Build An Author Brand Without Burnout

Burnout isn’t a badge of honor. It’s a sign your message is working too hard without a clear promise behind it. We sit down with publishing veteran Stephanie Moon to map a calmer, smarter path to author visibility—one built on trust, clarity, and sustainable habits rather than trend chasing.

Across 15 years in marketing and publicity, Stephanie has watched great books stall because nobody knew they existed and brilliant authors hide behind vague pitches. Together we break down how to start building your brand the day you decide to write, why you—not a niche or a single topic—are the differentiator, and how to translate your expertise into a one‑sentence promise readers can repeat. You will hear a candid benchmark for social conversion, the real role of email, and a case study of a debut cookbook that sold 30,000 copies by pairing genuine enthusiasm with a warmed‑up community.

We also dig into practical systems: a weekly content rhythm that compounds, how to repurpose one cornerstone piece into email and social without sounding robotic, and why repetition is persuasion, not laziness. Stephanie makes a compelling case for storytelling as your moat in the age of AI—specific moments, clear arcs, and takeaways that make your frameworks unforgettable. Finally, we compare traditional and self‑publishing tradeoffs so you can choose the path that fits your capacity and goals.

If you’re ready to sell more books with less noise—and protect your creative energy while you do it read more here.

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Transcript

Meet Stephanie And Her Background

Jenny 0:35

So many authors burn out just trying to constantly make themselves visible. Posting on platforms, constantly writing. It leads to burnout. Today we're actually having a conversation on how you can make sure that you build your author brand so that you can be visible. Hi, Stephanie. How are you? Good. How are you, Jenny? Very good, thank you. I am super excited about this conversation on building an author brand without burning out. But before we actually jump into that, can you introduce yourself and your business to my audience?

Stephanie 1:12

Yes, of course. So I am Stephanie Moon, and I've worked in traditional publishing for over 15 years. So a little bit dating myself. But I have always worked in the marketing and publicity department. And as many people know, publishing departments are like really lead. And so because of that, I got to work on a lot of different projects, all aspects of marketing and publicity. I got to work on New York Times bestsellers, called the Call Honor, series, everything you could imagine. And then I took a little break. And then when I started my consulting business, I really wanted to help authors know how to market. Because I had so many instances where authors would say to me after their book came out, like, why is nobody buying it? Is my book bad? And I'm like, no, I'm like, just nobody knows about your book. It's not bad. It's great, in fact. But you need to be the like selling your book. You need to be telling people about your book. That's the best thing you can do as an author. And so I've built my business around that because authors put in so much time and effort to make their book. But then when it comes to like marketing, a lot of times it falls flat because one, they don't know that they have to do it. And then two, once they figure it out, they don't know what they're supposed to do.

Why Visibility Feels Overwhelming

Jenny 2:34

Yes, absolutely. Perfect. So that lends itself nicely into some of the questions I have for you. So why do so many authors burn out why trying to build visibility?

Stephanie 2:47

So, okay, building visibility, I feel like is such a big term. And people burn out because they don't know what that means and then how to do it. So, you know, a lot of times visibility for people can be like growing your platform, which is great, but I think that sometimes people or authors don't really know what that means. So they like chase trends, they try to do what everybody else is doing, they try to, you know, do stuff that is like, you know, like fine, but maybe not really growing their audience, not really building that trust, right? So for me, how I talk about um, you know, your platform is that your platform in publishing is like one of the only things that you can control, right? Especially in traditional publishing. And because of that, you want to put your best foot forward. And then also use that as a way to build your relationships with people, right? Um, and that just takes a lot of effort and time. So people burn out because they're trying to do things like make get ready with me videos, but like, and it's fun and fine to watch, but that's not necessarily maybe like building trust with the people that you want to be. Um, and so that's why they burn out. They're just trying to do everything when you don't need to do everything. You just need to do a few things really well.

Start Your Brand On Day One

Jenny 4:07

Okay, so at what point should someone think about building a brand versus just writing? Because I think that that's a big piece of it, right? We think visibility seems like it's kind of the unwavering gray area, but when you actually have a brand to stand behind, it can clarify things.

Stephanie 4:24

So for me as a marketing person, I say to people, my ideal time would be the the moment you decide to write your book, you're starting to build your brand. You're starting to build your community, right? And I have so many examples of people, you know, authors that I I've worked with that have spent time just building that community before. You know, maybe they always dreamed of writing a book, um, but they didn't, you know, they weren't maybe actively working on the book part, the proposal, the um, the manuscript, etc. But then they were actively building that community and building that trust. And so since they did that before, when their book actually came out, they sold a lot more books than somebody who didn't do that, right?

Jenny 5:06

Yes.

