How to Create a Book Marketing Strategy That Feels Natural and Gets Results - BM508

Does your book marketing feel forced, awkward, or exhausting?

In this episode, Jenn Grace, award-winning author and founder of Publish Your Purpose, shares a smarter way to market your book—one that actually fits who you are. 

With nearly two decades of experience and more than 200 nonfiction authors supported, Jenn explains how marketing can feel natural, sustainable, and effective.

You’ll hear why trying to copy someone else’s strategy backfires, what thought leadership really means for authors, and how to avoid the post-launch drop-off that leaves so many books invisible.

You’ll discover:

• Why marketing works best when it aligns with your strengths and energy
• What thought leadership looks like without hype or a huge platform
• Jenn’s Aspen Method: a simple framework for long-term book promotion
• How to stop doing everything and focus on what actually moves the needle
• Why author success goes beyond sales to impact, connection, and service

If you want book marketing that feels good and gets results, this conversation will change how you approach promotion.

Get your copy of Jenn's latest book Promote Your Purpose

Here's how to connect with Jenn:

LinkedIn

Website

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Transcript

Susan Friedmann [00:00:00]:
Welcome to Book Marketing Mentors, the weekly podcast where you learn proven strategies, tools, ideas and tips from the masters. Every week I introduce you to a marketing master who will share their expertise to help you market and sell more books. Today my special guest is Jen Grace. She's an award winning author and founder of Publish youh Purpose, an acclaimed hybrid publisher that's brought over 200 nonfiction books to life. Jen's mission is to elevate voices often excluded from traditional publishing, especially those from under recognized communities. A seasoned speaker, consultant, thought leader, Jen has written eight books and spent nearly two decades helping experts, entrepreneurs and change makers share their stories and make a lasting impact through the power of publishing and business. Changing Books Jen, it's an absolute pleasure to welcome you to the show and thank you for being this week's guest, expert and mentor.

Jenn Grace [00:01:08]:
Thank you for having me. I am very excited to be here.

Susan Friedmann [00:01:11]:
As we were talking prior to going on the air, we were talking about the idea of marketing strategies that feel natural rather than forced. Talk to us more about that concept because I know that in your brand new book and you're going to talk more about that. I'm sure that you talked about this. So let's start there and dig in. How can we make marketing joyful, blissful and natural?

Jenn Grace [00:01:46]:
I love that question. As you said, it stems from our pre conversation. But yeah, I've been in marketing for about two decades now in different forms and fashions with working with authors specifically for over the last 10 years. And what I have found over and over and over again is that before the conversation even starts about marketing a book, someone is bringing in some kind of baggage with them of how they feel like marketing is going to be this really slimy or icky or this misaligned thing that they have to do. And so they're so excited about what they're writing, they're so excited about the impact that it's going to make on the readers. But there's some kind of hang up that occurs between I want my readers to be impacted by this really amazing work that I'm doing, but how am I actually going to get it into the hands of those readers? And I find that if we can just step back and really just start to assess the lay of the land of how we like to show up, what we love to do and really start to think about how can we align a marketing strategy alongside that we can really make this a joyful process. Because if I said to you Susan, I would love to come up with a marketing strategy for Your book. And it's going to require that you were on the local media, the local news, and you're doing videos all day.

Jenn Grace [00:03:06]:
And if you said to me that I can't stand being on video, it makes me anxious, it makes me nervous, I don't want to do this, that marketing is going to feel so misaligned and so awful to you that versus if I said, hey, what preferred format, what preferred medium and method would you prefer to be using? And you said, you know what? I love being on podcasts, I love being on radio. We could have a completely different strategy that feels so much more aligned and perhaps even joyous.

