Ep 132: What Nobody Tells You About Making Your Book "Take Off"

If you’ve been chasing the magical marketing strategy that will finally make your book “take off,” welcome to the club. In this episode, I’m addressing the question nearly every author eventually asks: What does it actually take to make a book successful?

Spoiler: there’s no guaranteed formula. Even authors with six-figure advances, NYT bestsellers, or celebrity blurbs still worry their latest book won’t sell. 

So what are we really buying when we shell out thousands for a publicist? Often, it’s access and visibility, not actual sales. You can land your book in front of all the right people, and still... crickets. Why? Because readers are human. Think about how long you’ve let a book sit in your online cart before clicking “buy,” even if you really wanted to read it.

Success usually requires a mix of good writing, staying power, and yes, a little luck. But maybe it’s time we stop defining success only by sales numbers. What if it’s about writing something you’re proud of? Or connecting deeply with a few readers who say, “Your book changed me”?

Marketing will always involve experimentation. And when it starts to feel like a full-time job you didn’t apply for, you have every right to pause, pivot, or try something wildly different. Your book might find its audience next week—or three years from now—in a way you never expected.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Podcast Introduction
• 2:35 Author Marketing Questions
• 5:48 No Guarantees in Publishing
• 10:05 The Reality of Book Publicity
• 16:00 Consumer Psychology and Book Buying
• 20:07 Redefining Success as an Author

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:36

Hello and welcome to the Write the Damn Book Already podcast. My name is Elizabeth Lyons. I'm an author and book editor and I help people write and publish thought-provoking, wildly entertaining books without any more overthinking, second-guessing or overwhelm than absolutely necessary. Because, let's face it, some overthinking, second-guessing and overwhelm is going to come with the territory if you're anything like me guessing, and overwhelm is going to come with the territory if you're anything like me. In short, I love books and I believe that story and shared perspective are two of the most impactful ways we connect with one another. A few things I don't believe in gimmicks, magic bullets and swoon-worthy results without context, as in. Be sure to reveal that a result took eight years or required a $30,000 investment in ads, because those details are just as important. What I believe in most as an author, the long game is the shortcut For more book writing and publishing tips and solutions. Visit publishaprofitablebookcom or visit me over on Instagram at Elizabeth Lyons Author. Over on Instagram at Elizabeth Lyons Author. Hi everybody and welcome back.

Speaker 1: 1:45

So today we're going to do a bit of a solo episode. I haven't done one of these in a while and I like to do Q&A stuff where I can just do a roundup of the cues and do my best to provide the A's when it comes to book writing and publishing. And in the last couple of months I've received several emails from authors with whom I work, asking questions about I mean to boil it like way down or bring it way up marketing. And the gist of it is how do I make this book go or take off or launch whatever the terminology is that people want to use? And I got another one a couple of days ago and while I won't, without permission, reveal who sent it to me, the gist of the email was Elizabeth, can you recommend someone who I could hire? I don't want someone to run my social media necessarily. I've done some bookstagram stuff.

Speaker 1: 2:44

Admittedly, there are people with low numbers of followers and I've said many times, it's not necessarily the number of followers but the quality of followers that seems to matter most. Keep in mind that, no matter how many followers you have, social media is a very flighty thing and their posts are not showing up in all of their followers' feeds at all times, and some of them post about something more than once and some of them post in a variety of ways and some of those posts get traction and some don't. But anyway, this author said I don't want someone to run my social media. I've done these books to grammar things. I don't want to hire a publicist, necessarily, who? Well, I don't want to hire a publicist to whom I have to pay my whole monthly salary, but I just want to find someone who can help the book take off.

Speaker 1: 3:35

And those were the words that were used help the book take off. And that will that. Those were the words that were used help the book take off. And so what I realized in thinking I knew how to respond to this person who I I edited this book. It's a wonderful book. It deeply resonated with me. I have no doubt that it will deeply resonate with the readers that it's meant to touch and resonate with.

