Introduction

“Talk about your book” is advice almost every author hears, but very few are told what it actually means.

For some, it turns into oversharing.
For others, it turns into constant selling.
For many, it turns into hesitation and silence, because nothing they try feels quite right.

This topic is about changing that.

Talk About Your Book is an exploration of how readers come to care, how timing and context shape connection, and why the words you choose matter just as much as when you choose to use them. It’s not about posting more, performing better, or forcing enthusiasm. It’s about learning how to speak about your writing in a way that feels natural, intentional, and sustainable over the long term.

Throughout this topic, we’ll focus on understanding the progression readers move through, how a book’s needs change over its lifetime, and how to turn ideas, themes, and moments from your writing into conversations instead of noise. We’ll also look at how to assess whether your efforts are working, without obsessing over numbers or burning yourself out.

No matter where you’re at in your journey, this topic is about helping you talk about your book in a way that supports both your creative energy and your future readership.

The main outcome goal is to learn how to talk about your book without sounding awkward, sales-y, or invisible.

You’ve poured your heart and soul into writing the book you wanted to write and share with readers, whether it’s your first or your tenth. This is a universal truth for authors. Each book is a piece of us, and we want to share it with as many readers as possible.

So, we’re told to talk about our books everywhere because if no one knows it exists, then it’s unlikely they’ll stumble across it and read it.

But this is where things start to fall apart. This is where authors feel out of their depth and don’t know what to do or where to start. The common statement being, “I’m an author, not a marketer.”

It’s understandable that authors default to this line of thinking. We live in a world of consumerism and capitalism. The art of getting people to read fiction has been lumped in with the conventional concepts of selling products. 

As the indie publishing space evolved and bloomed, business marketers saw opportunities to provide services and education to authors who believe that attracting readers means becoming a salesperson and writing compelling ad copy that sells. Some eyes turned to the big publishers to see what they do, and attempts are made to emulate their marketing strategies. Other eyes turned to the concept of online influencers and the success they’ve had in amassing large followings.

The conclusion being that compelling copy, running ads, and going viral are necessary evils that surely mean an ability to sell more books. Right? 

But does it?

Authors have come to believe that “talking about their book” means “trying to sell their book.”

But ask yourself this: when was the last time you enjoyed the process of someone trying to sell you something? Especially something you knew nothing about and weren’t even sure if you wanted it?

At the end of the day, authors don’t want to be marketers. Most of them hate the idea and process of trying to sell anything. 

So… stop selling.

Besides, nothing sells better than good stories.

This is great news, because: Authors are storytellers. 

And you know what? Storytelling has been around for much, much longer than modern sales tactics have been.

Something many authors aren’t aware of is that the world of marketing and selling has been trying to copy storytellers for decades. There are entire courses and programs provided to teach them how to tell stories. How to shape pitches around stories to make the pitch more compelling.

And yet, fiction authors are out there ignoring their inherent ability to tell stories and trying to figure out how to write sales pitches.

The reality is that the need to constantly sell is a misbelief that fiction authors who want to be successful need to unlearn.

You are not a publishing house mass-selling thousands of different book titles. You are not an influencer going viral on social media. Those are business models that do work for the businesses they’re meant to serve. But mass-selling products or going viral on social media is their business. It’s what they do.

You are an indie fiction author. You are a storyteller. Your goal is to get the right readers to read your books and fall in love with them. You’re not selling a product. You are selling an experience; an invitation into the world of your imagination. And to do that effectively, you need to lean into the storyteller you are, not the marketer you are not.

So, the advice is: talk about your book everywhere. And that advice isn’t wrong. What is wrong is what authors have come to believe that to mean.

Dropping the title, cover, blurb, and purchase link is not talking about your book. These aren’t the pieces that draw readers in and make them care. 

These pieces are important, but they’re the next step, not the first step readers need.

The first step is awareness, followed by interest.

Once people start to find you and see you, you need to be giving them something interesting to hold their attention (no, it’s not a sales hook) and a reason to stick around, which is then followed by a reason to care. Then, and only then, does the purchase link matter, and that’s when your digital infrastructure matters.

People aren’t not buying your books because they don’t know where to find them. 

People aren’t buying your books because they either don’t know about them or don’t care about them.

And storytelling is how you raise their awareness and get them to care.

This is what talking about your book actually means.

And this is what anti-marketing for fiction authors is all about.

What Talking About Your Book Means

You already know how to keep a reader turning pages.

You know how to plant curiosity, pace information, and make the next sentence feel inevitable.

