better.

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 9,200,000 page views. With nearly 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