What every author should know about writing, publishing, finding readers and turning one book into something much bigger.
There is a moment almost every aspiring author imagines long before she has finished writing the final chapter. The box arrives, she opens it, moves aside the packaging and there it is: her name on the cover, her words inside, and something that once existed only as an idea in her head finally transformed into something she can hold in her hands.
After months, and sometimes years, of writing, editing, rewriting, rearranging chapters, questioning whether any of it is good enough and making the hundreds of tiny decisions involved in bringing a book into the world, publication day can understandably feel like the destination.
You wrote the book. You published it. You did the thing so many people talk about doing one day...
Then, once the excitement has settled and the stack of books is sitting on the desk beside you, another question tends to arrive:
Now what?
That question became the starting point for my latest Starting From Zero conversation with Susan Friedmann, Founder of Aviva Publishing & Marketing. Susan is a Book Marketing Coach and Author of 18 books, who has spent more than 30 years in publishing and book marketing and has worked with hundreds of authors navigating exactly that moment.
I knew Susan and I would have plenty to talk about because we share a love of publishing, marketing and ideas, and we have both experienced what it means to start from zero in different chapters of our lives. Since finding one another on Substack, we have also developed one of those friendships where one conversation can quickly turn into a stream of “Have you thought about doing this?”
What I didn’t expect was how much our conversation would make me rethink the role of the book itself by asking the different question of
What could this book now make possible?
Before you think about marketing, answer two questions
One of the first things Susan asks an author is not which social platform they are using, whether they have an Amazon launch team or how large their email list is.
She asks:
What do you want your book to do for you?
And:
Who is it for?
They sound deceptively simple, yet Susan says they are often the questions authors struggle with most, particularly when the answer to the second one is, “My book is for everyone.”
Perhaps your book contains an idea that could help a great many people, but that is very different from being able to market effectively to all of them at once. Even the biggest companies in the world do not communicate with everybody; they understand who they most want to reach and become very good at speaking to those people.
The same is true of a book.
There is a real person on the other side of those pages. She has a reason for reaching for them, whether she is trying to solve a problem, make a decision, understand something or change something in her life or work.
Once you start thinking about that person rather than an anonymous audience, marketing becomes much more human.
Who is she? What is happening in her life when she finds your book? What question is she asking? What would make her recognise that this book was written with somebody like her in mind?
And then comes the question that, for me, changes everything:
Who already has a relationship with her?
Susan’s answer to that question resulted in one of the most extraordinary book-marketing stories I have heard.
The very niche book that reached half a million people
Susan’s first book was called Exhibiting at Trade Shows: Tips and Techniques for Success.
It was not a book for everybody.
At the time, Susan was working in trade show training and speaking when she asked an experienced member of the National Speakers Association how she could develop her career. His advice was to write a book.
Susan’s immediate reaction was essentially, Please tell me something else.
She had never particularly enjoyed writing at school and becoming an author had not been part of some lifelong plan, but she trusted the advice enough to follow it. After several rejections, she eventually found a publisher.
Susan remembers walking into a bookstore in Cincinnati and discovering her book on the shelf. Naturally, she pulled it out and turned the cover forwards.
I smiled when she told me that because it is such an author thing to do! But what happened next is where the real lesson begins.
Susan realized she did not want to build her entire strategy around selling books one or two copies at a time, so instead of simply asking who would buy the book, she started thinking about who already served the people the book was written for.
She approached companies within the trade show industry and one ordered 2,000 copies. Rather than going directly to that company’s competitors, Susan looked at another part of the industry and approached a company selling portable exhibition displays.
They ordered 250,000 copies. Then they ordered another 250,000. The book was translated into five languages.
Half a million copies of a highly specific book ended up travelling around the world because Susan found the right relationship between the book, its reader and an organisation that already had access to that reader.
What stayed with me wasn’t simply the enormous order. It was the thinking behind it.
Susan stopped asking:
How can I sell more individual copies?
And instead asked:
Who already has the people this book was created to help?
That question opens up a much more interesting way of thinking about book marketing.
Perhaps there is a company whose employees need what you teach, a professional association whose members share the problem your book solves, a conference, university, membership organisation, subscription box, retreat, community or brand whose audience overlaps with yours.
Marketing starts to feel less like endless promotion and more like finding the right relationship.
I realized I had done my own version of this
As Susan was telling me her story, I realized that I had approached Live What You Love in a similar way, albeit on a very different scale. After all the writing, editing, restructuring and decisions involved in publishing the book, I reached the same now what? moment.
I printed around 250 copies and started leaving them in serendipitous places where another woman might unexpectedly discover one: beach libraries, local libraries and community book boxes. I loved the idea that somebody might pick it up on exactly the day she needed it.
But the much bigger opportunity came through collaboration.
I connected with a women’s subscription box with approximately 2,500 members, and they ordered around 2,500 copies of Live What You Love to include in their boxes.
