What Book Marketing Mistakes Kill Sales Before Launch?
After ghostwriting 54+ books, I’ve worked with authors who are brilliant at putting ideas on paper and stumble when it’s time to put on the marketer’s hat. Neglect the marketing and your labor of love turns into an unread masterpiece, whether you self-publish, go hybrid, or chase a traditional deal. For more, see cheap ghostwriters, stolen bios, and bestseller scams and what really sells books.
Marketing starts long before your book hits the marketplace.Share on X
These are the five most common marketing mistakes I see authors make, and what to do instead. For more, see how to hire a ghostwriter.
I tell clients up front that they’re very unlikely to earn back what the book cost through sales. The return comes from using the book as the foundation of their marketing. So it frustrates me when an author finishes a good manuscript and treats marketing as a chore for later. They’ve paid for the foundation and then left the lot empty.
Mistake #1: Waiting Until After Publication to Think About Marketing
This is the most common mistake, and the one I’d most like authors to stop making. They believe they can switch into marketing mode once the book is on shelves. By then the window for building anticipation has closed, and nobody is waiting for a book they never heard about.
Publishing a book without a marketing plan is like throwing a party without sending invitations. You need to create anticipation and build momentum before your launch. If you don’t start early, you miss the window for generating the buzz that propels a book into the hands of eager readers. The timing of the launch counts too. Avoid a big launch over the holiday stretch, when people are on vacation or coming back busy with budgets, and December is the dead zone. If you miss October, wait until January or February and do a much better job.
What to do instead: Give yourself at least three to six months before launch to lay the groundwork. Build an email list. Develop a social media presence. Share snippets of your writing, book covers, or behind-the-scenes content to generate curiosity. Run a countdown to launch. The goal is to turn potential readers into active participants in the process so that launch day feels like a celebration instead of a solo endeavor. On LinkedIn, give each post one subject: the first announces you’re doing the book, and the next says why. Most authors leave the blank months before publication empty because they never start posting, and those posts build an audience for you as well as the book.
One of my ghostwriting clients, a LinkedIn expert, built anticipation for months before his personal branding book launched. The result: 15,000 copies sold in three days and a number forty-three ranking in all Kindle sales. That didn’t happen by accident. It happened because marketing started long before the book existed as a finished product. While we’re writing, think of anybody you can send your posts to, and send them, even as a LinkedIn message. Reach out, tell them you’re doing this, and you’ll get more and more people involved.
Mistake #2: Assuming Someone Else Will Handle Marketing
Authors who expect somebody else to do the marketing are setting themselves up for a hard landing. It doesn’t matter to me how the book is published. If you’re counting on a publisher, a platform or a publicist to sell it for you, you’re gambling with months of your own work. If you hire a marketing firm, make sure the contract lets you exit cleanly, with no 12-month lock-in. Some sound really good and turn out to be crap, and telling them not to blow smoke only makes them more subtle about it.
Even with a traditional publishing contract, most publishers expect authors to drive the vast majority of their own marketing. Without your active involvement, your book won’t get the attention it deserves. Publishers provide distribution and some promotional support. They don’t build your audience for you.
When an author does hire a marketing or PR firm, I want the outline and the first three chapters ready first, because the firm needs those to see what we’re doing. Give them guidelines, because they can go hog wild. They should be able to research the book categories and the similar books in each, down to what those covers look like. If they can’t, they’re not the company for you, and you’ll probably want me to interview them.
What to do instead: Embrace marketing as part of your role as an author. Define your author brand. What are your values? What do you stand for? Why did you write this book? Convey those messages consistently. A personal connection with readers makes you more than another author. It makes you someone they trust and want to follow.
Join book clubs. Attend book fairs. Participate in author panels. Engage with your audience through newsletters, blog posts, and social media. Marketing is about building a relationship with your readers. The more they see and hear from you, the more invested they become. When working with a ghostwriter, ensure they understand your voice and message as well as your story. A good ghostwriter weaves your positioning throughout the book, making it easier to pitch your story in interviews, on social media, and to prospective readers.
Mistake #3: Believing Your Audience Will Just Find You
With millions of books published every year, your audience isn’t going to stumble upon your work by accident. You have to be proactive about bringing your book to their attention. Relying on organic discovery is waiting for lightning to strike. Readers have an overwhelming number of choices. If you don’t make it easy for them to find your book, they won’t.
Authors hate hearing this, and it’s still true. A strong book that nobody hears about sells about as well as a weak one, and too many authors end up blaming the writing when the writing was fine.