Susan Friedmann [00:03:32]:
I love that because that's exactly the approach that I like to take with my authors, is to find out what they do like to do versus what they don't like to do. I've had people say, I don't want to go out and speak. Great, you're not going to go out and speak. But you could do training, you could do consulting, coaching, going on podcasts, as you said, doing things that feel natural and that you like to do, versus, as you rightly said, things that you don't like to do, which are going to sort of stop you in your tracks and you're not going to move forward with the marketing that's so, so critical. Now, in your new book, which again, you're going to talk more about to publish, your purpose is that you talk about thought leadership and building thought leadership and growing your business. Talk to us more about this whole concept of thought leadership. Because people who've written nonfiction books building credibility in their field, building that thought leadership is critical if they want to stand out from the crowd. So what are some of your recommendations?

Jenn Grace [00:04:45]:
That's a good question, because I find also that authors have an aversion sometimes to the word thought leadership or to the phrase thought leadership. So in my experience, you have authors that are. Especially if we look at nonfiction versus memoir, I think this is where it kind of diverges a little bit. But if you have a nonfiction author inherently publishing a book, you're going to get some kind of credibility. Like that is just kind of comes with the territory. But if we look at the idea of thought leadership, I think there's a lot of people who are a little bit nervous or anxious about the idea of moving into thought leadership or calling themselves a thought leader. And if we take a step back and start to look at what does our ecosystem look like, what is the lay of the land? Like, let's just take a real wide view of what are all the things that you're doing in your business? Or maybe you don't have a business yet, but you're using this book, maybe it's a memoir, to start something new. Let's really just start to look at what that ecosystem looks like and think about how is thought leadership one piece of that bigger ecosystem? Because when we're looking at how are we going to find readers, how are we going to get our message out there? I think thought leadership looks different for a lot of people.

Jenn Grace [00:06:04]:
For some people, it could be that they're doing a weekly podcast. For some people, it could be that they're writing to substack. For others, it could be that they're convening a group of people that they're working with on a some kind of consistent and regular basis. And. And maybe it's not public facing thought leadership, but it's thought leadership in the eyes of the clients or the people that they're serving. And so I think if we. Similar to kind of thinking about marketing and how people a lot of times have just an aversion to the word marketing, I think that there is a little bit of a carryover into thought leadership, too, because I do think that sometimes people think that, like, even thought leadership is overused. But thought leadership can be that.

Jenn Grace [00:06:40]:
You wrote a memoir and you're talking about maybe domestic violence as an example, and your thought leadership might just be that you are hosting some kind of community circle or space, whether it's virtual or in person, for the people who've read your book to feel like they have a bigger community because they can empathize and relate to the experiences that you were sharing. If we really broaden how thought leadership can be, I think the possibilities become endless.

Susan Friedmann [00:07:06]:
And you're right that the word thought leadership has been overused. And now that I'd said it, I was like, oh, shame on you, Susan. Use another word. But it's true. It's that credibility. Because what it made me think about, Jen, was that when I first started out in the speaking business, very few people had books. There wasn't that same kind of competition. Now there's an expectation that if you are a speaker, you have a book, and that's why you see so many books, especially celebrities or some of the news anchors who want to go onto the speaking circuit, they have to have a book, and those are often ghostwritten.

Susan Friedmann [00:07:53]:
But the fact is that you've got to have this now. It's just an expectation as part of the business. Yes. Now, when we're looking at pushing that a bit further. What does that actually mean in terms of you sharing advice, you sharing processes, methods, ways of doing things that makes you, hey, this is the person I want to work with because he, she knows exactly what they're talking about and I want to learn from them. So it's that differentiation. Would you agree?

Jenn Grace [00:08:36]:
Absolutely. And one thing that I feel like is so understated in marketing is that we focus so much energy on how do we attract the right people, the right readers, the right buyers, the right clients. We don't spend enough time thinking about how do we repel the wrong ones. Because when we show up fully and authentically who we are in ourselves, in all of what that means, we are naturally going to attract the right people and repel the wrong people. And so I think that if we can like really lean into that instead of trying to be this homogenous mass of everybody is marketing and promoting their books in the exact same way. And every speaker follows this exact formula for how to do it. I think that that gets very cookie cutter and it gets very boring for people who are trying to decide who they want to connect with. And I think that's the beautiful thing about books, is that you and I could have an identical book.

