I’m doing this one first for a few reasons. First off, a number of you asked for it and I can be very easily persuaded. No seriously, ask even a little nicely. But, in truth, of all the channels I named, A+ Content has the best return on your time investment: roughly two hours of work1, zero dollars2, and a measurable bump in your conversion rate that compounds every day your book stays on Amazon. Amazon's own published guidance says A+ Content can lift sales by up to 10%, with most sellers seeing somewhere in the 3-10% range. For a book doing modest numbers, that math matters over a year and for a book doing strong numbers, it’s a no-brainer.

No matter how you’re publishing, this is a tool you should be employing 10000% of the time. Trad-pub authors often don’t know they can (or they assume the publisher did, when they may not have). Indie authors are often overwhelmed by everything ELSE that goes into releasing and promoting a book that this often gets forgotten. The “From the Publisher” section on most author detail pages is just... blank. Empty real estate that Amazon will fill with your own stuff, for free, if you just ask.

Now before we dive in: I know that this is only for Amazon and relates to KDP especially. But whether you’ve gone wide or not, this is a tool that I urge you to use. It’s independent of Kindle Unlimited, so don’t think that just because you’re not there, you’re boxed out of this. This is a “you can sit with us” situation.

what A+ content is, in basic terms

If you scroll down on any well-marketed book’s Amazon page, somewhere below the description and “Customers also bought” row, you’ll see a section called From the Publisher. That section contains banner images, character graphics, series information, “about the author” panels - basically, content that looks designed instead of just typed out.

That’s A+ Content. Amazon lets you build it using a set of pre-formatted blocks called modules. You drop in your images and copy, Amazon assembles it, and it shows up on your product page within about a week of submission.

Three things to know upfront:

1. It’s completely free - no KDP Select required, no Brand Registry, no Author Central paid tier. If you have a book published on Amazon, you have full access today.

2. You can apply one A+ Content “project” to multiple ASINs3. Build it once and then apply it to your hardcover, paperback, AND ebook listings BUT you do have to publish it separately in each Amazon marketplace (US, UK, CA, AU).

3. It gets reviewed before it goes live. Amazon checks your submission against their guidelines before publishing it (we’ll get into those shortly). Most rejections are for the same handful of small mistakes, which I’ll walk you through so you don’t trip over them.

That’s it. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy, right?

ok but what actually goes in it?

There are about 17 standard module types available, which sounds intimidating until you realize you only need a small handful, and you will quickly find that you do best with the same general structure so do it once (really really well) then repeat repeat repeat. A “standard” formula I’d suggest you start with:

Module 1: Banner. This is a wide visual that introduces the book. It will usually include the cover (obvi) plus a tagline or some kind of character art included. Use Standard Image Header with Text (970×600 px) or Standard Image with Light/Dark Text Overlay (970×300 px). Both of these can be created easily in Canva (just search “Amazon Banner”). The job: stop the scroll and signal the vibe of the book in one clear image.

Module 2: The “what’s inside” block. This is where you show readers what they can expect in the book - its tropes, its setting, its emotional promise, characters, etc. Standard Three Images and Text or Standard Four Image & Text Quadrant work best here. The job: turn “this is a romance novel” into “this is a small-town second-chance romance with a grumpy widower and a beekeeper and a haunted carousel and you’re going to love it!”

Module 3: Proof or series context. This slot adapts to your book and where you are in your publishing journey. If you have a series, use Standard Comparison Chart to lay out reading order with covers and one-line descriptions for each book. If it’s a standalone, use Single Image & Sidebar to feature a pull quote from a review or blurb. The job: make this book feel like it belongs to something whether that be a body of work or some kind of “proof is in the pudding”.

Module 4: About the author (hey! That’s you!). A short author bio with a photo, and ideally with a personality hook. Use Standard Single Image and Sidebar (the image is 300×300 px). The job: connect the book to a real person whose taste the reader might want to follow into future books.

Four modules. That’s IT - that’s literally all you need. Anything else is a bonus and not something you need to worry about right now. Amazon technically lets you stack up to five modules per project, but in practice four is the sweet spot. Four is long enough to do real work, short enough that readers actually scroll through it, and manageable enough for you to actually create.

how not to get…DENIED

Before you design anything, keep this list in mind because it will save you a lot of frustration down the line. These are the most common rejection triggers, and they’re all avoidable if you know about them up front:

• No prices, percent-off claims, or “free bonus content” mentions. Amazon handles pricing dynamically and they don’t want it duplicated in static content. Which I honestly agree with - don’t pigeonhole yourself into having to make any changes to your creative as you change pricing.

• No quotes or endorsements from private individuals. This is a SUPER interesting one, but worth noting. You CANNOT quote a Goodreads review4, a Bookstagrammer, a friend, a beta reader, or another non-famous author5. You can quote a maximum of four endorsements, and only from “well-known publications or public figures” (think Publishers Weekly, NYT, a famous-enough-to-be-reasonably-recognizable author), with proper attribution.

• No contact info. No URLs, no email, no phone, no QR codes, no social handles, no “follow me on Instagram.” Amazon wants readers staying in their ecosystem, so don’t use this to push them anywhere.

• No misleading claims. “The best romance ever written6” will get you rejected. Stick to descriptive language, don’t try to make any unnecessary statements.

• No mention of other retailers. Don’t say “available on Apple Books” or “free on Kindle Unlimited” (yeah…that will also get you denied weirdly…Amazon will add this part for you).

• No low-resolution images. Amazon recommends 300 DPI and at least 970 pixels wide for most modules. Blurry images get bounced, and, again I can’t blame them - it won’t make anyone want to buy your book if the image looks like a photocopy of a photocopy of a picture taken in 1992. Pro tip if you’re in Canva: when you export your image, slide the resolution to 2x (or even 3x) - you’ll get the crispest image possible.

Most rejections are not punitive, though they may feel that way. Amazon sends you an email explaining what to fix and lets you resubmit so it’s a no harm, no foul situation. But each round adds another week to the review process because you go back to the start, so getting it right the first time matters when it comes to time.

the look of A+ Content matters

A+ Content is the second time a reader meets your book. The first is the cover - this is what gets most people excited and wanting to pay attention. The close second is the A+ Content. And if those two things don’t match - if your cover is moody coastal and your A+ Content is a Canva template with bright pastels - you’ve confused the hell out of your potential audience.

A+ Content has to look like it came from the same hand (or brain) as the cover. Same palette, same fonts (or close cousins), and same emotional temperature. Don’t treat A+ Content as a separate design project - it is the most important continuation of your book brand.

If you don’t have the design skills to do this yourself, this is one of the cheaper things to hire out - a designer who can build your A+ Content in your existing brand will pay itself back fast. There are a LOT of content creators and author services providers that are now offering this as a package or add-on (if you need recommendations, reach out - there are so many I would happily recommend!)

the actual workflow (because I love a good Kanban board)

Hands on keys, let’s get this done together.

Step 1: Gather your existing brand assets. Open the folder where your cover, marketing graphics, and any branded fonts/colors live7. Start from what you already have.

Step 2: Write the copy first, design second. Open a doc and write the text for all four modules before you touch any image software. Banner headline, the three or four “what’s inside” descriptors, the series context or pull quote, and the author bio. Get it written, get it edited, and get it tight. Give it a few passes. Edit it like you’re a ruthless editor out to make this the best A+ content ever. Copy should not be an afterthought.

Step 3: Build the four images at the correct dimensions. Use the module dimensions I listed above. Save at 300 DPI as JPG or PNG. Keep file size under 3 MB per image.

Step 4: Get to your A+ Content Manager. From your KDP dashboard: Marketing → A+ Content Manager → Start creating A+ Content. Name your project, pick your marketplace (start with the US unless you’re more established elsewhere), and then start adding modules.

Step 5: Build, preview, and double-check. Use the preview function like it’s your best friend giving you advice. Check what it looks like on both desktop and mobile, because the layouts behave differently. Double triple quintuple check for typos.

Step 6: Add ASINs and submit. Before you submit, you’ll apply the A+ Content project to the book ASINs you want it to appear on. One project can apply to your hardcover, paperback, AND ebook for the same title so it’s worth doing all three. Then submit for review.

Step 7: Wait a week-ish. Amazon will email you when it’s approved or rejected. If rejected, the email tells you what to fix. Fix it, then resubmit.

Step 8: Note your baseline and watch. Before A+ Content goes live, screenshot your KDP dashboard’s recent sales data. After it’s live, watch for two weeks. You’re looking for incremental lift, not miracles…the bump is usually visible but modest, and it compounds as more cold readers land on your brand-spanking-new sharper-looking page.

where should you invest your time first

A+ Content is more valuable for some books than others, and it’s worth prioritizing if this isn’t your debut.

It matters MOST for:

• Backlist titles that still get traffic but have grown stale. A+ Content is one of the cheapest ways to refresh an older book’s conversion rate.

• Series books, where the comparison chart module does enormous work helping new readers find the right entry point and existing readers find the next one (whether that’s already released, upcoming, or just announced).

• Books in visual-heavy genres like romantasy, romance, fantasy, anything with strong cover-driven discovery and where atmospheric imagery in A+ Content extends the cover’s pull.

• Books in KU, because Amazon is your entire marketing universe and every conversion lift is doubly valuable.

It matters LESS for:

• Brand-new launches with no Amazon traffic yet. Build it during launch week, but don’t expect it to do much until you have ad spend or organic traffic pointing at the page.

• Books in primarily wide-distribution strategies where Amazon represents a smaller share of overall sales. Still worth doing, but maybe lower on the priority list.

• Genres where readers convert primarily off the cover and description alone. Some categories of nonfiction and literary fiction, where readers don’t tend to scroll deep enough to see A+ Content.

Build it for the books where it matters most first and work through the rest of your catalog at your own pace.

my homework for you this week

If you do exactly one thing this week: open KDP, navigate to Marketing → A+ Content Manager, and look at it. That’s it. All you have to do is open the door, see what’s in there, and get familiar with what the interface looks like and what it’s asking you for. Get the lay of the land before you drop anchor.

Half the reason authors don’t do A+ Content is that the first step (finding where it lives in KDP) is mildly annoying, maybe a bit overwhelming, and after that the inertia takes over. If you just open the door this week, you’ll do the rest next week, I promise.

Next week you can write the copy. Maybe build the images. The week after that, submit. A month from now your book will look more professional than most comparable titles, and you’ll have spent a few hours of work, total.

And now you’re all valedictorians, graduated with honors, and made it look easy!

GOLD STARS FOR ALL!

xo Ada

I’m talking about diversifying your marketing portfolio in a way you probably didn’t even know was on the table. We’ve talked a lot about how single-channel marketing isn’t cutting it anymore. The internet is a wild west of content and information, and if you’re only thinking about the one or two channels you’re comfortable on (usually Instagram, maybe TikTok, and probably a newsletter that’s been collecting dust), you’re not living, man.

So when I say strategy, what do I actually mean? I mean a coordinated set of channels working together across the full arc of a reader’s journey — from “never heard of you” to “buying your backlist IMMEDIATELY.” And the reason most authors don’t have one isn’t because they’re lazy or bad at marketing. It’s because nobody ever showed them what the full picture is supposed to look like.

Enter: me. hi! An always-slightly-burned-out-but-mostly-happy-to-be-here marketer with 20 years under my belt and the dogged belief that marketing should be accessible, that information is power, and that I personally want no power — I just want to sit and read and stare at the ocean, thanks.

Trad-pub authors get a publisher who knows the picture and has the tools, but the publisher is also a company with other authors, other books, other lines of business, EBITDA, profit margins, investors, and taxes to worry about. Indie authors get a firehose of YouTube videos about Amazon ads with zero broader context. Hybrid authors… thoughts and prayers, friends. What nobody gets is a map. Everyone’s dropped off in the middle of nowhere and expected to find water, food, and somewhere to rest their weary head down.

Officially, this post is your map.

It’s not going to walk you through exactly how to do everything - that would take hours, and there’s more nuance than I can pack into a single post. Instead, each section here will get a dedicated deep-dive over the coming weeks. By the end of this one, you should be able to look at your own marketing, figure out which parts of the funnel you’re actually working and which you’re ignoring, and identify where the biggest gap is. Then come back, and I’ll walk you through how to fill it.

Grab your coffee, your snack of choice, your comfort pet, your comfort blanket, a stress ball, whatever - welcome to the wild wild world of MARKETING.

first, the funnel itself

The “marketing funnel” is one of the first things you learn in business school and, spoiler alert, becomes something you’ll use over and over and over again in a marketing career. As consulting/business-phrase-y as it sounds, the concept is genuinely useful, and I promise it’ll be the most boring part of this post.

A marketing funnel is just a way of describing the journey a customer (in our case, a reader) takes from total stranger to repeat buyer. There are three big stages, and each one needs different channels and different messaging:

TOFU: Top of Funnel (aka “AWARENESS”). Strangers who’ve never heard of you. The goal here is discovery: making the right kind of reader aware you exist. The messaging is about your vibe, not your specific book - they have no reason to trust you as an author yet because they don’t know who the hell you are.

MOFU: Middle of Funnel (aka “CONSIDERATION”). People who’ve heard of you and are deciding whether you’re worth following, subscribing to, or paying attention to. The goal is nurturing - giving them enough touchpoints with your voice and taste that they go from passively aware to actively interested. The messaging is about consistency and earned trust. It’s the “why me.”

