Resource
A book marketing guide
How modern books actually find their readers.
Most books fail not because they are not good but because they are invisible. Modern book marketing is less mysterious than it seems; it just takes longer and asks more of the author than the old model.
Start before the book exists
The single best marketing decision an author can make is to begin building a small, real audience long before publication. A newsletter of two thousand engaged readers is worth more than a Twitter following of fifty thousand.
Positioning before promotion
Before any campaign begins, the book needs a single sentence — the line that explains, to a reader scrolling at speed, why this book and why now. Everything else flows from it.
The first ninety days
Launch week matters less than launch quarter. The first ninety days are when retailer algorithms calibrate, when reviewers decide, when word-of-mouth either starts or doesn't.
Channels that still work
Email is the most underused channel in publishing. Podcasts move books more reliably than reviews. Festivals create lasting readers, not just attendees. Bookshop events still matter — perhaps more than ever — because they create the only form of marketing that cannot be faked: a reader telling another reader.
What does not work
Generic social media schedules. Press releases sent to lists nobody reads. One-off paid spend without strategy. The temptation to do everything at once.
If you are publishing with Prestige, we will plan all of this with you. If you are publishing independently and would like our marketing team to help, the Book Marketing page tells you how that works.
Letters from the editors