Have you ever Googled your name or author pen name to see what your readers are seeing or how you’re showing up in searches? If you’re not, you should. It’s a great way to find mentions you’ve missed or new places to find your books. I usually suggest my clients use a Google Alert for your name too, though if your name is common, like mine, alerts fill up fast with results that have nothing to do with you, and it gets easy to just stop paying attention to them.

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We spend a lot of time thinking about how readers discover authors, but discovery is only part of visibility. Once someone hears your name on a podcast, sees your book recommended somewhere, reads an interview, or comes across you on social media, there’s a good chance they’re going to search for you. What they find when they do is part of your author platform too.

Google is trying to figure out who you are from all of the information it can connect to your name. Your website, books, author profiles, interviews, articles, social media accounts, mentions on other websites, and anywhere else your name appears all contribute to that picture. When the information is consistent and Google has enough confidence that all of those things belong to the same person, it can begin organizing them around you. And of course, that’s the goal.

One of the most visible examples is a Google knowledge panel. It’s the box that sometimes appears in search results with your photo, a short bio, your books, and other information about you. If you have one and haven’t claimed it, claim it. It gives you the ability to suggest corrections when Google gets something wrong and gives Google another verified connection between you and the information it’s displaying.

If you don’t have a knowledge panel, that’s okay! Search your name and look at what comes back. Are the results actually about you? Does Google connect you with your books? Is your website in the results? Are old bios or profiles still showing up? Are there several people with your name mixed together? If someone who had never heard of you searched your name today, would they be able to tell fairly quickly which results belong to you?

For authors with common names, pen names, or search results that are still mixed with other people, an ISNI can also help establish a unique identity connected to your work. Before registering for one, check whether you already have one. Some authors do and don’t realize it. If you don’t, you can register for one and then use it as another identifier connecting your name with your work online. It can also be used in your website’s meta data to add yet another connection to your name and your work.

None of these things is going to suddenly sell books or move you to the top of Google search results. That’s not really the point. You’re giving search engines clearer information about who you are while making sure the person who searches for you finds a consistent picture when they get there.

Lynn McGinnis writes about publishing, author visibility, discoverability, and the future of building a writing career. As Founder and Chief Publishing Officer at Plotsy, Inc., and with more than thirty years of marketing experience at Lynn McGinnis, LLC, she brings practical insight to the changing world of books, technology, and author platforms. Her work helps authors think differently about visibility, publishing, and building careers that last. She writes from her little lake house in rural Pennsylvania, where she lives with her husband, son, and two fluffy companions, Kaiju and Bella.

I regularly pitch podcasts as part of my done-for-you client marketing along with professional networking and PR placement. These are must-have placements for non-fiction authors. Occasionally, a podcast will ask for a placement fee. It’s typically $200 to $300. Some are up front about this. Some wait until you’ve gone through their application to mention it. Love that. A few have offered to bump my client to the top of their editorial calendar for payment. Ick. This week, a pitch response came back with an automatic reply and link to PR packages. This podcast required a minimum $6,000 fee. Not gonna lie, I had a little sticker shock. But then I thought about it. It’s worth it. Let me tell you why.

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Podcasts are structured as low, mid, and upper tier. The upper tier podcasts are mostly syndicated, household name shows. Their audiences are massive national and international. They typically don’t accept pitches since they choose their guests and can pretty much get anyone they want. Low tier are starter podcasts and then some. These pods are building an audience. They’re the perfect place for a new author to begin as long as you have something to offer the podcast host in exchange for your appearance - social media audience, email list, and website placement. It’s in this tier the real growth for podcasts and their guests happens.

Mid-tier shows have outgrown the stage where any guest with a book was a win, but they haven’t built the ad revenue or audience the top tier has. So they’ve started charging for the spot instead. That’s the tier where I’m seeing pay-to-play show up most, and it’s growing.

When is a $6,000 podcast placement fee worth paying? When the audience exposure pays for itself. For a coach or consultant in the B2B space where a single contract could begin at $10K, it pays for itself with a single lead. Sure not a great profit margin. BUT, what also happens is audience, SEO, and GEO exposure. That’s when this paid media really pays for itself. This same math might not work as well for the B2C coach who typically garners a lower contract fee. But that depends on the business. For a coach with a service to sell, a powerful podcast placement functions as a lead magnet that makes the pay-to-play payment pay for itself. Over and over again. The placement fee matters less than whether the audience on the other side of that mic can turn into paying clients, and whether your book and your offer are strong enough to make that happen.

The economics work differently for fiction authors. But so does the placement environment. I’ve never been asked to pay a fee for a fiction audience. These authors really need to do the work in the lower tier, growing their audience until a mid-tier makes sense based on how you can reciprocate. And the dream is always that upper tier, which can absolutely happen. I say shoot for the fences, fiction author. Just build a case for your story and the platform to back it.

Don’t automatically write off a pay-to-play offer. For the right author with the right book and services, it can be a wise investment. It’s not a one-size-fits-all solution. Know your audience, know your offer.

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Lynn McGinnis writes about publishing, author visibility, discoverability, and the future of building a writing career. As Founder and Chief Publishing Officer at Plotsy, Inc., and with more than thirty years of marketing experience at Lynn McGinnis, LLC, she brings practical insight to the changing world of books, technology, and author platforms. Her work helps authors think differently about visibility, publishing, and building careers that last. She writes from her little lake house in rural Pennsylvania, where she lives with her husband, son, and two fluffy companions, Kaiju and Bella.

During a recent conversation with an author I heard something I don’t think I’ve ever heard before - “I don’t care about getting reviews.” Okay, I thought… but why not? As we got further into the conversation, I realized two things - this was a test book and this person didn’t understand what that review count really means.

If you've never heard of or seen a test book some of you might be appalled at the idea of just tossing a book out into the world as a test. Often an author is testing ideas and audience with a book. This wasn’t my first experience with a test book. Sometimes, it’s intentional. Sometimes, the author realizes it’s a test during the process of writing and editing because a bigger and better idea came out of that first book. Even so, that doesn’t mean this book deserves less attention. If you think of it like a soft launch, it’s actually pretty important to give this book the same attention as the next book.

It’s possible in this case that the author wasn’t thinking about the consequences of not seeking reviews before even hitting publish. This got me thinking… We talk often about how to get reviews, but I feel like we don’t talk enough about WHY you need reviews. And I would guess, that some of what I’m about to tell you might surprise you.

The most obvious reason to gather as many reviews as possible is social proof. Potential readers need to know that other people bought this book, liked it, and took the time to write a review. And in this socially conscious world we live in, ranking has never mattered more than it does right now. Readers won’t pick up a book without knowing someone else loved it.

On platforms like Amazon, Goodreads, and BookBub, your review count, speed and volume of ratings, and keywords feed the site algorithm. There is a direct correlation between the rate of reviews and sales volume, telling these sites books are popular in its genre and sub genres. This bumps books higher in searches on these sites. Keep in mind, sites where readers are looking for books are driven directly by traffic for popular books. If your book is rising in the rankings, they want to see your success as much as you do.

This discoverability on Amazon, in particular, has unspoken thresholds I’ve learned through my own experience. Have you noticed when you first publish your book that it’s hard to find in an initial search? The algorithm needs to be taught that it matters and Amazon measures this incrementally. Those first 10 to 15 reviews demonstrate credibility that makes your work eligible for paid promotions. Once you reach 25 reviews, Amazon might include your work in the beloved, “customers also bought” image carousel in a book listing. At 50 reviews, your book becomes eligible for the coveted BookBub promotions. It doesn’t mean you’re guaranteed to win the BookBub promotion lottery, but you will be considered. Finally, once you cross that 100 review (not rating) threshold, Amazon rewards your book with higher prioritized organic search recommendations. That means if your book is in a particularly competitive category, books with higher ratings show up higher in the ranks.

Speed and volume matter in obtaining reviews. That’s why I always say, don’t skip a targeted launch with a launch team. Your launch period is the best, possibly easiest time to gain reviews. Once that book is out in the world and your audience’s attention is divided, it’s much harder to get a reader to commit to write that coveted review.

It’s easy to see how publishing a starter book might sound appealing, especially for a first-time author who might be anxious about the world reading your book. I promise, if you’ve invested in a good editor, there is no way that editor will allow a poorly written book attached to their name and reputation to make its way into the world.

Book reviews help in marketing too. They provide an endless source of marketing assets that demonstrate social proof for you and your book. They can be used on your website, in ads, and shared on social media.