BOFU: Bottom of Funnel (aka “CONVERSION”). People who are right at the buying decision. The goal is to make the path from “interested” to “purchased” as frictionless and convincing as you possibly can. The messaging is about the specific book and why it’s the right one for them, right now (like, right now).

Most authors over-invest in MOFU (the engaged-followers part), under-invest in TOFU (new-reader discovery), and treat BOFU like a single launch-week sprint instead of an always-on system. But don’t panic because, in the immortal words of Cher: I got you, babe.

the channels, and what funnel stage they actually serve

Alright. Appetizer done, we ate our greens. Now let’s get to the burger of it all. Here’s every channel you should know about including what stage it serves, what it actually costs, and what its honest job is in your mix.

1. Organic social (Instagram, TikTok, Substack Notes, Threads)

Stage: TOFU + MOFU

Cost: Free, except for your time, which is the most expensive resource you have 1

Job: Get discovered while building a voice readers want to follow

This is where most authors live by default. It’s genuinely good for two things: discovery (Reels, TikToks, Notes that the algorithm pushes to new readers) and nurturing (Stories, comments, tags, and the slow drip of “I keep seeing this author and I like their vibe”). It is genuinely BAD at conversion2. Posting “preorder my book!” to your existing followers does not create demand - it captures demand that already exists. Which is great but won’t be enough long term.

So please, do not treat social as a conversion channel. It helps you grow, it helps you nurture, and it lets already-engaged followers know when there's news to share.

2. Email newsletter

Stage: MOFU + BOFU

Cost: Free up to a few thousand subscribers on most platforms; varied costs after

Job: Build the only audience you actually own, and convert when it matters

I will die on this hill: your newsletter is the single most important marketing asset you have, and I don’t want to hear about that one viral video an influencer posted that boosted your page reads for a week. Social platforms can disappear, change their algorithm, or decide your account violates a random policy tomorrow and you can kiss your engaged followers goodbye. Your email list, though? All yours. It’s not borrowed, it’s not loaned out, you own it. The people on it have explicitly said “yes, I want to hear from you” and that’s the highest-trust signal in the whole funnel.

A 1,000-person engaged newsletter list converts at rates that a 50,000-follower Instagram account simply cannot touch. Repeat that to yourself whenever you’re tempted to skip a newsletter to “focus on Reels.”

3. Author website

Stage: Mostly BOFU, some TOFU

Cost: $15-30/month for hosting (Squarespace, Wix, Wordpress); time for set up and maintenance

Job: Be the receipt for everything else, and rank on Google

Your website is the thing that proves you’re real when someone Googles you3. It’s also, increasingly, a TOFU channel. Google indexing of author sites means people can discover you through SEO (Search Engine Optimization) - i.e. the algorithm deciding what to show and where on the page when a reader searches for trope/comp/genre combinations.

What an author website needs (at minimum): a clear book page for every book, a one-page about, a newsletter signup form, and contact info for press/agent/etc. What it does NOT need: a blog updated weekly, fifteen subpages, or anything that takes more than five minutes to find what you came for.

4. Amazon (the platform itself)

Stage: BOFU, mostly

Cost: Free to list; ads cost separately (more below)

Job: Convert browse to buy, especially for newer readers

Amazon isn't a social platform, but it absolutely is a marketing channel and, depending on your distribution strategy, it might be the most important one in your whole stack. Most readers in the US buy at least some books on Amazon. A lot of readers buy most of their books there (love it or hate it, this is - as the kids say - facts). Which means Amazon is where conversion actually happens, and your Amazon presence needs to be doing real marketing work, not just sitting there as a listing.

Two things matter most:

A+ Content: f you've been seeing this term thrown around and aren't sure what it is, it's the section of your book's Amazon page below the description, where you can add images, comparison tables, character art, banner graphics, and styled text blocks. It's free to add if you're enrolled in KDP. And if you're not using it, you are missing out because A+ Content is what turns a flat listing into a real sales page.

Keywords + Categories: this is the seven keywords and two categories you set during KDP setup. These determine when your book shows up in Amazon searches. This is essentially Amazon’s version of SEO, and it’s wildly under-optimized by most authors4.

If you’re indie and your book lives in KU: Amazon is your entire universe. Treat it that way.

A quick note I'll come back to later: there's a big push in author spaces right now around "going wide," meaning getting off KU and selling your books on every platform without the exclusivity KU demands. In full transparency, I recently cancelled my own KU subscription and I'm a Kobo reader to the extent I can be. But you have to do what's right for you, and the power Amazon has for indie authors cannot be overstated.

5. Paid ads (Amazon, Meta, BookBub)

Stage: All three depending on the platform

Cost: Whatever you want it to be; meaningful spend usually starts at $5-20/day per platform

Job: Buy attention you can’t earn organically

Paid ads are not a “should I do them” question - they're a "which platform serves which goal, when can I spend, and how much can I invest" question.. There are three you should know about:

Amazon ads: BOFU. People searching Amazon are already in buy-mode…you’re just intercepting them. Best for backlist, series, and books that have a clear comp set to target. Amazon is typically a lower entry cost, offers more granular control, and has a bit of a slower learning curve.

Meta ads (Facebook/Instagram): MOFU & TOFU. Here you’re targeting new (cold) readers based on interests, not necessarily active buyers. This is best for cover-driven discovery, building newsletter lists, and launching books with broad appeal. This typically has a higher entry cost, it can be harder to be profitable for individual book sales, and it is often much better for list-building (or follower-growing) than direct conversion.

BookBub: BOFU and very specific, primarily in their Featured Deals (which can be highly competitive and is usually used for discounted backlist) and BookBub Ads (less competitive but more variable returns). When BookBub works, it’s transformative and when it doesn’t work, it’s expensive. So…keep this in the backpocket, but don’t lean on this as the first out the gate.

TikTok: don’t even bother right now. I’m sorry. But no.

The ad math nobody tells you: Amazon ads are evaluated on ACOS (advertising cost of sale…otherwise known as how much are you spending for every $1 you earn). Meta ads are evaluated on cost-per-result (how much it costs to get whatever you optimize for - follows, page visits, etc). BookBub Featured Deals are evaluated on sell-through (how much the discount drives full-price purchases of your other books).

These are completely different math, and “I tried ads and they didn’t work” merits a relook at your numbers.

6. PR and press

Stage: TOFU primarily, with halo effects across the rest of the funnel

Cost: Free if you do your own outreach; more/month if you hire a publicist5

Job: Borrowed credibility from publications and outlets your readers trust

PR is the most misunderstood channel in author marketing, and I will NOT BACK DOWN on this (Tom Petty would be proud). If you ask 10 random people what this means, most would say “getting in The New York Times,” which is nice but extremely hard and honestly often not even the right move6. The actual job of PR is getting you borrowed credibility…when a publication your reader trusts says “this book is worth your time,” that endorsement converts at rates organic marketing can’t match.

And the publication doesn’t have to be anything as grandiose as the NYT. It can be:

• A trade outlet (i.e. Library Journal, Kirkus)

• A genre-specific newsletter or Substack (the romance Substack scene is FLOURISHING, my friend)

• A popular podcast in your niche

• An Instagram or TikTok creator with a real (read: engaged) following

• A regional outlet if you have a regional story (local-debut narratives are gold with regional press)

The trad-pub vs. indie distinction here is very real. If you’re a trad-pub author, you should be asking your publicist very specific questions about what’s planned, what’s available, and where they need to fill gaps. Don’t be shy about asking why they are pitching you where they are, why they AREN’T pitching you in certain places, and ask them to ideate with you on where else you would like to show up. They have the connections and their job is beach pitch.

Indie authors are usually doing PR themselves (or hiring a freelance publicist), and the priority order is almost always: trade and genre press first, podcasts second, local/regional press third, and mainstream press dead dead last (because it’s the hardest to land and converts the worst for niche books AND because unless you’re a household indie name, you likely won’t get a fair shake at much).

7. Influencer/creator partnerships

Stage: TOFU + BOFU (confused yet?)

Cost: Anything from a digital ARC copy to a few thousand dollars

Job: Reach audiences who already trust someone you don’t have access to

This used to be “send out ARCs and hope someone posts.” It is now a whole industry, and you can decide how much or how little you want to engage in it as a channel.

Creators (BookTokers, Bookstagrammers, BookTubers) are running their own brands, and partnering with them is a media buy. Some partnerships are genuinely organic (you send the book, they happen to love it, and then they post….or better yet, they find you organically, love your book, and then they post). Most of the high-leverage ones are paid or structured (sponsored posts, paid reviews, or included-in-a-roundup deals). Both have a place and can be leveraged to whatever extent you want to as part of your marketing mix.

This is also one of the few channels where indie authors can sometimes outperform trad because you can move faster, pay more flexibly, and target more specifically than a publisher’s standard influencer program.

8. The bonus channel: community-owned spaces (Discord, Substack, Patreon, Facebook groups, street teams)

Stage: MOFU primarily, with BOFU effects

Cost: Free to set up; expensive in time to run

Job: Convert engaged followers into superfans who do your marketing for you

A small, engaged Discord or Substack chat doesn’t just nurture existing fans, it gives them somewhere to recruit other fans to. Superfans do more marketing for free than any paid channel and it becomes a mutually beneficial relationship.

To be clear, not every author needs this. And I’m not even recommending this as a top area of focus (it’s listed last for a reason), but every author should at least have considered whether they want it. Retrofitting it into your day to day marketing is harder than just building it to start.

KU vs. wide: THE debate these days

Before we go any further: if you’re indie, your distribution strategy fundamentally changes your channel mix.

If you’re in Kindle Unlimited: your entire marketing universe revolves around Amazon. Amazon ads are your highest-leverage paid channel. Amazon keywords and categories are your highest-leverage organic Amazon work. A+ Content matters more because page reads are revenue. Your launch math is about getting into category bestseller lists fast and using the “also-bought”s to do the rest of your marketing for you. You are largely uninterested in Goodreads, marginally interested in BookBub, and your newsletter exists primarily to drive read-through, not direct sales.

If you’re wide: your universe is fundamentally different - and so, your marketing strategy is, too. You care about all the major retailers (Amazon, Apple, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Google Play) and you can run sales and pricing experiments across all of them. BookBub Featured Deals become much more valuable, in this case. Your newsletter is about both read-through AND conversion. You can use price-pulsing strategies that KU authors can’t - across channels, tied to other offer, seasonally and regionally relevant. You can do Bookfunnel cross-promos that don’t fit a KU strategy at all.

If you’re trad-pub: you don’t get to choose. But you should know which one your book is in (almost always wide, sometimes you retain your KU rights if you come from Indie), because it affects what you should be doing on the marketing side to complement what the publisher is doing.

These three groups need a different touch. When you read author marketing content (including mine), make sure you’re getting it specifically for your use-case.

the assessment: where are YOU under-investing right now, today?

OK so we’ve walked through the channels. You’re like “thanks, Ada, it’s Wednesday and I have enough to deal with and now I have acronyms and a funnel of stuff to deal with.” Fear not! This is just the beginning!

Before we go further in the following weeks, do this excercise:

Step 1 - Open a doc. Step 2 - Make three columns in that doc (doing well, doing some, not doing at all). Now put each of the channels above into one column based on honest7 current effort.

My strong suspicion is that most (not all, but most) of you will end up somewhere in and around this:

• Doing well: organic social (one platform)

• Doing some: email newsletter, author website

• Not doing at all: Amazon optimization, paid ads, PR, creator partnerships, community spaces

Regardless of what that looks like, the “not doing at all” column is your primary growth opportunity. And if you’re asking me (and if you’ve read this far, you’re at least curious), I’d invest in the following in priority order:

1. Email newsletter if you don’t have one and/or you’re not sending it at some kind of regular interval. This is free, owned and has the highest-trust audience!

2. Amazon A+ Content if you’re indie. It’s free and only takes a few hours to set up, but can show you really solid conversion.

3. One paid ad platform matched to your strategy (Amazon for KU, Meta for wide, or BookBub for backlist sales).

4. A creator partnership budget even if it’s small. Test five $100 partnerships before you spend $500 on one big one.

5. Community space only when you have a real audience to invite to one.

PR is harder to recommend universally because the payoff is so variable. It’s almost always worth doing, but the order it slots into depends on your specific book and timing.

the deep-dives I’ll do over the coming weeks

So this post was your map, but you need some hotspots - some places to visit. Over the next while, I’m going to take each of the meatiest channels and do a real deep-dive. We’ll cover:

• Amazon A+ Content for authors who haven’t touched it

• Newsletter best practices from setup to content cadence and what to actually put in it

• Reading Amazon ads without losing your mind: you’re about to become a data nerd, baby

• The DIY PR playbook for authors without a publicist: how to actually pitch yourself

• Influencer partnerships that don’t feel weird: how to find them, structure them, and pay for them ethically

• KU vs. wide deep-dive: the marketing math that actually changes between them, and what it means for you as an indie (or hybrid)

Alright, class dismissed for this week. Go do a keg stand or something!

xx Ada

You’re pre-debut, or pre-agent, or you’ve got an older book out but your real focus is the book you’re still writing and are not quite ready to share with the world yet. You’ve heard and absorbed the message that you need to “build a platform” - whatever that means. You’ve heard a million times that publishers want authors with audiences2. You’ve watched authors with five-figure followings get six-figure deals and you’ve gone cool cool cool cool cool cool.