Stephanie 5:07

And so I say right away, right? Having your brand, starting to build that, it takes time. And writing your book takes a long time for sure, right? But that's only half the process. The other half of the process is marketing and selling and promoting.

Jenny 5:23

Yes. And when you have that brand, it gives you content and a direction in order to build that visibility, in order to attract the right audience that is meant for the book. I think that that is often what I see people missing on is that they'll create content trying to become visible. And like you said, it's like a get ready with me, which has nothing to do with the book that they are writing and doesn't make any sense.

Stephanie 5:47

Right. And so your platform is about building trust, right? And building that relationship. And it takes a long time to build trust, especially right now with like so much AI slop, so much like uh we're bombarded with messages, right? Messages and ads.

You Are The Brand

Jenny 6:04

Yes, absolutely. So, should authors build around a niche, a message, or their personality? Is there one that you would recommend over the other?

Stephanie 6:13

So I say that, you know, I've seen authors um through their career, right? And every book is a little bit different. So you are the brand, right? Because you, as the author, are the differentiator, you know, and that's what I tell my clients a lot is like, you know, there a lot of times authors will say to me, like, well, why does anybody want to hear what I want to say? Why does anybody want to read my book? You know, they have that imposter syndrome, right? So then I say to them, like, people want to read it because they want to know about you, right? Your experience, your background, your past, your history, right, is all unique to you. So the way you present your recipe, your framework, your whatever is different than somebody else. But that switch of thinking, acknowledging and knowing that you're the brand can be kind of hard.

What Actually Moves The Needle

Jenny 7:05

Yes. But also, I feel it's so necessary. Building that personal brand can make things much simpler than anything else, because then it lends to your personality and it can lend to your past experiences, showing your expertise. Exactly. Exactly. So, what marketing activities actually move the needle for authors?

Stephanie 7:28

So I would say the most annoying answer ever is it depends, right? So, like if your book is coming out next month, what will help is different than if your book is coming out 10 months from now, right? And every book and author are really different. So that's how, you know, um, that's how I really work with my clients because it's you can't use a cookie cutter kind of marketing plan to get where you need to go. Um and so sorry, it's I can't I can't really answer that, right? That's like so annoying for for everybody here. But I think things to remember that apply to everybody are that being consistent matters, right? Showing yourself, right? Building that brand. And then also being repetitive is okay and needed. You know, that's um people need that repetition just to see the same message over and over again before they do something, right? It's not that the first time you show your book, some people might buy it, but not everybody. And you need to just keep reminding them until they're in a space where they remember that you have a book and are ready to buy it, right? Because sometimes people are looking at social, looking at email, doing whatever, in line at the grocery store, waiting in the pickup line for their kids while they're watching TV. So you need to keep um reminding them, telling them you have a book and that you're here to help them.

Repurposing Content The Smart Way

Jenny 8:56

Perfect. So a lot of my listeners are already creating content, whether it is on a website, through blog, um, a podcast, YouTube, whatever that might look like for them. How can authors repurpose content to avoid constantly creating from scratch?

Storytelling As Your Edge

Stephanie 9:13

I love that question because repurposing and is great because it's again going back to that repetitive, right? You need that repetition. And I think you can do it in so many different ways, right? So a blog post can become an email. An email can be broken up into a lot of different social posts. But I think also what it does is if you're already creating content, you can already see what really resonates with your audience. You can see what people respond to, right? And then expand on that, you know. So um it's okay and even suggested to use your content again. Use it in different formats, right? Um, and I guess how that looks will also depend on what you're already creating. Okay, that makes sense.

Jenny 10:00

So now let's say, for example, someone comes, they have an idea for a framework, they know that it's perfect for their audience, they've already created that content. But what they are finding is that they are struggling in order to be able to figure out if storytelling needs to be an important piece of showing and teaching. And the reason I asked this question is because I am currently reading stories that stick, I had to go back to her title, um, by Kendra Hall. And she talks a great deal about storytelling. And I'm reading it really right now because of AI. We all are hearing there's so much AI slop out there, you know, you there's so much content out there, and the way in which to differentiate in my mind is storytelling.

