How many articles have you read on burnout that tell you to take a break, stop trying to be on all social media platforms at once, and focus on your strengths?

Let me guess—you gave it your best effort, you’re feeling more burned out than ever, and your book sales still didn’t improve.

So you upped your game because you believe in your writing. You took a few online classes to understand Amazon ads and Facebook marketing, and you are networking like crazy. Maybe you even bought a ring-light to practice BookTok videos. (Psssst…Does your genre even do well on TikTok? Statistics say not all of them do.) It got expensive, it was a lot of work, and you’re still not making near the sales you know you should.

There is a reason for that.

As a copywriter, I’m addicted to marketing information. I took my first marketing job in 1981 and since then I’ve been hooked on what makes people buy the things they do. Professionally, I’ve helped clients understand what works and what doesn’t for years and, I have to admit, advice like that makes me a little cringey. It’s not that it’s bad advice. In fact, it’s brilliant—it’s just the right advice at the wrong time.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re selling books, short stories, non-fungibles, luxury cars, or houses. All marketing begins with the same steps, and they aren’t about social media or your strengths as a salesperson.

It’s time for a little book marketing tough love.

General marketing advice like that is hypnotically easy. It ranks up there with Loose 30 Pounds In Three Easy Steps. You desperately want to believe, so you buy the magazine that promises an easy answer to what feels like an insurmountable problem. And when you realize it’s not that easy, or like the advice above, it’s overly general, the burnout kicks in. But this time it leaves you jaded and angry.

In the case of book marketing, you took the expensive classes, ditched Twitter (now, X) and focused on Facebook or Instagram, and you actually laid on the beach for a few days last year to recharge, as suggested. If that’s all it takes to skip the burnout, your books should be flying off the shelf!

Too many of you will break your heart (and mine) and give up. You’ll decide it was your writing that couldn’t cut it, or that the ever-changing social media circus is too much to keep up.

So here’s the tough love…

Book marketing isn’t about you. It never was.

No effective marketing campaign begins with a to-do list of social media and ad courses. It doesn’t matter if TikTok is hot or whether you printed both flyers and bookmarks for your next book signing. None of it works if you skipped the number one principle of marketing.

Know your buyer.

Book marketing today has become one of the most narcissistic industries I know. With the explosion of online courses that will teach you how to navigate the world of book sales, marketing focus changed. You, the author, are now the consumer, and they are VERY good at selling to you. More on how they do that in a minute.

There isn’t a single thing wrong with workshops and courses. I take a shocking number of them myself because it’s important to always be improving our craft. Updating the tech skills to approach your market is equally important…at the right time.

But marketing isn’t about your learning curve or the overwhelming number of things you need to do to sell books. Marketing is about one thing—your reader.

It is that terrifyingly simple. Your sales depend on a single demographic’s ability to find you, feel a connection, and access your product. And here’s the terrifying part—statistics show you have about six seconds to achieve that, and that’s being generous.

Most of us think we know our audience, but when the market plan is on autopilot with a checklist that has nothing to do with the actual reader, there is bound to be an imbalance that leads to burnout.

The paradox of online marketing is that if you step back and get some perspective, you see the incredible potential of online book marketing is completely contingent on good old-fashioned people skills. In other words, can you read your buyer?

It’s the psychology of selling, not the tech of selling. Tech comes later.

Book marketing is a sincere effort to get to know your reader and meet them where they live and shop. It’s about providing them targeted information and opportunity.

Tech is not the first step. It’s just the current headline promise to help you sell your books in a few easy steps.

The explosion of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) actually began back in 1997, before the existence of Google, and it began training us for the type of selling we do online today. Keywords, the actual words and phrases people use to search online for the things they enjoy, became a gold mine of opportunity, one as important as cave dwellers discovering the first open-air markets. Buyers met sellers directly and immediately. But this time, sales went from a favorite local vendor to a global marketplace, and we watched book marketing cut out the middleman in record time, leaving authors free to talk to their buyers one-on-one.

The opportunity was mind-blowing.

If you don’t feel comfortable with the growth of online sales and the part tech has played over the last twenty-five years, you aren’t alone. And yes, it will be frustrating. Burnout will most certainly be nipping at your heels. But there is one guiding light that will save you every time. Get to know exactly what your readers enjoy. Come out from behind the computer screen and get to know the people who love your stories.

I can already feel the extroverts among us shrinking back behind their computer screens, but that’s okay, too. Things like Zoom give you the ability to join a book discussion in your genre, for example, and find out what readers want, not just how to sell.

You’ll discover…

• New opportunities and niche markets,
• How to update your vocabulary to target a younger audience and widen your market,
• Why readers are pulling away from stereotypes that may have been popular fifteen years ago, but are completely out-dated today,
• What tropes are so evergreen readers can’t get enough (which is totally different than writing-to-market.)

There are a few things I’d like you to do before you give in to the pressure of marketing.

• Talk to other writers. Be a resource for them and let them be the same for you. Join a group like Sisters in Crime. You’re much less likely to burnout if you’re working out similar problems with friends.
• Find out who your readers really are. Meet them on Facebook (or wherever they gather) if not in person. Join readers groups as a reader, not to give them a sales pitch. Be humble and learn from them. Listen.
• Watch the trends. Where are they going for their books and why? Do your genre readers love audiobooks or paperback beach reads? Are they stay-at-home moms or retirees? Meet them on their turf.
• Do they talk to each other online? Find them! Engage with them.
• Stop being in the business of selling and be in the business of people. Don’t just post an itinerary of appearances and book release dates. No one wants to be sold to. Show up and talk about the things that interest them. There will be time to share your sales info later.
• And above all else, believe in your writing. You have a story to tell.

Without a doubt the best advice I’ve had on burnout, whether it’s marketing or writing, came last month from fellow Upstate SinC member, Misty Evans, author of over eighty novels. I was in awe of her production schedule and going through a little burnout of my own.

I was telling her that during the summer I have some extremely time-consuming family obligations. At the same time, I was putting pressure on myself to stick to a very rigid writing schedule and completely exhausted. She very wisely reminded me to take my coffee outside every morning and just breathe. I didn’t have to choose one or the other to be effective. I just had to find the balance that allows me to enjoy without feeling guilty and move forward from there.

And just like that, I was able to do both and feel good about it again.

Book marketing is a lot of work. There are deadlines and tech challenges, updates and frustration. But the story you write is worth it. Fight the burnout and keep going. Just take the steps in the right order. Take care of yourself and remember, stop selling long enough to understand how crucial it is to connect with your reader, because they will tell you exactly what they need.