But then you sit down to actually do it and the wheels come off. Because the conventional advice - build your platform! engage with the community! grow your audience! - falls apart on contact with reality. It’s easy to say those words but what are you supposed to post? About what? When? You don’t have a book! You don’t have a release date! You don’t have anything to sell! Do you start an author account anyway and just... vibe in public for two years?

Yes? Kind of?

first, a reframe: you are not “marketing nothing”

First and foremost, we need to stop treating marketing as an event that happens only around a product. Launch days, preorder campaigns, and cover reveals are marketing events, sure.

But marketing, in the broader and more honest sense, is the work of making sure the right people know who you are and what you’re about by the time you do have something to offer them. Again - the right message to the right customer at the right time. And that work has almost nothing to do with the book and almost everything to do with you.

When you finally have a book to launch, the marketing math is brutal: you have a very short amount of time of attention from algorithm and audience to convert strangers into buyers. That math is impossible if you start from zero. It is, however, doable and maybe even fun3 if you’ve spent the previous 18 months making sure 500…1,000… 5,000 of the right people already trust your taste, like your voice, and feel like they know you.

That’s what “platform” actually means. It isn’t follower count. It is pre-built trust that not only can you do without a book, but that you should be doing right now this minute today.

the only question that matters (ever): who are you to your reader, right now?

Are you trying to be an author account before you’ve earned that label?

Your bio says “debut author” with no debut yet. Or “romantasy book coming 2028” and we aren’t even halfway through 2026, y’all. The grid is full of writerly content…desk shots, coffee, “working on book two when book one isn’t out yet” that nobody outside the writing community actually knows enough to really care about.

This is the equivalent of opening a restaurant, getting it permitted and licensed, hanging a sign, and then standing in the doorway saying “I’m a chef!” for two years without serving any food. Eventually people walk past and stop noticing.

Don’t be an author-without-a-book. Be the reader-friend who happens to also be an author.

That’s the move. That’s the whole strategy. The bookstagrammer-to-author pipeline is real because it works precisely this way… you spend years being a trusted reader-voice, and when your book finally comes out, your audience converts because they know you intimitely. The leap from “I trust your taste in books” to “I trust the book you wrote” is much smaller than the leap from “you are a stranger asking me to buy your debut” to “OK fine here’s my $304.”

the four content pillars when you don’t have a book

OK, let’s get tactical now because we are nothing if not razor-sharp in our approach here. If you accept that your job pre-pub is to become a known, trusted voice in your niche, the content pillars almost write themselves. There are just four you need to remember.

Pillar 1: Taste

This is the biggest one and can carry through . Post about the books you love, the way you actually talk about them. Not the polite “here’s a roundup of recent reads” version. The unhinged “this book ruined me and I need to talk about it” version. Specific. Detailed. Voice-driven. Funny when it’s funny and devastating when it’s devastating.

This is the work that builds your reputation as someone whose taste is worth following. And here is the part that’s going to matter when your book comes out: when you eventually go “by the way, I wrote a book, and if you trusted my taste on these other 47 books I yelled about, you should trust me on this one” your audience already has 47 reference points for what your taste is. They know whether your book is for them based on how they felt about the books you recommended earlier. The conversion is almost5 frictionless.

Taste posts include: full recaps, rapid-fire roundups, trope deep dives, “books that did X well,” “books where Y broke me,” “if you liked this book, here’s the one you should read next,” reading-life confessionals, etc etc etc. Stay in your niche. If you write contemporary romance, you should be the contemporary-romance voice your followers love to listen to. If you write romcoms, become the romcom person.

A BIG NOTE OF CAUTION HERE: there is a very very very THICK line between being a reader and loving on books, and being a reviewer and critiquing books. If you are imminently entering the author space, remember that all the authors you read are about to become your coworkers. Avoid negative commentary (leave that for your group chats), avoid star ratings, avoid disparaging or crapping on anything. Make your space one where you talk passionately about what you love to read as a way to get followers to trust your taste when you tell them about what you’re writing. That’s the goal.

Pillar 2: Process (but the sexy kind)

When I talk about highlighting your process, you will see a lot of here is the “writer working on writer thing”. Some kind of generic shot of your desk or a random video of your at a cafe. And that’s…fine? It’s fine, but it’s not amazing.

What people actually want from process content is the weird, specific, behind-the-curtain stuff that makes writing feel real and disturbingly relatable. The research rabbit hole you fell into that got you to a Wiki page on spite houses. The character that started as Ryan Gosling in “Barbie” and ended up as Ryan Gosling in “Project Hail Mary”. The scene you’ve rewritten eleven times, deleted, rewrote a twelfth time and then ended up going back to version one. The Spotify playlist that’s currently doing all the heavy lifting including making you cry.

Process content is good when it’s the kind of thing you’d text a friend. Process content is bad when it’s the kind of thing that’s trying to look like an aesthetic.

Pillar 3: Reader life

This is the pillar that humanizes you and gives non-readers a reason to follow you on your journey. Your reading nook, or TBR pile, or the way you organize your shelves, or your library hold list, or the authors that have inspired you or worked with you or mentored you.

Reader life is the pillar that builds parasocial intimacy - and I know that word has bad connotations, but in this context it’s the engine that turns followers into superfans. People follow you because they want to feel like they’re in your life. Even if they aren’t really, even if you’re just doing what we all do online and showing a sliver of what’s true. Reader life content gives them that without requiring you to overshare or be performatively vulnerable.

Pillar 4: Niche obsessions

This is one that you can take or leave, but it can be incredibly effective. Pick one or two non-book obsessions that are adjacent to your writing identity and lean all the way in.

If you write Regency romance maybe you know everything about Regency fashion, country house architecture, or the very best of historical scandals like a nicer and better version of TMZ. If you write romcoms: you’re the Nora Ephron scholar, or the craft fiend, or the “did you know” fun fact well of knowledge on all classic romcoms. If you write contemporary: you’re maybe the small-town diner person, or the indie bookstore tourist, or the local-author champion.

The obsession does two things: first, it gives you something to talk about when you don’t want to talk about books or writing and second, it builds a layer of expertise around your author identity that becomes part of your brand long-term. When Emily Henry’s books come up, “small towns and grief” come up. When Ali Hazelwood comes up, “women in STEM” comes up. The obsession is the texture of the brand and it can help you immensely to find yours early.

what NOT to do during this precious pre-pub time

In no particular order:

• Don’t constantly announce that you’re writing a book. Our memories are WILDLY short and getting clipped more day by day with social media. Your audience does not really care until they can buy it. Mention it, give updates, but don’t make it your whole feed. You’ll quickly run out of things to talk about anyway.

• Don’t beg for newsletter signups before you have anything to send. Build the audience on the platform first. The newsletter can come when there’s something worth talking about.6

• Don’t fake an aesthetic that’s not yours. Your account can evolve, but if you build a sad-girl-poetry brand and you actually write screwball romance, you’ve now got the wrong audience.

• Don’t compare your follower count to anyone’s, ever. And I do mean EVER. It helps 0% and hurts 100% so the math isn’t mathing.

the rebrand question

Here is the one question I see constantly: I have a bookstagram already. Do I make a new account for my author identity, or do I rebrand the existing one?

Short answer: rebrand slowly.

A separate author account sounds clean in theory but it means starting from zero on followers, engagement, and algorithm trust - which is a brutal place to be when you’re already pre-pub and impatient. Your existing bookstagram has done the hardest part: it has an engaged audience of actual readers in your genre.

The right move is to gradually shift the content mix so the audience self-selects in or out before your book hits. Immediately stop writing anything negative about authors or books you’ve read (if you ever did that, anyway), archive all the posts that don’t serve you well, and rework your bio and username. Start sprinkling in process content, lean into your niche obsession, and let your audience know you’re working on a book and what to expect from you. Over six to twelve months, the account evolves from “reader who loves books” to “reader-who-loves-books-and-also-writes-them” to “author whose taste you’ve trusted for years.” The followers who don’t want author content will drop off quietly, and that’s ok - it’s not personal. But that also means that the ones who stay are pre-converted and your best bet for building momentum.

The exceptions where I’d actually recommend a separate account:

1. you write something radically different from what you post about (you’re a romance bookstagrammer who writes middle grade)

2. you’ve built a strict-genre brand and need to protect it for ongoing creator work

the patience math

The hardest part of any of this is that it will take longer than you want it to take, no exceptions.

If we’re being honest, a reasonable runway to doing this all meaningfully is 12 to 24 months of consistent content before your book comes out. Which I know I know I know is SO LONG, but you have to account for the fact that there is no world where you can do this organically without riding the wave of algorithm changes and consumer habits. The sweet spot for most authors is starting roughly when you have a real manuscript, which early enough to build something real and also late enough that the book is actually coming along and you have something to lean into.

If you’re earlier than that (drafting your first novel, no agent, no real timeline, just a dream and a computer) your job is not to “build a platform” yet. Your job is to be a reader in public, learn what makes you a sharp voice in your niche, and gather the muscle memory of posting consistently. The audience can come later.

And if you’re later than that (your book is on sale next year and you’re starting from a 200-follower account) don’t panic. You can do enormous work in six months if you commit, and a 200-engaged-follower account is meaningfully better than 20,000 ghost followers. Quality over quantity.

what to do this week

If you read this far and want one thing to do, here it is:

Open a doc and write down your four pillars, specific to you. If you don’t know or are stuck, crowdsourcing using 2 or 3 trusted friends in the book space can help immensely. Here is what mine might look like:

Taste: contemporary romance with grumpy heroines.

Process: the weird research holes I fall into late at night.

Reader life: my book aesthetic edits as a love language.

Niche obsession: making a playlist for every book I read.

Now look at your last twenty posts. What percentage of them fit one of those four pillars? You’re aiming for about 80%, which you can work up to if you need to. Go clean up your grid, start to plan your content without burning yourself out, and think about how and when you want to show up.

That’s the whole pre-pub strategy. Be a clear, specific, trustworthy voice in your niche for as long as it takes and then, when the book finally arrives, you’ll find that the marketing is suddenly almost7 easy.

Now go be brilliant!

xo Ada

Most “I don’t know how to market my book” problems are not marketing problems. They are clarity problems in dressed up in marketing clothing.

Look, I know. I KNOW. You came here for tips on Instagram captions and grid strategy and Reels and Canva and here I am, telling you the call is coming from inside the house. But, to quote the Rolling Stones, you can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes etc etc.

first: the test…

Before we go any further, let’s do a litmus test. Out loud, to nobody except yourself and the ghosties in your house, finish this sentence:

“My book is about _____.”

You get one sentence. No subordinate clauses. No “well, it’s KIND of like...” No “it’s hard to explain because...” No “it’s a bit of a genre-bender so...” Just the one sentence. And….go!

So? How was that?

If you nailed it: congratulations, you can skip the rest of this post and go work on your captions in peace. Godspeed, have a lovely day.

If you didn’t - if you fumbled or said three different things or you ended up giving a synopsis instead of a pitch or if you defaulted to “it’s a romance about two people who...” then stay with me, bestie.

why this is the actual problem

Marketing is, at its core, the act of telling the right person about the right thing in the right way at the right time. You cannot do step three if you haven’t done step two. And “the right thing” is your book, more specifically your book reduced to its most essential, most compelling, and most click-worthy version1.

If you can’t describe your book in one sentence, here’s what happens:

• Your captions sprawl, because every post is trying to do the work of explaining what the book is

• Your cover briefs are vague, because you don’t know what’s emotionally central and so your cover may or may not actually live up to your story

• Your comp titles are off, because you’re comping the plot and not the vibe

• Your copy doesn’t convert, because you’re hedging in every direction2

• Creators don’t pick it up, because they don’t know how to pitch it to their audience in a single line

Every single one of these reads, on the surface, like a tactical marketing problem. I need a better caption. I need a better bio. I need better comps. But the upstream cause of all of them is the same: you have not yet decided, and said it with your whole damn chest, what your book is.

And until you decide, no amount of caption tweaking is going to save you.

why this is hard

I want to acknowledge something before we go further: the reason most authors can’t pitch their book in one sentence is not laziness or bad writing. It’s that you wrote the entire book, and now you know everything about it, and reducing 90,000 words to 15 feels like a betrayal of the highest order.3

You feel the main character’s grief and the side-character’s redemption arc and the secondary found family frienships and the way the setting echoes the theme and the specific line of dialogue in chapter twelve that broke you. All of it is the book, so when someone says “what’s it about,” every option feels like leaving something out. And so you say all of them or you say none of them or you say “well...”

Here is the hard truth: a pitch is not the book itself. A pitch is the doorway to the book - you’re inviting someone in to actually take part in your world. Its job is to make a stranger want to step through. The doorway is not the entire house - it’s small and sometimes non-descript, but when opened can unveil more than you could’ve thought possible about the inside.

Your book can still be the rich, layered, and multi-threaded thing you wrote. In face - it IS all of that and more. The pitch just doesn’t have to carry the weight of all of it.

what a pitch actually has to do

A working one-sentence pitch does three (and only three) things…

1. It’s your genre marker: It signals what kind of book this is for readers…the shelf, the lane, and the audience. (Romance? Romantasy? Cozy mystery? Speculative?)