Jenn Grace [00:09:27]:
There could be 50 other people who all have the very similar books to the ones that you and I have written. But someone's going to be attracted to your style for a variety of reasons, over my style or vice versa. And I think if we can really play to our strengths and those sweet spots and the things that light us up and make us happy, we will be so much more aligned and that will be so much more obvious to the people that we're trying to reach.

Susan Friedmann [00:09:50]:
And we're going to do the marketing. Even though people, as you said earlier, the idea of marketing often is very misunderstood. And I've said this many times that sales and marketing sort of get pushed together as one homogenous lump. People don't like yuck. Especially authors. We're doing things that we like to do and we come from passion, we come from wanting to serve, then you can call it what you want, it doesn't matter. The fact is you're out there, you're sharing in a way that is helpful to your target audience. And when you do that, when you come from heart, when you come from passion, from service, there's a whole different approach.

Susan Friedmann [00:10:41]:
And as you say, you attracting the kind of people who you attract and the right people to work with. So, so true. I know you love talking about mistakes and our listeners love learning about mistakes. What are some of the pitfalls that you see that authors sort of fall into, especially post launch? Getting ready for the launch, writing the book, getting ready for the launch and everything. And then there are all these fireworks. It's wonderful parties, whatever you do. And then there's like, oh, it's over now. What?

Jenn Grace [00:11:27]:
Yeah, it's a great question. I'm going to use this as an opportunity to mention my book because there's a piece of it that I feel is relevant. The book is called Promote youe Purpose. It's a strategic guide to book marketing for nonfiction authors who want to grow their impact, influence and income. In my book, I have what I've been using for a while internally with authors that we work with and we've called it the Aspen Method. Basically, it's a five part framework that really kind of brings people through a whole life cycle of marketing. And it can kind of happen regardless of what stage your book is in. It could be that your book's been out for five years or your book's going to be out in five months.

Jenn Grace [00:12:06]:
And it's really looking at assessing our platform. So really kind of the A is for assessment. We're just kind of assessing, we're looking around, we're seeing what we have, what we're missing. So that way when we start to strategize, which is the S, we actually know what we're working with, then we can move into the planning phase. Because now, you know, we've assessed, we've strategized, now we can actually do some planning, then we can start to execute. And I think this is where people start to fall apart, is the execution and subsequently the final, which is the end, which is nurturing people. When we think about mistakes that people make and how things kind of go awry, I think a lot of times people spend a lot of time thinking and they don't spend enough time planning, especially post launch, because there sometimes is this misconception that if you write it, they will come. If you publish it, they will come.

Jenn Grace [00:12:58]:
And we both know that that is not how this works. And I'm sure most of your listeners understand that now, which is why they're listening to your podcast. But when we think about the planning, it's both the planning and then it's the nurturing, the stuff that we've already done. So instead of planning that grand book launch, which I've seen some very, very beautiful, very sophisticated book launches that were very expensive, when the Author doesn't have a plan for what they're doing after the book launch. Like, how are we engaging the people who showed up to that launch? How are we getting in front of them again with whatever other offerings or services that we might be able to provide? How are we nurturing them for the long term? Because what we don't want is when we think about our ecosystem, we don't want somebody to kind of just dip their toe into Susan's pond and then be like, okay, I read the book, and I'm out. You want somebody who's going to come in and really be engaged by what you have to say and want to stick around, want to be on your mailing list, want to subscribe to your newsletter or be part of your substack or wherever they may want to be, because you still have more to offer. All of us who are writing nonfiction books just because we have 300 pages or 200 pages of content, we are so much bigger and broader than that. So I think the lack of planning for the after is really where authors miss the mark so often.

Susan Friedmann [00:14:18]:
Planning. We need to do more of that. I love that. The Aspen method, the assessment, planning, strategy, execution, and nurturing. That's so beautiful. How did you come up with that?

