How to Sell Your Book Without Feeling Salesy or Inauthentic - BM513

What if the reason book marketing feels uncomfortable isn’t because you’re “bad at selling,” but because you’ve been taught the wrong approach?

This week’s guest expert, Susan Trumpler, founder of Unstoppable Women in Business and the SheBoss Café, helps women entrepreneurs build sustainable businesses without riding the revenue roller coaster. In this episode, she tackles one of the biggest blocks authors face: how to market and sell a book without feeling awkward, pushy, or inauthentic.

Susan breaks down why so many authors hesitate to talk about their book, what’s really behind the discomfort, and how to shift from “selling” to something far more natural and effective. You’ll also hear how AI, when used intentionally, can support your voice rather than replace it—making outreach easier, more human, and more aligned with who you are.

If you want your book to open conversations rather than create resistance, this episode offers a practical, grounded blueprint.

In this episode, you’ll learn how to:

• Reframe selling as sharing something valuable
  Shift from self-promotion to service so talking about your book feels natural and purposeful.
• Create buyer-centric connections that resonate
  Focus on what your readers are already thinking, feeling, and searching for—so your message lands without pressure.
• Replace rigid scripts with a real process
  Build an outreach approach that adapts to conversations instead of forcing them.
• Use AI without losing your voice
  Train AI tools with your language, stories, and perspective so your marketing sounds like you—not a template.
• Move past procrastination and perfectionism
  Learn how co-creating with AI can help you show up consistently without overthinking every word.

If you’re ready to let go of marketing anxiety and start treating your book like the gift it’s meant to be, this conversation will change how you think about visibility, connection, and selling.

Here's how to connect with Susan:

AI Voice Brand Inventory Guide.

Website

LinkedIn  

FaceBook  

Instagram 

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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 Susan Trumpler. She's the founder of Unstoppable Women in Business and the Sheboss Cafe, where she helps women entrepreneurs ditch the revenue roller coaster and build thriving businesses without the hassle. Her mission? To make sales feel as natural as making a new friend. No more pushy tactics or awkward pitches. Susan, what an absolute pleasure it is to welcome you to the show, and thank you for being this week's guest, expert and mentor.

Susan Trumpler [00:00:51]:
Thank you, Susan. It's so nice to be here with you.

Susan Friedmann [00:00:55]:
Well, you and I have spent a lot of time together, and it is just so much fun. And just having you on the show is a real treat. And Susan, as you know, so many authors just feel uncomfortable, to put it mildly, about the idea of selling their book. They think even though the book is meant to open doors for them, yet they hesitate to talk about it. Why does sharing their book feel like selling? And how does it limit their opportunities?

Susan Trumpler [00:01:32]:
That's such a huge question, Susan.

Susan Friedmann [00:01:34]:
We can break it up.

Susan Trumpler [00:01:35]:
We'll break it down. We'll start with, why do they feel awkward? And I'm going to say, congratulations, you are human. You have a human mind, a human brain that is hardwired to exist and thrive and survive. And unfortunately, your brain perceives the promotion of yourself as threatening. You may be rejected. You may be in harm's way. If you go out there and put yourself into an uncomfortable situation, the natural reaction for you when you think about promoting is to say, oh, I don't want to do that. I don't want to feel pushy or salesy.

Susan Trumpler [00:02:18]:
And it's just so natural. But the flip side of this, Susan, is that that is hard wiring that's been there since the beginning of time, and you are not doing anything to put yourself in harm's way. So it's almost like learning how to manage that natural reaction and saying, hey, this is okay. I'm safe doing this. There's no harm that can be done.

Susan Friedmann [00:02:43]:
Yes, I love the idea of it being natural that we do feel like this. It's a different situation for them. And so often this idea of feeling salesy, they equate with that used car salesperson. And it's so unfortunate because it couldn't be further from the truth, as you and I both know. How does this limit their Opportunities, though, this fear.

