Shows / Novel Marketing
Novel Marketing
The longest-running book marketing podcast in the world. This is the show for writers who want to build their platform, sell more books, and change the world with writing worth talking about. Whether you self publish or are with a traditional house, this podcast will make book promotion fun and easy. Thomas Umstattd Jr. interviews publishers, indie authors, and bestselling traditional authors about how to get published and sell more books.
Episodes
- Novel Marketing
Is Curios the Shopify Killer for Authors?
In my recent episode The Shopify Trap, I explained why selling direct doesn’t always pay off for authors. When you’re selling dozens of books instead of…
- Novel Marketing
The 5 Kinds of Author Kickstarter Campaigns
Most authors know only one kind of Kickstarter campaign, and for many of them, it isn't the best one. This week on Novel Marketing, you’ll hear from Russell…
- Novel Marketing
Your AI Is Lying About Your Book
The chatbot told him his manuscript was brilliant. The humans gave his manuscript a C. That's what happened to one author who trusted AI as his editor. If you…
- Novel Marketing
How to Relaunch Your Book
Your book may not be dead. As Miracle Max would say, it might only be mostly dead. A book that flopped three years ago could sell better today than it did on…
- Novel Marketing
How to Write Short Stories with Joanna Penn
The slowest way to write a novel is to start writing a novel. It sounds backward, but it’s not. In this week’s episode, you’ll hear from Joanna Penn of The…
- Novel Marketing
Should You Leave Kindle Unlimited in 2026? The Math May Surprise You
Authors on KDP Select get access to $700 million a year in the Kindle Unlimited fund. One login, one dashboard, one algorithm, one company to deal with. But…
- Novel Marketing
Get More Time to Write by Using a Grok Bot
Authors have historically lamented all the administrative, technological, and marketing tasks that go along with being a writer. How many times have you sighed…
- Novel Marketing
Will Your Back Matter Get Your Book Banned on Amazon?
It's 1:30 in the morning, and a woman in Cleveland has just finished your book. She meant to go to bed hours ago, but she just couldn't put it down, and now…
- Novel Marketing
SEO for Author Websites: The Only Guide You Need in 2026
If a reader Googled your name right now, what would come up? An abandoned LinkedIn profile from a career you left behind? A neglected Goodreads page? An…
- Novel Marketing
The Comprehensive Guide to BookFunnel
You know you need an email list. You've heard about reader magnets and maybe you even have one, but you're stuck at a handful of subscribers, wondering how…
- Novel Marketing
Why Your Cover, Blurb, and Hook Are All Just Guesses
Every month, traditional publishers lose more ground to indie authors. One reason it’s happening is that in trad publishing, a committee or the highest-paid…
- Novel Marketing
The 5 Tiers of Audiobooks: Which One Should You Publish?
For most of publishing history, creating an audiobook meant writing a check for thousands of dollars and hoping you'd earn it back in sales. Because of the…
- Novel Marketing
Estate Planning for Authors: How to Protect Your Books (and Your Family) After You Die
You will die. It could be today, it could be 15 years from now, but no one lives forever. Your books, however, can outlive you. In fact, seventy years after…
- Novel Marketing
Why Amazon Is Terminating Innocent Authors
What do you do if your Amazon account gets suspended but you didn’t do anything wrong? Unfortunately, Amazon doesn't care if you're innocent. That's not…
- Novel Marketing
Author's PR Playbook: How to Get Media Coverage Without a Publicist
Is hiring a publicist a waste of money or not? A typical book publicist charges between $3,000 and $10,000 per month, and they often require a three-month…
- Novel Marketing
How to Level Up Your Writing With Chris Fox
Do you feel like an imposter as a writer? You probably are. Most authors who experience imposter syndrome are imposters, but they don't have to be! As the…
- Novel Marketing
How to Revive a Dead Book With a Promo Stack
Are your book sales stuck? Maybe sales have slowed. Maybe your launch never took off. Or maybe you're spending money on ads without seeing results. This week…
- Novel Marketing
Why I'm Giving Away a $249 Course This Month