Jenn Grace [00:14:32]:
What's interesting is that I am an avid skier. My background is marketing, and, you know, my publishing company's been around for about a decade, and we've always helped our authors with this, and we have this just a content library filled with information for them to access. But one day I was like, okay, I know that there's a methodology that we're teaching here, but I want to put it into some way that is easy to remember. And so I was like, all right, let me think of acronyms. And I started off with somehow with skiing, because I'm just such a big ski fan. And so I came up with Aspen. And it's again, all the stuff that we're using, but it's just easy to remember, and it's easy to follow for people.

Susan Friedmann [00:15:08]:
Very much I like it, and it's going to be very successful, and I apologize for saying your book incorrectly. So promote your purpose. I think that's much better than what I said.

Jenn Grace [00:15:21]:
Well, I do have another book called Publisher Purpose, so it would make. You're not making things up.

Susan Friedmann [00:15:29]:
Okay.

Jenn Grace [00:15:30]:
I recognize that I'm causing confusion for myself with things being, publish your purpose and promote your purpose. And now I'm like, well, now I need a trilogy. I got to figure out another P word that I Can put in here.

Susan Friedmann [00:15:39]:
There you go.

Jenn Grace [00:15:40]:
That was a future me problem.

Susan Friedmann [00:15:43]:
How about planning your purpose?

Jenn Grace [00:15:45]:
Oh, yeah, Very apropos to the conversation.

Susan Friedmann [00:15:50]:
What other mistakes do you see authors make? You know, you and I are both working in this field and every day almost when I talk to an author, there's something that comes up. What is it for you that you see that these mistakes that get made and unconsciously most of the time, I.

Jenn Grace [00:16:11]:
Think trying to do everything at once is a big one that I see often where there is such a sense of overwhelm sometimes when you're kind of coming into this. And again, if you're kind of looking at how someone else is doing it, or maybe you've spent a little bit of time strategizing and planning planning, and you're really starting to figure out like, okay, these are all the things I want to do. I think a lot of people really spend so much time and effort in focusing on having a successful launch and they're stressing themselves out because a lot goes into a successful launch and they have a to do list 10 miles long and they don't have enough resources to have people help them get it done, that then nothing happens because they've pushed themselves into a corner of complete and utter overwhelm that they then just kind of stop. I think that that is kind of a. Another angle to this too is like the lack of planning, but then also, and I don't want to say too much planning, but just trying to do too much. And that's why I really try to take an approach of alignment and impact and intentionality. And how can we, like, really think about what that looks like? Because it might be that you realistically can only spend an hour next week figuring out how you're going to promote your book and what that's going to look like. And if you're going to spend that hour, how do you really make the most of it? Instead of being like, okay, I have this hour and I have this to do list that has 75 items on it and I need to make sure that I get through at least 70 of them.

Jenn Grace [00:17:38]:
Nothing meaningful is actually going to happen because there's just too much to do. So sometimes we need to kind of like scale back to be more effective.

Susan Friedmann [00:17:46]:
And I fall into that trap all the time. I think I can do more than I actually can.

Jenn Grace [00:17:51]:
That makes two of us.

Susan Friedmann [00:17:54]:
But it's true. There are so many moving parts when it comes to publishing a book. I always talk about it as like, this thousand piece puzzle jigsaw puzzle and that you have to keep putting the pieces together to see the picture. But it does. There's just so many pieces. And you say you're concentrating on getting the book out there, and then once the book's out there, it's like, okay, now what? And all the marketing, and if you're going to go on podcasts and there's so many different angles to take that it can be very easily overwhelming. And like you, I always ask, how much time can you devote to this? And let's be realistic in terms of what we can accomplish in the time that we spend together. Because, yeah, if it's only you, there are only so many hours in the day and so much time, energy, and maybe money that you can invest in this.

Susan Friedmann [00:18:56]:
So, yeah, being realistic is key.

Jenn Grace [00:18:59]:
It is, and it brings up something that should kind of precede all of this, is really making sure that you have specific goals set. What does your definition of success look like for your book? Because my definition and your definition might be different. And if we are collectively on the same page of where are we trying to go and who are we trying to impact, all of those other steps and tactics and different things will have a place. Because if I say my goal is to get a high ticket consulting, you know, say I'm a consultant, I'm, you know, I'm looking for a high ticket consultant sale here, then my approach is going to look really different than someone who says, I want to get my book into the most book clubs I possibly can. Those are two really different goals. And because they're different goals, different tactics fall under those. So I think that that kind of helps too, when you're kind of collectively on the same page about where are we actually trying to head with this and what's realistic?