Speaker 1: 4:03

And still, I know that many times the expectation and the perspective in this author space of what's going to happen, how it's going to happen and when it's going to happen, and what it's going to take to make make it happen and what life looks like for people for whom it's already happened, or so we think, is something that is misunderstood. People write specifically nonfiction and memoir and getting out of their own head and helping them get the stories out of their head and helping them decide really what are they comfortable sharing and not sharing, and what flow and form it like, what feels good to them. And then I'm very comfortable helping people navigate the indie publishing world, whether it's through self-publishing or hybrid publishing. An area that I have admittedly been uncomfortable with is the marketing side, because it is a long game in this space and, as Jane Friedman very accurately stated, many episodes like maybe six, seven, eight episodes ago.

Speaker 1: 5:13

This is one area the author area specifically where there are no guarantees. The author area specifically, where there are no guarantees you can spend 10 years writing and studying and writing and honing and studying and networking and there is no guarantee that you will ever get a deal, that your book will break out or take off. The only guarantee is that you will finish the next book if you keep writing it, and one would argue that you'll become better air quote at being a writer by continuing to write books and you'll learn and you'll be willing to write different types of books that maybe in the beginning you wouldn't have been comfortable writing from different points of view or multiple points of view. Or perhaps you started as a romance author and now you're working your way into thriller or a dystopian novel or something that those are the only real guarantees that there are. So for people who are certainly working on their first book or have just released their first book and feeling like, okay, it's not going anywhere, what I like to do because I think this is actually the most helpful thing is, instead of saying, well then you need to go do this, or you should go do this, or you must do this, or this is what you're doing wrong, continue to remind authors that this is a long game for all of us.

Speaker 1: 6:36

And that's not meant to be at all negative. It's not meant to be well pessimistic. It's meant to say most authors still have another main job, including traditionally published authors with big, big advances, including authors whose first book or second book or third book did very, very well by comparative standards. It hit the New York Times bestseller list, or they were shouted out by Oprah, or they were part of Reese's Book Club or Jenna's Book Club or something like that. And even Melissa de la Cruz, many weeks ago here on the podcast, said look, you're only as good as your last book. And this is a woman who's written 80 books. Now Her 80th book comes out in September of 2025.

Speaker 1: 7:38

You can ride that for a period of time. That period of time differs for everyone. It's dependent on so many things. It's dependent upon how big the advance was, how good sales are after the advance has been earned out, whether or not you have a trust fund or a massive savings account or a life partner who is helping to pay the bills so that you can focus on writing, marketing and doing all the things. Where do you live in the country? What is your lifestyle? How much money do you need to have every single month in order to maintain that lifestyle? All of those factors come into play.

Speaker 1: 8:09

So when this particular author said, is there someone I can hire that you can recommend to help me really get this book to get legs? My answer was no and I don't think that there's anybody anybody could recommend. Because here's the thing it's not about finding someone who has a large contact list. A lot of publicists today will say, for mid-four figures, so $5,000 on average a month with a three month retainer. So we're talking $15,000 investment. We can put you in front of this list that we have this contact list of X number of people and that can be really appealing to authors and they can get some good expectations and some high expectations based on that. You know, some good expectations and some high expectations based on that. However, when that publicist is just mass mailing all those people and following up in a very you know, hey, I just wanted to push this to the top of your inbox, hey, I just want.

Speaker 1: 9:15

They're not getting a lot back, and so more often than not, what I hear from that is the author is disappointed because they get to the end of that three-month stretch and maybe they've sold, let's call it, 50 books, but that doesn't even touch the investment that they've made. Which is not to say don't make that investment. It's to say make that investment with the knowledge of what your goal is with the investment, and I would argue that the goal should never be to profit off of your investment. So if you invest 15,000, I'm gonna make it back with at least $15,000 and $1 in sales. That's what happens in the corporate commercial world. If you have a shoe company and you invest $100,000 in marketing, the idea is we want to at least make $100,000 and $1. I don. You want to have a net profit. That's the goal, unless your goal is visibility.