2. It gives you a very specific hook. It tells me what makes THIS book different from every other book on that particular shelf. Your unique differentiator. Your value proposition.

3. And it names the emotional tone. It hints at how the book is going to feel for readers… funny, devastating, sweeping, claustrophobic, slow-burn, lush, etc.

That’s it. That’s literally the whole damn thing. That’s all she wrote. It does not have to summarize the plot or introduce a character by name or set up the world. Remember: doorway, not the whole house4.

the formula (insomuch as there is a formula)

There are dozens of pitch frameworks out there and most of them work just fine for what you need. A quick google or chat with your agent will help get you a good and solid framework. But, in a pinch and if you’re trying to do this exercise right now, this is one that you can hang your proverbial hat on at any time:

[Genre/comp shorthand] about [specific, weird, or memorable hook], where [emotional promise]

So for example:

• A grumpy-sunshine contemporary romance about a wedding planner who gets stranded with the brother of the bride, where the slow burn will fill you with so much tension you’ll be yelling at your book for them to JUST KISS ALREADY (and then they do)

• A dark academia fantasy about six magicians forced to share a haunted house for one year, where everyone is in love with the wrong person and someone is definitely going to die

• A cozy mystery about a retired food critic who solves murders by their suspect’s preferred breakfast order, where the body count is high and the recipes are real

Let’s break down what each of these does:

• Slot 1 is doing tons of work for the algorithm AND the reader’s brain. “Grumpy-sunshine contemporary romance” tells me where to shelve it before I’ve even heard the plot, and we immediately recognize it as something familiar

• Slot 2 is the doorway. It’s the specific weird thing only this book has…the unique selling proposition. It’s what what makes the reader go “hmmm”

• Slot 3 is the emotional promise or the feeling I’m going to get from reading. It’s also where you can deploy a little of your own voice.

Three LOOKS THAT’S IT5.

how to actually find yours

If you sat down to write your one-sentence pitch right now and got stuck, here’s what to do instead.

Step 1: Write ten bad versions

Genuinely bad ones. Don’t try to make them good, instead try to make them exhaust the space. Use every angle, every framing, and every comp shorthand that you can think of. Write the one that’s too plot-heavy then write the one that’s too vibey then write the one that’s too funny then write the one that’s too literary. The point is to get out of “trying to write THE pitch” and into “trying to write ANY pitch.”

Once you have 10 that you absolutely hate6, move onto step 2.

Step 2: Highlight the words and phrases that recur

Across your ten bad pitches, you’ll notice certain words come up over and over. Highlight them and put them off to the side. These are the words your subconscious already knows belong to this book, because, remember that you know your book best of all. Keep them because they matter.

Step 3: Write a clean version using only the highlighted words

Use the formula: genre marker, specific hook, then emotional promise and use the words that surfaced in step two. Don’t reach for new ones just yet…the ones you already wrote down across multiple attempts are the ones that are true to the book. New words are usually you trying to sound smart or add that additional flavor of color we simply don’t need right now.

Step 4: Test it on a stranger7.

I don’t mean your beta reader or your critique partner or your mom who thinks you’re brilliant or your best friend who would help you bury a body. I’m talking about someone arms length from this book and who maybe has some opinions - maybe at a party, maybe at a book club, maybe to someone who is a reader but doesn’t read what you normally write.

Read them the pitch and then watch their face. You can do it as creepily and intently as you’d like, I’m not here to tell you how to live your life.

You’re not looking for them to say “oh wow that sounds amazing” (they will, because they’re polite and if they don’t well then…good luck to them in life). You’re looking for them to ask at least one follow-up question. Follow-up questions mean the doorway worked, they want to step through and learn more.

If they nod politely and say “that sounds nice” then your pitch is too vague, and you have to go back to step 1 (I’m sorry).

the part that’s going to sting

Sit down for this next part because it may hurt.

If you’ve been writing this book for two years and you genuinely cannot pitch it in one sentence, that is not a marketing problem. That is the book telling you something is off. Maybe it’s that the book has two halves that don’t agree with each other. Maybe it’s that you wrote it before you knew what it was about, and the discovery has made it confusing. Maybe it’s that you have three books trying to be one.

This doesn’t mean the book is bad and should be thrown into the trash and lit on fire. It just means that there is something that needs to be dev edited or relooked at or maybe reframed. Clarity will outweigh marketing 100% of the time, all day every day, in terms of importance to a book’s success.

So before you spend another month tinkering with your Instagram strategy: do the pitch work. Write the ten bad versions, find the words, test the doorway.

Then and only then focus on your marketing tactics. They’ll work way better when there’s a clear book underneath them.

LOVE YOU MAKE GOOD CHOICES!

xo Ada

That’s right, friends. Today we are…cleaning.

It’s spring, which means somewhere in your real life, you’re probably eyeing a closet, a junk drawer, or a corner of your kitchen that’s become that quintessential “let me put the junk mail here and deal with it later” pile. The urge to throw things away is strong.

I can’t help you with your house (something about having to get my own house in order first?), but I can help you with your socials. Because your Instagram has its own version of that closet/drawer/junk pile. The out-of-date pinned post. The bio you wrote in 2022 - approximately 3,246 “unprecedented events” ago . The grid that’s been on autopilot since your last launch. The link-in-bio page with five dead URLs. The captions that all start with “I’m so excited to...”1.

We’re going to clean it all out. It’s going to take fifteen minutes2. You’re going to feel approximately ten thousand times better afterward.

One rule before we start: do this on a desktop browser, in an incognito window, while logged out. This is the single most important move during this entire process - you need to see your profile the way a stranger sees it without cached vanity metrics, without your own Story ring at the top of the feed, and without personalized suggestions. If you only ever look at your account from your own logged-in phone, you are grading your own homework, and you are grading it on the most generous curve.

OK - open the windows, grab your beverage of choice, put on your most energetic cleaning music or listen to a podcast or an audiobook. Let’s do it to it!

(Today’s post was written to the classic and effervescent “So Fresh, So Clean” by Outkast, in case you needed some inspo):

1. dust the bio (2 minutes)

Open your profile in incognito. Set a timer for 10 seconds. Look at the profile picture, the name field, and the bio only but don’t scroll yet.

Now close your eyes and answer three questions out loud:

1. What genre does this person write?

2. What’s one thing I’d know about them as a person?

3. Is there a book I could buy right now, and where?

If you can’t answer all three in five seconds, your bio needs a deep clean3. There is no partial credit for it being cute or funny or for having remembered your link in bio. A new follower decides whether to tap “follow” based on at MOST this much information…not your grid, or your last ten posts, or your Reels. The bio and the bio only. It’s the same principle as the dating apps, in a way. You are trying to attract a partner (reader) who wants to jump your bones (read your book) and maybe spend the rest of your lives growing old together and laughing and doing all the things that make life worth living (becoming an auto-buy author for them).

The most common dust bunnies to look for:

• Genre is implied but not stated. “Author of [book title]” tells me nothing unless I already know the book. Say “contemporary romance,” or “cozy fantasy,” or “sapphic historical.” Be a word search someone could actually find.4

• Personality hook is missing. Every bio is “author of X, mom of Y, coffee ☕.” This is interchangeable with 400,000 other accounts. Give me one specific, weird, or memorable detail. “Writes about haunted diners. Will talk to you about pie for hours.” As a pie lover, I would follow that in a heartbeat.

• No CTA or a dead one. “Link in bio” is not a CTA - remember? What’s IN the link? Is it a book? A newsletter? A preorder? Tell me what you want me to do next.

Fix it before you move on. A broken bio invalidates every other thing we’re about to look at, the same way you wouldn’t vacuun before dusting.

2. throw out the expired pinned posts (2 minutes)

You have three pinned post slots and they’re the most valuable real estate on your entire profile. They are also, in most cases, the place where author Instagrams go to die.

Open your profile and look at what’s pinned. Now ask yourself:

• Is any of them older than nine months? If yes, unpin it. I don’t care how well it performed in 2024. It is the marketing equivalent of a yogurt expiring last fall and you can throw it away. In fact - PLEASE throw it away.

• Are all three the same type of post? (Three launch announcements or three cover reveals or three personal posts.) If yes, you are answering one question three times and ignoring two other questions a new follower has.

• Do they collectively answer: who are you, what do you write, and why should I trust you? Because that’s the job. Three pins, three answers, in that exact order for maximum efficiency

The ideal pinned-post triad for an author is something like:

• Pin 1: Who you are. An introduction post with your origin story (your origin story is a free marketing asset and you are probably hiding it in the back of the closet - it is your SUPERPOWER and your unique differentiator).

• Pin 2: What you write. Your current or most representative book, with vibes, tropes, and a specific reason to care.

• Pin 3: Proof. A high-performing post, a reader review, a character art commission, a fan quote, a bestseller moment…something that signals “other people have already decided I’m worth their time.”

If you can’t fill all three slots with those categories right now, that tells you what kind of content to make next so add it to the spring backlog.

3. take a hard look at the front nine (3 minutes)

This is the one everyone hates and I’m sorry in advance. Spring cleaning sometimes means admitting the rug is, in fact, ruined beyond repair.

Look at the first nine posts5 on your grid. These are the nine squares a new follower sees before they have to scroll or tap. This is your shop window, your end cap at a grocery store, you online dating profile pic. If a stranger walked past it today, what would they think you sold?

For each square, ask:

• Can I tell what this post is about from the thumbnail alone?

• Does this square fit the same voice as the others, or does it feel like a different account?

• Would a stranger looking at these nine squares understand what I write and roughly who I am?

Common stains:

• Seven out of nine are launch graphics for the same book. Fine if you launched in the last two weeks. Not fine if that launch was four months ago. You are stuck in campaign mode and that’s no bueno.

• Massive tonal whiplash. A polished quote graphic next to a selfie in pajamas next to a Canva-template trope tease next to a fan art repost next to a screenshot of your Notes app. Individually these can all be great. Stacked together they read as “this person has no idea what their account is about.” Keep in mind - you want a mixture of whatver feels authentic to you but keep your tone in photography consistent and your tone in non-photography consistent.

  

• Every square is a text graphic. You’ve forgotten that Instagram is a visual platform. Give me a face, a book, a setting, an object… something my eyes can rest on.

The fix isn’t “redesign your grid.” The fix is: know what your nine squares are supposed to say, and plan your next nine posts to say it. Grids are self-correcting if the posting strategy is sound. You don’t need a deep clean, but you do need to commit to wiping it down semi-regularly.

4. rebalance the Reels-to-static ratio (2 minutes)

Go to your profile. Look at your last twenty posts. Count how many are Reels vs. how many are static posts (single image or carousel).

If you’re at 0-10% Reels: you are leaving the largest discovery lever on the platform completely untouched. Instagram has been explicit, for years now, that Reels are how new people find you. You do not have to be a face-forward creator to use them. Character art set to music, a book-opening ASMR shot, a trope POV text-over-video, a cover reveal with motion…these all count.

If you’re at 70%+ Reels: you’re doing discovery content but probably not giving existing followers enough to sink into. Carousels are where you convert the people Reels brought you. Balance it out.

The sweet spot for most authors, in my experience, is roughly 40-60% Reels, 40-60% carousels/statics. Adjust based on what your specific account data tells you, but if you’re outside that range in either direction, that’s a signal worth investigating.

One caveat: this isn’t a quota. Don’t post a bad Reel just to hit a ratio. A posted Reel that flops because you didn’t actually want to make it is worse than no Reel at all.

Another caveat: Instagram treats carousel posts with music as Reels. You may have noticed that they often show up in the explore tab/Reels feed. That’s because when you add music to your carousel, Instagram will keep serving up different slides to viewers based on interest. So…I guess what I’m saying is add music and avoid one-off slide posts.

5. wipe down the caption hooks (3 minutes)

Remember last week when I told you nobody is reading your captions?6

Pull up your last ten captions. Read only the first line of each one. Out loud, if you can…

Now ask: out of those ten first lines, how many would stop YOU if you were scrolling?

If the answer is “two or fewer,” congratulations, you have identified your single highest-leverage fix. You don’t need a new brand, a new aesthetic, or a new content strategy. You need to spend five minutes rewriting your first lines before you publish, every single time.

Look for these patterns:

• Starting with “I’m so excited to...”

• Starting with “Today is the day...”

• Starting with “I can’t believe...”

• Starting with a book title in all caps followed by exclamation marks

Replace with:

• A weird, specific detail

• A half-sentence that implies a story

• A question with an obvious answer that invites disagreement

• Something that sounds like a text you’d send a friend, not a press release

You do not need to be clever but you do need to be specific and human. Those are two very achievable things (if you’re a robot reading this, sorry but this isn’t FOR you).

If you don’t think you can be objective, find someone in your life that is not necessarily a romance reader (or that one friend that you can trust to tell you when you have something between your teeth no matter where you are). Ask THEM their opinion. I do this all the time with my own job - if my husband, who is not in the industry I work in, can understand it then I’ve done what I set out to do.

6. clean out the link-in-bio junk drawer (3 minutes)

Last stop but we put it off for long enough: the junk drawer.

Click your own link in bio, in incognito, as if you were a new follower who just decided you were interesting.