Susan Friedmann [00:19:56]:
Because we were talking prior to coming on the air, I've had authors who say, you know, if I ask them, what do you want your book to do for you? And they said, well, I want to sell a million copies. And I never negate that. However, then I question further, well, how are we going to do that? What kind of list do you have? And I've had people say, I don't have a list. Well, okay, so where do we start with selling a million books that isn't necessarily realistic. So let's look. And what is realistic? Maybe selling a hundred. Okay, maybe 200 or 1,000. That could be more doable in the short term than a million.

Susan Friedmann [00:20:40]:
And you sell two books and you are like, oh, this doesn't work.

Jenn Grace [00:20:45]:
And what's driving that decision for it to be a million. Where did that number come from and why? And what might be an underlying motivator beneath the surface that is actually the real driving force behind that goal that actually might be fulfilled by accomplishing a different goal.

Susan Friedmann [00:21:02]:
Yes. And there's a lot of ego involved, and we both talked about that earlier, too, is there's ego wrapped up in a book, period. And then if you want it to be a bestseller, and then if you want it to sell hundreds and thousands of copies, your ego's at stake here, and you don't want to let that ego down. Yeah.

Jenn Grace [00:21:26]:
And the reality is that no one knows how many copies you sold in the grand scheme of things, more than you do. If you come out of the gate with this big crazy goal that you're like, I'm going to sell a million copies. And when you fall short of that goal, everybody's going to know it. But if you have a goal that is much more meaningful to you, much more purpose driven, much more aligned, then if you don't meet that internal goal that you might have had, then on the outside, people aren't going to be like, well, she didn't meet her goal. Again, you can kind of put things in place that can kind of like lessen that hit to the ego.

Susan Friedmann [00:22:00]:
Yeah. Because nobody's checking. Or very few people. Yeah. I mean, a traditional publisher will check how many copies you've sold if you're looking for some kind of contract with them. But for the most part, you're right. Nobody knows unless I tell you how many copies I've sold. And it's not about selling books.

Susan Friedmann [00:22:22]:
We're not in the business of selling books. We're in the business of transformation, of serving people, of making changes in this world. And that's what's critical, I believe. And I know that's your thinking as well, correct?

Jenn Grace [00:22:38]:
Yeah.

Susan Friedmann [00:22:39]:
Putting words in your mouth here, but.

Jenn Grace [00:22:41]:
They are accurate words. And it's part of the reason how I ended up in books to begin with, because I was a consultant and I had written a couple of books. And my goal for those books was that I had clients who needed that information. And then as I started doing more books, I had a lot of people saying, well, how did you know how to do it? I'm like, I don't know. I just figured it out. And gradually that turned into my publishing company. I was doing a keynote speech in Milwaukee. I was standing on the stage and I was thinking, like, huh? If I were the person who was actually behind the scenes, helping other people get on the stage that I'm now standing on.

Jenn Grace [00:23:16]:
My impact could be so much bigger than me just traveling across the country, being on stages myself. When we think about kind of impact, and every reader is that point of impact, and they can be a catalyst for your impact to spread to somebody else. And so it really isn't about numbers on a spreadsheet that's like, oh, I sold 6,000 books this quarter. That's not the point. The point is you change 6,000 lives or you helped 6,000 people do something differently that helps make their life better.

Susan Friedmann [00:23:46]:
And you don't always know the impact that you have on people. The fact is that you're putting the information out there, and if it's solid information and you're passionate about it and they feel that you're impacting, you're influencing, you're impacting people, you're inspiring people. But people aren't necessarily telling you that doesn't stop you from doing it.

