How to Market Your Book in a Way That Actually Feels Good (With Beth Barany)
Book marketing. Two words that make a lot of writers want to close their laptops and walk away.
And honestly, it makes sense. Most of the marketing advice out there feels overwhelming, inauthentic, or just plain exhausting. You read about needing thousands of followers, running ads, and showing up everywhere all at once. And before you even start, you're already burnt out.
But what if book marketing didn't have to feel that way?
That's exactly what I explored in a recent conversation with Beth Barany, an award-winning science fiction and fantasy novelist, certified creativity coach, and someone who has built multiple creative businesses helping fiction writers bring their novels to life. Beth has a completely different take on book marketing, and I think it's going to change how you think about it, too.
She calls it heart-centered marketing. And it starts with you. Not the book marketing tactics.
What Is Heart-Centered Book Marketing?
Heart-centered marketing, as Beth describes it, is about leading with your emotional space—the same emotional space you already use when you write.
As she puts it: "Heart-centered marketing is really coming from your own emotional space that you use already to write. Let's lead with that."
Instead of following a set of rules about what you should be doing, heart-centered marketing asks a different question: What feels natural to you? What do you actually enjoy? Because when it comes to marketing your book, you have to sustain it over the long haul. And you simply cannot sustain doing something you hate.
Beth uses a great analogy to explain this. Imagine a farmer's market. There are apples and oranges, cheese and pickles, handmade tote bags and books, and a musician playing in the corner. Every vendor is there, but each one shows up in their own unique way. As an author, you get to decide how you show up at that market. And if everyone showed up selling the same lavender soap, that would be incredibly boring, and readers wouldn't know how to choose between you and others.
The point is this: your uniqueness is your marketing advantage. And heart-centered marketing helps you figure out what that looks like for you specifically.
Why Most Book Marketing Advice Leads to Burnout
One of the biggest things Beth and I talked about was the danger of following marketing advice that isn't right for you.
We've all seen it. Someone online says you need 50,000 email subscribers, or you need to run ads, or you need to be on every social media platform. And so writers try to do all of those things and end up completely burnt out, hitting a wall, and sometimes giving up altogether.
Beth's background in neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) shapes how she thinks about this. Her take is that there is no "should." There's only what works for you.
She shared a story about someone who was charging $5,000 to help authors get 100 reviews, saying that's what you need before running ads. And Beth's response was basically—according to whom?
What's working right now will be different from what worked before, and different again from what will work tomorrow. So instead of chasing trends, she encourages writers to ask themselves two things: What does success actually mean to you, and what do you have the capacity for?
This is such an important reframe. Because success looks different for every writer. Some writers would be thrilled to put a smile on a reader's face and sell a handful of books each month. Others are more ambitious and want to scale. Both are completely valid, but the marketing approach for each will look very different.
How to Uncover Your Core Values as a Writer
This is where things get really practical and really fun. Before you choose any marketing tactic, Beth says you need to know your core values. And as novelists, we actually have a secret advantage here. We already think about what characters truly want, what's important to them, and what's at stake. We just need to turn that same lens on ourselves.
So how do you figure out your values? Beth suggests starting simple: just think about what's really important to you. Write down lots of words and notice what themes keep coming up. She noticed in her own process that words like fun, play, adventure, curiosity, and cozy kept appearing again and again in different forms.
You can also look at how you already spend your time. What do you naturally gravitate toward? What lights you up? And here's a tip I loved—you can also approach it from the opposite direction. Ask yourself what you don't want. I've worked with writers who say, "I will not run Facebook ads, full stop." And that's great information! That tells you something real about your values.
Once you start to see patterns, try to narrow it down to your top three values, or even just your top one. And then look back to your childhood. Beth shared that when she traced the theme of adventure back, she could see herself at 11 years old walking into the library asking for the adventure books. That's a powerful signal. When a value has been with you since childhood, you know it's the real thing.
How to Use Your Values to Choose Your Marketing Channels
Once you know your values, choosing where and how to market becomes so much clearer. You're no longer looking at an overwhelming list of tactics—you're asking yourself what feels aligned with who you are.
Beth's own values of adventure and play led her to start exploring Reddit as a way to build a fandom around her book series, Henrietta the Dragon Slayer. Now, she'll be the first to tell you that spending time in forums doesn't come naturally to her. But instead of letting that stop her, she got creative. She's looking for someone who can help manage the community while she provides the content. She knows her IP inside and out. She just needed to find a way to make it work for her.
That's heart-centered marketing in action.
It's not about doing everything. But rather, finding your version of the thing and not letting the first sign of discomfort make you give up entirely.
The same thinking applies to newsletters. Beth's newsletter reflects exactly who she is: cozy, fun, and full of that spirit of adventure. She keeps it short, includes a weekly poll on science fiction or fantasy, shares book giveaways, and invites readers to join her beta reader team every week. There's no "buy my book" energy, just genuine connection. And that connection is what brings readers in.
Ditch "Buy My Book" and Use Your Tropes Instead
Speaking of "buy my book"—let's talk about why that approach doesn't work, and what to do instead.
Beth made such a good point here. Instead of shouting "buy my book" into the void, use your story's tropes to invite the right readers in. She gave a great example: one of her books involves Santa's elves coming to San Francisco. So instead of a direct sales pitch, the marketing becomes: "Santa's elves coming to San Francisco—what could go wrong?" That's intriguing. That pulls readers in. That makes someone think, tell me more.
The goal isn't to sell. It's to bring the reader joy.
To say, "if you like this cool thing, I have something for you." When you lead with your story's tropes and the things your ideal readers already love, the right people will sit up and take notice all on their own.
Why Collaboration Beats Competition in Book Marketing
One of my favorite parts of this whole conversation was when Beth talked about collaboration. Because so many writers fall into the trap of thinking it's a competition, which means they can't reach out to another author because that author is more successful or more advanced.
But Beth's approach is the complete opposite. She reads widely in her genre, and when she loves a book, she reaches out to the author. She fangirls them, genuinely and without agenda. And from that genuine connection, real friendships and real collaborations have grown.
She gave the example of reaching out to author Janet Raye Stevens after falling in love with her Barrel Blue Time Cop series. She told her she loved her books. That's it. And now she feels like they're friends. She also got invited to author Sean Cunningham's beta reader team because she read his work, loved it, and said so.
Beth's guiding principle for the last decade and a half has been simple: Would I want to have coffee with this person? If yes, reach out. Because life is too short, and magical things happen when you connect with people you genuinely think are cool.
The worst that can happen is silence. And that's really not that bad.
The First Step: Get Clear on What You Value
If you're feeling inspired to try this heart-centered approach to book marketing, the very best place to start is getting clear on your values. Beth has a free resource called the Trust Your Creative Heart Roadmap, a workbook and video series designed to help you connect to what's truly important to you as a writer.
And if this post resonated with you, I'd love for you to keep the conversation going. Because marketing your book doesn't have to feel gross or overwhelming or like you're becoming someone you're not. It can feel like you if you start from the right place.
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