A Debut Cookbook Success Story

Stephanie 10:53

Exactly. I agree. So people remember stories, right? So, you know, um that just resonates with them, and it's hard for AI to tell that, right? And again, also nobody has the same stories as you, right? So it's kind of like um, okay, so a story about an author that I can tell that I bet your readers will remember is that I worked with an author on his debut book. It was a single subject, smaller book, right? So it wasn't like a huge $45 book, so smaller book. And um, previous to launching his book, he had spent um, you know, quite some time working on building his platform, working on building his community. And then he got this book deal, and he was so genuinely excited about his book. Every time he talked about it, everybody could just like feel that joy um and that authenticity basically coming from him that they were so excited. I mean, it was a great book too, but um his readers and followers really supported him. So when he announced, he um had 300 pre-orders within a couple of days. That's great. And then he um in his first year sold 30-ish, thousand copies um and had four or five print runs, right? And that's a lot, just for um listeners who might not know. That's a lot of books. And then because of his enthusiasm and because he had the support of his publisher and the marketing team and the sales team, because we could see that he was willing to do the work and was already doing the work, you know, of getting people excited, getting people on board to buy his book. So he was um national retailers um wanted to like share his content on their blog and email list. Um, and that's like very uncommon, right? So that was a big win. He got national placement at different like specialty stores, and even the year his book came out, um, he was the only cookbook on the Barnes and Noble, like best book of the year list, right? That's a lot for this debut, I mean, kind of a known author, right? But that's because he had spent that time building the his community and he knew also how to activate them, right?

Audience Size Vs Engagement

Jenny 13:13

Yes. So going to that, do you feel like there is a certain number, email subscribers, community size that someone may need? Again, I know it's going to depend upon niche because someone that's speaking for very something very niche is doesn't need as large of an audience necessary, like let's say treasure hunting, for example, um, as compared to someone that's like doing a recipe book. But is there like do you would you recommend that if someone is publishing a book that they have an email list and and of what certain size?

Stephanie 13:49

So I don't have a certain number because there's definitely lots of authors that get book deals with traditional publishers and they have very small um platforms, right? I think looking at the engagement, how are people interacting with you is more important than the size, right? Because we've all heard those stories of, you know, influencers have millions of followers who can't sell t-shirts, can't, you know, they have a brand, some consumer brand, and they can't sell anything, right? It's because people don't want to buy from them, you know, people they haven't built that trust. Um, but I will say the publishing benchmark is of your social following, only one to two percent will buy your book. So that's something. I mean, email obviously has um a higher conversion, um, but social is a small, like kind of piece of the picture. Yes.

Jenny 14:45

Oh, I would 100% agree. As someone that works with clients that have their own products and services, that is a large part of my message, is they don't waste a ton of time on social media because they don't want people going off platform to go and purchase things. And it is, it's because it's so low, such a small percentage.

Sustainable Weekly Rhythm

Stephanie 15:02

And I and I think you know, social does have a place, right? It's definitely where you nurture people, right? Where people can keep up with what you're doing. It's easy to post an Instagram story of like, hey, today I'm doing blah, blah, blah, whatever. And that gets, you know, that keeps you in front in front of the people you want to be, and it keeps you like keeps them remembering you. But it's not necessarily the best way to sell. Right. Yes, you know, 100% makes sense.

Jenny 15:33

So, what does a sustainable weekly rhythm look like for an author building a brand?

Get Proof Of Concept

Stephanie 16:37

Again, it depends where they are, right? So it depends also how used to creating content and being visible they are, you know. So I'm, for instance, I'm working with an author who is working, um, their first book is coming out in June. Um, so you know, they're still a few months out, but they're used to being really visible. What they're doing is um trying to connect all those dots in the background, right? Like they know a lot of people, they've built a lot of trust, both in person and online. So now they're trying to capture that into pre-orders. How can they partner with these people to build more visibility, right? And so that's, you know, for one person. But then I'm also like working with an author that is not used to being visible and have their books already out, um, but want to just be you want to um keep promoting those kind of like backlists. And so we're just working on, hey, you need to try to show yourself a little bit more, right? I mean, like the best thing that I think authors can remember are that people are really nosy. People just want to know like all about you, your business, your book, right? And they want to see that process, right? Because 81% of Americans want to write a book or think they have a book in them, right? But how many actually really do it? I think it's something like 2%, right? So people are very interested in the process. Um, so you can share that as part of kind of building your um trust, right? And building that visibility. Um, so I would just say it really again depends. Depends on where you are, you know, and depends on what you have capacity for. Because I also, when I work with authors, am very aware of burnout, right? Like I don't want you to be everywhere, do everything right now, and then burn out. Like once your book comes out, you're like, I cannot write another Substack post, I cannot do another interview. I don't want that, right? It's marketing is like the long game, right? It's like continually doing a like a little bit every day.

Jenny 18:45

Yes, it builds over time, it's never immediate gratification. Yes, right, it'll build over time. If you were to give someone who feels they have a book inside of them um one piece of advice to take, to get started, to get it out, what would it be?