Finally, book reviews provide direct insight into what resonated with your readers. You’ll learn what they react to, what they want more of, along with what they didn’t like and don’t want to read about. It’s a valuable source of feedback authors should always embrace.

If you’re new to publishing, don’t treat that first book like testing grounds. Will you screw up? Oh yes, and in ways you cannot even predict right now. And that’s okay. It’s not likely to be something you can’t come back from. I promise. It’s more likely it’s something that will help you in subsequent books. But that doesn’t mean you should just throw that little book baby out into the world without proper preparations.

At the start of the year, I wrote about “Why You Can’t Get Book Reviews.” If you missed it, or are looking for ideas on how to raise that review count, check it out.

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Lynn McGinnis writes about publishing, author visibility, discoverability, and the future of building a writing career. As Founder and Chief Publishing Officer at Plotsy, Inc., and with more than thirty years of marketing experience at Lynn McGinnis, LLC, she brings practical insight to the changing world of books, technology, and author platforms. Her work helps authors think differently about visibility, publishing, and building careers that last. She writes from her little lake house in rural Pennsylvania, where she lives with her husband, son, and two fluffy companions, Kaiju and Bella.

While I was scrolling on my phone over the weekend, I realized suddenly that I was no longer consuming content. I wasn’t watching videos, I was just scrolling past video after video trying to trick me into pausing to watch. I had suddenly become acutely aware of the pattern designed to make me pause for views and for the creator’s earnings. I know I’m not the only one.

Suddenly, it was all I could see:

• “Normalize liking posts from creators with low likes...”

• “I feel sorry for everyone who paid full price for…”

• “DON’T SCROLL!”

The hook that caused me to watch in the first place became a trap. Every other post began with manufactured drama, a guilt trip, or bait and switch tricks designed to make me want to stop. I started to register the manipulation. When this happens, the content creator is using tactics designed to steal time and attention from a reader instead of honestly drawing someone in through real value and genuine connection.

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It’s easy to look at short term numbers and think these aggressive hooks work because the numbers might show they’re working for someone else. But these are short-term gains. A sensational line might force someone’s thumb to pause for two seconds. But on second three, when the reader realizes the “scandal” was just a setup to sell something, or that you’re begging for engagement instead of offering something worth their time, you’ve lost their trust. You have to ask yourself, is it worth getting the view if the result might be losing the reader?

People don’t buy books or join newsletters because a creator made them feel manipulated or spoken down to. I find these tactics genuinely hard to watch. And I imagine it’s exhausting to maintain that facade.

There’s a simpler way to connect with a potential reader that doesn’t require tricking your audience. It’s just you, being you sharing about your writing:

• Instead of “Stop scrolling if you love fantasy!” state the premise directly: “What happens when the protagonist realizes the prophecy was written by the villain?”

• Instead of “My book is going viral, don’t let it flop!” share the actual craft: “I spent three weeks researching seventeenth century logistics just to make one plot point in Chapter 4 feel grounded.”

Don’t ever beg for your follower’s time. Respect your reader’s intelligence and invite them in to your little corner of the Internet by sharing something they would probably love to read. Your book is uniquely you. Don’t forget that. And you’re the one person qualified to talk about it. So, talk about it!

When I became consciously aware of the manipulation pattern this weekend, which isn’t hard for a casually scroller, I got frustrated and put my phone down. The good news for me was that I drastically reduced my screen time. The bad news for creators in my feed was that they lost my trust and the chance to connect with me and probably with a lot of others who just scrolled past the same posts.

Lynn McGinnis writes about publishing, author visibility, discoverability, and the future of building a writing career. As Founder and Chief Publishing Officer at Plotsy, Inc., and with more than thirty years of marketing experience at Lynn McGinnis, LLC, she brings practical insight to the changing world of books, technology, and author platforms. Her work helps authors think differently about visibility, publishing, and building careers that last. She writes from her little lake house in rural Pennsylvania, where she lives with her husband, son, and two fluffy companions, Kaiju and Bella.

Substack rolled out something new this past week. Every post now has an AI Checker button, so readers can click it to see an estimate of how much of what they’re reading was written by a human versus AI. It’s an interesting idea. I just wonder why it became necessary.

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My own writing has been flagged for AI before. I can only assume it’s because I use proper punctuation, because it’s certainly not my sentence and paragraph structure. So I have to ask, has AI become enough of an issue on the platform that readers need a scanner to sort it out? Is there still an em dash witch hunt going on here? And is Substack ironically using AI to test for AI? Because that would be hilarious.

In my world, AI stopped being a debate a while ago. I use it every day for technical support, research, proofreading, meeting notes, and more. Writers have been using AI for years through Grammarly, spellcheck, predictive text, and nobody thought twice about it. The tools have simply become better and the names have changed.

I’m absolutely against using AI to write an entire novel and passing it off as your own work. That’s where the romance author featured in the New York Times in February crossed a line for me. She used Claude to generate hundreds of novels and repeatedly skipped disclosing AI use on KDP because “AI books don’t sell.” The dishonesty and flagrant KDP TOS violation is maddening.

We’re hiring at Plotsy, and I’ve been interviewing candidates for the past few weeks. Before every interview ends, I ask the same two questions: How do you feel about AI? And how do you use it personally and professionally?

The answers have been overwhelmingly positive. Maybe that’s because it’s an interview. Maybe it’s the kind of work we’re hiring for. Either way, I’ve walked away from more than one conversation with a new idea I hadn’t considered before.

Professionally, everyone I know uses AI to some degree - research, planning, organizing ideas, building agents, coding, ad campaigns, custom GPTs. It’s become just another tool we use to get work done.

I use AI to help build editorial calendars around the projects I’m managing that week. It helps me spot patterns in meeting notes and develop strategies before small problems become bigger ones. It saves me time, but it doesn’t make decisions for me. It still doesn’t sound like me without a lot of editing, which is kind of the point.

As a tool, AI doesn’t work by itself. It depends on someone to ask good questions, recognize bad answers, correct mistakes, apply unique experience and voice, and decide what gets published. That’s no different than opening Photoshop, Microsoft Word, or Excel. The software requires human judgement and can’t replace the person using it.

I ran this through the checker before publishing. 100% human. Make of that what you will.

Lynn McGinnis writes about publishing, author visibility, discoverability, and the future of building a writing career. As Founder and Chief Publishing Officer at Plotsy, Inc., and with more than thirty years of marketing experience at Lynn McGinnis, LLC, she brings practical insight to the changing world of books, technology, and author platforms. Her work helps authors think differently about visibility, publishing, and building careers that last. She writes from her little lake house in rural Pennsylvania, where she lives with her husband, son, and two fluffy companions, Kaiju and Bella.

Three of my clients came to me with three different scam emails over the past three weeks. This is not new. I get emails every day from authors asking me about how to manage a detailed and unbelievably flattering email they received. I see authors talking about these same messages on social media and even I get them in my inbox.

What struck me with each of these scams is the level of complexity and how they’ve evolved from those pesky social media DMs. For years, these scams have shown up as direct messages on Facebook, Instagram, or X, usually poorly written and full of spelling and grammatical errors, easy enough to delete without a second thought. (My favorite was the elderly Rockefeller inviting me to join the Illuminati.) Now they’re showing up in your email inbox, and they’re long, well written, personal, and overwhelmingly flattering. It’s obvious these scammers have created a formula, feeding an author’s bio and book description into an AI tool, and generating messages that read as remarkably convincing.

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They’re appealing to exactly what each author hopes is true: a book club wants to feature your novel, a reader loves your book enough to leave a review, a publisher is interested in your manuscript. None of that sounds impossible. It’s exactly what every author hopes to hear one day, and that’s what makes them so appealing. Let’s take a look at the three very common scams.

The Book Club

The email came from a real book club’s name, asking if the club could feature the book for their next selection. The message was detailed and flattering. In the past, the scammers would immediately ask for a fee in this initial email, a simple, pay-to-play scam. This one was more complicated. They first lured the author in and then, once she agreed, they asked for marketing assets, banners, videos, logos, colors. My client was three or four emails into the conversation before she came to me, and then only to ask for help pulling those marketing assets together for her.

I was immediately skeptical, and one look at the Gmail account confirmed it wasn’t a real request. I told her I’d handle it, and replied to the club directly to say we weren’t interested and the author wouldn’t be participating.

That’s when the tone changed. Anger, accusations, “who do you think you are,” and “mind your own business.” The unprofessional behavior was confirmation. I simply replied with the domain for the real book club’s website. Silence.