Susan Trumpler [00:03:11]:
Well, I know because mostly your audience are authors and especially, you know, non fiction authors. Right. They have this perception that when they write their book, they're sharing their expertise, which is true, by putting it into the pages. But the next thought that comes up is, well, I'll just put it out on Amazon. I'll put it out on all the different platforms, and people will just buy it. They'll just stumble across it and buy it. There can't be anything further from the truth without you advocating for your book and promoting yourself in your book. The likelihood of you being able to sell as many copies as you'd like or promote yourself the way you would like to, it's just not going to happen.

Susan Trumpler [00:03:52]:
It holds you back from actually the gift that you have for the person you wrote that book for. And I think that's the mistake, Susan, they make is they think, oh, I don't want to be pushy. It's like, hold on, if you had a gift for me, you came to my house with the gift, Would you hold back? We hold it back behind you. It's like, no, no, no, I can't share this. I can't share this with you. Right. It's crazy.

Susan Friedmann [00:04:16]:
I love that example. I really do. Because, yes, you are giving people a gift, but people aren't buying the book. So let's get into more of what are they really buying and why. Let's start with that part of it.

Susan Trumpler [00:04:31]:
Before you want to know what they're buying. Possibilities. They see something in your book that says, oh, my life could be better or I could be better. And they dream about the possibility of transformation for themselves. So that's the gift you're giving them in your book is the possibility of a better place for them to be.

Susan Friedmann [00:04:59]:
Ah, the possibility, yes. Because we all want something to improve ourselves. Brilliant. I love that. Let's talk about how can we make this whole process easier again, taking this fear out of the equation, even the word selling out of the equation or promoting, how can we get around all of that?

Susan Trumpler [00:05:26]:
And that's such a really great question, because what we're talking about here are reframing, right? So when it comes right down to it, you're putting a process in place that says, first I'm going to help people become aware of what's out there for them. Then I'm going to be able to draw them closer by giving them more and more info about why this is something that they would want, and then eventually they'll commit to it. Right. It's called the buyer's journey. Susan. It's from awareness through commitment. That's the logical brain way of thinking it. So a anytime you put a process in place and you know the defined journey, it just makes it easier.

Susan Trumpler [00:06:06]:
Just follow the process. Right. But then the flip side of that is overcoming the procrastination and the things that will hold you back from executing on your process. It's a little bit of work that you have to do both internally on how you view things and then externally on how you put your processes in place so that you are successful.

Susan Friedmann [00:06:32]:
Now, that mindset has so much to do with it. The reframing, putting it into a whole different context. A process. Now, as soon as you start saying the word process, I think salesscript sort of having a script, oh my word.

Susan Trumpler [00:06:48]:
No.

Susan Friedmann [00:06:49]:
Yes. Get me out of that mindset.

Susan Trumpler [00:06:52]:
No, no. Here's the other thing is you have to feel authentic when you're out there talking and you are communicating the possibilities and communicating the value of your book and the transformation that can happen for people. You have to do it in a way that uses your own voice and your own words. I am the antithesis of sales scripts. When I say process, what I'm talking about is today I need to show up somewhere so someone can become aware of my book. Where should I show up today? And then maybe tomorrow you're going to take those people who have become aware of you and you're going to love on them a little bit, either through, say, an email, nurturing newsletter, or doing a video for YouTube, whatever it might be. So when I say process, I'm talking about what are you going to say? Where are you going to show up? And then how will you connect with people and a way that resonates with them in the step of the journey that they're in. Okay, really quickly, what I mean by that is you've got to talk just a little bit differently to someone who doesn't know you at all, rather than someone who has maybe seen you on social, is aware of your book, already has it in their mind that's, oh, this kind of would be good.

Susan Trumpler [00:08:08]:
And you talk to them to move them to that over the goal line. You know, I'm going to buy this book. Your process is, what do I say to this person when I do show up in different places so that I resonate with them based on where they are in their buying journey?