Instead of a guest interview or a marketing deep-dive, in this week’s episode I'm inviting you to something I've spent years building for authors who want to…
- Novel Marketing
Announcing the 2027 Novel Marketing Conference
A writers conference with no pitch appointments, no breakout tracks, and no recordings? What’s left? A conference that sold out last year! The Novel Marketing…
- Novel Marketing
The Four Loves That Drive Book Sales
Have you ever finished a book you loved, handed it to a friend, and heard back, "It was fine"? That disconnect has nothing to do with the quality of the…
- Novel Marketing
Rules for Book Advertising with David Gaughran
The difference between making thousands of dollars on your next book and losing money can come down to a few cents per click. If your ads generate even a few…
- Novel Marketing
My Worst Takes & Mistakes Over 500 Episodes
We’ve arrived! It’s the 500th episode of Novel Marketing. To celebrate, I’m giving away the MacBook Neo I reviewed a few episodes ago, but I’m also revealing…
- Novel Marketing
Stop Guessing: How to Know If Your Book Marketing Is Working
Most authors can tell you their royalties but not their net profit per book. They spend money on ads, see sales come in, and assume things are fine. But are…
- Novel Marketing
The Cultural Zeitgeist Shift That's Making Indie Authors Rich
There’s a culture shift underway that most authors aren’t seeing. Even traditional publishers can’t figure out why their titles are resonating. If your book…
- Novel Marketing
Apple's Cheapest Laptop Ever: Should Authors Buy It?
I bought and tested Apple's cheapest laptop so you don't have to. I stress-tested the MacBook Neo with a 250,000-word document, ran every major writing app…
- Novel Marketing
Your Friends Lied About Your Book Cover
Your author friends are lying to you about your book cover. Well, not on purpose. They can’t help it. When authors are trying to pick a book cover, they often…
- Novel Marketing
Reader Magnets Are Dead? Why Most Reader Magnets Fail
Many authors say reader magnets don’t work anymore. But when done right, a good reader magnet can grow your email list from zero to thousands of subscribers…
- Novel Marketing
Your Author Toolbox: Part 2
Do you ever wish you had a team of writing, publishing, or marketing professionals to consult? Do you wish you had an assistant to help with the business and…
- Novel Marketing
How to Become a Professional Writer With Joanna Penn
Is your writing a hobby or a profession? The answer to that question changes everything. Many authors claim to be professionals but act like hobbyists. They…
- Novel Marketing
Why Your Book Isn’t Selling: Metadata
If your book isn’t selling, it may not be your writing. It may be your metadata. In this week’s episode of the Novel Marketing Podcast, you’ll hear from Dave…
- Novel Marketing
How to Format a Book with Vellum
Many authors assume book formatting is complicated, expensive, or something only professionals can handle. In this week’s episode, I talk with Bryan Canter…
- Novel Marketing
How Authors Can Stay out of Tax Jail
American Taxes, pay too little and you go to jail. Pay too much and you lose the money you need to reach more readers with advertising and promotion. If your…
- Novel Marketing
Productivity Secrets from Bestselling Author Jerry B. Jenkins
Do you ever feel like your book is taking forever to write? Maybe you’ve been working on the same manuscript for years, and then you look up and see other…
- Novel Marketing
Networking for Authors
Most authors begin writing as a solitary pursuit and soon realize they don’t know other writers or industry professionals who can help them grow. So how do you…
- Novel Marketing
The 5 Year Plan to Become a Professional Author
If you ask a bestselling novelist how long it took to go from aspiring writer to published success, the answer is usually about ten years. One reason it takes…
- Novel Marketing
Why Some Authors Are Ditching ChatGPT Entirely
ChatGPT used to be the go-to AI for authors, but it's no longer the best choice for every task. New models like Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, and Grok are…
- Novel Marketing
A Nonfiction Author’s Guide to Substack
I am not a big fan of Substack for novelists. Most novelists are better off using the free version of Kit and WordPress. However, Substack is a completely…
- Novel Marketing
Should You Create a Premium Hardcover Edition of Your Book?