In a real book club situation, the club might reach out to invite the author to a meeting. Nothing more. No fee. Even then, direct contact is rare. I’ve seen it happen once, and only because the author already knew people in the club. She attended, and it turned into a real chance to connect with readers.

The Book Review

This one was new and quite clever. It’s still playing out, so I’m curious to see how far they take it.

The email came in through the website contact form. A reader claimed Amazon wouldn’t accept their review and asked for the link to Goodreads instead. They followed through right away and posted the review. Then came the request to be paid for the review, and to provide ongoing marketing support.

When my client explained he didn’t need more help, he already had a team, the reply came back angry, asking why he wouldn’t get more help if he already had some. When he didn’t answer, another message demanded a response and accused him of ghosting. I offered to step in, but my client decided to ignore it.

This one worked as well as it did because part of it was true. Amazon has genuinely been delaying reviews lately, sometimes for weeks, sometimes failing to post them at all, and who wouldn’t want that review handed to them. It was a sneaky way to gain access, and the moment the payment or marketing support question came up is the moment it gave itself away.

The Publisher and the Agent

This was the most complicated con. The first email came from an address made to look like a top five publishing imprint, something like joesmith@harpercollins@ Gmail.com, expressing interest in the work and offering to make an introduction to an agent.

The next email came from another free Gmail account, not a domain email address. In this case, they used a real literary agent’s name @Gmail.com, asking for writing samples and referencing the publishing house, making it look like they were working together. Whoever ran this scam had gone so far as to take the agent’s photo from her website’s about page and used it in the email signature in an attempt at authenticity.

I checked the real agent’s actual website, and it was easy to verify from there. She had clearly laid out how she works, how to submit, and how to contact her, including her real email address. None of it matched what my client had received.

Again, this client was three or four emails into the conversation before she mentioned it and then only to ask me for help with next steps. She didn’t realize it was a scam. She’s a newer author with a brand new website and no social media presence. What stood out for me in this particular scam was the involvement of both the agent and the publishing house together. In the real world, an author might hear from one or the other; they don’t typically work in tandem like this.

What’s an author to do?

Ignore it. Good people somehow feel compelled to respond to messages that land in our inboxes. The truth is, these are strangers who’ve stormed the gates of your inbox, uninvited, with nefarious intent. You owe them nothing.

Don’t feel bad about hoping or thinking these scams are real. Who wouldn’t? With how fast AI is advancing, these scams are getting better all the time. Poor grammar and spelling used to be the giveaway. With the help of AI, these scammers are providing professional emails that make them difficult to distinguish from the real thing.

Publishers aren’t just looking for a beautiful book. They’re looking for a book that makes money. In my experience, publishers and agents tend to look at authors who’ve already gained a significant volume of reviews on a single book, along with a massive social media audience and email list to sell into. If you’re still under 5K reviews (not ratings), it’s probably not real.

The Tell

When in doubt, look for the real tell, so simple that most authors miss it: the email address.

In the preview pane of your inbox, you’ll see the sender’s name, publisher, agent, or book club. The name is often long enough that you never see the actual domain address attached to it. That’s how they get you! Click to expand it, and you’ll find Gmail. Always Gmail. Any reputable professional has a domain email address and will never email you from a free email account.

Or, you can borrow one of my long-time client’s approach. Whenever one of these lands in his inbox, he simply replies:

“Does your mother know what you do for a living?”

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Lynn McGinnis writes about publishing, author visibility, discoverability, and the future of building a writing career. As Founder and Chief Publishing Officer at Plotsy, Inc., and with more than thirty years of marketing experience at Lynn McGinnis, LLC, she brings practical insight to the changing world of books, technology, and author platforms. Her work helps authors think differently about visibility, publishing, and building careers that last. She writes from her little lake house in rural Pennsylvania, where she lives with her husband, son, and two fluffy companions, Kaiju and Bella.

Not every author wants to be a marketer.

Some do. They enjoy the strategy, the testing, the slow build of a platform. But a lot of the authors I work with just want to write and reach the readers who are out there waiting for them, without turning their writing life into a full-time promotion operation.

If that’s you, this is for you.

What I want to offer here is the smallest version of a marketing plan I can hand an author and still feel good about it. Not the most strategic. Not the most ambitious. The one that works when you’re not looking to do more than necessary.

Four things. That’s the whole plan.

Check your numbers once a month

Before you can make any decision about your marketing, you need a sense of what’s actually happening. Once a month, open your dashboards and look at three things: your sales numbers, your review count, and your follower count on whatever platforms you use.

That’s the whole task. You’re logging a snapshot so you have something to compare against next month. Over time, these numbers will tell you things you can’t see in the day-to-day, including when something is working and when something has changed. Don’t obsess over this data. This is just about having enough information to stay informed.

Send an email

An email list is the one part of your platform you actually own. Social media accounts are borrowed space. Algorithms change. Platforms shift. Your list stays with you.

Weekly is ideal. Biweekly works fine for most authors. And if monthly is truly what you can sustain right now, then monthly is what you do. Something consistent will always outperform a more ambitious plan that you can’t maintain.

Your emails don’t need to be long or elaborate. They need to show up in someone’s inbox reliably and be worth opening. Think of it as staying in touch with the readers who already know and like you. That’s the whole job.

Post two or three times a week on one social platform

Pick one platform. The one you already use, or the one where your readers tend to spend their time. Then post there, two or three times a week.

One platform. A few posts. No sprawling strategy required.

When time is limited, showing up consistently matters. Readers want to see the person behind the book. Share what you’re reading, what you’re working on, what’s making you think. You’re building familiarity over time, and familiarity is what eventually moves someone from “I’ve heard of her” to “I just bought her book.”

Run a low-budget, consistent Meta ad

This is the piece that tends to make authors nervous, and I understand that. But it’s simpler than most people expect.

A small daily budget, running consistently over time, will do more for your visibility than a larger spend over a short window. Consistency matters more than scale, and that’s as true in advertising as it is everywhere else in marketing.

Meta ads reach readers who don’t know you exist yet, which is something your organic posts alone can’t do. You’re not replacing the email or the social posts with this. You’re adding the one piece that extends your reach beyond the readers you already have.

Set it up with a budget you’re comfortable with, check in on it occasionally, and let it run. You don’t have to become an expert. You just have to keep it going.

Why these four things

Together, they cover everything a working marketing plan actually needs: a way to track what’s happening, a way to stay close to the readers you already have, and a way to find the readers you haven’t met yet.

The numbers keep you informed. The email keeps your readers close. The social posts keep you visible. The ad puts you in front of people who aren’t in your circle yet.

None of this requires you to love marketing. It requires you personally showing up, in small ways, over a long stretch of time.

That’s the whole plan. For authors who want their writing time back, it’s enough.

Once you have this mastered and want to do more, I can help. My 12-week coaching program is a custom program designed to meet authors where they are - just starting out, launching, or stuck. Schedule a free, 30-minute call today to learn more.

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Lynn brings her more than 30-years experience in small business marketing, publishing, and multiple best-selling author campaigns to her Substack newsletter. She helps authors build and grow their platforms to reach their unique marketing goals through private coaching, non-fiction consulting, and done-for-you marketing programs. And all this, through her computer, in her little lake house in rural Pennsylvania which she shares with her husband, son, and two fluffy companions, Kaiju and Bella. Learn how to work with Lynn here.

I’ve been watching a handful of authors scramble for audience growth recently. And I get it! Up until now, they’ve built strong sales history, collected solid reviews, and shown up consistently in their categories. From the outside, they look like authors who have figured it out.

My best guess is that when the Amazon algorithm shift caused an increase in ad spend and still, sales slowed, they were forced to pivot their marketing strategy. They’re shifting to Meta ads for book sales and community building. The real signal for me? They’re seasoned authors starting from scratch on these pages.

This is what got my attention: their social community numbers don’t line up with their sales history. The followers are thin. The engagement is quiet. How could that happen? Those sales weren’t coming from relationships. They were coming from ads.

This isn’t a story about Amazon being bad or ads being a waste. Ads work, and I use them and recommend them. But there is a real difference between a marketing tool and a marketing foundation. An ad rents attention. The moment you stop paying, the attention stops.

Marketing has always been clear on one thing: repeat customers drive sales. The reader who bought your book and loved it is far more likely to buy your next one. But how do you reach that reader directly, without paying for the privilege every time? Unless you’re selling from your website and can collect that sales data directly, the answer is an email list.