Susan Friedmann [00:08:26]:
So then knowing what you're going to say, let's look at that and let's look at it in Terms of, let's say we're networking and introducing the fact that I wrote a book. I know that that doesn't go down well at all because it's like, oh goody good. So what?

Susan Trumpler [00:08:43]:
You know exactly, right? That's exactly. And you and I met networking, right? So we're very aware of when you're in a networking room and some people start talking about what it is they do, it just shuts you down. Like first, I don't understand it. Second, I don't know what's in it for me. Why should I care? Right? When you start to create a message or how you want to early stage introduce your book and what you do as an author, you really have to do a 180 degree flip. Your initial instincts are, hey, I'm Susan and I wrote the book called oh, I'm in Sales. And it's a really great book. It's about people who, you know, are reticent to promote themselves.

Susan Trumpler [00:09:29]:
People be like, so what? But if I introduce myself talking about the problem, that it solves first and then I talk about the solution, which is my book, all of a sudden people are drawn into that conversation. If I said, oh man, have you ever thought to yourself, when you're ready to promote yourself, I hate feeling salesy and pushy and people start nodding their head yes, well, that's what the solution is. Is my book that I just wrote, blah blah, blah, blah blah. So you see how you can just flick at 180 degrees, start with them first, why would they care? And then bring yourself into the conversation.

Susan Friedmann [00:10:12]:
Does that make sense? Yeah, it does. And even the idea of finding out first what might be, I don't know, a challenge, a concern or something they're involved in. So starting off maybe with some questions, I mean, is that something that you advocate?

Susan Trumpler [00:10:32]:
I don't think it's a bad idea. It depends on the situation, Susan. So if you're in a room where you have to introduce yourself and you don't have the opportunity, then it has to be at a little bit higher of a level. Who's your ideal client and what problem are they going to be able to solve with your book? If you are in a situation where you're having a one on one, I always want to be the second person to talk. It's like, tell me about yourself. And I listen and then I fine tune the intro based on what I heard from them or I'll ask them the questions like you're saying, to find out, here's the bottom line, susk we have to stop thinking about ourselves so much and we've got to think about who we're talking to and what is it that would connect us together and then adjust yourself so that you're leaning into what they would find interesting.

Susan Friedmann [00:11:25]:
Yeah, you're so right. And as you were saying that, I was thinking we've got to get away from being us centric to being the other centric. You centric. Bit like this conversation. We're having a conversation. I'm asking you some questions. I'm finding out a little bit more, even though I know a lot about you and what you do, however, pretend I didn't, which happens on these podcasts many times, is that I'm interviewing somebody I've met for the first time. So I want to know a little bit more.

Susan Friedmann [00:12:00]:
Yes, it's being interested in the other person and seeing where there might be a fit too, with what you're offering.

Susan Trumpler [00:12:09]:
Really quickly, could I give your audience a tip? One thing they could do today, like literally today, that will change everything in the way people will resonate with their content, whether it be voice or written. And I think you and I may have spoken about this in the past, but it's called you phrasing.

Susan Friedmann [00:12:28]:
Okay, talk to us more about that.

Susan Trumpler [00:12:30]:
All right. A lot of times when we're talking to people or writing content, we use the word I a lot. I do this and I love this and I want this for people and I, I, I, I, I. And going back to the way people's brains work, as soon as you say the word I, that disconnects people from the conversation immediately. We are selfish as human beings, we are selfish. I don't care about you. I don't until I know why I should. All they have to do is make a shift.

Susan Trumpler [00:13:04]:
Every time they hear themselves say I or they're writing something and they look through and they see all their eyes. How can you change that to a you Y o, U phrased sentence? So I love to work with women entrepreneurs. They're my favorite people to work with. I love the way they blah, blah, blah. Okay, here's how you phrase it. If you are a woman entrepreneur and you love to do blah, blah, blah, then you're the person that I would love to connect with. It's okay if you slip an eye in there in the end part, but you lead with you and people are leaning in to see if you are talking about something that they are they self representing us. Does that make sense?

