Ditch Predictable Book Events: Modern Book Marketing Strategies with Dr. Deb Miller

Launching a book should be an adventure, not a chore. 

Allison Lane sits down with marketing expert and memoirist Deb Miller, author of Forget the Fairy Tale and Find Your Happiness. Deb reveals how she transformed traditional, predictable author events into memorable, community-building celebrations. From hosting theatrical readings with student actors to offering free beer at the local pub and partnering with her sorority and universities, Deb proves that fresh ideas spark engagement and book sales.

Allison and Deb break down strategies for authors to leverage their networks, set clear goals, and have fun during the launch process. They share marketing wisdom, practical examples, and the importance of hosting mediagenic events that create lasting assets for future promotion. 

Get Allison’s FREE resource “The Author Event Checklist” at https://www.lanelit.com/checklist2 

In this episode, Allison and Deb cover:

• [00:03] How a brewery pub day turned free beer into a spike in book sales
• [00:05] Why start where you are and use what you have is a powerful launch strategy
• [00:09] How a happiness panel made a memoir event stand out and fill the room
• [00:14] How students, interns, and family networks can supercharge your book promotion
• [00:20] When giving away your book becomes your smartest book marketing move

Resources Mentioned:

• Dr. Deb Miller’s website: https://forgetthefairytale.net/ 
• Dr. Deb Miller’s Book: Forget the Fairy Tale and Find Your Happiness: https://bookshop.org/a/55773/9781647429225 
• Connect with Dr. Deb on IG: https://www.instagram.com/forget_the_fairy_tale/ 
• Download Allison’s FREE resource “The Author Event Checklist” https://www.lanelit.com/checklist2 
• Connect with Allison: https://www.linkedin.com/in/allisonlanelit  

If you’re looking to energize your launch, this episode will help you think outside the box and focus on your strengths.

Get Allison's free guide 7 Shifts to Build Real Authority - and get recognized for your expertise (not your follower count): https://lanelit.com/authority   

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Transcript

Allison: 0:50

Welcome back to the Author's Edge. I am Allison Lane, and I am here for you because marketing is hard, even when you're a marketer. Today's guest proves that book events can be one of the most creative and community building and joy filled parts of launching your book or launching anything. Dr. Deb Miller is here and she is first of all, one of my clients and brilliant. And the author of Forget the Fairytale and Find Your Happiness. This is a memoir that flips the script on traditional princess narratives and challenges women to create their own version of Happily ever After. Now, Deb, when it came to launch your book, you knew as a career Fortune 100 marketer, you weren't going to settle for your standard book reading. What questions did you ask yourself since you knew you wanted to do something different?

Deb Miller: 1:57

Yes, I definitely wanted to do something different. I did not want to have the traditional author event. The bookstore introduces you. You have an author reading. You may have an in conversation partner, another author that asks you questions. You have the obligatory Q and A that's very polite. And then people buy the book. My whole motto was just have fun with this thing. I wanted to entertain my audiences, I wanted to inspire them. So, what did I do? instead of the author reading, I had actresses perform two scenes at my initial book launch. I had my local high school actresses who had performed in their school play and they were fantastic. They were like right off Broadway. So that really brought it to life. If you don't want to go through all that trouble, you can just grab another person and do a dramatic reading. You don't have to just read it yourself though. Just really just changing it up a little bit can make it so much more interesting. The book just won an International Writers Association award and they're performing a scene from the book in San Diego in November.

Allison: 3:05

When we worked together you were absorbing so much and planning so much because we were using the methods I share in my bestseller launch school. And you took these strategies and turned your launch into these really creative community building experiences that are just continuing to involve and engage people

Deb Miller: 3:30

exactly. I'm based in Seattle, so we're very big on craft beer. Everybody belongs to a local brewery in some fashion. I belong to a pub. And so, I had my pub day at the pub, but that's not very creative in and of itself. But what was cool is I gave a free beer to anybody who showed proof of purchase of buying the book. And of course, we could buy them on hand. And so, we were selling like hotcakes because who doesn't want something free? Everybody wants a free beer, right? So, these are people that weren't even part of the friends and family and neighbors that were joining the Pub Day celebration. You have to think about what kind of behavior you're trying to drive. So, I was trying to drive sales, nice little spike. Another one I did right around Pub Day was I donated to charity. Find a charity that's aligned with your book or your heart. And in my case, the pub was located right across the street from my granddaughter's preschool. So, I donated any cash sale,$5, because of course you're making a ton more profit if you're selling them for cash than if you do that through the publisher. So, it doesn't show up on your book sales, but it really helps the profit margin. Similarly, I belong to a sorority and there are a couple scenes in the book that are portrayed at the sorority Back in my day at Purdue University. And so, I donated a case of books to the sorority and they are selling them as holiday gifts to their sisters and their moms, I gave a talk at Pacific Northwest Writers Association to 150 memoirist. And it wasn't just here's how you write a memoir. It was a bold suggestion about let's rebrand the category. Memoirs sounds like your grandmother's trip to Europe. But people love a true story. We suggested the other panelists and I that we renamed the category, true story.