So here’s the twist: that skill does not stop being useful when the book is finished.

One of the most common pieces of writing advice I’ve heard over and over is:

“What does the reader need to know right now?”

It’s advice given to reduce exposition, to prevent revealing too much too soon or too fast, and to prevent unnecessary info dumps. The point being to keep the reader engaged and wanting to keep moving forward through the story.

We’re also taught to make every word count. That each word should lead into the next word, sentence into sentence, paragraph into paragraph, etc. For the same reason: to keep them moving forward.

As an author, you know this. You weave mystery and intrigue into your writing, no matter what genre you’re writing. You tease and entice readers to keep turning the page, and to keep coming back for more of your books.

But this question isn’t just for prose. It’s also highly relevant in the visibility, marketing, and selling cycle of your book.

So, “What does the reader need to know right now?”

In the vast majority of cases it is not where to buy the book.

Storytelling vs Selling

Your books can sell themselves

The Stages of Reader Progression 

You wouldn’t expect a stranger to commit to a lifelong relationship five minutes after meeting you.

And yet, that’s often what authors unknowingly ask readers to do by asking them to buy a book before they have a reason to care about the book.

In this section, we’re going to look at the order in which readers come to care, why skipping steps creates discomfort instead of connection, and how understanding this progression changes the way your content lands.

This is where “talking about your book” starts to feel less like shouting into the void and more like inviting the right people in.

Let’s say you’ve just met someone you’re attracted to, which do you do first? Ask them to marry you or ask them to go on a date?

And no, we’re not talking about an extraordinary meet cute in a fantasy or romance novel.

It seems like a silly question right? (Hopefully haha)

A fantastic example of this is Episode 18 in Season 2 of New Girl where a famous football player, Jax, declares his love for Jess after very little time spent together. We can not only see her discomfort and hear her verbal expression of it, we can feel it.

When authors jump from the book is written to sell the book this is pretty much how they make their potential readers feel. In a best case scenario, the readers don’t react, they just ignore. They scroll past. They don’t call out the authors for trying to jump to the finish line from the starting gate. 

You might be tempted to argue that the best case scenario is when some of the more empathetic readers make a purchase in the name of supporting the author, but I’d disagree. Because it makes it a pity purchase which isn’t sustainable and can lead to false hopes.

Everything in life has a natural order of progression. You don’t win an olympic gold medal without putting in the time to train. You don’t earn someone’s trust without putting in the work to earn it. You don’t sell books without giving a reason for the reader to care.

And this is why most authors feel like they’re shouting into the void.

Fortunately, it’s a relatively easy fix. 

It comes down to understanding the progression that guides the right readers to the natural conclusion of buying and reading the book.

If you’ve done any research on conventional marketing you’ve probably heard all sorts of jargon around the customer journey and sales funnels. Some of which are mystifyingly complex. So, let’s break it down into three simple stages.

Stage 1: Awareness. This is where the discovery happens.

Stage 2: Interest. This is where the curiosity and connection happens.

Stage 3: Conversion. This is where the buying and reading decision is made.

I could teach you more advanced marketing jargon and complex funnels, but why? As a fiction author, you don’t need it to be any more complex than these three stages.

Keeping it simplified will also make it much easier for you to identify which stage the content you create is for.

One of the things authors struggle with, even with a simplified system of stages like this, is that there will always be readers sitting in different stages. So, logically speaking, why not just make sure that all content covers all three stages?

Because unfortunately, that’s just not how human psychology works, and it’s not how the algorithms work.

While I don’t encourage authors to chase the algorithm, I also don’t encourage them to actively work against the algorithm, if they’re using social media.

This means that every single piece of content you create should primarily be focused on one stage at a time. There may well be some subtle overlap, but there needs to be one focus. This provides clarity for the readers who encounter your content in any form. And it provides clarity to algorithms online, which many people don’t realize is necessary.

This is no different than focusing on one single ideal reader in order to reach far more readers.

It’s also no different than strong writing.

Specificity matters

All three stages are important, all the time. There will always be readers within each stage. But every reader will go through the progression of Awareness > Interest > Conversion.

Note, this isn’t about how fast they move through the progression. Some might do it in five minutes. But they all go through it.

Also remember that these stages describe how readers come to care. They’re not about what type of content you should be sharing on any given day. The ratio of the types of content you’re publishing will depend on what phase the book is in, which we’ll cover in the next section.

The Phases of a Book’s Lifecycle 

To be clear, asking for the sale isn’t the problem.

The problem is when it happens, and what gets skipped along the way.

