The Importance of Finding Your Marketing Sweet Spot

Photo by Robert F. on Unsplash

Today’s guest post is an excerpt from the new book How to Market a Book: Overperform in a Crowded Market by Reedsy founder Ricardo Fayet (@RicardoFayet).


One of the first (and only) books I read about startup marketing, with a view to apply its advice to growing Reedsy, was Traction. Published in 2014, it’s a fairly old book now, and I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it anymore to startup founders. However, one of its central marketing principles remains crucial to anyone trying to market anything—and yes, that includes you and your book. In fact, I interviewed one of the authors of Traction a few years ago, who said as much.

See, the core idea of the book is that there are hundreds of different ways, or “channels,” to market a product or grow a company. The secret of success is not to do all of them, or even as many as possible. Instead, it’s to find the one or two channels that work for your company and focus all your energy and resources on just those.

I find that this concept translates particularly well to book marketing. In the book realm, these “channels” include Facebook ads, Amazon ads, BookBub ads, price promotions, email marketing, group promos, newsletter swaps, Amazon SEO, Goodreads promos, guest posting, events, social media, and more.

When you’re starting out, you’ll probably be tempted to do all those things, because you’ve read about them everywhere. But that presents the same problem as trying to be on all the social media platforms: first, you don’t have the time for that, and second, you probably won’t be good at all of those platforms.

Finding the sweet spot

Take me, for example. I love helping authors market their books, and I’ve run Facebook, Amazon, and BookBub ads; built mailing lists; used reader magnets; organized price promotions; and done everything else under the sun.

So I’ve done all those things, but I know I’m a lot better at some of them than others. When it comes to advertising, for instance, I know I’m much stronger working with Facebook ads than with Amazon ads or BookBub ads.

Other authors, like David Gaughran, are pros at BookBub ads, but hate Amazon ads. And still others have cracked Amazon ads, but don’t even touch the other two platforms.

We all have different sensibilities to different marketing channels—that’s just how we are.

But how we are is just one part of the equation. The other part is how our readers are. You might be a pro at BookBub ads, but if your book is on a niche nonfiction topic, BookBub’s audience for that topic will be pretty limited—and running ads there won’t be effective for long.

While some channels will work for almost any genre (e.g., Amazon ads), many others will only be suited to some genres (or even some particular books).

So how do you find that sweet spot? How do you find a channel you’re good at and that resonates with your readers?

Well, you test. But the thing is …

You can’t test everything at once.

The other core principle of Traction intersects with one of the main mistakes I see authors making when it’s time to market their books: they’re trying way too many things at the same time.

It’s natural, after all: if you don’t know what’s going to work, you might as well try ten different things at once to find the one or two that will work.

But the problem is that you’ll never manage to get a channel to work if you’re not focusing all of your energy on it.

Let’s look at an example. You just published your book, but it’s not selling after one week. So you panic (naturally) and perhaps start googling “book marketing ideas.” That’s when you find all of these things you “should be doing” but aren’t. So you could:

  • Change your Amazon keywords
  • Start a mailing list
  • Start boosting your posts on Facebook
  • Start an Amazon ads campaign with a few obvious keywords
  • Book a bunch of price promotion sites
  • Create a “reader group” on Facebook
  • Start tweeting five times a day
  • Reach out to fifty book bloggers in your genre

And you know what? None of these channels is going to work, because you’re going to execute all of them badly. Even if you execute one well and see your book’s sales increase, you won’t know which channel was responsible for it!

All the channels I’ve listed above take time to learn and master. Until you’ve put in that time, you won’t be able to test them properly.

So whenever you’re feeling overwhelmed by marketing (or whenever your to-do list gets out of hand), take a breather and reevaluate: “Do I really need to do all of this?”

How to Market a Book by Ricardo Fayet

Pick only two things, and spend a month focusing on them. Take courses, ask colleagues, read blog posts, and then put in the time to properly test each channel.

That’s the only way you’ll find that sweet spot—or, in other words, that golden channel that will change your marketing forever.


Note from Jane: if you enjoyed this post, be sure to check out Ricardo’s new book How to Market a Book: Overperform in a Crowded Market.

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Frances Caballo

Great article, Ricardo. What you say makes a lot of sense. When I encounter new authors, I always tell them to start by using just one social media platform that their readers use. Once they are comfortable using that platform, then I recommend that they add a second one. I also tell them that no one can realistically be “everywhere,” and that being on all platforms doesn’t make sense. To do so, energy and resources are wasted. It’s always best to focus and hone your skills on a minimum of platforms, provided that the platforms you select are where your readers are.This theory also applies to ads. Focus on the one platform for advertising that you have the most success with. It was good to see you here this morning, Ricardo!

Ricardo Fayet

Thank you, Frances! And I find that the one that ends up working depends as much on the target audience/demographic as it depends on how comfortable the author is using it. The problem I see most authors struggle with on social media is that they end up using a platform because they feel like “they have to do it,” rather than because they enjoy it. And that’s never going to work out as their activity there is going to come across as forced and awkward.

Harald Johnson

So, so true. Start small, test, see what works, then roll it out.
Great post!

Ricardo Fayet

Thank you, Harald, glad you enjoyed it!

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[…] Fayet extols the importance of finding your marketing sweet spot, Elizabeth S. Craig has tips to fit platform building into a busy life, and Penny Sansevieri says […]

David Michael Rice

Thank you. One book store bought SIXTY copies of my memoir. Wow! I wish everyone would buy more, thought. 🙂

Byrd Nash

Great advice. It’s hard to juggle as is the social media aspect of it. I recommend authors try the social media platform they feel the most comfortable using first and try to build a platform there before using another as it can be overwhelming. I do run into a lot of readers who refuse to use Facebook and I can’t blame them. It’s a platform where I will never run an ad (or on their sister company Instagram) due to their policies.