Nail Your One‑Sentence Pitch

Traditional Vs Self‑Publishing Realities

Stephanie 19:06

Ooh, I love it. And you know, nobody has actually really asked me that question, and I think it's that you should begin to get proof of concept that like people want this so good information, right? Whatever it is, or they want to hear your story, they want your framework because I think you know, and it's really breaks my heart, like sad when people don't know how to talk about the value they're giving their reader in the book, right? And so, for instance, I worked with an author that got a huge deal, um, had like a multi-six figure deal with a huge publisher because they had a piece go viral in the New York Times and they had been writing for a long time. Anyways, great. So I'm so excited to work with this author. On our first call, I'm like, So tell me about your book. Like, who do you think it's for? And like, what do you think they're really getting out of it? Then I was so surprised. I listened to five minutes of like, so I started this blog when my kids were five, now they're 12. And I just I was like, I can't understand this. Who, who is this for, right? And um I was just surprised by that. And it was very hard for them to understand how to talk about their book and the value, right? They were too um in themselves, right? Too, I don't think shy is the right word, but just didn't know how to articulate. Like, hey, this is for somebody who wants to build really strong relationships with their partner so they have a joyful family life, right? Um, and so I was like, you know, people are gonna lose you, you know. Think about like a this is a very old like example, but like think about a cocktail party. If somebody says, What's your book about? You cannot tell them a five-minute story. It needs to be like one or two sentences, and you want them to walk away thinking like, oh, that book would be great for my, you know, best friend's husband or uncle friend, you know, whatever. Um and it was such a struggle, and it just reminded me that even if you've been writing a long time and you get a book deal, you still need to work on those right, like foundational pieces. Because once you have that, everything feels easier because you know right away, who are you writing for? What are they gonna get from this? Why do they want my book versus also just continuing to follow me online, on Substack, on Medium, listen to my podcast, right?

Jenny 21:47

Mm-hmm. Yes, 100%. We talk about that so much. It's that elevator pitch. I know what you were saying when you say it seems old when you talk about like a cocktail party, but it's so true. You want to be at the pickup line and for another mom to come and say, Hey, what do you do? And you're able to articulate, I wrote this book that does ABCD, and this is what the transformation is that comes from it and why it's important.

Stephanie 22:11

Because also what I say to authors is the way you talk about your book is the way other people are gonna talk about your book. So it's like, you know, in traditional publishing, I've seen authors say something or write something in an email, in a whatever, in a in their book proposal, and their editor literally, because it was so good, swipes that and uses it in their product copy, right? So literally the way you talk about it is how other people will. And if you're unclear about who your book is for, nobody else will know because nobody else is gonna spend that time like digging in, trying to figure out like, oh, who is this for? Is it for me? Is it for a mom that's like, you know, doesn't know how to cook or what. Don't want to organize, you know, it's just um, you have to be very clear.

Jenny 23:01

Yes. We talk about this all the time. So I love that you brought this back up, especially when it comes to a book, because it is, it can often feel like another child, you're birthing when you write a book. It's a lot of time and a lot of effort, and it's part of you. So knowing what you're going, getting yourself into and how to make sure it is set up so that it's going to do well when you go to market is so important.

Mini Momentum Calls Offer

Stephanie 23:25

Yes. It is like a baby because it takes time, right? Like if you're going, you know, the traditional route, even if you sign a book deal tomorrow, you're still 18 months out from when your book is on the shelf, right? That's longer than being pregnant, you know? And if you're self-publishing, you know, you control the timeline, but also you control everything else. And I think that's also the part that authors um kind of like don't know or don't remember, or just it just completely like doesn't occur to them, I think, is that if you self-publish, you are you have to basically become an expert in every part of the publishing process, right? Whereas if you go with a traditional publisher, they have experts that work in that building, right? Or work on their on your book, right? Expert designers, expert um production people, expert logistics, expert publicists, right? And so um, yeah, there's there's a difference.

Jenny 24:27

I mean, that's the main difference, I think. Yes, no, absolutely. So tell me about your mini momentum calls that you're offering to my audience. There's only three of them that we're offering up, but tell them what they can expect.

Stephanie 24:39

Okay, so my mini momentum call is something that I just started in the fall because I just wanted to give people an opportunity to just sometimes just they have one question, it's like burning inside them, right? And they want to ask. And so it's a 20-minute call, all strategy. I, you know, um, you have fill out a form before our call so I can get some info so we're not wasting time. And then we just like dive right in to the question and how um to get you to that next step, right? To get you moving, to get you um further along to where you want to be, right? And so I'm offering three free calls um as like a thank you for having me, and just use the code PTP2026 um on my website. And so I'm excited to talk to your listeners.

Jenny 25:32

Yes, us as well. I'm excited for them to be able to take advantage of it. We will make sure that that um code as well as link is in the description so that y'all can make sure that you grab it. Stephanie, I appreciate you so much for taking the time to speak with me and my audience.

Stephanie 25:45

Yes, thank you so much, Jenny. Of course.