When Should You Start Marketing Your Book? The Answer Every Author Needs to Hear
As a former in-house book marketing manager, my answer to this question is always the same: yesterday.
But let me explain what I actually mean by that — because understanding when to start is only useful if you also understand what you're supposed to be starting. If you're still fuzzy on what book marketing actually covers, start here: What Exactly IS Book Marketing?
In the 15+ years I've worked in-house at Chronicle Books, HarperCollins, Hardie Grant, and Scholastic — and since then with authors and publishers independently — I've run into too many authors who thought that marketing and promotion was something they could ignore until their book was completely done. By the time they were ready to start, they were already behind.
The advice I share constantly with authors is this: book marketing should start the day you decide to write a book.
Here's why.
Building an Author Audience Is the First Step in Your Book Marketing Plan
The longest and most important part of marketing your book is finding your audience and earning their trust. This doesn't happen in a month. It doesn't happen during your launch week. It happens over time, through consistent presence and genuine connection — and it needs to start long before you have a book in hand.
Storytime: I worked with a cookbook author on his debut book. He had about 85,000 followers on Instagram when we first started working together — by no means a small following, but he wanted his book to compete with authors who had one million or more. So for the sake of this conversation, let's call it a moderate platform.
What set him apart wasn't the size of his audience. It was how well he knew them. He knew exactly what content they loved. He knew why people chose to follow him over other food creators. He knew which videos would take off. He knew this because he had spent real time looking at his analytics, engaging with his community, and actually talking to the people who followed him.
How did this pay off at launch? He created extraordinary hype around his book before it even came out. When he announced it, his preorders were phenomenal — enough to get serious attention from his publisher and earn him breakout title status. In his first year, he sold over 30,000 copies and got championed by major retailers including Barnes & Noble and Cost Plus.
Takeaway: Build your audience before you need it.
The time to start building is not two months before your on-sale date. Two months before launch, your subscribers should feel like they've been on the whole journey with you — like they were there when the idea was just a spark. That's what creates the kind of launch energy that actually converts.
If you're wondering whether you're already too behind, read this: Never Too Early: When to Start Marketing My Book as an Author
How to Build Your Authority Before Your Book Comes Out
One of the most powerful things any author can do before publication is become known as the expert in their specific area. Not a generalist. Not someone who covers a lot of ground. The person people think of first when a specific topic comes up.
When you're truly passionate about something, it shows — in how you talk about it, how often you can talk about it, and how naturally you answer questions about it. That passion is what builds credibility with your audience and with the media.
A doctor and professor I worked with was invited to do a TV segment on a very specific health topic. She prepared thoroughly and nailed it. She was asked back. And then again. And then again — to the tune of 300 appearances on TV and news segments. She did all of this before she even signed with a literary agent.
She didn't get 300 media appearances in a row overnight. She built up her presence gradually, proved she could explain complex topics clearly, and established herself as a reliable and credible source. By the time her book launched, she had a rich catalog of media clips — which is exactly why she was able to secure top-ten podcast appearances and coveted morning show spots. Producers already knew she could deliver.
Takeaway: Be known as the expert in your area before your book comes out. It's okay to start small.
You don't need to book a national TV segment to begin. You need to start showing up consistently, sharing your perspective, and demonstrating that you know your subject — whether that's through a newsletter, a podcast interview, a local event, or a social media presence that actually says something.
One important note: when you're building authority, it can feel like you're repeating yourself constantly. You're talking about the same topics, sharing the same ideas, answering the same questions. That's not a problem — it's the strategy. People need to encounter you and your ideas many times before they take action. Repetition isn't boring. It's how trust is built. And, its probably not the same people seeing all your content.
Struggling to find the time to show up consistently? This post has practical solutions: Is Book Marketing Always Stuck at the Bottom of Your To-Do List?
Why Starting Your Author Platform Early — Even Imperfectly — Is the Right Move
Every author with a strong platform started somewhere. The bestselling author’s accounts you follow, the authors whose launches look effortless — they all had a first post, a first email, a first event where almost nobody showed up.
Oprah started her career doing local radio before she had a daytime show, a magazine, or a media empire. Sara Blakely was selling fax machines before she built Spanx into a billion-dollar business. The beginning always looks smaller than where it leads.
A closer example: when Reese Witherspoon started her book club in 2017 with Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine, it was just that — a start. She kept sharing her picks. She kept talking about why she loved books. Over time, her club became one of the most influential celebrity book clubs in existence. Her picks now get front-table placement in bookstores, special editions, and often find their way into film and TV adaptations through her production company. She is now definitively known as a tastemaker in books — because she showed up consistently and kept going.
That's available to you too. Not the celebrity part necessarily — but the compounding effect of showing up consistently around a topic you genuinely care about.
Takeaway: Create the content and share the value you want to be known for. Even if no one is watching yet, keep going. Persevere.
The more you create, the easier it gets. The more you share, the clearer it becomes which angles and ideas really resonate with your audience. You learn by doing — and every piece of content you put out is data that makes the next one better.
Not sure where to start because the options feel overwhelming? This will help: Cut Through the Marketing Noise: How a Strategist's Guidance Beats Endless Online Searches
Book Marketing Is a Relationship-Building Strategy, Not a Sales Pitch
Here's something that trips authors up: they hear "book marketing" and think it means holding up their book and shouting "buy this." It doesn't.
Book marketing — at its core — is about creating genuine connection with readers. It's about understanding what they want to learn from you, what problems they're trying to solve, and what they need to trust you enough to buy. It's about building a community around your book and your message over time, not just at launch.
The authors I've watched build the most successful platforms and launches are the ones who focused on relationships first. Relationships with readers. Relationships with peers and other creators in their space. Relationships with media. Relationships with the communities their book is for.
You can't market in a vacuum. And you can't build relationships quickly — which is exactly why the time to start is now, not later.
Practically speaking, building relationships looks like: engaging with people in your community, responding to comments and messages, reaching out to someone you met at an industry event, sharing someone else's work because you genuinely think it's worth sharing, and showing up in the spaces where your readers spend their time.
If your following is 100,000 people or 100 people, start with who's already there. Engage with them. Be present for them. The number doesn't matter nearly as much as the quality of the connection.
Understanding the relationship between relationships and book sales is one of the most important things an author can do. Read more here: The $40,000 Mistake: Why Relationships (Not Algorithms) Actually Move the Needle for Authors
Your Book Marketing Strategy Starts Today — Here's How to Begin
The common thread running through everything above is time. Author platform building and book marketing take time — and the benefit of starting early is that by the time your book comes out, you'll know things that authors who waited simply don't know. You'll know exactly who to talk to. You'll know why your readers follow you. You'll know what content resonates and what falls flat. You'll know why you are the right person to deliver this book to this audience — and you'll be able to say it clearly, confidently, and in a way that converts.
Marketing yourself and your book is part of the publishing process. The sooner you accept that, the easier it becomes to start — and the earlier you start, the better your launch will be.
The best time to start was the day you decided to write a book. The second best time is right now.
Ready to figure out exactly where to focus your book marketing energy?
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