Now honestly grade the experience7:

• How many clicks to buy a book? If it’s more than two, you have a problem. Ideal is one: bio → link → “buy the book” button.8

• Is there a newsletter signup? If not, you are building your entire business on rented land and you’re just waiting for the landlord’s deadbeat nephew to move in because he can’t get hold down a job and needs all the family help he can get. Every link-in-bio page should have a newsletter option, clearly visible, with a reason to subscribe (freebies, first looks, etc).

• Are there dead links? Old book tours, expired preorder campaigns, “upcoming events” from 2025? Throw them OUT. Each dead link makes everything else look neglected, the same way one expired bottle of salad dressing makes you suspect everything else in the fridge and next thing you know you’ve thrown out half the food in your house and suddenly you have nothing to eat and so you have to go to the grocery store and then once you’re done at the grocery store you’re so tired that you just order pizza for dinner anyway. Or something.

The link-in-bio is not a parking lot for every link you’ve ever needed. It is a funnel to get people from “hmmm” to “buy now”. Three to five options, max, in priority order, with the most important thing at the top.

what to do once everything’s clean

If you did all six steps honestly, you probably have somewhere between two and fifteen things you want to fix. Don’t try to fix them all today, and don’t panic about it either. Spring cleaning works because you do it in passes: first the obvious mess, then the deeper stuff, then the parts you’d been pretending not to see but keep you awake at night stomehow.

Pick the one that felt most uncomfortable to look at (that’s usually the one costing you the most) and fix only that this week.

Next week, pick the next one.

Eight weeks from now, you will have a profile that’s doing actual work for you. And then once a week or biweekly or once a month, just do a little quick sweep. Open the windows, dust a bit, take it room by room.

Now, doesn’t that feel better? Go get yourself your drink of choice, grab a book, and put your feet up. You’ve earned it!

Make good choices!

xx Ada

Nobody is reading your captions.1

Not your best friend. Not your ARC team. Not the person who commented three fire emojis last Tuesday. Not the follower who DMs you every time you post. And certainly not the stranger who is about to decide, in roughly 1.7 seconds2, whether you are someone whose book belongs in their cart.

I know. I KNOW. You spent an hour on that caption. You workshopped the first line. You agonized over whether to use an em dash or an ellipsis3. You finally hit publish, watched the likes trickle in, and then watched your saves stay at two (one of which was you, testing).

And somewhere in the back of your head a little voice said: nobody read it, did they.

Correct…they did not. But here’s the thing… that’s not actually the problem. The problem is that you’re still writing captions like they’re going to be read, when you should be writing them like they’re going to be scrolled.4

what’s actually happening when someone sees your post

Let me walk you through the life cycle of your carefully constructed caption, because I don’t think we talk about this honestly enough.

Your post lands in someone’s feed. They are:

• Lying in bed

• Waiting for coffee

• In a meeting pretending to take notes (couldn’t be me)

• Doomscrolling between Very Bad News and a video of a capybara

• Trying to have just ONE MINUTE TO THEMSELVES while their kids/dogs/partner ask questions or request their attention or just want more

They see your image first. That gets maybe a second of attention. If the image doesn’t stop the scroll, the caption never even enters the chat. Done. Gone. Moving on to the next thing.

If the image DOES stop the scroll, here’s what they actually do:

1. Look at the image for another second or two

2. Read the first line of the caption (maybe)

3. Decide whether to tap “...more”

4. If they tap, they skim

5. Double tap, share, or keep scrolling

The number of people who will actually read your entire caption top to bottom, savoring every word like it’s a new Noah Kahan lyric, is approximately: your mom5.

Everyone else is skimming for a reason to care. Your job is to give them one and fast.

the 1.7(ish) second rule

Here is what I want you to internalize and then tattoo on your posting hand: the first line of your caption is doing 90% of the work.

Not the middle, not the emotional crescendo, not the very clever callback to a line from your book that will DESTROY readers once they finish it.

The. first. line.

That’s the line that decides whether anyone taps “...more” in the first place. If they don’t tap, it doesn’t matter how good the rest is. It’s a tree falling in a forest with nobody around to reshare it.

And here is the part that will hurt - most author first lines are some version of:

• “I’m so excited to finally share...”

• “Today is the day I’ve been waiting for...”

• “It’s here!! My debut novel...”

• “I cannot believe I’m writing this post but...”

These are warm. They are genuine. They are AUTHENTIC (and we love an authentic moment here). They are also (and I say this with love) completely interchangeable with every other author post on Instagram right now. The algorithm doesn’t know you meant it. The scroller doesn’t care that you meant it. They’ve seen four of these in the last ten minutes.

from…to, because I love you

Post type: cover reveal

• FROM: “After months of waiting, I finally get to show you the cover for my next book, [TITLE]. I’m absolutely obsessed with how it turned out and I hope you love it as much as I do!”

• TO: “Every time I open Instagram I have to physically restrain myself from posting this cover…but not today”

What changed: the first line has a voice. It implies a story (what cover? why restraining yourself? is this going to break the internet?). It makes you want to scroll down for the image. It sounds like a person and not a press release.

Post type: launch day

• FROM: “IT’S HERE!!! My debut novel [TITLE] is officially out in the world today and I can’t believe this moment is finally here...”

• TO: “A book I wrote is, as of 3am this morning, something a complete stranger in Ohio can buy. I hope you love it, stranger in Ohio.”

What changed: specificity. “3am” and “stranger in Ohio” are doing a LOT of work. They paint a picture. They’re weird and weird is good6 because weird stops the scroll.

Post type: character/trope teaser

• FROM: “Meet [NAME], the grumpy bookstore owner at the heart of my new novel. He’s guarded, sarcastic, and has a soft spot for...”

• TO: “He’s mean to literally everyone except the cat. He wears glasses and the cat’s name is Brontë. You’re all welcome.”

What changed: the after gives you a specific, weird, memorable detail PLUS leans into a popular archetype we all love, instead of a list of traits you’ve read in every grumpy-sunshine pitch of the last five years. Specificity is a cheat code to get readers on board with your words.

what your caption should actually do

If we accept that people are skimming and not reading, then the structure of a caption stops being “opening → middle → emotional payoff” and starts being something more like:

1. First line: stop the scroll. One sentence. Weird, specific, funny, or slightly inappropriate.

2. Second line: give them a reason to care. Who is this for? What’s it about?

3. The middle: context, if they want it. This is where you can actually be warm and earnest. The people who tapped “...more” are already interested.

4. The close: tell them what to do. Comment with X. Add to Goodreads. Preorder today. A CTA that is NOT “link in bio.”7

That’s it. That’s the whole structure. It works for launch days, cover reveals, backlist pushes, and everything in between. As long as you’re in a marketing headspace, try this formula.

the uncomfortable truth about heartfelt captions

I know someone is reading this with their arms crossed going “but MY audience likes long, emotional captions all day every day.” And listen…maybe! If you genuinely have an engaged community that reads you like a newsletter, great, keep doing it. But check your data before you assume that’s you.

Look at your last ten posts. Compare the ones where the first line was a banger to the ones where you buried the interesting thing in paragraph three. I will bet you a coffee the banger-first-line posts outperformed.

Heartfelt isn’t the problem. Burying the hook is the problem, especially when you’re trying to get someone to spend money on you. You can still be warm, sincere, and emotional, just lead with the weird, specific, scroll-stopping thing first, and let the earnestness show up on line four when you’ve actually earned the reader’s attention.

three first lines you can steal for your next release

1. “I think about this scene once a week and I haven’t even written it yet.” (works for: WIP posts, aesthetic boards)

2. “If you’ve ever [specific weird behavior], this book is for you and I’m so sorry for calling you out like this.” (works for: trope/vibe posts)

3. “This is not the post I planned to write today but here we are.” (works for: reviews, milestones, mid-week check-ins)

Use them. Adapt them. Make them yours. Just please, please,8 stop opening with “I’m so excited to share...”

K love you bye.

xx Ada

If the last few years have taught us anything, it’s this: social media is not stable infrastructure.

It feels permanent while you’re in it - the followers, the views, the tiny dopamine hits you get when someone engages. Then one algorithm tweak, one ownership fight, one policy change later and half your reach disappears overnight.

We’ve watched it happen to bloggers1 and YouTubers, to Facebook Pages, to organic Instagram, and now the spotlight is on TikTok, where recent ownership and legal changes in the U.S. has made the entire ecosystem feel like a house of cards.

And yet and yet and yet…TikTok has historically been a fantastic platform to help you get your books to readers.

What’s an author to do when the thing that helps is the thing we just can’t seem to get a grip on? That tension - when it’s good it’s great, when it’s bad it’s enough to want to pack it all in - is basically the story of social marketing in 2026.

So the goal isn’t to chase every new platform or panic every time headlines flare up.
The goal is to build a system that works even if a platform disappears tomorrow or an algorithm changes or you just need a damn break.

Because trends come and go (by, you know, their nature), so what we need is to build leverage, repeatable moves, a marketing arsenal that builds instead of resetting with the whims of powerful corporations.

So here’s my view of a 2026 marketing playbook that can help YOU ignore the noise - once and for all.

1. Stop treating platforms like homes when they’re actually short term rentals

Most authors build their entire business inside one app - whether that’s a comfort thing, a time issue, or just not wanting to spread yourself too thin. We pour months (years) into growing followers, perfecting aesthetics, posting even when we don’t want to and forget one uncomfortable truth: You don’t own any of it.

Not your reach. Not your audience access. Not even the visibility of your own launch post.

Platforms like Instagram or TikTok are incredible discovery engines, but they’re rented space. You’re basically running a pop-up shop in someone else’s mall, and they decide if they want to put you on a map or move you into a corner that doesn’t get any light and smells vaguely of garbage but you can’t ever locate the source.

Basically, you get great foot traffic - maybe - that’s completely out of your control.

Which means social should be the top of the funnel, not the destination. Use it to meet readers, hook them, get them to want to know you. Then move them somewhere you actually own. I’m talking emails & newsletters.

When you have someone’s email, no algorithm stands between you and them when you have something important to say.

A practical target

Aim to convert ~10% of your social traffic into email subscribers with a simple incentive: a bonus epilogue, a short story, a character playlist, early cover reveals.

It doesn’t need to be fancy. It just needs to be enough for you to get that email because information is power.

So ask yourself: if a platform vanished tomorrow, would you still be able to sell books?If the answer is no, that’s the real risk to fix.

2. Short-form video isn’t a format anymore - it’s the native language of the internet

A lot of authors still treat video like a special project, like something you plan & script & produce & second guess. But that’s not how users view video anymore.

Short-form clips on TikTok, Reels, and YouTube Shorts2 function less like “content” and more like conversation. They’re quick, casual, and emotional - the perfect mix for a vast internet that can often feel very impersonal.

The irony of it all is that the more something looks like an ad (polished and prim and proper), the faster people skip it3. So start to think of videos more like texts and less like trailers. The posts that work rarely look “produced.” They feel human. You’ve probably seen it yourself…

Your desk is messy. You haven’t washed your hair in a week. You’re crying over a line you just wrote. Your “day in the life” turned into a mess because you forgot to finish recording. And that’s the content that goes gangbusters. Tiny, specific slices of life (yours or your characters) beat cinematic perfection every time.

A realistic rhythm

Three short videos a week is enough to matter. Pick a day (Saturday? Tuesday? Whatever works for you). Block an hour and batch ‘em, Danno4! Don’t overthink, just film a few quick videos to have in your backpocket.

And when you post, measure watch time and saves, not just views. Retention is what tells the algorithm your content is worth sharing.

3. Followers are becoming a vanity metric

This is one of the biggest shifts that social media has undergone in the last couple of years. And it can be a jarring realization, especially if you’ve spent years trying to grow. But in 2026 it’s clear that a small, talkative audience will outsell a huge, silent one every time.

Platforms increasingly reward posts that create activity: comments, replies, shares, saves, reposts. Passive scrolling doesn’t count for much anymore, and it can actually be a death knell for social engagement overall. This means broadcasting isn’t enough …you actually have to invite participation.

When you’re posting, remember that you’re not just sharing out-of-context updates. You’re creating decisions, debates, tiny moments where readers decide whether they want to lean in. Tease people to get them commenting. Create memes or something that’s super shareable. Give them a reason to come back and engage.

Because the algorithm doesn’t reward how many people saw something. It rewards how many people reacted.

4. Collaboration is the fastest growth lever most authors ignore

Paid ads still have their place (and always will)5, but trust spreads sideways now. Readers don’t discover books because a brand tells them to; they discover books because someone they already like or trust can’t shut up about it. Which is why collaboration & community matters more than ever in 2026.

If you’re an independent author, this can look like: lives with fellow authors; newsletter swaps; cross-posts with other creators; accepting (selectively) content creators collaborations.

If you’re a traditionally published author, this looks like working with your publisher to curate the influencer outreach, to collab on posts, and to provide you meaningful offline support and PR opportunities in your niche (Publisher’s Marketplace and Kirkus are amazing, but getting a food influencer to interview you about your upcoming chef-based romance could open up a brand new audience).

Either way, you need to be present and engaging in your community. If you do nothing else this year, commit to one thoughtful collaboration a month - I’m not talking about a throwaway giveaway to mine for followers (they don’t matter, remember?). I’m talking about a collab or a swap or something that starts some real conversation.

So…this is not a giveaway dump or engagement bait. This is a real conversation.

