Your Book Marketing Isn’t Working. Here’s How to Find the Actual Problem.
EPISODE ONE HUNDRED FIFTEEN
If you’ve been marketing your book consistently but still aren’t seeing the sales you expected, the answer may not be to post more, switch platforms, or start over. In this episode, Jenn breaks down how to follow your reader’s journey, identify the exact point where your book marketing stops working, and determine what actually needs your attention. Plus, she shares how one author’s analytics revealed that the platform she thought she needed to prioritize wasn’t the one driving readers to her books and email list. Before you change your entire book marketing strategy, use this process to stop guessing and find the real problem.
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Transcript
You’ve been marketing your book consistently, but the sales still aren’t there.
So you start looking for something to change.
Maybe you need to post more often. Maybe Instagram isn’t working anymore. Maybe you should try TikTok, run ads, or start over with a completely different strategy.
But saying “my book marketing isn’t working” isn’t a diagnosis. It’s only a description of the problem.
And if you don’t know what’s causing that problem, you can spend months trying to fix the wrong thing.
In this episode, I’m going to show you how to follow the path your readers are taking, find the point where they stop moving toward your book, and determine what actually needs your attention first.
Hi, I’m Jenn Hanson-dePaula, and for 20 years I’ve helped fiction and nonfiction authors simplify marketing, connect with their readers, and sell more books.
Let’s get started.
Low Sales Are a Symptom, Not a Diagnosis
When authors tell me their marketing isn’t working, they’re usually looking at one result: book sales.
And that makes complete sense. You’re marketing because you want people to buy your book.
But a sale is the final result of several smaller decisions a reader makes before they ever reach the purchase button.
First, they have to discover you.
And then, something you say has to feel relevant enough for them to keep paying attention.
From there, they need a clear reason to consider your book.
And then your book sales page has to give them enough information and confidence to purchase.
If any one of those transitions is weak or not clear enough, the sale may not happen.
But because the lack of sales is the part you can see, it’s easy to assume the entire strategy has failed.
That’s usually when authors start applying solutions based on whatever advice they’ve heard most recently.
They increase their posts because they assume they need more visibility.
They switch to a different platform because they think the algorithm is the problem.
They create more content because they believe they aren’t doing enough.
They pay for promotions because they want a quick increase in sales.
Any one of those tactics might be useful. But only if it addresses the problem you actually have.
If readers are seeing your content but it isn’t connecting with the right people, posting more of that same content won’t fix the problem.
If people are joining your email list but you rarely email them or give them a reason to purchase your book, attracting more subscribers won’t fix the problem.
If readers are clicking through to your book sales page but leaving without buying, changing your Instagram strategy probably won’t fix it.
More effort applied to the wrong part of your marketing is still the wrong solution.
Follow the Reader’s Path
Think about your marketing like a road your reader follows.
If readers aren’t reaching the final destination, you don’t tear up the entire road. You find out where traffic stops moving.
There are five main checkpoints I want you to examine: recognition, resonance, relationship, invitation, and purchase.
So let’s talk about the first checkpoint: recognition.
You need to ask yourself: Are the right people discovering me?
Discovery could happen through Instagram, TikTok, a blog, YouTube, a podcast interview, a recommendation, a search result, or another place where your readers spend time.
The important question isn’t just, “Am I getting more views?”
It’s, “Are the people who would love this book actually finding me?”
The second checkpoint is resonance.
Once people do discover you, does your content resonate with them enough that they want to know more?
Are they able to recognize a problem, desire, interest, theme, or reading experience that matters to them?
You can have reach but that doesn’t mean it will automatically resonate. Thousands of people might see a post, but if your content is too general to connect with them, that added attention won’t necessarily result in anything.
The third checkpoint is relationship.
Do the people who are interested in you and your book have a clear reason to join your newsletter list?
A social media follower may enjoy one post and never see another. Email gives you a direct way to continue the relationship rather than depending entirely on the algorithm to see your content.
The fourth checkpoint is invitation.
Are you showing readers why your book is exactly what they are looking for?
This is where many authors get a little uncomfortable. They’re happy to share useful tips, entertaining posts, or thoughtful content, but they rarely make the connection between that content and their book.
Readers can’t act on an invitation they never receive.
The final checkpoint is purchase.
When someone reaches your book sales page, does everything they see confirm that this book is for them?
Your cover, the description, and the overall presentation of the book all play a role in making that decision.
These checkpoints are all connected, but they don’t all perform the same job.
Your social media posts aren’t the beginning and the end of your marketing process. It’s main role is getting your reader’s attention. So a blog post, a Substack article, a podcast interview, your book’s sales page shouldn’t be seen as all having the same job. They all lead to the next step.
The question is whether each part of your marketing system is helping the reader take the next appropriate step.
Next, Let’s Find the Weak Transition
Once you take a look at those checkpoints, you can use that information to find where the problem might be happening.
So let’s start with discovery.
If you’re getting very low views or people aren’t seeing your content, you have a visibility problem or the platform that you’re on might be the wrong fit.
Look at other authors in your genre and see what their engagement is like on the same platform or on other social media outlets. If they have strong engagement, that’s a good indicator that your audience is actually active on that platform.