Allison: 5:27

So what I hear you saying is you did an inventory of the connections that you had in the community, your pub, your granddaughter's, preschool, your sorority, and a different way to bring memoirs together. You can make a list and not limit yourself based on how comfortable you feel about the outreach, because you don't know what's in their mind. They might think, gosh I'm so glad someone thought of us, because people don't normally. You usually get a yes when it's something new and interesting.

Deb Miller: 6:05

Start where you are and use what you have. You were so helpful to me when I was putting together my strategy for the book launch, Allison, because you told me to mix it up. You were the one that said, don't just sit down and talk to another author. If not that, that isn't sometimes ideal, but in general, mix it up, Deb, is what you told me. And so, I leveraged my academic, I teach at Purdue University full circle moment online from Seattle. But I tapped into my academic ties and put together a happiness panel out here in Seattle. So I had a University of Washington, we call it UDub. Professor who teaches a course on happiness in the psychology department. She joined me and Ronit Plank, who has let's Talk memoir podcast. And she's phenomenal. She happens to be based in Seattle. And she teaches a course of memoir at UDub. There were a lot of men that were engaged in this and students that came from University of Washington, but I credit you for that because you got me thinking out of the box. The focus was not on the book at this book launch. It was all about the science of happiness When I went on book tour in the Midwest, I paired up with a couple professors from Indiana University and the gender studies program, and they have recommended the book to be reading for their students. So again, start where you are. Use what you have. another one would be book mail. For ARC readers, I didn't just send out, here's the arc and here's a little bookmark in there. I sent out, forget me, not seeds. Because the title has, forget the fairytale in it. And I got more comments from people on that, those seeds.

Allison: 7:48

Unexpected. Memorable. A keepsake as well, because if someone's going to plant forget me not, they're going to think of you every time they bloom. You hadn't seen that done for a book launch, you took something that maybe you had seen somewhere else and you applied it to your book. And that's what a good marketer does. Don't look around to what other people are doing right next to you. Look at what works somewhere else. I want to just back up about these really interesting events. A book launch event is usually about why the book is important or why someone should read the book. And that's not a way to fill a room. It's a way to get people who already know about the book and like the book to be in the room. But even then, usually about 10% of the people in the room have read the book. 10%. And somehow authors miss that what they should be talking about are why the themes in the book are important. So, you took that bigger theme of happiness and you made that the discussion point.

Deb Miller: 9:01

Exactly. The book is about my journey of transformation from damsel in Distress to Warrior Princess. And I actually use the Disney princesses to kick off some cultural commentary The outcome of it that you helped me see was really getting back to what's the benefit to other people. And it is about inspiring them to redefine their own happiness, their own happily ever after. And so, happiness has taken over, but it was not the original plan. It's been a wonderful outcome, so thank you for that.

Allison: 9:35

Listen. The thing about memoir, and you know this is when you're writing it, you're writing a novel about yourself or what happened to you during a specific time. But the person who reads it, unless you're a celebrity, they don't care what happened to you. Your story is really a delivery of an experience through them watching themselves inhabit your body'cause that's what we do when we read. We feel like we are the protagonist and we are there with you. So, they're reading about themselves, finding happiness

Deb Miller: 10:13

Instead of waiting for Prince Charming to come and save the day. It's about finding yourself.

Allison: 10:19

And that that pursuit. That is really a life pursuit. That's what makes these conversations interesting to so many different types of people. what also is interesting to me about Your events they're so photogenic. Because you've got actors, mid scene. You're capturing a moment at a pub You're capturing these moments. that's your marketing asset for the next five years. And there are specific shots you need to get. In fact, I keep a checklist. You can go to my website, lane lit.com/checklist two and get my ultimate event photo checklist that whether it's your event or you are attending someone's event. Photos that you should get, there's a checklist. Choose three and just grab them because you will definitely use them.