5. Personality beats polish - every single time

This might be the hardest mindset shift for marketers and perfectionists (what, me? no couldn’t be me….ok fine, it’s me). But the feeds that feel overly designed or “branded” are starting to look corporate. And corporate is easy to scroll past.

What people respond to now is texture, to imperfection, to a thematic that. feels approachable yet recognizable.

Your weird humor. Your writing chaos. Your dog interrupting a live.Your honest takes about a bad draft day. Readers don’t bond with logos, they bond with people.

The more you sound like yourself, the less interchangeable you become. And in a a world over oversaturation, differentiation is everything.

Remember: you’re not just competing with other authors. You’re competing with literally every piece of content on someone’s phone. So zig when they zag. Break the scroll by being the one thing you can be that no one else can: yourself.

6. Think systems, not just posts

Here’s where most creators burn out: they treat every post like a standalone event. But the authors who grow consistently think in systems - you know that saying “I had an idea and ran with it?” It’s this, I’m talking about EXACTLY this.

One idea or hook becomes:

• a short video

• a Reel

• a Short

• a carousel post

• a newsletter story

You take the same concept (a quote, a trope, a character trait) and you blow it out to every channel. Multiple touchpoints. Different ways in, different ways to connect, different ways to get the same message to the target audience.

Less work. More reach6.

Reinventing the wheel with every post will make you want to tear your hair out. And it’s not necessary. We need to have information literally shoved in our faced up to 15 times now before it registers and we want to purchase…and that number is only getting higher. So find something that works, and repeat it. This is how you stay visible without living online.

Content Trends To Pay Attention To:

With all of that being said, if you take away only a few things from this newsletter, let it be that the content trends we are seeing are not mysterious - they are tried, tested and true. This is what I have seen and validated both for myself and working with a number of authors - this is what works and this is what will continue to be what you should focus on in 2026.

• Lo-fi vs polished - imperfect cuts, no makeup videos, impromptu lives

• Authentically flawed - show us you’re human. Share mistakes. BE AUTHENTIC AND OPEN.7

• Character art is still Queen - this will not go away. And, dare I say, it’s very quickly replacing stock images as the way to a reader’s heart

• Snack-size vs large meals - give us something we can eat (nom nom nom). Something we can digest quickly as we scroll. Something we want to split with our friends. Something we want to have even more of.

• Reps vs heavy sets8 - remember multiple reps of something manageable > trying to set a personal record each and every time.

Have fun marketing, friends!

xo

Ada

1. I Will Market Like I’m Building an Asset, Not Feeding a Machine

If your marketing collapses when you stop posting, you’re not building a business, you’re servicing an algorithm.

Core principle:
Platforms can disappear. Assets compound.

This year, the goal is not more visibility. It’s durable attention.

What this looks like in practice:

• One discovery platform you actively post on - this can be Instagram or TikTok

• One owned destination you optimize ruthlessly - I’m a big fan of Pinterest for this (stay tuned for a BIG Pinterest post coming up this month)

• Clear pathways from post to next step to relationship (think of yourself as a closed loop of marketing - one action leads to another which leads to another)

Resources to study:

• Marketing Examples (real breakdowns of audience-building)

• Kevin Kelly’s 1,000 True Fans (still foundational, even though it’s over a decade old)

• Email-first thinking (not platform-first)

2. I Will Build a Visual System Instead of Designing Post-by-Post

If every graphic is a one-off, you’re improvising under pressure, and your audience will clock that immediately.

Core principle:
Recognition beats novelty. A visual system creates speed, consistency, and memory without killing creativity. This is your BRAND. This is what you live and breathe and how you stand out in a sea of same.

What a real system includes:

• Fixed spacing and alignment rules

• Defined type hierarchy

• Repeatable layout logic (I’m NOT talking templates necessarily, though that’s a start - I’m talking consistency in how you bring this to life)

Resources to study:

• Design systems explained clearly

• Jakob’s Law (why consistency builds trust)

• Editorial design inspiration & analysis

3. I Will Stop Chasing New Readers and Start Serving the Ones I Have

WAIT! BEFORE YOU CLOSE THIS TAB - I’m not saying don’t get new readers. Quite the opposite. I’m saying use what you already have to get you more new readers. There’s a very real adage in marketing and sales - it’s more expensive to get a new customer than it is to retain an existing one. This is always true. You’re trying to get new people to say YES to you so you have to wine and dine them, you have to impress them, wow them, make them WANT to be with you on this journey. And that sometimes means really leaning into your existing fans.

Core principle:
People who already said yes are your highest-leverage audience. Serving existing readers creates momentum that no launch can replicate.

What this looks like:

• Clear “start here” paths

• Regular backlist resurfacing

• Content that deepens familiarity, not just reach

Resources to study:

• David Gaughran on backlist & long-term growth

• Excellent welcome sequence examples

• Retention thinking (applies beyond SaaS):
  https://www.reforge.com/blog/retention

4. I Will Learn Restraint as a Competitive Advantage

Most author visuals fail because they’re trying to say too much at once. It gets cluttered and confusing and it leaves readers wondering what you want of them.

Core principle:
What you remove determines how strong the message becomes. Restraint signals confidence while over-design signals uncertainty.

What restraint looks like:

• One focal point per visual

• One idea per post

• Space used deliberately, not fearfully

Resources to study:

• Hick’s Law (why fewer choices feel better)

• White space as authority, not absence

• Minimalism as communication
  

5. I Will Decide What I’m Known For (And Say It Relentlessly)

If your positioning is fuzzy, your content will always work harder than it should. Be CLEAR in your intent and what you stand for. This is your brand promise. This is the one-sentence elevator pitch you want to have available at all times.

Core principle:
Clarity scales. Confusion exhausts. Being specific is not limiting - it’s legible.

What this looks like:

• A single positioning sentence

• Visual and verbal repetition

• Saying no to content that muddies perception

Resources to study:

• Building a StoryBrand (apply lightly, think deeply)

• Distinctive brand assets explained

• Why clarity beats creativity

6. I Will Design for Reading, Not for Other Authors

If your visuals impress peers but confuse readers, they are failing. We sometimes like to “talk to ourselves” in marketing - meaning we are

Core principle:
Design is hospitality.

Readers skim. They scan. Your job is to make meaning effortless.

What reader-first design means:

• Clear hierarchy

• Comfortable line spacing

• Contrast that prioritizes legibility

Resources to study:

• How users actually read online

• Why centered text slows comprehension

• Visual hierarchy fundamentals

7. I Will Measure One Thing That Actually Matters

Likes are polite applause. Metrics are evidence that you’re doing the right thing.

Core principle:
If you don’t choose a metric, the platform will choose one for you. This year, you track one number that aligns with your real goal.

Examples:

• Email subscribers

• Conversion rate

• Monthly sell-through

Resources to study:

• Social media metrics 101

The Truth?

None of these resolutions are flashy, and that’s why they will work. They replace chaos with systems, novelty with memory, and effort with success.

So whether you do one, some, or all of these. Whether you read a few or all of the articles. Whether you go into this thinking resolutions are useless or you live and die by them. Whether you read this and forget about it the very next minute…take the good from 2025, release the bad, and remember that it’s a marathon not a sprint and tomorrow’s another day.

And, when in doubt, revisit some of my old newsletters for more tips and inspiration.

Here’s to another amazing year! Thanks for being here!

xo

Ada

You’re here for marketing. And believe me when I say - there is a LOT you can take away from the marketing efforts of Heated Rivalry.

The Crave of it all:

Crave3 isn’t just promoting a show. They don’t just talk about something they are releasing. It is so clear that the marketing efforts are rooted in fans of the books and people who have studied what works in the book marketing space. They have built a cultural moment around it. Expertly, might I add.

And authors? If you’re paying attention, everything they are doing is something you can do - without needing a network, a team, or a million-dollar budget.

(Worth noting I’m speaking about social media only here. They’ve done a stellar job with full funnel marketing efforts and PR, but that can’t be easily replicated. Crave’s parent company is a media conglomerate which has given them a leg up on premium placements).

Crave Made Audience Conversation the Campaign - Not an Output

Most campaigns treat conversation as the result of a launch. We will often post and hope to get the engagement and conversation out of those posts.

Crave flipped the script. For them, the conversation is the launch. They didn’t wait for discourse. Instead, they seeded it.

• clips chosen specifically for emotional chaos

• ship-forward messaging

• cheeky captions that are full of fandom in-jokes

They don’t speak at viewers…they speak with them.

Crave Leans Into Romance, Not Away From It

A lot of studios get shy about love stories, especially queer ones. They sand them down and neutralize the heat. They try to make the marketing “broad.” Booo….tomato tomato.

Crave is doing the opposite. They are saying:

• “This is a love story.”

• “This is yearning.”

• “This is hot and sexy and consensual intimacy.”

They embrace tropes, high emotional stakes, softness, intensity, that ache. They are doing what studios never do and treating romance readers like they are, in fact, smart and worth the effort.

Crave Treats the Fandom Like a Partner, Not a Demographic

This is the masterstroke.

They aren’t placing fans on the outside of the glass looking in. They are handing them the mic by:

• Reposting fan edits

• Responding to chaotic comments

• Amplifying jokes and reactions

• Surfacing memes

• Engaging with reader-coded humour

• Meeting fans on their level, and not from a polished, corporate throne

They are making the fandom feel like collaborators, not consumers.

They Surface the Emotional Core of the Story

When you look at Crave’s social feeds, you notice something immediately:

They don’t obsess over loglines, synopses, worldbuilding or technical details. They obsess over feeling. The longing. The rivalry. The thirstiness. The softness under the armor. The spice.

Crave understands that Heated Rivalry is not about hockey. It’s not about a superficial romance. It’s about the emotional payload of wanting something you’re afraid to reach for.

They Move Fast

When a scene takes off, they clip it. When a moment goes viral, they lean in.
When fans spiral about an episode, they amplify.

There is so much to be said for speed to market and leaning in quickly and efficiently.

So how do we apply this to marketing as an author?

Post Clips of the Emotional Core (Book Quotes That Hit Like Scenes)

Don’t post summaries; post feeling.

Do this:

• Pull 1–2 sentence lines that capture tension, yearning, softness, or an emotional punch…make readers feel

• Pair each quote with a simple background, a character photo inspo, or an aesthetic image.

• Caption with a short emotional prompt:
  “This is the line that ruins everyone.”
  “They’re idiots… but they’re my idiots.”

Why it works: Crave centers emotion in their marketing, not exposition. You don’t need to give it all away - you need to make your audience feel something.

Create Trope-Based Content, Not Book-Based Content

Listen, I know you’re gonna throw tomatoes at me for this and I will take them. Because, like it or not, tropes sell. They are the entry point. In a world of uncertainty, they are what anchors us as readers . Use them shamelessly.

Do this:

• Make carousel posts like:
  “If you love rivals to lovers, here are the 3 scenes you’ll scream over.”
  “Slow burn? Nah, this is an agonizing burn.”
  “He falls first, he falls harder: exhibit A.”

• Turn each trope into its own recurring content series

• Tropes everywhere - have one slide that you are constantly using as your piece de resistance to really drive the point home

Why it works: Crave doesn’t hide the romance tropes, they spotlight them. Your book is more than its tropes, yes, but a trope is an easy way to get a reader to relate and be hooked. Get them with the trope…keep them with the depth and beauty of your storytelling.

Respond to Readers in Real Time

Don’t wait for perfect assets4. Don’t wait for the right moment. Move the second readers say something.

Do this:

• Screenshot a comment that says “I’m obsessed with them” → post it with a funny or emotional reply.

• Repost fanart, fan edits, or aesthetic boards (with permission).

• Stitch or duet TikToks reacting to scenes from your book, fan reactions, or edits.

• When someone makes a joke about your characters? Turn it into a graphic. Keep it going.

Why it works: Crave treats the fandom like collaborators, not spectators. Bringing your readers in on the joke, making them feel like they’re sitting at the table with you as you tee-hee about your book will make them go from casual readers to diehards.

Drop “Episode Energy” Posts After Key Chapters

The Heated Rivalry marketing has thrived because they’ve reacted quickly to the most deranged, emotional, or intense moments. Authors can mirror that by highlighting certain chapters (after the book is out or with ARC readers so you avoid too many spoilers).

Do this:

• For a spicy chapter: post “Chapter 18 survivors, sound off.”

• For an emotional chapter: “This is the scene that breaks them…and you.”

• For a plot twist: “If you’ve reached that chapter… I’m sorry (I’m not.)”

Add a call-to-action: “Tell me what page ruined you.”

Why it works: This encourages conversation loops and creates community inside the reading experience. Plus it gives people FOMO so they want to pick up the book and see what the hell “stupid Canadian wolf-bird” means.

Make Character-Centric Posts (The Crave Secret Weapon)

Characters are the product. Crave sold Shane + Ilya as a dynamic, not just characters. They are the ship. And we are all willing to go down with it for more.

Do this:

• “5 Things About Him That Hurt More Than They Should”

• “Why He Loves Him But Will Never Admit It”

• “The Moment He Realized… yeah. He’s so gone.”

• “New Character archetype: chaos demon + restrained angel”

• “If he texted like he thinks, here’s what it would look like” (screenshot style post)

Why it works: Readers fall for people first, plot second. If you look at all the marketing materials and fan edits, it’s all about them. So lead with your characters - character art, profiles, individual quotes, character cards…think it, do it.