It’s the one asset in your author marketing toolbox that you actually own. You’re not at the mercy of an algorithm. You’re not renting space on someone else’s platform. Your list is yours. The relationship is yours. And that relationship is what makes repeat readers, early buyers, launch team members, and word-of-mouth possible.

There’s also something a list does that ads can’t. It gives you a place to share your work in real time, to let readers inside your process, to make them feel like they’re part of something rather than just buyers of something. That’s a very different relationship than the one that starts and ends at a purchase link.

None of this means email is the only answer or that ads are the wrong approach. The most successful author marketing I’ve seen is broad in reach, specific to your target audience, and well-rounded. It’s a combination of activities that fit the author’s goals, genre, audience, and honestly, time and energy. Some authors do well on social. Some find their people through podcasts. Some run effective ads for years. None of that is wrong. Combined, it can be incredibly effective. Still, it’s all effort on someone else’s space.

Your email list is the asset that holds it all together. It’s where your community lives, even when the other platform changes the rules.

I’m in the middle of building one right now with a client, and I thought the most useful thing I could do is bring you along. Not with a theory, but with the actual steps, in the order we’re taking them.

Next week I’ll share how I built the guide that starts the whole thing.

In the meantime, if you’d like quick, practical author marketing advice delivered straight to your inbox, click here to subscribe to the Three Things newsletter - Three things every author should know, learn, and do. Every week.

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Lynn brings her more than 30-years experience in small business marketing, publishing, and multiple best-selling author campaigns to her Substack newsletter. She helps authors build and grow their platforms to reach their unique marketing goals through private coaching, non-fiction consulting, and done-for-you marketing programs. And all this, through her computer, in her little lake house in rural Pennsylvania which she shares with her husband, son, and two fluffy companions, Kaiju and Bella. Learn how to work with Lynn here.

My father-in-law used to say, if you’re waiting for the perfect moment, you’re going to be an old lady. He wasn’t wrong. The perfect moment doesn’t exist. And if you wait for it, you’re going to get old waiting.

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You are uniquely qualified to do what you do. To write about what you write about and to share it with the world. No one has your perspective, your experience, or your skills. Think about it. I’m not wrong, am I? I really want you to think about that the next time you’re putting off writing that blog post, pitching yourself to that podcast, or sharing something on social media about your book.

Done is better than perfect isn’t something I’d apply to writing, editing, or publishing a book. Perfectionism prevents many people from actually finishing or publishing, but that’s another post for another time. What I’m talking about here is the perfectionism mindset that sabotages visibility. Researching, planning, and waiting for the right caption or the perfect message isn’t a strategy. It’s a stall tactic. And it will prevent you from getting in front of potential readers, whether that’s on Substack, social media, podcasts, or video.

Don’t misunderstand me. I’m all about the plan. It’s never a good idea to throw things out and see what sticks. But when planning becomes a stall tactic, it’s time to reevaluate your goal.

Some of this is about not knowing what to say. Authors hold back because they don’t think they have something worth sharing. They’re searching for the relevant, the interesting, the perfectly timed idea, without realizing that they are all of those things. The perfect moment doesn’t exist. Neither does the perfect circumstance. Sometimes we work our butts off building something we think is amazing and it lands flat. Sometimes we throw something together at the last minute, get it out there, and that’s the thing that takes off. Will you experience failure in your marketing when something doesn’t quite land the way you meant or at all? Yes. And will you experience success, like when you say something controversial and you start trending on LinkedIn because some cranky old guy decided to fight you and your connections come to your defense? Yes. That can happily happen too. Those are our moments, and we don’t get to predict them in advance.

I suspect some of this is generational. As a proud member of Gen X, I can tell you it’s pretty common for my people to write, erase, and scroll. I used to tease one of my nieces in the early days of Facebook for having 10,000 selfies in her account. But she and her generation grew up in it. They’re just better at it.

Pull back. Look in the mirror. You are the real deal, and you have something that needs to be shared.

Post the thing. Run the ad. Pitch the podcast. Record the video. Show up.

Lynn brings her more than 30-years experience in small business marketing, publishing, and multiple best-selling author campaigns to her Substack newsletter. She helps authors build and grow their platforms to reach their unique marketing goals through private coaching, non-fiction consulting, and done-for-you marketing programs. And all this, through her computer, in her little lake house in rural Pennsylvania which she shares with her husband, son, and two fluffy companions, Kaiju and Bella. Learn how to work with Lynn here.

It happens to every author. The energy of your launch is gone. Routine takes it’s place, but the thought of doing one more thing for visibility sounds exhausting. You’re in a slump.

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The good news is that a slump is usually a signal that you need to shift gears, not quit. Here are ten things you can actually do this week to get moving again.

1. Visit your local library.
Introduce yourself to the librarian. Bring a copy of your book. Ask about programming, author events, or whether they’d be interested in adding your title to their collection. Libraries are community spaces, not sales floors, but community leads to visibility.

2. Walk into a local bookstore.
This is similar to the library. Introduce yourself as a local author. Ask about shelf space, author events, or a reading. Independent bookstores, especially, often want to support local writers. Most authors never ask.

3. Pitch five podcasts.
Not next month. This week. Podcast hosts are booking episodes months in advance. A guest appearance later this summer starts with a pitch you send today. Five is a reasonable number. Not every pitch lands, which is exactly why you send five.

4. Start that blog you’ve been putting off.
Your website needs fresh content, and so does Google. A blog is one of the few marketing tools that can continue working long after you publish it. SEO and AI discoverability matter now. If you’ve been waiting to start, this is the week.

5. Build a new lead magnet.
A free chapter. A reader guide. A short quiz. A bonus resource. Something that gives readers a reason to hand over their email address. Your email list is one of the few marketing assets you actually own.

6. Refresh your newsletter. Or start one.
If you already have a list and haven’t emailed in a while, this is the week to show up again. Keep it simple. Tell readers what you’ve been working on, what you’re reading, or what’s coming next. If you don’t have a newsletter yet, this is the week you begin. It doesn’t have to be perfect.

7. Connect with authors in your genre.
Science fiction and fantasy authors are exceptionally good at this. Reach out to an author whose readership overlaps with yours. Introduce yourself. Explore a newsletter swap, a cross-promotion, or simply start a conversation. Your readers and theirs probably have a lot in common. It’s not a competition, it’s audience growth.

8. Reintroduce yourself on social media.
Not a promotional post. An introduction. Who you are, what you write, and why you write it. New people discover your page every week and have no idea who you are. Tell them.

9. Spend time actively growing your social following.
Follow accounts in your genre. Engage with readers, reviewers, and other authors. Social media rewards interaction, not just posting. Spend twenty intentional minutes a day doing that this week and see what happens.

10. Set up Amazon A+ Content.
If you haven’t done this yet, move it to the top of your list. A+ Content on KDP is free, it lives directly on your Amazon book page, and it gives you space to showcase your book and reinforce your credibility as an author. Most authors never use it. Yours should not be one of them.

Pick two or three things from this list and actually do them this week. Not all ten. Just start somewhere.

And if you're not sure why your marketing feels stuck, that's exactly what the Unstuck Appointment is for. It's a thirty-minute diagnostic designed to uncover what's actually getting in the way of your visibility, platform growth, or book marketing efforts. Most authors are trying to fix symptoms while missing the real problem. The goal is clarity, not fluff. You can book one at lynnmcginnis.me.

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Lynn brings her more than 30-years experience in small business marketing, publishing, and multiple best-selling author campaigns to her Substack newsletter. She helps authors build and grow their platforms to reach their unique marketing goals through private coaching, non-fiction consulting, and done-for-you marketing programs. And all this, through her computer, in her little lake house in rural Pennsylvania which she shares with her husband, son, and two fluffy companions, Kaiju and Bella. Learn how to work with Lynn here.

I say it a lot: consistency is the real secret sauce to any marketing success, and the first place most authors go when they hear that is frequency: How many times a week? How many posts? But that’s not the right way to look at this.

Consistency isn’t about volume. It’s about showing up regularly enough that your name becomes familiar to the people you’re trying to reach, and familiarity builds the kind of trust that eventually sells books. It’s different for every author. That’s author marketing — building relationships by showing up. What it looks like is shaped by who your audience is, your genre, what you’re good at, what your life allows, and which platform you’re working from. But the structure underneath it is the same for almost everyone, and it has two parts.