Speaker 1: 10:12

So for many authors who hire publicity individuals or agencies, their goal is not income, it's visibility, it's credibility, it's getting them in front of people who are either readers or other writers in their genre. It's getting them to events where they can make connections and they can meet people and they can then nurture those. Hire a publicist or an agency who has those kinds of it's not connections, but relationships. I mean, maybe this is the wrong way of thinking about this, but what I can say is, if I am a market publicist and I'm not, definitely not. But if I were a publicist and I have a relationship, definitely not. But if I were a publicist and I have a relationship with Reese Witherspoon and I know that I can call up Reese and say, hey, I'm sending you this book, you're going to love it. I'm charging a lot of money for that because that is a relationship that I've built, that I have credit. There's a credibility factor, there's a credibility fact, like there's a whole thing there. That's not going to be somebody who's charging a hundred dollars or a thousand dollars or and this isn't meant to get into the nuts and bolts of is that ethical, and should you do that, and shouldn't you just be a kind person and introduce your friends to Reese Witherspoon? That's another conversation. But professionally speaking, if that were, and that's why those people who do have those relationships are charging. That's one of the reasons that they're charging that level of fee, and even with that, it comes with no guarantee. So it might be, hey, I can put this book in front of Reese, but there's no guarantee that Reese will make it part of her book club or put it on her website or her Instagram. And even if she does, maybe it's a heavy news day and nobody sees it. Or a hundred thousand people see it and three people buy it.

Speaker 1: 12:31

It's important to think as consumers too. When you're on Instagram, you know how many times you get shown the same ad for a product. Right now, I am being inundated with ads for this product called Quasi, or Quasi it's Q-U-A-S-I. It's some sort of a mask that you put on your face, a glycogen, it's some sort of an oligen that you put on your face and then it dries clear and you take it off and your skin looks like glass. I am being absolutely inundated with it because they know that I've looked at it, that I've spent more than seven seconds looking at the ad. So they just keep coming back. And they'll keep coming back, probably until I buy it and if we're being honest, I probably will at some point. But when we get the idea that someone is going to see a post about our book and just immediately leave social media, go to Amazon or bookshoporg or our local indie bookseller and buy the book, we're not. We're thinking with hope, we're not thinking with realism because we don't even do that.

Speaker 1: 13:37

So my one of my dearest writing friends, neely Tubati Alexander, released a few weeks ago her fourth novel, courtroom drama. I am so wildly excited to read this book because I was able to read the first couple of chapters before it launched and it's wonderful and it's being widely like it's. It's came out to wide acclaim. Everyone's saying it's her best one. Yet it doesn't shock me at all. I cannot wait to read it.

Speaker 1: 14:02

It has been sitting in my Amazon cart for three weeks. I just haven't checked and I haven't bought it. Like you should, see the Amazon cart. That's a whole separate conversation. But there are about 37 items in there and I don't want to buy all 37 at once because that would be expensive and feel irresponsible and other things. So I just go in and I click like which one? I have. Yet, since I started, since I put her book in my Amazon cart, haven't placed an order. So the next time I placed an order, sure, I'll check it and it'll show up. But she's one of my dearest writing friends and she's become, frankly, a dear friend, friend. And I still don't have it. So we really do.

Speaker 1: 14:42

It's important to a couple of things. Number one remember that there's no magic bullet for anyone in the creative space. A lot of it is luck, a lot of it is writing, putting your all into something. A lot of it is persistence, patience, being willing to try something different, and I think there's a lot of freedom that comes with that. There's no pressure that says, if this book doesn't especially if you're indie published if this book doesn't take off in a month, it's done.

Speaker 1: 15:18

Books come out of the woodwork as long as they're not out of print, sometimes years after they were initially published, and we just don't know when, why, how or through what outfit or Instagrammer or word of mouth or whatever that's going to happen. We just don't know. So can we get curious about staying focused on what we love to do, which is right and can we stay focused on? Well, what's something else I could try that feels fun? So if something has stopped feeling fun and has started feeling heavy and overwhelming, I'm like, oh my God, I am not the girl who's going to say, well, you got to just keep at it. I am the girl who, because I will go try something else, will encourage you to try something else. Take a break, take a break from Instagram, Take a break from Facebook, take a break from book, from touring, if you, if you've self-financed some sort of a tour, take a break, like, take a break from everything If you want. Everybody will be here when you come back and you can come back and try different things. There is not.