Susan Friedmann [00:13:51]:
Oh, it certainly does. And I love that. And in Fact, sometimes when I'm working with AI that I might go in and say, could you revamp this from the reader's perspective? And then that's when you get those you. And then it's talking about what you're interested in versus what I'm interested in. So that really is the. That complete shift, which is. Thank you for bringing that up because that is key.

Susan Trumpler [00:14:22]:
It's easy. It's so important and it's so easy.

Susan Friedmann [00:14:27]:
Something you mentioned a little earlier, and I'm going to have you pick up on this, and that is you talked about voice and I know that you work a lot with AI and obviously with your clients and AI with voice and branding, your voice. Talk to us more about that, how that sort of weaves into what we're talking about now.

Susan Trumpler [00:14:53]:
Absolutely. I believe wholeheartedly that AI is a revolutionary tool for us as business owners. It really creates so much time savings for us. Every time I use an AI engine, I see things I would have never thought of before. To say, to phrase things a certain way. I'm like, I would have never thought of those words. Right. There's a huge benefit to AI, but on the downside of AI is the fact that we're all using it and the content that comes out is either a little bit too corporate speak professional or it's too generic, too bland.

Susan Trumpler [00:15:36]:
When you lean into AI to help you communicate, help you put together your messages and your content, you're risking the fact that people will first of all notice that it's not you and they will be turned off by the blandness, the less than emotional impact that it can have for them. There's this fine line between leveraging AI and falling into an AI centric, kind of tepid content trap I have created. I know you know this, but I believe so much in AI that I have trained my own AI agent with absolutely everything that I know, all my processes and methodologies and everything so that she can create for me and for my clients, because we train her to know their business, their offers, their marketing plans, everything she can create content for, for them. But we don't want it to sound bland. One of the most important things for you to do when you are using AI is to train your brand voice. I'm not talking about that Little area in ChatGPT where you can go in and put some business information so it kind of knows you and it says, oh, what do you like your tone to be? Oh, I want my tone to be warm and authentic. Right. That's the tip.

Susan Trumpler [00:17:00]:
Of the iceberg. What I'm talking about is identifying your speech patterns. What are the words you use most often? What metaphors do you use quite often? What stories do you tell? What is authentic about the way you communicate and create a brand inventory so that when you're going to use an AI engine, you say, here's my brand voice. I want you to pull from this so that my content sounds just like me. And it's not hard to do, Susan, but it's night and day when it comes to the quality of the content that comes out when you create that.

Susan Friedmann [00:17:41]:
And having worked with that brand voice, whose name is Sasha, we've got to tell people it's Sasha. Let's talk about how that would help our authors when it comes to actually selling their book.

Susan Trumpler [00:17:56]:
The thing that we're going to go back to, why does someone want your book? It's because of the dreams, the possibilities that they are hoping to achieve in their lives. By creating content that speaks to the wants and the desires of your reader, you're going to start drawing them in into that awareness. Ooh, there's a book. Ooh, I want that book that could help me. That's me. They're speaking my language. You put all of these pieces together, you create some great content that sounds just like you, but it's buyer centric. It's about them and the transformation they want to make.

Susan Trumpler [00:18:37]:
And all of a sudden, those two pieces come together. It's kind of like the Reese's peanut butter cup. I don't know if you remember that commercial. You put the peanut butter in my chocolate. No, you put the chocolate in the peanut butter. That's what's coming together. The convergence, the gift you have to offer with your book with the need that your book buyer has. And when they converge together, a sale is made.

Susan Trumpler [00:19:00]:
And you're not being pushy or salesy, you're just offering important information for them.

Susan Friedmann [00:19:06]:
What I like so much, too, is that it helps me. I think I know my clients really well. However, what I've learned and I'm learning and as I use this tool is that I'm getting to know them even better than I thought I did. It's giving me insights that I was like, oh, and I won't use a swear word here, but omg, yes, yes.

