Book Marketing Services
Marketing amplifies a book that works. It cannot fix one that does not. We will tell you which you have.
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Select your book type so we match you with the right specialist.
What Does a Book Marketing Company Actually Do?
Three things, and it is worth separating them because most companies blur all three into one promise.
Positioning
Deciding who the book is for, what shelf it sits on, and what the cover, description and categories have to say to reach those readers. This is the part that decides whether everything after it works.
Visibility
Getting the book in front of those readers. Advertising, retailer optimization, press, review outreach, launch sequencing.
Conversion
Turning a reader who sees the book into a reader who buys it. Description, sample, reviews, price, cover.
Most books that "did not sell" failed at the first or third. Spending on the second while the first and third are broken is how marketing budgets get wasted.
We start by telling you which of the three is your actual problem.
What Marketing Cannot Do
Marketing cannot fix a book with editorial problems
If reviews mention typos, pacing or structure, no amount of visibility helps. It accelerates the bad reviews.
Marketing cannot fix a cover that signals the wrong genre
A reader decides in under a second whether a book is for them. If the cover says literary and the book is commercial thriller, advertising buys clicks from people who will not buy.
Marketing cannot create demand for a subject nobody is looking for
It can find the readers who exist. It cannot invent them.
Marketing cannot guarantee sales
Anyone who tells you otherwise is either guessing or counting on you not checking. Readers, algorithms and markets are outside any agency's control.
And marketing cannot work retroactively on a launch that already happened
The weeks around publication carry weight that cannot be recreated later. A book can be marketed at any time, but the launch window only exists once.
If any of the first three describe your book, we will say so, and we will tell you what to fix first, even where that is not work we would be doing.
Do You Need Book Marketing, or Something Else First?
| Your situation | What you need |
|---|---|
| Book is not published yet | Wait. Marketing comes after publication, not instead of it |
| Reviews mention typos, pacing or structure | Editing. Fix the book first. Marketing will amplify the complaints |
| Cover signals the wrong genre | Cover design. Advertising a mismatched cover buys the wrong readers |
| Fewer than a handful of reviews | Review generation first. Ads to a book with no social proof convert poorly |
| You want guaranteed sales | Nobody can sell you that honestly. Be wary of anyone who tries |
| Book is solid, reviews are good, nobody knows it exists | Book marketing |
| Launching a new title and want the window used properly | Book marketing |
| Backlist title that sold and then stopped | Book marketing |
| Book is a business asset and needs to reach a professional audience | Book marketing |
The table above matches each situation to the right tool, whether that is book marketing or something else. Selling you a campaign that cannot work is a worse outcome for us than not selling you one.
What We Do
Positioning
Category and keyword research. Comparable title analysis. Description and metadata written for the reader who is actually searching. Cover and positioning review against the shelf the book is competing on.
Visibility
Amazon advertising. Retailer optimization. Press release distribution. Review outreach to readers and reviewers in the genre. Launch sequencing across the weeks that carry the most weight.
Conversion
Description rewriting. Sample and look-inside review. Pricing strategy against comparable titles. Review profile development.
Proof
What we can show you
A bestseller campaign run for a Columbia Publication client reached #1 and #9 in its Amazon categories.
City of the Gods by Jason Patterson, ISBN 979-8-218-83862-1, is live on Amazon with 21 verified reviews at 4.7 stars and coverage in NY Weekly and ArtDaily. Columbia Publication handled editing, cover, distribution, marketing and audiobook.
What we can tell you
Everything else on this page describes what we do and how we do it, not results we are promising you. Campaign outcomes depend on the book, the category, the competition and the reader, and we are not going to dress method up as a forecast.
How to Choose a Book Marketing Company
Six questions worth asking anyone, including us.
1. What will you do in the first two weeks, specifically?
A real answer names activities. A vague one names outcomes.
2. What does success look like, and how will I see it?
Ask what they will report and how often. If reporting is not part of the offer, there is a reason.
3. Who is my book for, in your words?
If they cannot describe your reader after reading your book, they have not read your book.
4. What would you tell me not to spend money on?
Anyone who says everything is worth doing is selling, not advising.
5. What happens if the campaign does not perform?
Ask before you sign, not after.
6. Can you show me a book you worked on that I can check?
One verifiable title beats any number of unnamed successes.
The warning sign that matters most
Anyone guaranteeing sales, reviews, rankings or bestseller status without conditions. No agency controls readers or algorithms. A specific, conditional commitment in writing is a real thing. An unconditional promise is not.
What Drives the Cost
Scope
Positioning work alone costs less than a full launch campaign.
Advertising spend is separate from management
Ad budget goes to the platform, not to us. Ask any agency to separate those two lines, including us.
Category competitiveness
A crowded category needs more spend to reach the same visibility than a narrow one.
The state the book arrives in
A book needing description, metadata and cover work before a campaign can start carries more setup than one ready to run.
Duration
A launch window is a defined period. Ongoing support is not.
Format coverage
Ebook, print and audiobook each have their own retailer surfaces.
We quote against your book and your goal rather than publishing a package price that would not apply to your situation.
How It Works
Tell us the title, the genre, whether it is published, roughly how it has sold so far, and what you want to happen next.
Quote within 1 business day. Complex specifications and custom orders may take longer.
If the honest answer is that your money is better spent on editing or a new cover before any marketing, we will tell you that first.