Speaker 1: 16:25

I think that we it's also important and I'm so included in this to change our expectation of what, of what success means, meaning, what are we expecting from a specific thing. If a bookstagrammer or a book tour, we join some sort of a virtual book tour and we expect this is going to sell thousands of books, we're probably going to be disappointed. If, on the other hand, I mean, I'm all here for being pleasantly surprised, by the way, but we're probably not going to be pleasantly surprised If we say gosh, I hope this gets the book in the hands of one or two or three people who will really love it. That's a, that's a win. And so focusing on the sales numbers as opposed to focusing on how can I better immerse myself in this world, how can I better understand how this world works, how can I accept that I'm just like I'm one of this. Now I'm part of this crew of people who loves stories and who loves words and who has words that she wants to share.

Speaker 1: 17:32

Not so that I can fund my lifestyle, because that typically takes, if it ever happens, a quite some time and B it's a mountain. So one book may hold you over for three months or four months or even 12 months if you're really lucky, depending on a variety of factors. Again, because your book advance doesn't necessarily take into account your life. Well, it doesn't take into account your lifestyle. So, if you live in the middle of nowhere and you get a multi six-figure book advance that might hold you over for a couple of years. If you live in the heart of New York City or San Francisco and you get a six-figure book advance that might hold you over for five minutes, so, and then you, and then you're back like you're back to having to figure it out again, write another book or get, get, find a new audience for this book or whatever it is.

Speaker 1: 18:21

And I encourage all of us to be inspired by and encouraged by the authors who have breakout debuts, traditionally published, and they get picked up by an agent and then a house and the whole thing, and also the indie authors who have a breakout. Somehow. They do incredible upfront marketing, it goes wild on book talk or whatever, and then maybe a traditional house picks them up for their next deal or they just choose to stay indie and they write another book and it also does. Well, I encourage because it's like the lottery Somebody wins. But to think that we're doing something wrong because we didn't win the lottery is a recipe for people to stop like to self what's the word? Like to self-remove right To exit on purpose the space. And I hate that. I don't want it to happen to me, I don't want it to happen to you, I don't want it to happen to the authors who right now are writing whose book I'm going to absolutely fall in love with, and yet they're thinking well, should I even continue promoting, should I continue writing it and then should I continue promoting it, because a lot of people aren't buying it? Please do, because I haven't found it yet.

Speaker 1: 19:39

And I discover new books every week on this show through the authors I interview. Almost every time I've never heard of them. These are Pulitzer Prize winning novels, they are New York Times bestselling novels. They are indie published novels. It runs the gamut and I've never heard of them. And I read them and I love them, or I don't, because books are a subjective thing and they resonate with me, or they don't, and that's usually reflective of me and not the author and not the book. Reflective of me and not the author and not the book.

Speaker 1: 20:16

But that's the message I really wanted to get out there today, and I think it's the message that I'm most passionate about sharing is this isn't a space where I have ever been comfortable saying if you do this, you will sell this many books. This is why I don't talk about dollars when it comes to my own books, because no matter what I do in a month, the next month will very likely be completely different. I don't talk about sales numbers with frequency because and when I do, I'm very clear about the fact that those numbers are over 20 years. It's not a month, it's not a year, it's 20 years, and I've written six books. So if you do the math and you divide that out, you realize that I am not sustaining myself off of book sales alone, and I don't consider that a failure.

Speaker 1: 21:08

I found another way to pay my bills that I enjoy dearly and that allows me to stay in its book adjacent, its author adjacent.

Speaker 1: 21:20

It keeps me attached to and connected to and learning from writers all day, every day, and none of those things has been a magic bullet, for, oh my gosh, you just had this person on your podcast. Now your book is going to go huge. I've had a couple not many, but a couple people say that to me and I just laugh because it's absolutely ridiculous and it has never been the basis for why I do what I do. So this is just your encouragement today to keep writing, keep talking about your book, keep connecting with other writers, connect with readers, take a break when you need to, as, for as long as you keep feeling the pull, or come back to feeling the pull, to being in this space, it's where you're meant to be, regardless of what it may look like or feel like, based on your expectations. I hope that is helpful, and I will see you next week for another fantastic interview conversation, rather, with an author who will almost undoubtedly tell you the exact same thing.