Turn Your Posts Into In-Jokes Your Fandom Can Share

Crave has been using captions and scenes that feel like inside jokes. Authors can create this vibe deliberately, too.

Do this:

• “You’re either a [Character A] person or a [Character B] person. Choose.”

• “This scene? Yeah, the girls who get it… get it.”

• “His love language is suffering publicly.”

• “They’d be unstoppable if they could communicate for 5 seconds.”

Why it works: Fandom grows through identification and repeatable language. Make your readers feel like they’re part of a special club and in on it all with you.

Do “Author Commentary & Behind the Scenes” Just Like Crave Did

Crave framed clip drops with emotional posts, tying scenes from the show to their scenes from books. They posted so many behind the scenes snippets with the stars and director (shoutout to Connor Storrie, Hudson Williams, and Jacob Tierney who created more content in the lead up to this release than I thought would be possible…good job, I love you).

You can do the same, but for your own scenes.

Do this:

• “This scene was inspired by X and almost got cut…here’s why I fought for it.”

• “This kiss wasn’t planned. They forced my hand.”

• “I wanted this confrontation to feel like a bruise: tender but it lingers.”

• “A day in the life of an author writing your next emotional support couple”

• “The evolution of my MMC: from dull to dreamboat”

Why it works: Pulls readers behind the curtain = intimacy = investment = lifelong fans.

Crowdsource Fandom Language Live

Crave doesn’t dictate; they co-author the fandom language. They’ve let readers tell them how they spoke about the series and characters - clearly studying the past and following it through this release.

Do this:

• “What should we call fans of this series?”

• “Describe these two in one word. Wrong answers only.”

• “If their relationship was a weather forecast: go.”

Then repost reader answers. Use them in marketing. Let it inspire posts.

Why it works: Readers become active participants and they feel like they have shared ownership. They feel like they aren’t just a reader, but someone you care about writing a good story for.

Build “If You Loved This Moment” Posts

Crave connects the dots between book moments and show moments.
You can connect moments across your own books or scenes.

Do this:

• “If you loved the dock scene… wait until the kitchen scene in Book 2.”

• “If Chapter 11 healed you, Chapter 21 will destroy you.”

• “If you liked the rivals energy here, you’re not ready for their reunion.”

This creates anticipation + retention.

Create Chaos Posts - The Ones That Go Viral

Crave excelled at chaos marketing: emotionally volatile, over-the-top, shareable drama-in-a-sentence.

Authors can do this too:

Post examples:

• “He would burn the world for him but won’t text back.”

• “Enemies to lovers? No. These two are enemies to idiots.”

• “They’re soulmates who communicate like raccoons in a trash can.”

• “I didn’t write them to be healthy. I wrote them to make you lose sleep.”

Why it works: Chaotic honesty → high engagement → share loops.

The great news is…you don’t need a streaming service and TV show to copy the marketing efforts from the Crave team. You just need:

• your socials

• your newsletter

• your readers

• and the courage to show up as your own fan

Crave is proving that when marketing treats a story like something precious instead of something polite, the audience goes feral. Use that to your advantage.

xoxo

Ada (who is now about 95% Heated Rivalry)

I was insanely impressed by Zohran Mamdani’s campaign brand from the start. It didn’t feel like your standard political brand…it felt like a movement. It felt like the culture. It was bold and bright and tapped into his target demographic4 in a way I haven’t seen in ages5. It felt like just by looking at his brand, you knew what he was about and who he was for.

This was designed by Aneesh Bhoopathy, from Philadelphia-based co-op Designed by Forge. And…it clearly resonated. He won a challenging mayoral race as a newcomer to the political game going against a tried-and-true opponent.

And that’s the difference between a logo and a movement.

What a Brand Actually Is:

A brand is not a logo or a color palette. It’s an emotional shorthand people use to recognize you.

Mamdani tapped into the history of New York and its people in a way that was instantly recognizable. Every ad (from bus shelters to in-language banners to signs) made you feel something - it drove that nostalgia for New York of yore (with the handwritten sign font found on bodegas and distinctly New York colors that tie back to taxicabs and the Metro card), and seemed to bring together the boroughs across a common visual language.

For authors, your brand is the bridge between your stories and your readers. It should quickly and consistently answer:

• Who am I writing for?

• What feeling do I promise every time my name appears?

• Why should someone follow me and not just my latest release?

Your brand is your narrative - we buy people, ideas, vision. We buy a STORY.

A big part of the work I have done in my professional and Archetype life is around helping shape an identity that lives beyond an icon, and the work always starts with a (necessary, sometimes painful) introspection. Questions like “what are your values”, “what words do I want people to associate with me?”, “who do I aspire to be?” set the framework for your brand.

The Mamdani Blueprint (And Why It Works)

Let’s deconstruct what made Mamdani’s campaign feel so alive, and how you can translate those moves to the author (or creator!) world.

Reject the Default!

Mamdani’s visuals didn’t borrow from the usual political playbook. They stayed away from that red-white-blue corporate fonts style we all know (and hate, let’s be for real). They drew from the city itself: storefront signage, bold colors, simple and effective icons that SCREAMED New York. And the main font is a play on old Bollywood movies, which gives a nod to Mamdani’s heritage. When everything looks the same, people remember the things that are just a little bit different.

Your move: Step outside “author pink” or “fantasy purple.” Build a palette that feels like you - forget about what you think you need to be, and think about what you really are and what speaks to you. What colors do you tend to wear? What style of makeup? Do you find yourself attracted to certain home decor choices? The subconscious way we bring color into our lives says a lot about what speaks to us as humans.

Make It Wearable!

Mamdani’s team screen-printed the identity on shirts, tote bags, and stickers. They made merch that lived on bodies, in grocery lines, on subway seats...and if you look at the way his grassroots movement6 drove the masses, it’s clear that there was (and continues to be) a market for Mamdani merch.

Your move: Create assets that are meant to travel. Submarks for bookmarks. Monograms for sticker seals. A badge your readers actually want to wear or tote around. You have to think beyond your website and into what real-world applications can look like. A brand that can’t leave the screen won’t live long.

Build Belonging!

Brand is tone and personality, just as much as it is visuals. Mamdani’s campaign language was inclusive and conversational - the tone of a neighbor, not a politician. When you think about your author brand holistically, you want to think about how you can be your most authentic self across all reader interactions. That can be as simple as how you use emojis (do you?) to the amount of humor you inject into posts (any?).

Your move: Let your captions and newsletters sound human, and MATCH THE BRAND. Don’t hide behind “dear readers” or fake personalization (“Hi [insert name]” as a subject line may feel genuine but, often, it comes off as fake because it’s rarely followed up by a welcoming and human-sounding newsletter). Remember that your brand extends to every piece of you, and regardless of how wonderful your logo is, if you’re not showing up in a consistent way or, worse, if you’re showing up in a bad way7, it won’t matter.

Show Up Everywhere!

Mamdani’s identity was omnipresent - posters, windows, web, merch - and incredibly consistent. Nothing half-hearted. Nothing that felt like an afterthought. Nothing missed.

Your move: Use the same fonts, colors, and tone across Instagram, Substack, your website, and your swag. Consistency builds familiarity, and familiarity builds trust.

Simplicity wins, every time!

Repeat after me: I do not need to have a fancy, highly decorative brand to be successful. Mamdani’s brand is as simple as simple gets: the color palette is clean, there are 2 fonts used, the slogans are easy and clear, the message is succinct. It is ridiculously effective. But, being honest, getting to simple is HARD and will required WORK. Whether you’re doing it by yourself or have help, make sure you’re digging in and consistently asking “is this simple? legible? clear?” If the answer isn’t an immediate yes to all of those, you haven’t perfected the brand yet.

Your move: Spend time really digging into the core of your brand and try to think about brands you like (outside of authoring or being an online creator). Think about what you love about them. Think about your brand in various contexts: on your website, on a banner at a book con, on a screen while you give a speech on stage, in a NYT article about your incredible career - and make sure it translates across.

The Anatomy of a Strong Author Brand

Now let’s apply the system and move from the theoretical to the practical.

Wordmark = Your Storefront Sign

Your main logo: your name in a typeset that feels “you”.
Use it wherever visibility matters - website headers, banners, covers (if it makes sense).
Like Mamdani’s storefront lettering, it should look crafted, not templated. You want something that is legible and easy to read, something that can be simple (even if it has an option with more embellishments) and, most importantly, something that makes you feel like you.

Pro Tip:
Whether you’re doing it yourself or working with someone on your brand, do two key tests of your wordmark:

1. Ask someone you trust and who knows you outside of your books for their opinion on if the wordmark is giving “you”

2. Place the wordmark in a whole bunch of situations - mock it up on a website, on a banner, stick it on a shirt, a hat, a tote, a sticker. You can use the Canva mockup tool or Photoshop/Express if you’re comfortable. You’re not looking to necessarily make swag, but you want to make sure this works across many different instances.

Submark = Your Stamp

A smaller, simplified logo (initials, short name, some kind of shape).
Use it on swag, social icons, and bookmarks. Think of it as your campaign button…something that’s compact, collectible, repeatable.

Monogram = Your Shorthand

Just one or two letters, stylized. Perfect for foils, pins, favicons, and subtle branding moments.

This is your minimal mark for max recognition.

Tagline = Your Promise

One short phrase that defines your writing universe.

• “Romance with bite”

• “Slow burns, sharp banter”

• “Love stories for the romantics”

That’s your emotional elevator pitch. Use this sparingly, sure, but it’s a great way to tie it to your overall vibe. Online. On a banner. On a bookmark.

Color Like a Movement

Color is the fastest language your reader speaks. Mamdani’s campaign used joyful saturation to signal life, and a shift from the status quo.

When you’re picking a color palette, think of this 5-color vision:

Dark Anchor - something like a plum or navy to act as your text

Light Anchor - something that isn’t a white, but acts as one (a cream or a blush, perchance)

3 other colors that are complementary and give you: 1 emotional hook (something like part of the ember family, maybe), 1 support color (an accent), and 1 surprise that allows for a pop (maybe a teal, or a peach).

Try all the colors on top of one another. Try to viewing them on your laptop and smartphone. See the saturation and if they make you go “oh yeah!” or “oh no!”

And, above all, pull inspiration from your world, not just Pinterest. Think street posters, book covers you love, or other brands that make you feel something.

Type That Talks

Fonts are a voice. Campaigns live or die on legibility and personality, and that’s the same for authors. You want to find 2 fonts (max) that give you a nice anchor with a little contrast.

Serif: Classic fonts without embellishments. Can be effortlessly classy. Immediately deliver on a sense of trust. They say “I don’t need to try to impress you…you’re already impressed”

Sans Serif: Serif’s hip younger sister. These fonts are classic with a little je ne sais quoi8 (it’s the serif, that’s the quoi). They scream “I’m cool. I’m modern. I’m here. Keep up”

Script: the flirt. Can be vintage or modern or handwritten. They can bring emotion and intimacy to a digital world. Use very decorative scripts sparingly - either as a secondary brand font, or optional fonts for things like posts.

Display: the bold, brash friend. The one that’s always there with a joke or a story that ends with “and before I knew it, I was at the Oscars". This delivers impact and can be highly memorable.

Building It in Canva

1. Open Brand → Create New Brand Kit
   Upload wordmark, submark, and monogram (as SVG files so you can edit the colors)

2. Add your 5-color palette
   Label each by role

3. Set headline, body, and accent fonts
   Save your typography style set

4. Create Templates

   • Cover reveal/release

   • Quote/Hook

   • Preorder

   • Newsletter header

   • Event tile

   • Merch mockup (use Canva or Adobe/Photopea)

5. Build a Brand Board Page
   Combine your logos, palette, fonts, and sample imagery in one Canva doc which becomes your visual bible.

The Mamdani Lesson for Authors

Branding that works doesn’t just look good…it mobilizes emotion. And you DEAL in emotion. Mamdani’s team built belonging through clarity, culture, and color.

So when you craft your author brand, ask:

Does this feel like me or does it feel like what I think I need to be?

Your brand should make people want to carry it with them, whether on a tote, in a post, or in a feeling.

Nailing that is not easy, but getting there will help you stop selling books and start building a movement of your own.

Brand on, babes!

xo

Ada

There is a lot to be said about the importance of good design elements, not only in helping you stand out in an increasingly noisy social media landscape, but in helping you set the right tone, drive the right kind of action, and deliver on the engagement that will get you the thing you’re ultimately looking for - readers.

Today’s post is all about bringing some key design elements to the forefront of your brains. It’s not meant to be scary or overwhelming - in fact, these (simple and easy to remember) tips will give you a leg up in your marketing journey.

Before we begin, though, the mood for this Substack is the impeccable Killers album “Hot Fuss”. Specifically1…

Let’s begin!

First off, why should we even really care about design?

Wonderful question and one that I know a lot of people ask themselves. This is closely tied for first with “I’m not trying to be a graphic designer here, I’m trying to sell my books so why is this even important?” Valid. Fair. I hear you.

Most of us start off designing like we are decorating a room. We pick something nice, something that we like, we fuss with it a bit and move it around until it “feels right2” and then we post. But real design? Real design isn’t about decorating. It’s about getting into viewer’s psyche and making them feel something with a single image.

