Book Marketing Archives | Jennifer Lancaster

July 13, 2026

How I Turned My Book Into a Lead-Generation System

Like me, you may have already written a book and be wondering where those readers are…? You might also want to know how to turn visitors into buyers. This is how a method/insider story/creative how-to book is your calling card to new clients. Despite what everyone reckons, Amazon and LSI/Ingram are not that good for your service business. Incidental passersby are unlikely to go straight to buy your book anyway, so your TikTok, Reels, Blogs, or Newsletter has probably convinced them to buy it. Why then are you giving over your new readers to a corporate behemoth in exchange for $2.50-$4 in most cases? ____ Lightning Source International is a massive, global print-on-demand (POD) and distribution company owned by the Ingram Content Group. It is the publishing industry’s leading POD provider, operating a global digital library of millions of books…

April 3, 2026

Book Marketing

Going Beyond the Book, with Indie Movies

Creatorwood is a platform that turns books, scripts, and any written story into movies with AI. The ‘Movie Machine’ integrates with the top AI video, image, audio, and storytelling models to help transform your writing into immersive worlds, incredible characters, and gripping films with significantly less time and cost. In this article, I summarise how this platform originated and what they are useful for. What is going beyond the book? You don’t say you’re only a book author. It means taking a story’s characters and uploading it to Character AI for fans to play with, says Ross. Or creating something further in nonfiction — taking the main message and filming episodes in narrative style. This is a notion talked about on the Creatorwood Podcast (E46) Going Beyond the Book is the Future of Storytelling. Interview also says he needed to…

June 9, 2026

Book Marketing

I Was Paying for a Whole Promotion Platform Just to Use the Beta Reader Feature

That frustration led to Shimerith. Today’s article is brought to you by an indie fiction author – I hope you enjoy it. I’m Emma, an indie author since 2019 with six novels and one novella published. For years I’ve relied on a newsletter promotion platform that also includes a beta reader function. Even though I didn’t use the newsletter swaps, I kept paying a fairly expensive annual subscription just to access the beta reader feature. The problem with that is I only publish about one book a year. So, I was paying a large yearly fee… and using the feature only once. One day I mentioned this to my husband or, to be honest, I grumbled to my husband. My wonderful husband is a senior product engineer. He builds systems that solve problems and organise complex information into something…

Digital Marketers can be catastrophic for business

November 5, 2025

Book Marketing

Digital Marketers can be Catastrophic for Business

I was reading ‘Inside Small Business’ on Sunday 🤓 and it said, “One in three small business owners who outsourced marketing ended up in a dispute with their provider.” Even more worrying, “Only three in ten small business owners are sticking with a digital marketer for more than a year.” (70% change, in other words) This is disastrous for business momentum and ROI. If you’re a micro business or launching author, it can spell catastrophe. The study was conducted by the University of the Sunshine Coast and supported by the Australian Family & Small Business Ombudsman. The article made comment that one of the reasons is due to a lack of fit between business needs and the agency’s skillset. Some might be great at digital ads but not have a storyteller and brand expert on board, so the ads don’t…

marketing and media planning for how to books

May 5, 2026

Book Marketing

Where to Start with Marketing & Media Planning for How-To or Self-Growth Books

We all start with marketing somewhere, and I was a floundering beginner for many years. My first attempt: digital printing to self-publish a book in 1996 called The Total Image Manual. I sold it through flyers to business boxes and a very expensive print ad. Thankfully, options have gotten less risky in the book marketing game and now we can leverage a personal brand, upload to YouTube, and if clever in angling it, seek free mass media coverage. Actioning a Marketing & Media Plan You may already realise that taking a book to market is one of the hardest parts of being an author. It is hard to both plan the right tactics for you (tailored to your strengths) and confidently carry out those promotion tactics, week after week. It brings out our inner imposter or makes us feel like a…

June 9, 2026

Book Marketing, Writers Mindset

Why Your Newsletter Stays in Your Mind

You know you’ve got to expand into newsletters if you’re writing a topical book or self-help guide. So why does your online newsletter sit unwritten? I believe it’s not about writing ability or finding the time. It’s about overcoming perfectionism. Most of us have the expertise or life experience. But translating that knowledge into newsletter content exhausts both your mental capacity—and hits the wall of wanting to be perfect. While my newsletters are not perfect either, I think research can help us overcome these barriers. The Research Gap Nobody Talks About Expert authors say “Just share about how your wrote your book”. Specialists say “Just share your expertise and stories” That’s not where to start. Before you write a word, you need to understand what your audience is actively searching for. Not what you assume they want. What they’re actually…