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The first is evergreen content. Evergreen means content that isn’t tied to a specific date or event. A post about why you wrote your book, a quote from your book, a question for your readers. It’s relevant today, next month, and a year from now, which means it can be created in advance and scheduled to run in the background while you’re living your life. It’s always good, ever-green. Every platform gives you the ability to do this, and Meta lets you schedule months ahead for both Facebook and Instagram.

The beauty of evergreen content is that it can be managed in batches. You find a chunk of time, create a few weeks of content, find another chunk of time, schedule it, and repeat. When my kids were small and I was doing freelance marketing while working full time, this was the only way it got done. Saturday mornings became my time. One Saturday I’d create, the next I’d schedule, rinse and repeat. If Saturday didn’t work, I’d have picked another day. The day doesn’t matter. The commitment does.

Evergreen content keeps you visible, but visible isn’t the same as present, and that’s where live engagement comes in. This doesn’t require much time, just some thought. Fifteen minutes in the morning and fifteen minutes in the evening is enough to comment, respond, like, and share other people’s content. That’s what builds real relationships with readers and makes your presence feel human rather than automated. Evergreen content is the foundation and live engagement is what activates it. Together, that’s what consistent author marketing actually looks like for someone with a full life.

We all have 24 hours. Sleep for eight, work for eight, add a commute, and there are still hours left. Thirty minutes a few times a week is enough to build something real, and if thirty minutes feels like too much, break it in half. The point is to find a rhythm you can actually keep and then keep it.

Posting and praying every once in a while with no real pattern is transactional. It’s the equivalent of showing up only when you want something, and readers feel that. Author marketing is the opposite of that. It’s consistent presence that builds real relationships over time, and that’s what sustains a readership.

What I’ve shared here is a starting point, not a complete system. It’s a basic strategy any self-published author can adapt and build upon as they get more comfortable with social media marketing. I’ve helped hundreds of authors do exactly that through my 12-week private coaching program, Author Platform Amplifier. Click here to schedule a free, Unstuck Appointment with me to find out of this might be a good fit for you.

Lynn brings her more than 30-years experience in small business marketing, publishing, and multiple best-selling author campaigns to her Substack newsletter. She helps authors build and grow their platforms to reach their unique marketing goals through private coaching, non-fiction consulting, and done-for-you marketing programs. And all this, through her computer, in her little lake house in rural Pennsylvania which she shares with her husband, son, and two fluffy companions, Kaiju and Bella. Learn how to work with Lynn here.

You don’t own your Instagram followers. You don’t own your Facebook page. You don’t own your LinkedIn connections, your TikTok audience, or your YouTube subscribers. The moment any of those platforms decides you’ve violated a policy, shifts its algorithm, or simply shuts down, your ability to reach your audience goes with it.

Your email list is different. It’s the only piece of your author platform that is truly, irrevocably yours.

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And here’s what I’ve learned after managing more book launches than I can count: most authors already have one. They’ve just overlooked it.

I’ve watched authors dismiss the idea of an email list, convinced they’re starting from zero, and then dig into an email account they’ve had for years and find gold. Former colleagues. Old clients. Friends from a previous chapter of their life. People who would genuinely be thrilled to hear from them.

One of my authors launched a book to #1 new release with 65 emails from her Earthlink account. Sixty-five. Carefully chosen, personally approached, one by one. It worked because every single person on that list knew her and was rooting for her.

On the other end of the spectrum, I’m currently working with an author who had never used an email marketing platform. What he had was an AOL account he’d been using since the dial-up days. We downloaded his contacts, cleaned them up, removing duplicates, incomplete records, and running everything through a verification service, and went from more than 8,000 addresses down to about 1,500 viable contacts. I braced for significant fallout when we began warming them up.

I was wrong. Our unsubscribe rate through the entire warm-up phase has been under 2%.

Why? Because this author is a genuinely wonderful person. The people on that list are former colleagues, professional peers, old friends. They’re not unsubscribing. They’re responding. They’re glad to hear from him.

That’s not a marketing trick. That’s what happens when a good person has spent a lifetime building real relationships and finally gives those people a way to support him.

Your list doesn’t have to be big. It doesn’t have to be perfect. It just has to be real. If you haven’t looked lately, look. You might be surprised what you find. Your list is the foundation. But knowing what to do with it once you have it, how to warm it up, who to approach first, how to turn contacts into a coordinated launch team, that’s where most authors get stuck.

A launch team is my secret sauce. It’s how I consistently build successful, bestselling launches through coaching, consulting, and done-for-you marketing services.

If you’re thinking about a launch, let’s talk.

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Lynn brings her more than 30-years experience in small business marketing, publishing, and multiple best-selling author campaigns to her Substack newsletter. She helps authors build and grow their platforms to reach their unique marketing goals through private coaching, non-fiction consulting, and done-for-you marketing programs. And all this, through her computer, in her little lake house in rural Pennsylvania which she shares with her husband, son, and two fluffy companions, Kaiju and Bella. Learn how to work with Lynn here.

Last Thursday, my sweet 10-pound Pomeranian Bella went into respiratory distress. By Friday we were at the emergency vet, watching her breathe through an oxygen tent while the staff worked to reverse a tracheal collapse event, a congenital condition common in small breed dogs. If you’ve never heard it, count yourself lucky. It’s a harsh, honking sound that will stop your heart.

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They sent us home with medication, a treatment plan, and instructions to watch her closely. We haven’t slept much since.

And I had the largest client load of my career waiting for me on Monday.

This is not my first family emergency as a business owner. I’ve weathered far worse — my mother breaking her hip, her passing less than a year later, and losing a nephew far too young. During my mother’s hip surgery recovery I was disorganized, exhausted, and making decisions under impossible pressure. I lost a client during that time. He didn’t care that I was exhausted and overwhelmed. Understandably. It was a hard lesson.

I decided I would never be in that position again.

Now I have the largest client roster of my career, a new client onboarding this week, a waiting list for services, and I’m Chief Content Officer of a new tech startup. Could I walk away for a week without anyone noticing? Absolutely not. But this weekend, between medication doses and watching every breath Bella took, I got through my entire to-do list.

Here’s what actually works when you can’t think straight:

Get organized first. I rely on a simple notebook system every day — pen and paper for meetings, to-dos, and ideas. But this weekend I also leaned heavily on Claude.ai, which I have set up with projects for each client and my business. When I couldn’t hold a thought, I could talk through what needed to be done and let it hold the list for me. That’s not a luxury. When you’re running on no sleep and pure anxiety, it’s the difference between functional and paralyzed.

Then just move. One small task at a time. I wrote. I answered emails. I responded to texts. I plowed through the list in moments stolen between caring for my dog. Not perfectly. Not gracefully. But it got done.

This is what experience looks like. Not that emergencies stop happening, they don’t. But that you build systems sturdy enough to carry you through them when you can’t carry yourself.

Bella is snoozing quietly on my office floor as I write this. On the mend.

So am I.

Lynn brings her more than 30-years experience in small business marketing, publishing, and multiple best-selling author campaigns to her Substack newsletter. She helps authors build and grow their platforms to reach their unique marketing goals through private coaching, non-fiction consulting, and done-for-you marketing programs. And all this, through her computer, in her little lake house in rural Pennsylvania which she shares with her husband, son, and two fluffy companions, Kaiju and Bella. Learn how to work with Lynn here.

There is nothing new under the sun.

Every genre has been written. Every marketing strategy has been tried. Every author platform has a template someone else already built. If you’ve spent any time in Facebook groups, Reddit threads, or LinkedIn communities, you know this. You’ve seen the posts. How did you find your first readers? What ads actually work? How long before your platform started to grow? The questions cycle through, and so do the answers, and that’s not a bad thing. That collective experience is genuinely useful. There’s no reason to figure out from scratch what other authors already learned the hard way.

Here’s what’s really happening.

You’re in those groups watching someone else’s numbers. Their launch results. Their ad spend. Their follower counts. Their review totals. And at some point, without really meaning to, you start measuring your progress against theirs. Their timeline becomes your timeline. Their results become your benchmark. And when you don’t match up, it feels like evidence that something is wrong with you or your book.

It isn’t.

What that author in the Facebook group has is not what you have. Their book came from a different idea, a different life, a different perspective, a different set of experiences and relationships and hard-won insight. Their platform grew from a different starting point with different resources and different goals. Their network is not your network. Their reader is not your reader.

There is nothing new under the sun. But there is something new in you.

Your book hook is yours. The angle you took, the story only you could tell, the argument only you could make. That doesn’t exist anywhere else. Your author platform, however small or new it is right now, is built on relationships that belong to you. Your network, the people who know and trust you, is something no template produced and no other author can replicate. Your life experience, the thing that made you write this book in the first place, is singular.