Jenn Grace [00:24:09]:
Yeah, it's one of those things as an author that I always find kind of makes your brain hurt sometimes. I caught up with a friend earlier today that I haven't seen in seven, seven years. And she had mentioned that she just finished reading my memoir that came out five years ago. And I was like, it's just so trippy sometimes to think about, of like, oh, wow. Like, that person is using their free time to read something that I wrote and I don't even know that they're reading it. And like, to think about, like, how intimate, especially a memoir, how intimate an experience that is. And, you know, just to think about, like, how many other people are reading any of our books at any time and how kind of mind boggling that is to think about.

Susan Friedmann [00:24:46]:
Yes. I remember people coming to me maybe two, three years after they heard me at a presentation, and they said, oh, you know, you said something that changed my life. When I asked them, well, what was it that I said? Because I have no clue, you know, something I said three years ago. I don't even remember what I said five minutes ago, let alone three years ago. They can't necessarily remember, but still they had that feeling, oh, you made an impact. And at the time, whatever I said or whatever I did had that impact and it made a difference for them, and that's what was important. What it was at this point doesn't really matter, but they felt that it was something for them, and that's what it's about.

Jenn Grace [00:25:36]:
And that's what was such a cool thing about being an author and helping authors is that we get to experience it from both sides.

Susan Friedmann [00:25:43]:
Well, this is a great segue, Jan, for you to tell our listeners how they can find out more about you. The upcoming book, the previous books, the ones that I don't know the exact titles of books.

Jenn Grace [00:25:59]:
Yes. Thank you for that. I think that there's two things. So because we're on a marketing podcast, if you go to promote your purposebook.com that will give you information about the book. But I also have a substack called promote your purpose and I am writing weekly to it where everything is wrapped around promoting your purpose and wrapped around the Aspen method. So you can go in and like, if you're thinking about what are some things I can execute today, there's a whole kind of section of just the E in Aspen. So I think those are probably the best two places. And then I am all over the Internet at Gen T Grace, so I'm fairly easy to find.

Susan Friedmann [00:26:35]:
Yes. Because I had to look you up too, and I found you very easily.

Jenn Grace [00:26:39]:
Yep.

Susan Friedmann [00:26:41]:
This has been amazing. Thank you. And as you know, we always have our guests. Leave our listeners with a golden nugget. You've given us so much already. But I'm just going to squeeze the lemon a little bit harder.

Jenn Grace [00:26:55]:
I think my golden nugget and I don't want to infringe on Nike's trademark, but just do it. Whatever the thing is that you're thinking about from a book promotion and a marketing standpoint, even if it terrifies you because it feels bigger than what you feel like you're capable of doing, or even if it feels like it's too small, whatever. The thing that just right now, while you're listening to this, just kind of in the back of your mind, that you're like, oh, that's the thing. Whatever. The thing that's popping up for you in this moment, that's the thing to just go out and do. Because the more that we go out and consistently do the thing, the more momentum we can create and the more lives we can impact and the easier it gets. Yes.

Susan Friedmann [00:27:36]:
And we're all about making things easy. So, yes, just do it and just keep doing it. And don't try it once and say, well, that didn't work.

Jenn Grace [00:27:45]:
No, we got to keep at it. It doesn't just magically become super simple overnight. You really just got to put on a little bit of elbow grease.

Susan Friedmann [00:27:53]:
So, so true words of wisdom. Those truly are. Thank you. And thank you for sharing so much of your great wisdom, and can't wait to get into the book and check out the Substack. So yes, you and I have got the Substack going here.

Jenn Grace [00:28:10]:
Love it. Thank you for having me. This has been an awesome conversation. I really appreciate it.

Susan Friedmann [00:28:14]:
Oh, my pleasure. And listeners, if your book isn't selling the way you want it or expect it to, let's you and I jump on a quick call together to brainstorm ways to ramp up those sales. Because you've invested a whole lot of time, money, and energy, and it's time you got the return you were hoping for. So go to bookmarketingbrainstorm.com to schedule your free call. And in the meantime, I hope this powerful interview sparks some ideas you can use to sell more books. Until next week, here's wishing you much book and author marketing success.

Get your copy of Jenn's latest book "Promote Your Purpose"

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