In this section, we zoom out and look at your book as something that moves through distinct phases over time, and how those phases change what “talking about your book” should actually look like. This is where reader progression and book lifecycle meet, and where a lot of well-intentioned authors accidentally create burnout for themselves and resistance in readers.

Understanding this context is what allows you to shift focus without abandoning momentum, and it sets up the practical work we’ll be tackling.

So far I’ve emphasized the point that talking about your book does not mean trying to sell your book. So much so that you might be wondering whether the idea of asking for the sale is generally a bad thing (it’s not).

But the reason I’ve leaned so far away from the idea of trying to sell your book is because generally speaking, authors are doing it too much without a balanced ratio of the other types of content they need, and without consideration for what phase their book is in.

Fundamentally, there is nothing wrong with making it clear that you have a book available for purchase.

However, I will repeat once more that dropping the title, cover, blurb, and purchase link is not ‘talking about your book’. It’s important to understand that.

But before we get into the deeper details of what talking about your book actually looks like in practice I want to talk about the lifecycle of a book, which has four phases:

• Pre-launch
• Launch
• Post-launch
• Backlist 

In the previous section I covered the stages of reader progression, which are:

• Awareness
• Interest
• Conversion

The vast majority of the time, in the lifecycle of a book, the primary focus of your content should be on catering to the Awareness and Interest stages, regardless of which phase the book is in. This means when you consider the ratio of the content you’re creating, you should have much more content focused on Awareness and Interest than on Conversion.

The only time that ratio shifts is during a portion of the Launch phase of a book.

One thing to keep in mind is that the duration of each phase will vary from author to author and from book to book, as will the exact percentages of the ratio of types of content. Whether you’re releasing your first book or your tenth book is also relevant.

A special note about the Backlist phase

The Backlist phase trips up a lot of authors. They either neglect their backlist to the point that it becomes forgotten, or they continue posting too many conversion posts to the point of exhaustion. But your Backlist phase is more similar to your Pre-launch phase, and is more like being in maintenance mode.

Some key points to keep in mind:

The stages of reader progression and the phases of a book’s lifecycle are closely intertwined, and they set the stage for the next section which starts to dig into the heart of the topic of Talk About Your Book.

Turning Your Book Into Conversations

Up to this point, we’ve been building context. We’ve looked at the different stages of reader progression, the phases of a book’s lifecycle, and are very clear that talking about your book is not about trying to sell your book. Now we’re ready to see how all these pieces work together to turn your book into conversations that will generate awareness that leads to interest, curiosity and connection, which will convert readers into buying and reading your book.

In this section, we look at how these foundations translate into actual conversations. This isn’t about content ideas in isolation, but rather why certain angles work when they do, and how the same topic can serve different purposes depending on how it’s framed. This is where intention replaces guesswork, and where “what should I post?” starts to feel a lot less vague.

When I say “conversations,” I mean content that invites recognition, response, or reflection. Content that gives a reader a reason to think, oh, I’ve felt that, I like how this person thinks, or this sounds like something I’d want to spend time with.

These conversations might centre on you as the author, the kind of stories you tell, or the specific details of your book. How you phrase those conversations will depend on the reader stage you’re focusing on and the phase your book is in.

As a quick reminder…

Reader Progression:

• Stage 1: Awareness
• Stage 2: Interest
• Stage 3: Conversion

Book Lifecycle:

• Phase 1: Pre-launch
• Phase 2: Launch
• Phase 3: Post-launch
• Phase 4: Backlist

When you look at the content you’re creating through this lens, everything changes, because you see the purpose behind what the content is meant to do and the journey it’s meant to create. 

This is a big reason why random lists of content ideas generally fall flat. Take for example prompts around talking about your writing routine. They sound simple enough to create, but often when we actually write these posts they feel flat and they don’t always perform well.

It’s not that the topic of your writing routine is uninteresting, it’s that the timing and purpose of the content isn’t being considered intentionally.

It also doesn’t mean that certain topics are only relevant at specific times. Again, with the example of your writing routine, this type of content can serve different purposes such as:

• Building awareness (this person exists)
• Deepening interest (I like how they think)
• Supporting conversions (I want to support this work)

What changes is how you talk about the topic. And the same concept applies to every angle and aspect of your book and entire writing journey.

One of the most important points to remember is:

The Conversion stage only works because of the Awareness and Interest stages. It’s not a replacement for them.

This is why focusing too much on any type of messaging that is about buying or reading your book isn’t effective. Even non-selling conversions, like email signups or waitlists, are strongest when they’re built on real awareness and interest first.

