There’s a pattern I see constantly among authors — Christian authors especially, but honestly this applies across the board.
They publish a book (or they’re about to), and they treat their social media accounts like a PA system. Quote from the book. Bible verse. Facebook Live announcing the release date. “Available now on Amazon.” Repeat until the algorithm buries them.
And then they go quiet for six weeks, wondering why nobody buys their book.
Here’s something nobody seems to want to say out loud: readers don’t buy books from megaphones. They buy from people they trust.
The Hollywood Strategy Many Authors Skip
Here’s an analogy that should sting a little.
Hollywood studios don’t wait until a film drops to let people know it exists. They start building anticipation months — sometimes years — in advance. Trailers, interviews, casting announcements, controversy, merch. By the time the movie releases, the audience has already formed an opinion about it. They’re already invested.
And yet I constantly see authors routinely wait until after the book is published to start telling their sphere of influence it exists.
No buildup.
No anticipation.
No relationship.
Just: “Hey, I wrote a book. Here’s the link.”
Many people who book a call with me to help with their book do so after their launch was a dud, hoping I’ll be able to resucitate flatline sales.
The marketing problem usually starts long before launch day. Most of the time, it starts with what you’re posting — or not posting — on social media or your other online assets (blog, substack, podcast, etc…) twelve months before the release.
Post Things Adjacent to Your Book
When I work with clients, one of the first things I push them on is this: stop posting about your book and start posting from the same place your book came from.
Your book has a point of view. It has convictions, experiences, and stances baked into it. Those convictions didn’t appear out of nowhere — you’ve been carrying them around for years. Post those.
If you’re writing a book about overcoming people-pleasing, your social media should reflect someone who has actually learned to stop people-pleasing.
If your book challenges the prosperity gospel, stop posting generic encouragement content that could have come from anyone. Take an actual stance on something.
What you’re going for isn’t controversy for its own sake — it’s specificity. The specificity of someone who actually believes something.
Say Something Polarizing
I know that word makes people nervous. Hear me out.
I’m not telling you to be obnoxious. I’m not telling you to pick fights or post hot takes designed to generate outrage clicks. Engagement bait like that is short game and it produces the wrong kind of audience, anyway.
What I’m telling you is to say what you actually think — and to trust that some people will disagree with you, and that’s fine.
Here’s why this matters algorithmically and relationally:
Nobody finds you by posting milquetoast opinions that blend into the rest of their newsfeed. The content that actually moves — the stuff people share and argue about and screenshot — is content that compels a reaction. Whether that reaction is “yes, finally someone said it” or “I completely disagree and here’s why” doesn’t actually matter as much as you think.
Both camps are engaging with you.
Both camps remember you.
Your ideal reader needs to find you before they can buy your book. And they usually need to trust you before they’ll hand over money for it. That process — finding and trusting — takes time and repetition. Posting safe, bland content draws no one in. It doesn’t push anyone away, either, which sounds like a win until you realize that invisible isn’t the same as inoffensive.
Not Everyone Is Your Target Audience — And That’s the Point
One of the most counterintuitive truths in book marketing is that trying to appeal to everyone guarantees you’ll connect with no one.
The authors I’ve watched build real audiences — not just follower counts, but actual communities of people who buy books and show up consistently — they’re not the ones with the most polished graphics. They’re not the ones who hired a social media manager to keep everything on-brand and inoffensive.
They’re the ones willing to go on record. The ones who will say “here’s what I actually think” and let people respond however they respond, whether that’s “atta boy!” back patting, or being told they’re the wrongest person who ever posted something on the internet.
That creates something. It creates the beginning of a relationship, and relationships are what sell books.
Being specific in your stances is how readers self-select. The right people lean in. The wrong people scroll past. That’s not a failure — that’s the system working correctly.
Your Nonfiction Book Has a Point of View. Your Posts Should Too
If your book has a clear thesis, your social media presence should feel like an extension of that thesis. Not a commercial for it — an expression of it.
People should be able to read your posts for three months and, when they find out you have a book, feel like they already know what it’s likely about. That recognition is what converts a follower into a buyer.
If that kind of consistency isn’t showing up in your posts right now, it’s worth asking: do you actually know what your book’s central argument is? Or who you are writing it for?
Not the topic. Not the title. The point of view. The one-line conviction your book is built to defend.
If you’re not sure — if you’ve finished a draft and can’t quite articulate what the book is for — that’s usually the first thing I help clients figure out. Because the social media problem and the manuscript problem are often the same problem.
If you’re working on a book and want to talk through what your platform should look like — or what your book’s actual point of view is — feel free to reach out.
In the meantime, get your hands on a copy of Michael Hyatt’s classic book, Platform: Get Noticed in a Noisy World. It’s many years old, but the concept and the strategies are still necessary to get your message noticed.