Shelf envy is real. An author finds a book in their genre that’s outselling theirs and starts pulling it apart, looking for the secret. What did they do that I didn’t? What do they have that I don’t? Sometimes that’s useful research. More often it’s a distraction that leads somewhere dangerous. I’ve heard authors say they spend weeks, months, even years researching a genre before writing a single word — not because the story demanded it, but because they were writing for the market instead of from themselves. And then wondering why it didn’t work.

You can’t write your way into someone else’s audience. You can only write your way into your own.

The communities are worth being in. Keep asking the questions, keep reading the answers, keep borrowing the ideas that make sense for your situation. Just remember that you’re the variable those strategies have never accounted for. The authors giving advice in those threads didn’t have your book, your voice, your readers, or your story.

Take what’s useful. Build from what’s yours. Those are two different things, and knowing the difference is most of the work.

Have you ever borrowed a strategy that just didn’t fit? Tell me about it in the comments.

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Lynn brings her more than 30-years experience in small business marketing, publishing, and multiple best-selling author campaigns to her Substack newsletter. She helps authors build and grow their platforms to reach their unique marketing goals through private coaching, non-fiction consulting, and done-for-you marketing programs. And all this, through her computer, in her little lake house in rural Pennsylvania which she shares with her husband, son, and two fluffy companions, Kaiju and Bella. Learn how to work with Lynn here.

I’ve noticed an interesting trend in author groups recently. More and more authors are complaining that their Amazon sales have dropped and they can’t figure out why. They’re running the same ads they’ve always run, tweaking them here and there like they’ve always done. And yet, nothing changes on their end. I’ve done some digging and I can tell you: it’s not you. It’s Amazon.

Last year, Amazon shifted from its old search algorithm, called A9, to a new one called A10. The old system rewarded keyword placement, sales velocity, and paid advertising spend inside Amazon. The new one has a different priority: it wants to see traffic coming from outside Amazon’s walls.

The New Rules of the Game

When someone clicks through to your book listing from an email, a social media post, or your website, Amazon reads that as a signal of genuine reader interest. Real demand. And it rewards you for it with better organic visibility inside the platform.

But when all your traffic comes from Amazon’s own internal paid ads? A10 is not impressed. Organic sales now carry more weight than PPC, and paid ads alone are no longer enough to improve your ranking. This is why some authors are seeing significant drops in sales and can’t adjust their way out of it. If your entire strategy was built on Amazon ads, there’s no ad tweak that fixes this. The platform itself changed the rules.

The Accumulation Effect

So why are authors feeling this now if the shift happened last year? My research didn’t turn up a clean answer, but my instinct says it’s an accumulation effect. It’s been rolling silently through Amazon, and the waves are finally crashing.

The shift also isn’t just about external traffic. A10 examines how readers actually interact with your book page once they arrive—how long they stay, whether they buy, and whether they come back. All of that feeds the algorithm now, not just how much you spent on ads.

What’s Actually Working

Amazon ads remain a valuable tool for visibility, but A10 places greater emphasis on the ratio between organic and paid sales. Running Facebook or BookBub ads that drive readers to Amazon actually helps you under A10 because it counts as external traffic. The problem is specifically with relying on Amazon’s own internal advertising as your primary traffic source.

Basically: Paid social driving to Amazon is still useful. Amazon PPC as your whole strategy is no longer enough.

The Foundation Problem

A10 is essentially penalizing authors who have been treating Amazon as their exclusive platform. Run ads on Amazon, get sales on Amazon, repeat. That traffic/sales loop worked under A9. Under A10, Amazon is looking for evidence that you have readers outside their platform who want your book.

The authors who are going to feel this the hardest are the ones who never built a platform: no email list, no social media presence with real engagement, and no community. This isn’t a marketing strategy problem you can solve with a better ad; it’s a foundation problem.

Correcting Course: Quick Wins and Long Games

The good news is that the things that fix this are also the things that build a sustainable author career. While you work on the long game, there are some quick wins worth addressing directly on your metadata:

• Maximize Your Categories: You get to choose three categories directly in your KDP dashboard. Most authors default to broad categories and miss opportunities to define their work. Choosing “Books > Fiction” is insane because it dumps you into a pool of millions. If you wrote a fantasy book about dragons, you want something specific like Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Social Sciences > Folklore & Mythology. It’s about being found by the right people, not just any people.

• Keywords: Don’t overlook your keywords. You have eight 52-character fields on Amazon (and 11 on IngramSpark) to add long-tail keyword phrases. Most authors fill them in with single words and call it done. Long-tail phrases are where the real discoverability lives.

What you really need to remember is that A10 rewards relationship marketing over transactional marketing. It rewards showing up where your readers live—on your email list, in social communities, on podcasts, and at events.

I’m not promising a quick fix here. But it is a necessary one. Don’t get overwhelmed. Now that you know what you need to do, just begin. It just takes one small move at a time.

If you can’t figure out where your specific strategy is breaking down, book an “Unstuck” appointment with me. It’s a diagnostic session designed to pinpoint exactly where you’re getting hung up, so you can stop guessing and start moving forward.

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158 million Americans listen to podcasts monthly. Let that sink in for a moment. That’s a huge audience.

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But don’t think of it as a single, giant audience. Think of it as millions of smaller, niche audiences gathered around specific interests, hosted by someone they trust, showing up week-after-week to listen. If you have an interest in something, there’s a podcast for that. There are podcasts for cozy mystery readers, memoir lovers, people navigating grief, and entrepreneurs who want to become better at (fill in the blank). Whatever your book is about, there is likely an audience already gathered around that topic. Behind every podcast is a loyal, and engaged audience ready for more of what they love.

Podcasting is a powerful visibility tool for authors. It gives you the opportunity to expand your reach and audience by borrowing someone else’s audience. This is how social media is supposed to, but doesn’t work anymore. Constantly shifting algorithms and noise level have made it harder than ever to reach new readers organically. Podcast audiences are different because listeners choose to be there.

Competition for guests in the podcasting world has gotten fierce in many genres. Just a few years ago, I could send five pitches in a week and book three interviews. Today it can take ten to twenty pitches to get one yes. The landscape shifted and it shifted fast, especially for business podcasts.

Part of that is volume. The popularity of podcasts has drawn an increased need for guests. I’m not the only one who saw the opportunity. Podcasters are flooded. Many have waitlists stretching weeks, months, sometimes a year out. Some will respond and tell you that. Most won’t say anything at all. The ghosting is real, it is standard, and it is not personal. While I don’t think it’s the best approach (If I had the time I would be teaching podcasters about presence, marketing, and processes.). When a podcaster doesn’t respond to your pitch, don’t take it personally.

Another growing trend I’m seeing is pay-to-play. And it’s not something I suggest you participate in. There are podcasts that ask you to help cover their costs by charging for appearances and podcasters who suggest payment for placement and positioning. Just a few weeks ago, I had a podcaster respond to a client pitch I’d sent explaining that he was booked through the end of the year, but that I could pay to have my client bumped up on their episode list. No thank you. Talk about ick.

You should also understand podcast hierarchy. Podcasts have tiers — top, mid, and lower — and where you can realistically land depends on where you are right now as an author. I understand the instinct to shoot for the biggest possible show. But if you have no platform to speak of, no reviews, no social following, no email list, a top tier host has no incentive to say yes. And all you’ve done, by thinking why not, is potentially ruin your chance for a future appearance when you are ready.

This is not about selling yourself short. It’s about being strategic with your shot.

Before you even attempt to send a podcast pitch, think about how you can support your appearance. Podcasters are not hosting you out of the goodness of their collective hearts. When you appear on a podcast, the host expects you to promote that episode. To your email list, on your social media, on your website. You are bringing something to that relationship too. An author with no platform can be harder to book because they’re a less attractive guest even if the topic is a good fit for the show.

So what does ready look like? A website that represents you and your book professionally. Some social presence, even if it’s modest. Reviews. An email list, even a small one. And a willingness to show up for the host the way they’re showing up for you.

The why behind podcast guesting is straightforward. The how, finding the right shows for your level, crafting a pitch that actually gets read, knowing when to follow up and when to let it go, and how to maximize appearances is where strategy comes in.

If you’re ready to add podcasting to your visibility plan and want help figuring out where to start, that’s exactly what coaching is for. You can book a free Unstuck Appointment here to find out if we’re a good fit.