The first step to fix this is to completely avoid any type of wording that even hints at asking someone to read, find, or purchase your book… for now.

We need to go extreme here in order to course correct or avoid the tempting, slippery slope of constantly telling people where to find our books.

So for every piece of content you create, always start without any mention of the where. It’s easy information to add when appropriate, but it’s harder to reframe content that was written with the intent to tell readers where to find it.

The important question is, “Why?”

Think about the process of your writing. The golden question for shaping a story is, “What if?”

For your visibility and marketing content, the golden question is, “Why?”

How the book’s lifecycle phase changes things

While the ratio of the type of content you focus on shifts throughout the phases of a book’s lifecycle, that’s not the only difference there is.

Another shift happens with the type of language you’re using with each topic and most authors miss a huge opportunity here.

🦋 Quest Time! 🦋

Your Quest Tasks:

Which phase are you in?

Brainstorm topics

Reader Progression Stage 1: Awareness Content

In this stage, awareness will split between you as the author and the kind of story you’re creating. Awareness content creates signals that say, “Hey, I exist,” and “this is the type of experience I’m building.” But with context that’s relevant to your ideal reader, in a way that would be interesting to a stranger.

Awareness-focused conversation angles might include:

🦋 Quest Time! 🦋

Choose a topic

Writing your content

Reader Progression Stage 2: Interest content

Interest focused content will also split between you as the author and the story you’re creating, but it goes deeper. It moves beyond signals and invites the reader to lean in, either toward the meaning behind your work or toward the emotional layers of your story. For this content you want to think in terms of themes, tropes, character dynamics, emotional stakes, as well as deeper insight into your journey as a writer, such as evolving beliefs or creative decisions. 

Interest-focused conversations might explore:

🦋 Quest Time! 🦋

Reader Progression Stage 3: Conversion content

So we can see and understand what Awareness and Interest content should look and feel like. But what about Conversion content?

Conversion content is about letting readers know that there’s a next step. Sometimes it might be explicit, but most of the time it’s simply about showing them where the path is in a way that feels clear rather than pushy.

Despite the temptation, you still don’t want this content to feel like, “Buy my book.” Which means avoiding constant or premature asks, including repeated pushes to join your newsletter.

A note of clarification here… references to messaging feeling like asks to, “Buy my book,” are a generalization. Much like the writing advice to, “Kill your darlings.” This advice isn’t literal. It’s not telling you to kill off characters in your sweet romance. It’s telling you to let go of what’s unnecessary.

In marketing, when we talk about content that’s focused on, “Buy my book,” we’re referring to anything that is a direct “ask” for an action you want a reader to take. Even asking for reviews too aggressively falls into this category.

The good news is that with your Awareness and Interest posts doing their jobs well, if you set up your digital infrastructure well, it’ll do most of the heavy lifting for you.

We’ll dive into the details of your digital infrastructure during a separate topic, but think things like: website, reader magnet, email list, bios, bio links, pinned posts.

This allows your Conversion content to focus on providing a clean and clear signal without being pushy or repetitive. Especially if you post on social media, since including links more often than not reduces visibility.

Conversion-oriented conversations usually center on:

🦋 Quest Time! 🦋

Peek Into The Future

Creating content for the current phase you’re in is typically an easier starting point, but if you wait for each phase it can start to feel like you’ll always be creating content.

So, this Quest is about shifting your focus forward into the next phase so you can start prepping content in advance and never feel behind.

🦋 Quest Time! 🦋

Phase Content Reference Guide

There are many different angles you can take when it comes to talking about your book. While I’ve covered the framework concepts thoroughly throughout these materials, this is one of those topics that benefits from having a dedicated reference point.

Talking about your book isn’t a one-and-done skill. It shows up in almost every piece of content you create and every conversation you have. It’s layered. It evolves. And it’s something we’ll continue to practice through the Content Creation Quests as well.

This section isn’t about giving you prompts, scripts, or formulas. It’s about giving you clarity. It’s a structural lens to give you a reference guide you can return to whenever you’re creating content, shifting phases, or feeling unsure about what a particular piece of content is meant to do.

The goal is to help you see the landscape more clearly and to help you understand the role your content is playing.

Content Types by Reader Stage

How Content Shifts Across Book Phases

Topic Example: Relationship dynamic at the heart of the story

Examining Wording Workshop Recording

Now that you’ve spent some time learning about the stages of reader progression, the role the current phase of your book plays, and have practiced with some of your own language around different types of content, let’s take a look at a handful of actual posts and comments by real authors to analyze wording for what works, what doesn’t, and why.

