Stop Guessing, Start Selling: Positioning Your Book for Real Traction

Book Marketing Tips and Author Success Podcast

Book Marketing Tips and Author Success Podcast
Stop Guessing, Start Selling: Positioning Your Book for Real Traction
Dec 05, 2025 Season 5 Episode 48
Penny C. Sansevieri & Amy Cornell Author Marketing Experts

Tired of shouting into the void with a book you believe in? We unpack a simple, proven path to clarity that makes every marketing move easier and cheaper: find your shelf, define your reader, and deliver the payoff your genre promises. Penny Sansevieri and Amy Cornell pull back the curtain on what actually drives sales velocity for authors—clear positioning, focused targeting, and small, high-impact pivots that align your book with how readers shop.

We start by grounding your work with “shelf neighbors,” those three to five titles your ideal readers already love. From there, we build a one-sentence reader statement that communicates value at a glance and respects genre expectations. You’ll hear how a smart subgenre pivot turned a stalled romance into a winner, why “my book is for everyone” is the most expensive mistake in publishing, and how to turn your unique elements into crisp marketing hooks that get clicks, not shrugs.

For nonfiction writers, we dig into articulating outcome-driven benefits that media and influencers can immediately pass on to their audiences. For fiction authors, we show how to pair familiarity with freshness—a recognizable promise with a distinct twist—using comps that do the heavy lifting on retail pages, ads, and pitches. Throughout, we emphasize that marketing can sharpen and amplify, but it can’t invent a market where none exists. That’s liberating: focus on fit first, then flourish with confident messaging, right-sized keywords, and cover cues that signal the right story to the right people.

Ready to stop guessing and start gaining traction? Listen now, craft your one-sentence reader statement, and text us your top targeting question. If this episode helps you refocus your book’s positioning, share it with an author friend, subscribe for more practical strategies, and leave a quick review so we can reach more writers who need it.

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Episode Artwork Stop Guessing, Start Selling: Positioning Your Book for Real Traction 41:40 Episode Artwork Book Marketing Without Burnout: Do Less, Reach More Readers 46:06 Episode Artwork The New Media Strategy Every Author Needs Now 25:20 Episode Artwork The Marketing Shift You Can't Afford to Ignore 1:08:19 Episode Artwork Amazon’s A10 Shift: The Real Reasons Your Book Isn’t Selling (and How to Fix It Fast) 37:18 Episode Artwork How To Slay Book Marketing Nightmares Before They Scare Off Readers 31:13 Episode Artwork Make Your Book Unforgettable: Creative Ways to Wow Reviewers 40:04 Episode Artwork The Data-Driven Author: The Real Secret Behind Author Success 39:19 Episode Artwork Smart Pre-Order Strategies for Authors Who Have Little or No Following 42:36 Episode Artwork Trophy Hunting for Authors: The World of Book Awards 17:29 Episode Artwork Navigating Kindle Unlimited's Page Read Decline 30:06 Episode Artwork Hook, Line, and Bestseller: The Art of the Elevator Pitch 33:41 Episode Artwork The Hollywood Blueprint: Creating a Film-Ready Book 33:05 Episode Artwork The Great Author Central Lockout: Amazon's Latest Frustration 24:09 Episode Artwork Your Newsletter Is Worth More Than Your Social Media Followers 48:16 Episode Artwork Goodreads Evolution: Amazon's Game-Changing Integration 38:53 Episode Artwork Broke the Marketing Bank But No Sales? Here's Why! 5:53 Episode Artwork The Amazon Sledgehammer: How One Author Lost Everything Over Metadata 32:10 Episode Artwork Your Book Isn't Enough: How to Develop a Platform Media Responds To 35:41 Episode Artwork Selling Cats to Dog People: Your Amazon Ad Comedy of Errors 34:29 Episode Artwork Christmas in July: Why Authors Need to Prep Now for Holiday Sales 17:36 Episode Artwork Beyond Boredom: Your Book Could Be Every Parent's Summer Solution 21:32 Episode Artwork From Beach Reads to Bestsellers: Marketing Your Book in Summer 21:51 Episode Artwork The Author's Identity Crisis: Why Brand Marketing Matters More Than You Think 25:37 Episode Artwork The Pay-to-Play Dilemma: Paying for book reviews & coverage 34:59