The marketing plan for many new writers — including me, way back when — seems to be a weird extension of the Field of Dreams philosophy: if we publish it, readers will come. Good books find their audience.
Readers believe this too, although they rarely articulate it that way. And it’s not entirely wrong, because reading is a social activity, even if it’s a rather solitary one. Books that get talked about get read, and if they’re talked about enough they become a cultural phenomenon.
It’s one reason that bookstores and publishers are so enamoured of BookTok at the present moment, where conversations about books can take off fast.
It’s also the reason reviews are so powerful, and being placed in certain review outlets (especially the ones who are seen to drive conversation) is such a big part of the marketing plan for traditionally published books.
The problem is, it’s hard to manufacture that conversation. There are steps writers can take to encourage it, but you can’t make it happen.
And so the fundamental belief that good books find their audience feels true, even if it means the converse side of the coin — that books that don’t find their audience aren’t good — is going to haunt far more writers in the long run.
Over the years, I’ve met with a lot of writers who lament the fact that “traditional” publishing doesn’t do any marketing.
I don’t disagree with that statement, but I think it overlooks what old-school velocity publishing does well: creating a buzz about a book before it launches, and selling a good chunk of its print run in the first month.
They don’t do that by running ads or engaging in mass promotion, but by doing their best to get conversations started and whet a reader’s appetite before the release date.
This can mean they look like they’re not doing anything, especially when viewed through the eyes of slow-build indie authors who have a very different business model (or aspiring authors who dream of getting a big push, and fear that the lack of conversation around their book means it isn’t good).
Which brings us to two of the key issues of author platform:
1) Publishers know it can create conversation and sell books, but they didn’t always understand how. This led to a few years of authors being told to follow tactics (Blog! Run a newsletter! Be on TikTok!) because it had worked for other authors, with no one really thinking about why it worked.
2) When new social media emerges and gets hungry for engagement, it will frequently benefit early adopters who use the platform to find new readers. As those platforms are enshittified, the later adopters are working twice as hard for half the impact, but a cargo cult forms around the tactic because everyone knows they need attention and they can’t think how else to find it.
Getting readers talking is essential to what we do as writers, but in the absence of reliable methods (and the presence of big dreams), we fall back on tools that give the illusion of control.
The Problem, As In So Many Things, Is Our Tendency to Mistake Tactics for Strategy
One of my favourite writing books—now dated, but still useful—is Jeff VanderMeer’s Booklife: Strategies and Survival Tips for the 21st-Century Writer. In it, he notes the essential problem with most writers careers.
Because writers often work organically and hate doing mechanical things like detailed novel outlines, they sometimes also shy away from creating actual lists of long-term and short-term career goals… Many writers never progress in their careers — except in a shambling, two-steps-forward-one-step-back way — because they always focus on the moment, and the moment after that. Their maps lack all kinds of details essential for finding their way toward a destination.
I feel like this is especially true with the way writer approach platform. Ask most writers why they are on social media, and they’ll tell you they need to be there to sell books.
Ask them how their presence sells books, and they may mumble something about building a platform, but very few of them have a plan for transitioning folks from social media audience to active reader.
If you’re lucky, they can point to a tactic previously deployed (and turned into a course) by a particular writer. “Such and such used Facebook adds” or “I did this person’s course on TikTok”.
Nevermind that the existence of a course usually means that the enshittication of the platforms nigh, and the tactic will be less effective in time.
Writers either build around social media systems haphazardly and trust in the fates to generate the conversations and interest that eventually leads to sales, or they follow the marketing hooks of someone who is great at marketing and sells them a course.
If we step away from the immediate, tactical question of which tool to use and inst4ead focus on what we typically want from those tools, the strategy behind most author platforms is pretty easy to break down:
-
Generate leads that introduce new readers to our work
-
Nurture those leads to turn interested readers into book buyers
-
Nurture those buyers to transform them into readers.
-
Build those readers into a community (or fandom) that generates conversations that, in turn, creates leads for more readers.
Indie authors who have been inundated with newsletter advice might have a lightbulb go off reading that list, recognising the basic philosophy of the newsletter sales funnel.
For everyone else, here’s how that plays out:
-
A writer sets up a newsletter and invites people to join said list. Often this involves offering an enticement, such as a free book, which serves as a lead magnet. This magnet will draw a small amount of attention from folks already interested in your work, but you can multiply its drawing power through tools like advertising, newsletter promos, and other marketing that puts your offer in front of fresh eyes.
-
Readers who join the newsletter get the free book and then hear from the writer semi-regularly (or very regularly). Often writers will establish an automatic welcome sequence, or a series of emails that go out to new subscribers, gradually introducing unfamiliar readers to the author’s works and the author themselves.
-
Once these readers are integrated into the newsletter readership, they’re dipped into a series of offers as details about new releases, sales and other discounts, and the occasional timely reminder of backlist titles. Some readers may not stick around after the initial few emails, but that’s fine—you’re aiming to speak to the readers who do, turning them into fans.
It’s one way of implementing the core strategy I talk about above, but not the only way.
The same strategy is in play when writers attempt to sell books on social media (create leads by posting content people repost, gradually convince people to follow you regularly, and then direct your audience to the books you release).