Hardcover books are back. Beautiful, premium, collector-quality editions are gaining momentum with readers who want books that look and feel special. But how…
- Novel Marketing
Amazon Algorithm Secrets That Separate Bestsellers from the Slush Pile
Authors talk about “the algorithm” the way the little aliens in Toy Story talk about “the claw.” Does the algorithm randomly choose your book, or is someone…
- Novel Marketing
The Shopify Trap: Why Authors Keep Losing Money
Lately, I’ve been getting swamped with emails from authors asking about Shopify. Many are losing money and wondering what went wrong and how to fix it. Here’s…
- Novel Marketing
Stop Wasting Money on Ink: 2025 Printer Guide for Authors
Are you wasting money, time, and paper by using the wrong printer? Before you buy your next printer, make sure it has the features every author needs. The…
- Novel Marketing
How to publish your audiobook through ACX
Audiobooks have been the fastest-growing segment in publishing for a decade, and for many readers, an audiobook signals a real, human-written book. In fact…
- Novel Marketing
How to Build an Email List before publishing your novel
Many authors make the mistake of writing a book first and then trying to find readers. This is backwards and rarely works. However, if you follow these three…
- Novel Marketing
Triple Your Writing Speed with Dictation
The faster you write, the more books you can publish and the more money you can make from your writing. We all type slower than we speak, and if you’re typing…
- Novel Marketing
How to Boost Sales With Permafree Books
Giving away your hard work for free doesn’t seem to make good business sense. So why do authors give away ebooks for free? What if “free” didn’t kill your…
- Novel Marketing
How to Get More Book Reviews
So you wrote a good book, but you can’t seem to get reviews. Do you just throw up your hands? Why do reviews and ratings even matter? Well, the more reviews a…
- Novel Marketing
The Author’s Guide to AI with Joanna Penn
Most authors either avoid AI or use it badly. Let’s fix that. Authors who learn to use AI find that they have more time to write better books. In this week’s…
- Novel Marketing
When to Ignore Your Editor
Every author needs editorial feedback. But not all feedback is good. If you accept every edit, you risk losing your voice and writing something bland. If you…
- Novel Marketing
Announcing the 2026 Novel Marketing Conference
Most writing conferences teach you how to write a better book or how to pursue a literary agent. But what if you have already written a great book and you need…
- Novel Marketing
How to Get Started with Author School Visits and Make Your Book Playground Famous
If you write picture books, chapter books, or middle-grade fiction, you know the challenge: kids read your books, but adults buy them. So how can you let young…
- Novel Marketing
Zeitgeist, Dystopian Fatigue, and the Rise of Ruthless & Noble Heroes
What’s up with ruthless heroes and romantasy? And what if the real reason your book isn’t selling has nothing to do with your writing and everything to do with…
- Novel Marketing
How to sell 1,000 books a month
Ever wonder how some authors consistently sell a thousand books a month? What marketing tactics are they using? How can I get those results too? In the latest…
- Novel Marketing
How to Work With a PR Firm to Promote Your Book
Publicity has always been important for authors. Mark Twain promoted his books by writing letters to the paper, and even Agatha Christie, who was known for…
- Novel Marketing
What does ChatGPT Actually Know About Your Book?
You’ve optimized your book for AI, updated your website, polished your metadata, maybe even watched our AI Optimization for Authors episode. But how do you…
- Novel Marketing
How to Create Sales Optimized Book Pages for Your Author Website
Well, this is embarrassing. After 12 years of teaching authors how to build better websites, I realized I’ve never covered the most important page on your…
- Novel Marketing
Is Your Traditional Publisher Going Bankrupt? 8 Warning Signs to Look Out For
The publishing industry is facing significant challenges. We just went through a major zeitgeist shift, and reader preferences radically changed. AI also…
- Novel Marketing
How to Adapt a Podcast to YouTube
You work hard to create content for your audience. But how do you get more mileage and reach out of each piece you create? One way is to adapt your content for…
- Novel Marketing
How to Publish a Novel in 2025
Have you been dreaming about publishing a book that actually sells? The hard truth is that most authors fail because they jump straight into writing. They…
- Novel Marketing
An Introduction to Author Ecosystems with Russel Nohelty
Have you ever followed popular marketing advice that worked wonders for someone else but completely fell flat for you? Or have you watched another author…
- Novel Marketing
AI Optimization for Authors
Most authors are thinking about AI the wrong way. AI isn’t really a tool for writing books, but it’s quickly becoming the most powerful tool for selling them…