But don’t immediately assume low reach means you need to be everywhere online.
You may need a better fit between your reader, your content, and your main platform. Adding three more platforms could spread the same problem across three more places.
Next, look at what happens when people do see your content.
If you’re getting reach but you’re getting little engagement, the problem might be that your content may be too broad or general for your readers to identify with.
Always go back to your ideal reader.
What do they care about? What are they trying to understand, solve, experience, or feel? Does your content make that connection clear?
For a fiction author, readers respond to the emotional experience of the book, its themes, tropes, or character dynamics.
For a nonfiction author, it could be a problem your reader is trying to solve, a result they want, or a question they’re trying to have answered.
If people engage with your content but don’t join your email list, take a look at the bridge between those two steps.
Are you giving them a specific reason to subscribe?
Simply saying “Sign up for my newsletter” doesn’t give readers a good reason to join. Offering some sort of incentive is key.
For example, a fiction reader might respond to a bonus story, a prequel, or sample chapters.
A nonfiction reader might respond to a checklist, an assessment, a guide, or a resource.
Then look at how clearly and how often you’re inviting people to that incentive.
Is the link or sign up page easy to find? Does the signup page highlight what they’ll receive? Are you mentioning it often enough in your posts?
Perhaps you’re seeing some sales, but they’re inconsistent.
You might see a small increase during the launch or a promotion and then it slows down again.
That may mean the individual parts are working, but you don’t yet have a repeatable system connecting them.
You may be relying on occasional bursts of attention rather than consistently attracting readers, building the relationship, talking about the book, and learning from the results.
That’s a different problem from having no visibility at all.
Let’s see this at work…
I recently worked with an author who was convinced she needed to devote most of her marketing time to Instagram.
In her mind, she thought that Instagram was the platform authors were expected to use, so when she thought about growing her audience and selling more books, she just assumed that’s where she should spend her time.
But when I started to follow her reader’s journey and looked at her analytics, we found something different.
Instagram was actually not her biggest attraction tool. Her blog was getting way more attention and traffic.
Readers were finding her through her blog posts, visiting her website, signing up for her email list, and exploring her books.
The path she thought she needed to build wasn’t the main path her readers were using.
That didn’t mean Instagram was a bad platform. It also doesn’t mean every author should stop using social media and start a blog.
The lesson is that her analytics and her reader’s journey contradicted the assumption she had been using to make her marketing decisions.
If she had continued putting more and more time into Instagram because she thought that’s what she should do, she could have neglected the path that was already working.
Her data gave her permission to strengthen what was working.
That’s what your marketing information should do.
It shouldn’t make you chase every fluctuation or panic when one post performs poorly. It should help you see patterns in how your readers behave.
Let’s talk about your diagnoses before you rebuild…
You don’t need an enormous audience or complicated reporting software to begin doing this.
You’re not trying to compare your numbers with an author who has hundreds of thousands of followers.
You’re looking for patterns in your own marketing.
Start by mapping the path a reader can currently take.
Where can someone discover you?
What would make that person want to continue paying attention?
How can they join your email list?
What happens after they subscribe?
Where do you talk about your book?
What do they see when they reach the book sales page?
Write down each step.
Then gather the evidence you have for the movement between those steps.
Look at reach, meaningful engagement, profile visits, website traffic, email signups, email open rate and click rate, and then your sales.
You may not have every number - that’s fine. Use what’s available.
Then find the last point where readers are still moving.
If people are reaching your website but not subscribing, investigate that gap.
If subscribers are opening your emails but not clicking, investigate that transition.
If people are clicking but not buying, look at what happens after the click.
The last working point helps you identify the next place to look.
Once you find it, make one meaningful change.
Don’t completely change your platform, content strategy, email incentive, and book description at the same time. If you change everything, you won’t know which change made the difference.
Choose one area, adjust it, and give it enough time to produce useful information. Then compare the result with your previous baseline.
And please don’t make a major strategic decision because of one quiet post or one disappointing week of sales.
A single result may be fluke. Repeated results begin to reveal a pattern.
What I want you to remember is that data isn’t there to judge whether you’re good at marketing.
It’s there to help you make better decisions.
You may discover that you don’t need another platform. You need a clearer reason for the right readers to pay attention.
You may not need more followers. You may need a stronger way to move the people already paying attention onto your email list.
You probably don’t need to rebuild your entire strategy. You may just need to make clearer, more consistent invitations to buy.
And sometimes, your marketing is successfully moving readers to the book, but the book sales page isn’t compelling readers to actually purchase.
Those problems require different solutions.
That’s why the diagnosis has to come before you take action.
If you’ve listened to this and want some help identifying the gaps in your own marketing, I’ve got you covered. Download my free Book Marketing Blueprint - it will walk you through the entire process and show you exactly what’s missing.
You’ll find the link in the notes for this episode.
Before you add more to your marketing, follow the reader’s journey. Find the last point where they’re still moving, and investigate what happens next.
That’s how you stop guessing and start fixing the problem your marketing actually has.
I’ll see you in the next episode.