Ditto the way traditional velocity publishers use reviews (create leads by giving arcs to taste-makers who have an audience, who then create leads with potential readers by reviewing about the book. If enough reviews and conversation starts, you generate buzz in the core community of readers for that genre, which then spills over to readers on the fringe and the general public.
Same core strategy, very different tactics. Which leads us to the core question that few writers really ask:
What tactic generates the strongest leads for your business model with the least expenditure of resources?
For some people, this might be social media. I hesitate to say it, because some folks hear that and think they’re going to be the exception to the rule, but there are routinely authors who leverage social platforms and take off.
Often they’re there early, before the enshittification kicks in, or they figure out how to make use of a newly introduced feature or approach to the platform. Social media can also work if there’s strong, existing communities on the platform who can be enticed into checking out your work.
But if you’re a writer who doesn’t particularly enjoy social media—or, worse, a writer who easily falls down the algorithm hole and doom scrolls when you’d rather e writing—then the resource cost is probably not worth the leads your generating.
Because here’s the thing about social media, when viewed as a broad swathe: most platforms are great at generating conversation, but they’re terrible for organic lead generation. There is value to them in being the place where people gather and spend time, but much less in giving away the kind of attention that lets people off the platform.
It’s the step that lots of writers miss when they bitch about the algorithm sending their stupid, random-thought-at-two-AM tweet viral then chokes down the attention when they try to post about their books.
Which means that an organic social media presence still has a part to play in your author platform, but it’s best considered as a secondary tool. A method of nurturing readers, rather than generating leads. Social media works best with the people already interested in you, especially if they’re engaged enough to magnify your reach and repost when you do reach out to newer readers.
YOU DON’T NEED TO BE ON SOCIAL MEDIA AS A WRITER, BUT YOU SHOULD HAVE A PLAN TO GENERATE LEADS
So, the good news is that you don’t need to be on social media as a writer. The bad news is that you do need some way of generating leads and connecting with new readers, especially if you’re an indie author.
Fortunately, it’s possible to generate leads without social media. When you really think about it, social media platforms and review generation and a host of other marketing methods really revolve around borrowing someones audience.
If Facebook was used by 200,000 daily visitors, instead of two billion, then it wouldn’t be as valuable. They have an audience of users, and marketers (authors and otherwise) want access to that audience, so they pay the toll in the farm of cold hard cash (ads) or sweat equity (organic content) in order to access these readers.
But magazines have readers. Reviewers have readers. Your local community hall has an audience, as does your local book club. Conventions and events are places where hardcore readers gather, and they’re much more likely to buy books than a hundred folks you spruik your book to on social media.
Generating leads is basically putting yourself out there in front of audiences, and they don’t need to be large. In fact, a small, passionate group of people who are close to perfect for your book can be worth as much as a large crowd where only a handful of people might be on your wavelength.
One of my focuses for 2026 is writing and submitting short faction to magazine markets, because a) those folks have audiences who are predisposed to like what I do, and b) has secondary effects beyond finding new readers (I get paid, I’ve created stories that can now be collected into books).
Is it guaranteed to work? Not at all. I could invest a whole lot of time into writing some stories, and its possible none of them will be picked up by an editor. That’s always a risk, but it’s mitigated by the fact I can always use stories in other ways (lead magnets for newsletter promos, collections, free giveaways to nurture my existing readers).
That, for me, is the key of those options. It’s considerably harder to re-use a less-than-successful social media post in the same way (although not impossible — having a second life for popular social media posts is pretty much the modus operandi of my mech store).
Stories aren’t the only outreach I’m doing. Blogging is a method of lead generation too—slower, I’ll grant, but occasionally more useful as years of people linking to various blog posts have shown. I’ll be making use of newsletter swaps. As we get towards the second half of the year, and the expenditures of 2025 are paid off, I’ll even start getting back to paid lead generation in the form of advertising.
All of them take less effort than “being on social media,” and typically offer more bang for my back in terms of the time I invest in doing these things versus the number of readers they actually attract.
There’s nothing wrong with making your lead generation an online feed, so long as you’re conscious of what you want your online presence to do and you’ve got the time and resources to invest in it.
It’s not what I’d recommend, outside of riding the new user wave of the occasional platform, but every writer finds their own path.
What’s important is remembering that social media is a tactic, not the entirety of the strategy. If you’re not enjoying being on Facebook, Threads, TikTok, or whatever the lastest site is—or, worse, you’re discovering that it eats into your writing time—there are other methods of generating leads that can be just as effective.
You just need to think strategically, and find the tactic that works best for you.
Looking to level up your writing and publishing? When you’re ready, here are some ways I can help:
Patronage: Want to ask me questions directly and be part of a great writing community? Join the GenrePunk Ninja Patreon!
Books I’ve Written: I’ve got a few books on writing and the writing business, including the collection of some of my best writing advice: You Don’t Want To Be Published and Other Things Nobody Tells You When You First Start Writing.
Books I Publish: When I’m not working on my GenrePunk Ninja Projects I’m the editor and publisher behind Brain Jar Press. We’ve published several books and chapbooks about writing, drawing on advice and presentations given by some of the best speculative fiction writers in Australia and beyond.