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Lynn brings her more than 30-years experience in small business marketing, publishing, and multiple best-selling author campaigns to her Substack newsletter. She helps authors build and grow their platforms to reach their unique marketing goals through private coaching, non-fiction consulting, and done-for-you marketing programs. And all this, through her computer, in her little lake house in rural Pennsylvania which she shares with her husband, son, and two fluffy companions, Kaiju and Bella. Learn how to work with Lynn here.

The absolute best part of my job is that I get to meet people. All kinds of amazing people. Wildly creative and intelligent people. Gutsy people with incredible life stories. People who were not writers by trade or maybe officially up until this point in their life; who finally put their hands to the keyboard and wrote the book that’s been on their heart. Often, their whole lives. Statistically, I don’t know if you realize how rare you are, writer. I recently heard and for the life of me cannot remember where, that 90 percent of people think about writing a book. But only about 10 percent actually do and of those 10 percenters, only 1 percent actually follow through and publish. What you’ve done is statistically, miraculous.

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Don’t bask in your uniqueness too long though, author. Now that your baby is out in the world. It’s time to tell people. It’s time to begin the marketing.

You thought writing and publishing was hard? You were not trained for this part. This marketing part. And I promise, it’s not just you, getting lost and not understanding this part. Marketing is another language.

When I first began working in publishing nearly 10 years ago, I saw this distinction so clearly. Book marketing, which was all that anyone talked about at this point, is transactional - buy my book. It’s the DM I get from someone I don’t know with a link to “Buy my book, you’re gonna love it.” Imagine that playing out in real life: Someone thrusts a book into your hands and says, “You’re gonna love it! That’ll be $19.99.” Eww. You don’t even know me. How do you know what I’ll love? Enter, author marketing.

This is relationship marketing. In author marketing, you build your platform thoughtfully based on your reader. Where are they? If someone likes this kind of book, what else will they like? Probably, the same things you like. And you begin finding people who will follow, who you can share your work and interests with, who become fans, and sometimes, friends. Sincerely. Fans and friends share thoughts about you and your work with their friends. And one small move at a time, you build your platform and your community.

But you can’t stop there, because nothing stays the same.

This is true for all marketing. It’s fluid. What worked last year, might not be working anymore. You monitor your sales, your social stats, and your reviews. Aligning high and low points with specific marketing tactics, adjusting when necessary.

Author marketing is more multi-faceted than it’s ever been. It was never just posting and praying on social media, and the bar has gotten higher. Authors need more skills, more strategy, and more consistency than previous generations of writers ever had to consider. So much information that your next steps are not always obvious.

Let’s not forget, it’s not always about you.

Sometimes an author will ask me about a concept or skill someone told them they have to do or maybe they saw in a YouTube video that has nothing to do with them or would never work with their genre and audience. Sometimes those tactics have to be scaled to be appropriate. SEO is one of those strategies. It’s never been more important than it is now that we have to consider AI discoverability. But what you need as a romance author might be different from a local, commercial realtor. The romance writer’s SEO needs to investigate keywords that can be woven into marketing and website copy. While the realtor, might hire an SEO expert on a monthly retainer to make sure traffic is leading to their local office and website.

Right now, if you’re in the thick of your author marketing and it feels foreign, I get it. It happens to every new author I speak with. Writing, publishing, and marketing are the three phases of an author’s education. You probably got some guidance on the first two. The third one tends to surprise most authors and is often filled with mixed messaging that might require some help translating.

Fluency takes time. But it comes. And when it does, everything else gets clearer.

If you’re in that early stage where the language still feels like a barrier, coaching is a great place to learn it. Schedule a free, 30-minute Unstuck appointment today to learn more.

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Lynn brings her more than 30-years experience in small business marketing, publishing, and multiple best-selling author campaigns to her Substack newsletter. She helps authors build and grow their platforms to reach their unique marketing goals through private coaching, non-fiction consulting, and done-for-you marketing programs. And all this, through her computer, in her little lake house in rural Pennsylvania which she shares with her husband, son, and two fluffy companions, Kaiju and Bella. Learn how to work with Lynn here.

A new author asked me a question this week: “How long before I’ll see any sales?”

I had to laugh, because the week before I had written about the exact same concern. Authors want a timeline. He wanted to know when the effort would start to pay off.

The uncomfortable truth is that a brand-new book can be invisible for a while. Not because something is wrong. Because Amazon is still learning what your book is and where it belongs.

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The Fear Authors Are Being Sold

Right now, authors are being inundated with freelancers posing as marketing experts. One of the more troubling tactics I’ve seen lately is fear.

Authors are told their books can’t be found on Amazon. They’re told they need complicated tools, aggressive advertising, or expensive marketing packages just to appear in search.

Most of the time, that simply isn’t true. A new book has to develop some experience inside Amazon’s system. Readers have to search for it. Some of those readers click. A few buy. Eventually, reviews start to appear.

Over time, Amazon begins connecting those signals to your book. That’s when it starts showing up more often when someone searches for the title, the author’s name, or the keywords and categories attached to the book.

Until that process begins to unfold, everything can feel quiet.

Don’t Test From Your Own Browser

One of the things that makes this harder for authors to judge is that you can’t really test it from your own browser. If you’re searching for your book repeatedly, Amazon recognizes that behavior. The platform knows you’re interested in that title and will show it to you more easily. That doesn’t mean the rest of the world is seeing the same thing.

If you want a clearer picture, ask a friend to search for it or try a completely different browser where Amazon has no history with you.

A Few Places Worth Double-Checking

There are also a few places where it’s worth making sure you’ve given your book the best possible chance to be understood by Amazon’s system.

• Categories: Make sure you didn’t select very broad and competitive categories like Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy. That space is massive and intensely competitive.
  If your book fits somewhere more specific, like Science Fiction > Post-Apocalyptic, narrowing that category can help Amazon understand where the book belongs.

• Keywords: Amazon gives you eight keyword slots when you upload your book through KDP, each with room for longer search phrases.

  Those phrases work best when they resemble something a real reader might type while searching like: science fiction with badass female protagonist. Not single words, but descriptive phrases that connect your book to the kind of story someone is trying to find.

• Book Description: Sometimes descriptions read like they’ve been edited so many times that they’ve lost all intrigue. Other times they’re written entirely from the author’s perspective instead of the reader’s curiosity.

  A strong description sparks interest and naturally includes clues about the story or topic that help both readers and Amazon understand what the book offers.

• Keyword in Book Title: Even small details, like whether a keyword appears in the title, can sometimes help. It’s not essential in every case, but when it fits naturally, it can strengthen the signals Amazon receives about your book.

A Tool That Can Help

If you want to see how categories and keywords are working inside Amazon, tools like Publisher Rocket can help let you see how books are categorized, what readers are searching for, and how other books in your space are positioned.

If you decide to try it, here is my affiliate link:
https://publisherrocket.cartknox.com/buy-rocket?aff=456

At the time of this writing, it costs $199 for a lifetime license with updates, though the company has indicated the price may increase.

What You Need to Remember

The most important thing to understand is this: Amazon discovery develops over time.

A new book has to create a history before the platform starts pushing it into more searches. That process can feel slow from the author’s side of the screen, especially when you’re checking constantly to see if something has changed. But quiet at the beginning doesn’t automatically mean something is broken. Sometimes it simply means the system is still learning about your book.

Lynn brings her more than 30-years experience in small business marketing, publishing, and multiple best-selling author campaigns to her Substack newsletter. She helps authors build and grow their platforms to reach their unique marketing goals through private coaching, non-fiction consulting, and done-for-you marketing programs. And all this, through her computer, in her little lake house in rural Pennsylvania which she shares with her husband, son, and two fluffy companions, Kaiju and Bella. Learn how to work with Lynn here.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had an author ask me: How long is this going to take?

Sometimes it comes up right away in an Unstuck appointment, and I can almost see an author running numbers, time, and tasks through their mind. Sometimes it surfaces after a particularly bad month knocks the wind out of their sails. Again. (I hate months like this as much as they do.)

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The answer everyone wants isn’t what I can give. It’s different for every author, fiction and non-fiction. It depends on variables I can influence but even more on ones I’ll never control.

There is no clean answer. But there is an honest one.

1. It Takes Longer Than Anyone Tells You

The marketing timeline most authors imagine looks something like this: post consistently for a few months, build a following, start selling books. Maybe six months to a year if things go slowly.

The actual timeline looks more like this: twelve to eighteen months of consistent, foundational work before most authors start seeing real traction. Not virality. Not bestseller lists. Just genuine, repeatable momentum.