Rather than allowing the experience to end with the book arriving, I created a workshop to accompany it so the women receiving it could go deeper into the ideas.
Suddenly, the book was no longer simply a book. It became a conversation, a workshop and an experience. And eventually, some of the ideas inside Live What You Love became part of the inspiration behind what grew into Intentional Living Magazine.
I could not have mapped any of that while I was worrying about chapters and publication dates, which may be one of the most exciting things about publishing: sometimes the book has to exist before you can see what it wants to become next.
Give your book a role
One of Susan’s most useful suggestions was to think of your book almost like an actor in a play and give it a role.
What is the book actually there to do?
Perhaps it establishes your expertise, opens the door to speaking opportunities, becomes the foundation of a workshop, supports a consulting business, gets you interviewed or starts conversations that would not have happened without it.
Perhaps an organisation buys hundreds of copies because the book helps its employees, customers or members. Perhaps it becomes the beginning of a community or allows somebody to spend several hours understanding how you think before they ever decide to work with you.
The answer will be different for every author, but I think having an answer matters because otherwise the default strategy often becomes:
Put it on Amazon and hope for the best.
Susan described Amazon as a shop window, which is such a useful analogy. Amazon can display your book and make it easy to buy, but somebody still has to arrive at the shop window in the first place.
Availability is not the same thing as discovery and book marketing is the work that happens between the two.
Stop thinking only about selling books
Susan returned several times to a phrase I think I will remember for a long time:
“You’re not selling books. You’re selling opportunities to open doors.”
A book can lead to a keynote, which leads to another conversation, which leads to a client. A podcast interview can introduce you to a collaborator. A bulk order can lead to a workshop. A workshop can reveal the next problem your audience wants help solving.
The book is the object, but its value can travel far beyond the individual sale.
That is why I think a much better question than “How many copies did I sell?” is:
What happened because this book existed?
What invitation appeared? What conversation began? Who discovered you? What work came from it? What changed for the reader?
Those questions reveal a much richer picture of what a nonfiction book can actually do.
A book has a final page. Your ideas don’t.
This is where Substack becomes especially interesting for authors because a book may end, but the conversation around it does not have to.
If you are still writing, Substack can become somewhere to explore your ideas before the finished manuscript exists. You can share a story, test a premise, ask readers questions and notice which subjects create meaningful conversation.
By the time publication day arrives, you are no longer stepping into an empty room saying, “Hello, I wrote a book.” There may already be people who understand why you wrote it.
And if the book is already published, you have an entire body of work waiting to be explored again.
A chapter can inspire an essay. An essay can become several Notes. A Note can begin a conversation. A conversation can become a Live. A concept can become a workshop, resource, podcast discussion or collaboration.
Susan made another observation during our conversation that feels particularly relevant now: with information becoming increasingly easy to access, particularly through AI, simply providing more information is not enough. The greater opportunity is helping people move from information to transformation.
The book may explain the idea - what you build around it can help somebody apply it. and that is when a book starts becoming a body of work.
And then there is the voice asking who you think you are
Of course, all of this requires visibility, and that was another part of our conversation that resonated with me deeply.
Susan described the self-doubt authors experience as head-trash.
Who wants to hear what I have to say? Am I really qualified to write this? What if somebody disagrees with me? What if I get criticised? What if nobody cares?
Susan experienced those thoughts herself before discovering how common imposter syndrome is, even amongst highly accomplished people.
I think experienced women can have a particularly complicated relationship with this because what we know has often become so familiar to us that we stop recognising how valuable it might be to somebody else.
There can also be years of conditioning behind the instinct to become quieter.
I know what it feels like to put something into the world, receive criticism from somebody who was never really the person I was speaking to in the first place and immediately want to pull back.
But one of the things Substack is reminding me is how different it feels when the right words meet the right person.
You write something you almost didn’t publish and somebody replies, “I feel that too.”
You share something you learned the hard way and another woman tells you it helped her move forward.
The goal is not universal approval. It is meaningful recognition.
Confidence often comes after we start
I asked Susan how authors move through that fear and part of her answer was wonderfully simple: begin.
Know what you want to say, understand who you want to help and take the next step even if the fear has not completely disappeared.
She also talked about something she once found difficult herself: asking for help. Susan had believed she should know everything, until she realised that she could not possibly know everything and that people often genuinely like being able to help.
That has been one of the strongest themes of this entire Starting From Zero series for me.
Starting from zero does not have to mean doing everything alone.
Find the editor, designer, marketer, accountability partner, friend or person one step ahead who can help you see what you cannot see yet.
Then, when you become the person who knows something somebody else needs, turn around and offer it back.
Sometimes you need to create your own invitation
Towards the end of our conversation, we began talking about something that feels very close to my own way of thinking.
If the opportunity you want does not exist, could you create it?
If nobody invites you to an author evening, host one. If you wish there were a book club around your subject, start it. If you want people to go deeper into the ideas, create the workshop. If you want meaningful conversations with other authors, invite them to have those conversations with you.