What to do instead: Establish a strong online presence early. Create an author website that includes your bio, book information, and a blog. Build an email list so you can communicate directly with your audience. Use social media platforms to share relevant content, engage with readers, and build community around your work. Skip the blank coming soon page and put up a full landing page with no buy button. About 45 days before publication, open a presale so the launch parties can start.
Platforms like Goodreads, Amazon Author Central, and BookBub are valuable tools for reaching wider audiences. Podcast interviews, guest blogging, and online author events extend your reach beyond your existing network. The more platforms you use strategically, the wider your visibility.
In 2025, when I still used KDP, I set pre-orders up 45 days or less before publication. The 45 days was my own planning choice. KDP changed its pre-order rules on September 2, 2026. Pre-orders created since then can be postponed up to twice, to no more than six months after the original date. A first cancellation is forgiven once, and a second removes pre-order privileges for six months across your whole catalog. Either way, a pre-order date means you’ve made a promise to people.
Build a private Facebook group of the people who are really interested in your book. One of my friends calls them the minions. I call them your worker bees. They help promote the book, and at the end you give them a signed copy and whatever prize you can come up with. If you get 50 people in that group, you’ll probably get 20 who do things. One guest on The Exceptional Scribble Show got her church group of about 600 to 700 people promoting her book.
I’ve seen the difference firsthand. Clients who build their platform before launch consistently outsell clients with comparable books who wait until publication to start. A senior manager at a Fortune 50 company built his platform while we were writing his book. The result was $30 million in venture capital and speaking fees that made his former salary look like lunch money. The book opened those doors, but the marketing made sure the right people knew the doors existed.
Mistake #4: Ignoring the Competition
Some authors refuse to look at the competition because they don’t want to be influenced. I think that’s fear dressed up as integrity. You can study what’s on the shelf without copying any of it, and you can’t claim a spot there if you won’t look at who’s already standing in it.
Ignoring what other authors in your space are writing about leaves you without a benchmark. For more on marketing that builds trust, see Richard’s interview with Jeff Hassemer. If you don’t know what’s selling and why, you’re missing insights that could make your book more marketable.
What to do instead: Research books similar to yours on Amazon and Goodreads. Read reviews, both positive and negative. What are readers praising? What are they complaining about? Use those insights to refine your book and marketing strategy. Knowing where others fall short helps you point out where your book excels. To see the actual keywords a competing book ranks for, I use Publisher Rocket, which pulls that data straight from Amazon so you’re positioning against real numbers.
When I work with ghostwriting clients, competitive analysis is part of the process. We look at what’s already on the shelf, identify gaps, and position the client’s book to fill them. A book that enters a conversation already happening in the market has a built-in audience. A book that ignores the conversation enters a vacuum.
The book on this: Sell Your Books is 660 pages on marketing a book without the hype, drawn from the launches that worked and the ones that flopped across 113+ titles.
Mistake #5: Thinking Marketing Can Wait Until the Draft Is Done
From the podcast
Jeff Hassemer gives the three conditions marketing has to meet, and the first one rules out launch-week campaigns entirely, on Leaders and Their Stories:
To be good at marketing, whatever layer you’re at, you have to be consistent. It’s not a faucet you can turn on and off. You’ve got to be out there on a regular basis.Consistent, authentic, generous. A launch is none of those things if it’s the only time you show up.
Think about marketing before you write a word. A book aimed at everybody lands with nobody, and I’d call that the most expensive mistake on this list, because you can’t fix it once the manuscript is done. Your book’s content, cover, and messaging should all be crafted with your target reader in mind. By considering marketing early, you make sure every aspect of your book speaks directly to your audience.
What to do instead: Start by defining your ideal reader. Who will benefit most from your book? How will your content change their lives or business? This helps you write the book and makes it dramatically easier to market once finished.
If you’re working with a ghostwriter, discuss your target audience early. This helps the ghostwriter tailor language, style, and tone to connect with your intended readers. A book written for a specific audience is always easier to market than a book written for “everyone.”
The Promotion Handbook
None of this has to be overwhelming, but it does have to start early and it has to be yours. The idea that a good book will find its readers on its own is a myth. It won’t, and the authors who believe it are the ones left with a garage full of copies and a story about how the market didn’t understand them. Start early, stay involved, and keep your reader in mind from the first page.
For complete book marketing strategy, including platform building, launch planning, media outreach, and long-term promotion tactics, see the Book Promotion course in my writing courses. Ready to launch your book with a strategic marketing plan built in from the start? Start a conversation about ghostwriting and let’s make sure your book sells as well as it reads.