Deb Miller: 11:14

No, you reminded me to do that upfront. I tried to follow the Allison formula for that, and I think it has paid off, especially on the social media side. And I do have a whole inventory of things to use. I wanted to touch upon what some other authors are doing. One of my friends wrote a book about sailing to Tahiti with her dad and sisters when she was age 14, and that's the name of the book, 14. Leslie Johansson Neck. While her book was about coming of age story, it was actually she tied into yacht clubs. And I think she went to more than a hundred yacht clubs up and down the Pacific Coast over here. So, the point is to think outside the box as you always encourage your authors to do, and getting eyes on your book in ways that you never would've imagined. I leveraged my students at Washington State University. I also teach an MBA marketing class there. Of course you do.

Allison: 12:06

They gave

Deb Miller: 12:07

me six interns. They gave me two last, a year ago in the fall. They gave me two in the winter and two in the spring. And they did things like create my book trailers. They got me going on social media. Wow. Library outreach. So, again, like tap into whatever resources you might have.

Allison: 12:26

People don't think of themselves as marketing people because they're an author or they're a psychotherapist, or they're a professor of ethics. They're not thinking, how do I get this out there? But if you're not a marketing person, you probably aren't going to come up with these ideas in a brainstorm of one by yourself. It helps to be around other people who can say, oh, I have to go. I'm going to be traveling because I'm going to Cannes. What? Why didn't we talk about that? Oh I've been asked to be on a panel. What, Deb, you have to tell me these things. That is crazy that we overlook the thing that we think is separate. But it's not separate because you are one person.

Deb Miller: 13:14

That's right. I'm surprised you remember that.

Allison: 13:16

This happens with every single person I work with. Oh, I didn't think that mattered because that was before, or I'm not doing that anymore. No, you were a major magazine editor of a women's magazine and now you do something else. But you did that for 25 years. Yeah. We're going to talk about it. The skill and the expertise comes with you, and sometimes you get opportunities because you're so different and It's easy to overlook those things.

Deb Miller: 13:45

So, we're not thinking of these things that we have the ruby slippers that you're not even aware of that could help you launch your book. So, back to your point about staying aligned with what you know, but thinking outside of the box about how can that low key tie in with your book. I think that's great advice.

Allison: 14:05

It's really a conversation about reinvention and identity. Because you've reinvented yourself multiple times to global marketing leader to professor and now author and your book has already won more than several awards and continues to gain momentum. So, when authors need to draw on their past experience to elevate their book's opportunity, but also their opportunity. What can they do? What would you tell someone to do today so that they're not starting from zero?

Deb Miller: 14:45

Number one, have you shake them up a little bit because you give tough love in your one-on-ones, which is what I benefited from. But I think they need to hold up the mirror and see what their strengths are. What they enjoy, because I would encourage everyone to have fun with this book launch It's whatever brings you joy and because this should be a fun process and it has been for me. It has been such a joy ride and I don't think it is for everyone. You have to take charge of your book launch. You have to take charge of your happiness.

Allison: 15:23

You do. You have to be in your own marketing director. I think what I see you doing though is that you are enjoying the whole ride. But a lot of people think of the book launch as one event. And then it's over, and then they think of it like a memory, like a birthday party. And it's not. The baby is born, but now it's it's every day, it's out there. And so, if you stop talking about it, no one's going to know about it. You have to keep talking about it and integrate the events about your book or about your opportunities into your life. And when you do that, it brings you joy. But if you look at it as an uphill climb, it's going to feel sweaty and painful.

Deb Miller: 16:15

Something you said. Gave me an idea I mentioned I had these students, these interns, that helped me out. It actually helped them out. It helped them out for their resumes. It helped them complete their degree requirement. They had to have an unpaid real world marketing experience before they can receive their degree. So, I was helping them fulfill that. But the point is that these things have legs and that's what you were reminding me of. So I did this with the students, but now Washington State put it did an article. It was written in the summer, but it just got sent out to all of their alumni. Obviously to encourage them if their business owners or to participate to have interns for this program as well. So, that's a great benefit for future students. But it highlighted these six students and my book, oh, and by the way. And then they posted it on LinkedIn back to that. So, who would think that this one little intern thing would keep having these legs?

Allison: 17:14

I want to talk about the difference between pitching an article of, Hey local author gets team of interns to help with book launch. That is not news because it gives nothing, no opportunity to the reader or local businesses, but local universities. Intern program is serving businesses in the community, and here's an example of one very newsworthy. Same benefit to you. In fact, a bigger benefit because more people will share the thing that has an opportunity for others instead of just wasn't Deb Miller's singular experience working with interns interesting? No, it's not because people are looking for what can I do?