Susan Trumpler [00:19:38]:
It's so cool. Here's the thing, AI and we're talking about having Sasha or some agent help you create content. AI started as a, let's say a glorified Google, right? You just type something in and it feeds something back out to you, and you're like, oh, that's cool. Thank you. That's what I wanted. And then it became very generative where you could say, no, no, that's not exactly it. Could you do this for me? And it would give you another version of it. The difference between a typical AI chat, because that's what I just described, an AI chat and an AI chat agent, is that the agent is trained enough, with enough intellect on the topic that you're querying about, that it's going to question you to say, wait a second, hold on.

Susan Trumpler [00:20:23]:
And I love it when my agent comes back and says, I'm going to definitely challenge you on that. Susan, I don't think you're thinking at a deep enough level here. And here's the way I see it. Would you agree? So you're having a conversation with this agent, and they become a true assistant in your life. Because we are all busy people. We're all trained at different levels, right. Of sales and marketing, and we can't know it all. To have an agent like Sasha support you with knowledge, not just content, it's just.

Susan Trumpler [00:20:58]:
It's unbelievable.

Susan Friedmann [00:21:00]:
It really is. I've just gotten completely carried away with it and help me with this. But just knowing and understanding your reader, your client, your prospect, this all helps in the sales process. However you use it, whether it's spoken, it's written, it's on video, on a podcast, it's helping in all those ways. Would you agree?

Susan Trumpler [00:21:27]:
Oh, 100%. Yes, 100%. All the author has to do is go back to the genesis, the origins of their book. Why did they want to write this book? Why is it important to get this book out into the world? Who will benefit from it? What will their life be like? What will they know or be able to do that is different after having read the book? Now, all of a sudden, if you're collecting that right, if you're telling, for instance, if someone was using Sasha and they said, I wrote this book, and here's the answer to those questions, all of a sudden, Sasha's going, oh, that's cool. Let me ask you this about that. And then how about if we talk about it this way, and all of a sudden you're into creating beautiful content where you have not had to struggle over it. All you're doing is telling them why you created the book and who it's for.

Susan Friedmann [00:22:21]:
I think also what I've found is that we often have feelings, but yet we're not necessarily able to verbalize them, put them into actual words. And I think that's often where this kind of tool can be helpful, not only to help you say how people might be feeling. It's like, oh, yes, wow. Yeah, she seems to know me. Even though they may not be able to. And I've had it myself. I've got a feeling, but I'm not sure that I can actually verbalize how I'm actually feeling about this because it's sort of internal. It's in my body.

Susan Friedmann [00:23:02]:
It's in. Yeah.

Susan Trumpler [00:23:04]:
So, yeah, it's almost like we get into a rut of thinking a certain way and we need a pattern interrupt, something that will say, yes, and how about this? And you're going, oh, my gosh, I would have never thought of that. That's fabulous. So now the whole way you talk about your book is 100% different. It's just a beautiful thing.

Susan Friedmann [00:23:26]:
I think one of the sort of, I would say disabilities, challenges, maybe is a better word, is procrastination. I think not only authors, writers, I mean anybody, we fall into this procrastinating. And I think the agents and any of the AI models help sort of get us out of that. And you use the word rut, gets us into a rut. And you. Yes, I immediately you said that, I was like, yeah, that's procrastination.

Susan Trumpler [00:23:57]:
Often. Yes, it is. And Susan, here's the thing I'm going to go back to again. If you procrastinate, you are human. Your brain is protecting you from doing things that it perceives as being difficult or risky. A lot of times because you're the one. You know, a lot of us are. We don't have somebody we can hire to do everything for us.

Susan Trumpler [00:24:23]:
Right. We're chief cook and bottle washer. I think they say if we're creating our content and then we're going out and we're pushing it out, there's this, did I do it good enough? Also, it's procrastination topped with perfectionism.

