Promoting Your Book Over Time

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Launching a book is thrilling. Lots of time, energy and thought goes into planning it. But that’s not the only day you should be thinking about..

You’re going to have that book for a long time. So although launch day is important, the real question is: How do you keep the book in the minds and in the mouths of people all over the world for a long time?

It’s not an easy task. I know that from promoting my first two books Listful Thinking and Listful Living .

And my media training client, Krystale Littlejohn, knows all about this process as well.

She’s an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Oregon and author of the book Just Get on the Pill , which came out in August 2021 and is still getting lots of attention.

We spoke on my live-streaming show Inside Scoop about her book launch process and how she was able to keep promoting her book over time. Keeping the momentum going is one of the topics I cover in-depth in my course Media Ready Author — you can check it out here!

Here are three great points from our conversation to help you promote your book.

1) Promotion planning starts BEFORE your book launch.

Most people think, “When the book comes out, then I’ll promote it.” But then, it’s too late. You need to start ahead of time and do some groundwork beforehand to plan the launch and what happens afterwards.

“The big thing for me was trying to get a really solid plan established about what I wanted the book launch to look like. And then really trying to imagine how I could use that momentum to get into other opportunities,” Krystale says.

And part of planning your book promotion, means practicing how you promote it! For Krystale, that meant getting comfortable stepping outside the classroom and speaking to strangers.

“People are tuning in because they’re interested in what I’m going to share. Or something peaked their interest when they saw something on social media. So I really cared about speaking in really accessible terms. Paula and I did a lot of work trying to get me to talk the way that I might talk to anybody on the street,” she adds.

And the more promotion Krystale practiced, the better she did, and the more the book started gaining momentum.

2) Media begets media.

This is something I say all the time. Because it’s true! The more you promote your book, the bigger your audience will be and the more media attention you’ll receive.

“Podcasts ended up being really important in a way that I just didn’t anticipate beforehand. Going on NPR really helped. But I also have to stress the importance of smaller podcasts that people might not think have such a huge audience. But the smaller podcasts have engaged audiences. I did radio shows that they would then turn into podcast episodes. And I found that leveraging that on social media was really important,” Krystale explains.

Podcasts are great for selling books. But social media is also an important part of promotion. You don’t need to post on everything all the time. Committing to one platform can be very useful.

“I’m on Twitter and Instagram and Facebook, but I would say Twitter is where I spend the most time. I retweeted stuff from the shows that I was on. I try to elaborate on some of the things we talked about in the show. That’s really where the heart of the promotion is,” she adds.

Twitter/X is a great place to be noticed for other media attention. As a media trainer, I posted a blog about teleprompters on Twitter once, and guess what? A reporter for CBS News saw it and reached out about a story that he was working on about presidential candidates using them.

3) You’re doing a service for others.

The reason you wrote your book in the first place was to share your thoughts and ideas with the world! That’s a public service. Thinking about it like that can be very useful for the promotion process.

“The book is just a vehicle to share your ideas,” Krystale says.

When you think about it like that, there’s less pressure on the book and more focus on what you have to offer others. Which is probably more than you think.

“Once you realize a book is a vehicle to share ideas, then you realize that you just have ideas to share. I’m giving talks on my books and also giving talks on other ideas that I have that are just about broader social issues,” she adds.

And if you’re like Krystale, that will turn into even more books! Krystale is the co-editor of Fighting Mad: Resisting the End of Roe v. Wade , which came out in March 2024.

For more tips, you can check out the full episode of Inside Scoop . And if you’re an author looking to boost your media skills, check out my course Media Ready Author!

BONUS FREEBIE: I have a resource for you that will help you prepare to talk with media and audiences. It’s the 10 Questions Every Author Needs to Answer . You can grab the fiction and nonfiction lists here .