Deb Miller: 18:14

That reminds me back at that happiness panel with the University of Washington, a couple authors asked me after that event, they was saying, this is like the best event I've ever been to. But did you feel bad, Deb, that the focus wasn't really about your book? And I said, no, you just told me like this was one of the best or the best event you've ever been to. And you could tell by the buzz in the room other people were feeling the same. And I had so many people tell me that afterwards. I was like a proud parent watching these other two talk about the science of happiness and the storytelling behind it.

Allison: 18:49

It just seems like one of the tennents of your activities is community building. And maybe that was a byproduct. But having people come and that there's a buzz and talking to each other, not just to you or not just about you is engaging. When people get the opportunity to come together they can walk away with understanding themselves and each other in a deeper way. Most bookstores don't have the room to host an event. And it is excruciatingly expensive for bookstores to stay open to host your event. And they hope that you do the marketing, but they have room for maybe 20 people. But when you have your event at a pub, or a yacht club or Dr. Mimi Zieman had her book launch at an REI because when she climbed Everest, she took gear from REI and they were more than delighted to host her book launch event. And it was packed. There had to be a hundred people there. The photos tell the story. You are giving people more and you can make a list from just this conversation about all the types of places. Even like a sorority conference. Sororities get together every year to have a leadership conference or women's leadership. That way people also don't feel like they're going to get pitch slapped and please buy the book. No one wants to be sold at. They want to be invited. They want to feel part of something. And that is good marketing. And it also makes you feel like you are part of something too. You're not there to shill. You can

Deb Miller: 20:45

give away the book at, if you buy a couple cases of your own book, it's only,$4 each or something. But you can give that away and put a little reminder in, please leave a review or whatever. If that's the behavior that you're trying to drive. But then you've got this ready audience of a hundred women at a luncheon that get this book, that get all excited about it'cause they're getting something for free and you get paid 2,500 just speak to the group. So, yes, it makes sense sometimes to just give away your book.

Allison: 21:16

Right. Because people love something that they can take away and that offers them an opportunity to feel like they live that adventure because they're always seeing it through their own experience.

Deb Miller: 21:30

So, for me, next steps would be targeting women's empowerment groups.

Allison: 21:34

Yeah. Deb, before we call this podcast complete, what is one step you want authors to take today who need to design their marketing efforts so that they feel fresh and full of purpose and true to themselves?

Deb Miller: 21:55

I think first of all, you need to be clear on what is your goal. Is your goal to sell books? Is your goal instead to build a business of which the books is just one piece of it And I think you need to know your customer. These are classic things that you and I did in the corporate world, right? But I think they apply to the whole book marketing piece. I will guarantee you that you will find happiness and you will have a successful book launch. And the other thing you really need to tie in with Allison. I'm not just saying this, I was recommending just somebody just last week. because you're overwhelmed at first when you're doing all this bookmarking. And there are just so many things. I wish I'd found you sooner. Because even though I am 20 years as vice president of corporate marketing communication for Fortune 500 companies, I still needed you to help me get my head on straight. You help me get back to the basics. And learn that what I did know from marketing could apply.

Allison: 22:54

Thank you Deb, so much for all of your words of wisdom and sharing all of the challenges too that go into this'cause you really are living this experience and holding up the measure of success is happiness. Are you enjoying this? If you're not enjoying your book launch? If it feels like a sweaty mess full of angst and anxiety, then that's going to come across too. Nobody's going to want your anxious book, no matter how important it is that it sell, or how important it is that they get the message that's in the book. They can't get the message unless it's from you'cause the book can't speak. The book can't invite people to events and build engagement. Only you can.

Deb Miller: 23:42

If you can forget what everybody else is doing or what the neighbor did, or the other author. Then, you can free yourself to go find your own happy book launch that is tailored just for you.

Allison: 23:55

I can't even follow that up with anything. That was amazing, Deb, thank you so much. And for you out there thinking maybe it is time to write my book. Yes, it is. Stop waiting. No one's going to do it for you. Your story, your message, your insight, it's needed in the world. And the only thing that happens if you wait is more time passes. And the person who needs your genius doesn't get it. They're still sitting, waiting, and they're hollering, hoping that you will hear their call. So, it's time to act. Get on it. If you need support, you know I'm here. At lane lit.com/ Allison, and you can find me right away. You can book a call with me and we can talk. Easy sneezy.