The point of this analysis is to consider how wording choices might land with strangers who know nothing about the author or book they’re referring to. This isn’t about right or wrong, and it’s not about whether a particular post might go viral. Any content we create, or speak, in public spaces will be received and interpreted by a stranger. The goal is to reflect on wording choices, from the perspective of a stranger, to see what type of work they may or may not be doing.

We look at this content through the lenses of Awareness, Interest, and Conversion as covered in detail throughout the previous sections in this topic. 

For simplicity, I’m using screenshots of social media posts. But the concepts discussed also apply to the verbal conversations we have about our book and writing journey.

[ ▸ ] Video Walkthrough

How to Answer “What’s your book about?”

This is probably the biggest question that trips authors up. Which is why I’ve created a separate bonus piece of content specifically for this one question. It’s a question that will come up in all stages and phases of your journey, and your answers will change based on where you’re at in the process.

This seemingly simple question tends to make us freeze and causes our tongue to twist into knots. 

The main reason is a lack of intentional practice. So, yes, the key to getting good with answering this question is to practice. Lots. By yourself, when you’re driving or in the shower, in front of a mirror, voice record yourself, and with a trusted friend or family member who is supportive.

But it starts with knowing what to practice.

Every situation you’re in when this question comes up will be different. And each person who asks it will be looking for different information. So this isn’t about practicing a polished elevator pitch you recite from memory. It’s about building a repertoire of snippets, anecdotes, and mini-stories that you can tap into and adapt in any situation. 

Questions to help how you think about this information

Don’t Obsess Over Data But Track It

At some point, everyone asks the same question:

Is this actually working?

In this section, we step away from dashboards and daily fluctuations and look at what real progress looks like when you’re building visibility over time.

This isn’t about ignoring numbers, and it’s not about tracking everything either.

It’s about understanding which signals matter first, which ones take time, and how to evaluate your efforts without burning yourself out or losing trust in the process.

So, before you go rushing off to check your sales dashboards… stop.

Your actual sales are what’s called a lagging indicator in the vast majority of your visibility efforts.

That means that the work you do today won’t be reflected in your numbers until some time in the future, and most often you won’t have a clue when those numbers are going to show up.

Even if you run a very specific sale today, for 24 hours, the numbers you see at the end of 24 hours are not the whole picture of the success of that sale.

In business, this is where marketing and sales departments come to blows, and the C-Suite teams are often clueless. Maybe not all of them, but it’s pretty common for them to be more focused on trackable numbers in the moment.

Businesses are all about the bottom line. The trackable conversions. The immediate ROI (return on investment). And it creates the biggest blindspot.

Marketing is a long game. Especially when your marketing relies heavily on publicity and visibility. Which, as an indie fiction author, it does.

You’ve undoubtedly heard that it takes multiple touch points before a prospect turns into a customer, or some variation of that. This has even been translated into how many hours of watch time someone needs to participate in before they’ll make a purchase.

But before you break out the spreadsheets and try to track that kind of information… well, just don’t. It’s not that this information isn’t useful, it’s that you’re a fiction author who ideally wants to spend more time writing than doing anything else.

Analyzing these types of metrics will burn through your time and energy so fast.

You’re far better off having a bit of faith and understanding that there will be no one piece of content, one interview, or one appearance that is going to be “the one” that makes the difference. It all matters. It all works together. It all compounds, over time.

And it does take time.

That doesn’t mean you don’t pay attention. It means you want to protect your time and energy and assess your efforts intentionally, objectively, and not every day. 

But also, give yourself a bit of grace when a new piece of content pops off a bit, and you get excited, and you refresh the stats every few minutes. Because sometimes that realtime growth is fun and rewarding too.

It’s just not all there is to it. And a bad day, week, or month isn’t as devastating as it may feel like in the moment.

Collect now, analyze later

Which signals matter first

Talk About Your Book Cheatsheet

The purpose of this topic has been to help you learn how to talk about your book without sounding awkward, sales-y, or invisible.

The level of detail covered in each tab provides insights and perspectives you may not have previously considered. It’s information that once you’ve learned it, you don’t need to keep revisiting deep-dives about it. But we all need reminders from time to time.

This section serves to distill down the key points worth remembering, that you can use as a refresher, and to gather the Quests into an ongoing action plan you can use over and over. The in-depth materials will always be there for you to refer back to as needed.

Talk About Your Book Quests