Susan Friedmann [00:24:37]:
Right.

Susan Trumpler [00:24:38]:
And so that's what I love about Sasha. She created my playbook for me. She says, okay, based on everything you've told me you're trying to achieve with what you're trying to promote. Here's the way I see it. Here's the best places for you to show up and here's the type of things you should create content wise. She creates a playbook. I just run the plays. I'm not emotionally invested in what I have created.

Susan Trumpler [00:25:04]:
We co create it. But I trust her when I Use her stuff. It gets great results. So now, instead of me laboring over, oh, is it good enough? Is this the right way to do it? Now all I'm doing is saying, okay, I'll go to that networking and I'll use this intro because I've used it before. I think it works great. I'll go out there on Facebook and I'll put these posts out there because I'm getting good results with the content. It just takes that emotional connection or the imposter out of it. Right.

Susan Trumpler [00:25:33]:
For people who are not sales and marketing experts takes that out so they don't feel that reticence.

Susan Friedmann [00:25:39]:
Oh, my goodness. We could go on. I mean, just bringing up the whole imposter syndrome and the procrastination and perfectionism. Oh, my goodness. This is opening many doors. Susan, you're going to have to come back and talk about more of this. In the meantime, I know that our listeners are probably chomping at the bit, wanting to know more about you and Sasha. Tell us.

Susan Trumpler [00:26:05]:
Oh, yes, thank you very much. I have a community called the Sheboss Cafe, which is a lovely place for people to come and get mingle and get to know people network. Sasha is part of my Sheboss Pro community. She's a tool that is. Actually, I think she's about three months old now, so she's in her infancy stage, but she evolves every day, and it's fun to work with her. So come into the cafe. You can find out more about Sasha. But I also have something called that, referring back to what we talked about earlier about your brand voice and having an inventory of those things that makes your AI create content that sounds like you.

Susan Trumpler [00:26:43]:
I have a little gift for your listeners. It's called the AI Voice Brand Inventory Guide. 15 minutes. How to think through and be able to create that inventory so that you can immediately upload it each time you create content and say, use my voice and create authentic content for me.

Susan Friedmann [00:27:02]:
Oh, and how can I find that? Susan?

Susan Trumpler [00:27:04]:
Yes, I'll give you the link. It's a long link. So how about the show notes?

Susan Friedmann [00:27:09]:
Absolutely, yes. Why don't we just put it in the show notes? Because people probably don't have anything there sitting there waiting to write something down. I know people listen to the podcast while they're walking the dog or they're on the treadmill in the gym. So, yeah, I won't say mowing the lawn because for us, it's shoveling snow. By the way, thank you for that gift because our listeners always love gifts. So appreciate that. As you know, Susan, always ask our guests to leave our listeners with a golden nugget. And you've given us so much already.

Susan Friedmann [00:27:49]:
But how about one more little thing? All right?

Susan Trumpler [00:27:53]:
Don't be the best kept secret out there. Don't have your book be the best kept secret. You didn't put all your love and your heart and your soul into it to have it sit on a shelf and not have that present be given. Change the way you think about promoting your book and promoting yourself. And think about it as I have something to share, that there's people out there who need it. I just need to find the person who needs it. That's it.

Susan Friedmann [00:28:23]:
Beautiful. Yes. And it's this gift. You talked about it earlier. Right at the beginning you mentioned you're giving your people a gift. Yes. Don't lose sight of that. I love this.

Susan Friedmann [00:28:34]:
This has been brilliant. Listeners, you're going to have to go back and re listen to this many times over because there were so many nuggets that Susan shared with us. Susan, thank you so much for being so generous and sharing your wisdom. 

By the way, listeners, if your book isn't selling the way you wanted or expected to, lets 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. So until next week, here's wishing you much book and author marketing success.

Here's how to connect with Susan:

AI Voice Brand Inventory Guide.

Website

LinkedIn  

FaceBook  

Instagram 

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