I know that’s not what you want to hear, especially if your book is already out and you’re watching the numbers sit still. But the authors who make traction are almost always the ones who committed to the long timeline before they saw evidence it was working. Not after.

The good news is that working a realistic timeline isn’t the same as waiting. It’s building. Time isn’t standing still. You’re moving.

2. Visibility Compounds, It Doesn’t Spike

There’s a reason the overnight success story travels so far. It’s clean. It’s exciting. It feels like proof that the right post, the right moment, the right bit of luck can change everything. It’s that dream of that one thing you do, catching fire. It’s rare.

What you don’t see in those stories is the eighteen months of quiet work that made the moment possible. Every “overnight success” I’ve ever looked at closely had years behind it.

Visibility doesn’t work the way we want it to. It doesn’t spike reliably from a single action. It compounds. Each email you send to someone genuinely interested in your topic adds to a base. Each piece of content that finds the right reader compounds on the last. Each review, each recommendation, each reader who shares your book with a friend is a small deposit that earns interest over time.

This is why quitting at month three because “it’s not working” is so costly. You’re walking away right before the compounding starts to show.

3. Sequencing Matters More Than Speed

Taking the necessary steps out of order can be devastating to your marketing. Releasing a book without a launch. Publishing without the benefit of a professional editor. Posting to social media to see what sticks, before understanding who you’re talking to. Boosting posts because Meta suggested it, without a proper audience.

Speed without sequence doesn’t get you there faster. It gets you there out of breath with a lot of wasted energy. And often, with wasted money.

The right sequence isn’t complicated, but it does require patience with a steady pace:

First, you need to know your reader. Not a demographic. An actual human being with a specific problem, question, or desire your book addresses. If you can’t name that person clearly, every marketing decision after this gets murky.

Second, you need the infrastructure. A way for interested readers to stay connected to you. A professional author presence. Metadata that works with the algorithm instead of against it. Distribution that puts the book where readers actually buy.

Third, you build visibility. Not before the infrastructure exists. Not before you know who you’re talking to. After.

The good news is that if you're already taking these steps in order, you're on the right path. Keep going. Consistency and time are the real secret, and they're the part most people want to skip.

4. Most of the Work Is Invisible

This is the part that makes sustainable marketing feel discouraging: a lot of it doesn’t look like anything.

Pitching ten podcasts to land one interview. Walking into your local bookstore and asking them to shelve your book. Going to your library in person, because being in the IngramSpark catalog doesn’t mean they’re carrying it. Starting an email list when you have no list and no idea what to say. Updating your metadata and author bio so the algorithm starts working for you instead of against you.

None of it is photogenic. Nobody sees the effort. They only see the interview when it airs. The book on the shelf. The sales when they start moving.

The visible actions, the flashy launch posts, the countdowns, the “big announcement” energy, those create short bursts of activity. Sometimes real activity. But they don’t replace the invisible foundation. They amplify it, if the foundation exists. Without it, they’re just noise.

Sustainable marketing looks boring until it works.

5. Progress Is Uneven, and That’s Not a Problem

Even when you’re doing everything right, your progress won’t be linear. There will be months where nothing seems to move, followed by a week where three things happen at once. There will be a newsletter that gets exceptional engagement right after one that got almost none.

This is normal. It’s not a sign that your strategy is broken. It’s how organic growth works.

The trap is treating every dip as a crisis and every spike as proof you’ve figured it out. Neither response serves you. What serves you is staying consistent through both, adjusting based on actual patterns over time rather than reacting to individual data points.

One low-performing post doesn’t tell you anything. One great week doesn’t either. Three to six months of consistent data starts to show you something real. Pay attention to what works and what doesn’t work.

Where This Leaves You

If you were hoping I’d end this with a timeline, I understand. But marketing isn’t a manuscript deadline. There’s no due date, no finish line, and no editor at the other end pushing you to get it finished.

There is no way through except through. Once you find your way, you rinse and repeat.

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Lynn brings her more than 30-years experience in small business marketing, publishing, and multiple best-selling author campaigns to her Substack newsletter. She helps authors build and grow their platforms to reach their unique marketing goals through private coaching, non-fiction consulting, and done-for-you marketing programs. And all this, through her computer, in her little lake house in rural Pennsylvania which she shares with her husband, son, and two fluffy companions, Kaiju and Bella. Learn how to work with Lynn here.

You show up overwhelmed. The book is out and nothing is happening. There aren’t consistent sales. Reviews are scarce. You’ve posted about it and shared the link. You’ve waited for something to catch. It hasn’t.

You’re not running ads. Amazon ads feel confusing and expensive. You don’t have an email list, and you’re not even sure how to start it. Social media is draining you. A newsletter sounds nice in theory, but you don’t know what you would say or who it would be for. If there’s a website, it exists, but that’s it. There’s no clear way for a reader to stay in touch, and no real plan for how someone would find you in the first place. You thought publishing the book would create momentum on its own. It hasn’t and the frustration has reached the point of almost giving up.

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While you’re talking, I’m not trying to solve your problem, it’s too soon for that and we can’t get there in 30 minutes. I’m listening for your why. Why did you write this book in the first place? Once I have that answer, we can begin the diagnosis. When I ask you, your thoughts might instinctively go to the standard response, “to sell books.” That’s not what I’m looking for. I want to know what kept you up at night with the idea for this book. What problem did you hope to solve? Who did you hope to entertain? Did you want to get the attention of a studio? Did you hope to inspire? Why did you spend years writing, polishing, and publishing? When I press for the answer, it’s usually met with a laugh… and the real reason emerges. This is your first lightbulb moment.

This is where it gets interesting, because you’ve probably been running on the idea of sales to justify your book’s existence and haven’t thought about the real reason in a long time. You stop pitching me your own book like you’re on Shark Tank and you start telling me what you actually care about.

Now I have what I need to start the actual diagnosis. And here’s where it usually gets surprising, because the problem you named when you showed up (no sales, no traction, no reviews) is almost never the real problem.

It’s a symptom. The real problem is usually something earlier in the chain. Something foundational that was either missing from the start or quietly working against everything else.

Sometimes the diagnosis is reader clarity. You wrote a book, but you haven’t clearly defined who it’s for. Not in a demographic sense, but in a specific, recognizable sense. When you don’t know exactly who you’re writing to, you can’t find them. And you can’t speak to them in a way that makes them feel found.

Sometimes it’s visibility infrastructure. The book exists, but there’s no reliable way for a reader to discover it, and no way to stay connected once they do. Posting on social media and hoping something catches isn’t a visibility strategy. It’s a wish.

Sometimes it’s sequencing. The right pieces are actually there, but they’re being done in the wrong order, or pushed on the wrong audience, or measured against the wrong goal. The effort isn’t the issue. The order is.

Whatever it is, I’ll tell you what I see. I’ll name what I think is causing the problem you came in with, and I’ll point you toward what to look at next. This is your second lightbulb moment, and it’s usually the quieter one. Not a laugh this time. More like a slow exhale, because suddenly the last year or two makes a different kind of sense.

By the end of the call, I know whether I can help you. If I think we’d be a good fit, I’ll tell you what that looks like and what working together might involve. If I don’t think I’m the right person, and that does happen, I’ll tell you that too, along with one or two honest suggestions for where to go next. I don’t leave people hanging. The goal is always to make sure you walk away with something useful, regardless of what comes next for us.

What I won’t do is push for a decision on the call. Your head is spinning. You just heard things you weren’t expecting. You need time to sit with it, and I’d rather you come back when you’re ready than say yes before you’ve had a chance to think. That’s not how I work, and it’s not how good relationships start.

No two author journeys are the same. A real solution has to account for who you are, your book, your goal, what your life actually looks like, and what you’re willing and able to do. A generic plan handed to everyone who shows up is just another thing that won’t work. The appointment exists because you deserve better than that.

Sometimes we find a fit. Sometimes we don’t. Always, you get clarity.

If you’re in that place right now, where the book is out, something isn’t working, and you can’t quite name what it is, an Unstuck Appointment might be the most useful 30 minutes you spend this month. You can book one here.

Lynn brings her more than 30-years experience in small business marketing, publishing, and multiple best-selling author campaigns to her Substack newsletter. She helps authors build and grow their platforms to reach their unique marketing goals through private coaching, non-fiction consulting, and done-for-you marketing programs. And all this, through her computer, in her little lake house in rural Pennsylvania which she shares with her husband, son, and two fluffy companions, Kaiju and Bella. Learn how to work with Lynn here.