We can spend an extraordinary amount of time waiting to be invited, chosen, featured or discovered when sometimes the opportunity only exists because we decide to create it ourselves.
In the past, I have often hoped I would eventually find the room I was looking for.
Increasingly, I have learned to ask:
Could I build it?
Sometimes you have to create your own invitation.
Then you have to be willing to RSVP.
So what is the best way to market a nonfiction book?
After everything Susan and I discussed, I do not think the answer begins with Instagram, Amazon advertising, podcasts, Substack or any other particular tactic.
It begins with clarity…
Who is the book for, and what do you want the book to do?
Once those answers are clear, you can work backwards.
If your reader belongs to professional associations, go there. If she listens to podcasts, become a thoughtful guest. If companies already gather thousands of the people your book was created to help, have conversations with those companies. If the ideas lend themselves to workshops, teach them. If the conversation needs somewhere to continue, build it on Substack.
If one aligned partnership could place your book into the hands of 2,500 people, perhaps that deserves more of your attention than creating 2,500 promotional posts.
Good book marketing is not doing everything.
It is knowing enough about the book, the reader and the outcome you want to recognise what is actually worth doing.
Three Book Marketing Mistakes to Avoid
1. Believing your book is for everyone
The clearer you become about the person the book was created to serve, the easier it becomes to understand where she is and who already has access to her. Susan’s first book was incredibly specific, yet that specificity helped create an opportunity that eventually resulted in 500,000 copies being distributed.
Specific does not always mean small.
2. Treating publication day as the finish line
Publishing is an extraordinary achievement, but the book may only be the beginning of speaking, workshops, consulting, partnerships, community, articles, Substack conversations or the next body of work.
The final page tells you where the book ends.
It does not tell you where the idea ends.
3. Measuring success only by individual sales
Selling books matters, but one aligned partnership can sometimes create more impact than months of trying to sell copies one at a time.
Instead of asking only, “Where are my customers?”, also ask:
Who already has a relationship with my readers?
What I’m Taking Away From Susan
If you have a nonfiction book inside you, are currently writing one or already have a book quietly sitting on the shelf, these are the lessons I would keep close:
Know what you want the book to do. Consider sales, but also authority, speaking, workshops, consulting, partnerships, community and the other doors it might open.
Know who you want to read it. The clearer the reader becomes, the clearer the marketing becomes.
Find the people who already have your people. Look for companies, associations, communities, memberships, podcasts, conferences and collaborators who already serve the readers you want to reach.
Give your book a role. Decide whether it is a credibility builder, door opener, conversation starter, teaching tool or something else entirely.
Think beyond one-at-a-time sales. Look for opportunities where the book can add value to an entire group.
Continue the conversation beyond the final page. Turn ideas into essays, workshops, Lives, Notes, interviews and resources.
Think transformation, not only information. Ask what somebody should be able to do differently because she encountered your work.
Ask for help. You do not become more credible by making every mistake alone.
Expect the head trash. Feeling uncertain about sharing your work does not mean the work lacks value.
Create the opportunity if it does not exist yet. Host the event, start the book club, create the workshop, begin the conversation.
Your book deserves a life beyond the bookshelf
I went into this conversation expecting Susan and me to talk about book marketing, and of course we did, but I came away thinking much more deeply about what happens when we stop treating a book as a destination and start seeing it as a doorway.
What if we measured a book not only by how many copies were sold, but by what happened because the book existed?
The conversation it started, the person it helped, the invitation it created, the room it got us into, the workshop it inspired, the community that formed, the collaboration that appeared or the next piece of work it made possible.
My own book eventually helped lead me towards Intentional Living Magazine. Susan’s first book helped establish her expertise in one industry, and the experience of publishing eventually became part of the path that led her into the publishing work she now does with other authors.
Neither of us could have known exactly where those books would lead when we first sat down to write them.
Maybe that is the most exciting part.
You know where the book ends.
You have absolutely no idea where it might take you next.
So if you have had the idea for years, perhaps it deserves a first page. If you are halfway through, keep going, and if you already have a published book sitting quietly on your shelf, perhaps take it down and look at it again.
Instead of asking only:
How do I sell more copies?
Ask something bigger:
What could this book become the beginning of?
Continue the Conversation With Susan Friedmann
Susan shares weekly book-marketing insights through Book Marketing With Susan:
Listen to Susan’s long-running Book Marketing Mentors podcast:
https://www.bookmarketingwithsusan.us/podcast
And learn more about publishing and book-marketing support through Aviva Publishing & Marketing: https://avivapubs.com
Most importantly, watch our full conversation above. This essay captures the ideas I carried away from our time together, but hearing Susan tell the stories herself - particularly how one highly specific first book eventually reached half a million readers - gives the lesson an entirely different depth..
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Outside of Substack, you’ll find me creating Intentional Living Magazine and helping private clients build their platforms through House of Brand.