It’s a way to stand out in a sea of same. It’s a way to bring your book to life and give it a visual identity that will become your calling card. Most importantly, it’s a way to be as inclusive and open as possible to all your (current and potential) readers.

Every font size, color choice, and spacing decision you make either helps your audience see what matters, or it quietly kills their attention.

Design is less about being a “graphic designer” - it’s not about using Photoshop vs Canva3, or needing to do some fancy Illustrator magic. Actually, good design is tool-agnostic. Design is about thinking like a user interface expert. Think of every good experience you’ve had online…100% of the time, the majority of the time creating that on the back end was spent on the user interface design, and not the actual final pretty elements you see.

Hierarchy matters in design (sorry!)

People don’t read first. They scan. Our brains are inundated with SO MUCH information these days and we only selectively engage. Your job is to build a visual map the brain can navigate without effort.

• Headlines: 3–5× larger than your body text. If your caption text is 16pt, your headline should live around 48–60pt

• Subheadings: Roughly 1.5–2× the body text

• Body text: Minimum 16pt on mobile, ideally 18–20pt on desktop or long-form posts

• One focal point per design. Everything else should orbit around it

When hierarchy is off, people feel it even if they can’t explain why. And most can’t explain why. Their eyes just dart, they scroll past, they move on.

You have one job: tell their brain where to go next. At the end of the day, for how complex we are, we let a lot of our subconscious guide the way.

Quick test: Zoom out until your post looks like a thumbnail. Can you instantly tell where your eye lands first? If not, you should fix it.

Contrast Can Make or Break You

Contrast isn’t just a design principle - it’s survival. It’s how the human brain finds clarity in chaos. It’s how you get someone to pay attention.

Like a camera focusing, the human brain doesn’t see objects first. It sees differences.
That’s why flat, low-contrast designs die fast online.

• Color: Go dark on light or light on dark. A contrast ratio of 4.5:1 or higher ensures accessibility. (Use WebAIM or Contrast Checker… you’ll be shocked how “barely readable” your soft greige actually is4)

• Size: One element should always be at least 3× larger than the rest… it tells the viewer “start here.”

• Weight: Combine bold headers with lighter body text for texture.

• Space: Contrast isn’t only visual, but it’s spatial. A single bold headline floating in whitespace is magnetic.

Moral: Contrast gives hierarchy its backbone.

Fonts! Where all your money will go (you just wait)

Fonts are personality, pacing, and trust...plus they look super cool. But they can also be overwhelming and stressful to pick. What do they all mean?

Your Font Cheat Sheet:

• Serif fonts (i.e. Playfair, Merriweather): mature, literary, trustworthy

• Sans-serif (i.e. Inter, Poppins, Lato): modern, clean, digital

• Script/display fonts: emotional, intimate, use in small doses

The golden rules of typography:

• Use two fonts max: one for headlines, one for everything else.

• Body text: 16–20pt for comfort reading. My sweet-spot? 19pt.

• Line height: 1.4–1.6× font size. Anything tighter feels claustrophobic.

• Tracking (letter spacing): +5% for all caps text.

• Avoid ultra-light weights because they will absolutely vanish on mobile.

• Never put script fonts in paragraph form because they look like a love letter no one asked to read. Use scripts sparingly for emphasis.

Font is life. The wrong font is a wrong tone of voice.

Color is a psychological tool…use it!

Color builds mood and meaning. Every hue pulls emotional weight, but contrast keeps it functional. And this isn’t me just saying it - this is backed by psychology.

How to use color like a strategist, not a stylist:

• Pick a palette: 2–3 primary colors + 1 accent

• Lean into the emotion you want:

  • Warm tones (peach, coral, amber) imply energy, excitement, intimacy

  • Cool tones (lavender, slate, sky) imply calm and reflection

  • Neutrals (cream, stone, fog) imply balance and sophistication

• Purpose: Use color to signal action or attention - links, CTAs, etc

• Don’t compete: The louder your color, the quieter everything else must be

If you want to learn more about specific colors, there’s a good overview here. And if you ever want to talk about my visceral reaction to the color red, well…let me know5.

Blank space, baby

In UI design, whitespace is how you create trust. You need space. You need the silence. Clutter reads as chaos, and chaos feels unsafe. Get that blank space going, besties.

• Leave at least one line’s worth of space between sections

• Keep consistent padding around text blocks (8px, 16px, or 24px system works beautifully)

• Give your content rhythm: bold then pause then breathe then move on

• On carousel posts: give every slide one visual anchor and one line of text to breathe around it

Whitespace isn’t silence, it’s pacing. Like a well-place ellipses. I love a good ellipses. Don’t come at me.

Always keep accessibility top of mind

Beautiful design that’s unreadable isn’t beautiful, but it is exclusionary disguised as art.

Make your design usable by everyone6:

• Font size: minimum 19pt on Instagram

• Line height: 1.2-1.5×

• Avoid red/green color combos (this is specifically for color blindness)

• Add text contrast overlays on photos

• Always check your color contrast ratio (pale text over pale backgrounds is a content graveyard)

• Add alt text to your visuals when posting (especially outside of Canva and on your website)

Accessibility is how beauty becomes integrity and trust. AND Canva has a built-in accessibility checker so you never have to wonder.

Consistency = Design as Trust

When your posts feel familiar, your audience relaxes. They recognize you before they even read your name, and that’s the holy grail of digital branding.

We’ve talked about branding before but, as a refresh your content should always play within:

• One palette

• One (core) typography pair

• One rhythm of spacing

• One tone of contrast
  

Then refine it, don’t reinvent it. Use those basics as your toolkit for consistency without being cookie cutter.

Consistency isn’t boring...it’s worth its weight in branding gold.

Get with the FLOW (get it? because…it flows?)

Good design has rhythm, it almost feels like a song. Like something that makes you want to move and flow and It should guide someone’s eyes from top to bottom, left to right, without friction.

OK…how do you create that flow?

1. Lead with a headline that pulls

2. Add an image or visual cue that keeps the viewer moving

3. Break the text before their attention breaks

4. Anchor the eye again with a visual or bold statement

   There are two “standard” design strategies: Z and F. This talks about how you use all of the above strategies to get readers’ eyes moving across your asset. If you are curious to learn more, this article is pretty handy!

And…that’s pretty much it. It was a lot, right? A lot of number and percentages and this 3x bigger than this other thing…

If you forget everything else, get caveperson about it and remember this:

Big text. More contrast. Less color. More air7.

That’s the difference between design that looks “pretty” and design that performs.

Happy designing, friends!

xo

Ada

P.S. One final meme for you:

So I’ve been monitoring and tracking and gauging what those “things” that everyone wishes they could do are, and I’m going to spoil some magic tricks for you all. By that I mean, let’s learn how to do them in a way that doesn’t make us want to pull our hair out, shall we?

Book Cover Mockups:

You know the ones that look beyond professional with that little crease on the side and the little shadow? Oh, I’m also so obsessed. Well, there are a couple of ways you can go about making book mockups, both of which are free and easy.

If you don’t want to invest (the time, money, mental anguish, tears) in working directly in Photoshop, you can use Photoshop mockups in Adobe Express or Photopea…FOR FREE!

You’ll want to go download an Adobe Mockup file that you’d like to use (for a simple book mockup, I use this one, but if you go to the Adobe Stock website and search, you will find hundreds of options). Then, go to Adobe Express or Photopea, start a new file using this template, double click the layer that says [YOUR DESIGN], add your cover art, size it, save it and…bingo bango you have a professional grade cover to put on your posts, website, or just start at lovingly.

Magic Resize = Your Magic Tool:

You write once and edit forever - so why design once and stop there?

The easiest way to get traction (especially in a world where engagement is low, views are low, the mood is overall low), is by diversifying where you post. Magic Resize lets you recreate posts into Pinterest and Facebook sizes, or a newspaper banner, or an ad without touching a single font slider. It’s the design world’s CTRL+C, CTRL+V, but smarter.

Authors who lean on this hack don’t just save time; they multiply reach. One design becomes an ecosystem: a teaser pin, a Facebook ad, a newsletter banner (plus..plus..plus…). It’s the Swiss Army knife of Canva. Every post you make can (and should) be resized to work harder for you across multiple channels.

Create That Vintage Look (you know the one):

You know those moody, slightly faded, Polaroid-style posts that look like they were pulled from a shoebox in your grandma’s attic? Readers eat that aesthetic UP. It elevates your stock photos and can give your book the right vibes…

Here’s how:

1. Drop a stock photo in (something that feels close enough to the vibes you want - it does not need to be perfect)

2. Search “paper texture” or “grain overlay” in Elements

3. Lower the transparency until it just whispers (I’m talking 10-15% MAX)

4. Add a sepia or muted color filter over top

Suddenly, your teaser is a scroll-stopping artifact. Perfect for authors leaning into dark academia, historical romance, MOODY autumn, or anything that benefits from a little patina of nostalgia.

Stop Motion Like a Pro (or at least a well-paid amateur):

Static posts are wallpaper. Motion stops the scroll.

Canva lets you fake stop-motion animation, somewhat easily:

• Duplicate your design across multiple pages

• Make small tweaks - move the book cover slightly, change a character name, swap in a new line of text

• Export as a GIF or MP4

What you get is an eye-catching animation that looks deliberate and handmade. It screams indie-cool while making your book feel alive. Readers don’t expect professional Pixar-level animation, but that little bit of movement can feel fun and human.

Bank more content than you know what to do with (with the cunning use of .csv files):

This is the hack that makes you look like you have a full design team behind you. You can upload a CSV spreadsheet and auto-generate dozens (DOZENS) of graphics in minutes (MINUTES).

How can you get this magic working for YOU, you ask?

1. Set Up Your Spreadsheet (CSV File)

   1. Create columns for each element you want to swap in your template.

   2. Save/export the file as .CSV.

2. Build Your Canva Template

   1. Create a single design (e.g., a quote graphic), using your brand kit

   2. Add text boxes for your columns

   3. Click Apps → Bulk Create (bottom of Canva’s left toolbar)

3. Upload the CSV

   1. Map each column header to the right text box in your design.

4. Generate Your Graphics

   1. Canva will instantly duplicate your design for each row in the spreadsheet.

   2. You can preview (AND EDIT - make changes to the background or stock image so the posts look fresh even if the template is the same concept) before finalizing.

What does that give you? Consistency, volume, and most importantly frequency. Readers don’t remember a book they see once. They remember it when it keeps hitting their feed again and again and again.

(Plus, mix the .csv file hack with the resize hack and there’s your cross-channel marketing for the next 3 months…all in one afternoon).

REMEMBER:

Readers buy books when they see them often, in ways that feel fresh. These Canva hacks aren’t about making things look pretty - they’re about multiplying touchpoints, creating atmosphere, and freeing you to focus on writing while your visuals work harder for you behind the scenes.

At the end of the day, I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again - you’re not just publishing a story; you’re building a brand. And Canva, when used right, can be one of the sharpest tools in your marketing kit.

Happy creating, besties!

xo
Ada

I took a very unexpected break this summer. Last time we talked (July! What even is time!?) my family and I were sort of looking at houses in a different province. Well, yadda-yadda-yadda, long story short - we moved1! And that has taken over our lives in ways only unexpected to me2. Apparently moving is notoriously hard work? And takes a long time? And packing up a house is really time consuming? You live, you learn.

But, now that we are settled and in our new digs, I’m back and we are returning to our regularly scheduled programming. Without further ado…

Instagram: We hardly knew ‘ye

Friends, authors, readers, fellow content mourners:
The old Instagram can’t come to the phone right now. Why? Oh, ‘cuz she’s dead.

The Instagram we once loved - the one that gave your moody flat lay a fighting chance, the one where your dog got more likes than an ad from Nike3, the one that rewarded cozy bookstacks and beautiful aesthetics and a simple “here’s my book! I hope you like it” post - is gone. Well, not gone gone but definitely changed.

I have had more than one conversation with authors lately around the abysmal engagement we are all experiencing on Instagram lately. And it’s bad enough when you’re just trying to get your followers to see your posts, but it can be disastrous when you’re an author trying to get readers to buy your books.

So let’s dig in a bit on what the hellyonte has been going, and (more importantly) how to properly ride this wave like a that girl in Blue Crush4.

Cause of Death: Algorithmic Meddling

We love meddling families in small town romances. We do NOT love the algorithmic meddling our Meta overlords seem to get their rocks off on. Instagram’s decline hasn’t been a single moment, but a slow-motion accident we’ve had no choice but to be a part of:

• 2016: The chronological feed was replaced by the Algorithm™. Reach dropped overnight. We all tried to pivot. Some of us are still at the restaurant.

• 2020–2022: The dawn of Reels. Instagram declared itself “no longer a photo-sharing app.” Video became priority number one, and we all needed to get real comfortable real quick with the recording function on our phones.

• 2023: We entered the world of “Suggested posts”, shopping integrations, and early-days AI “you might like” content clutter feeds. Organic reach plummetted.

• 2024–2025: Instagram went full TikTok-cosplay: AI-curated feeds with declining engagement across the board.

Some stats for you (in case you don’t believe the timeline):

• Median engagement rate on Instagram dropped from ~5% in 2019 to under 0.7% in 2024 for business/creator accounts5.

• Instagram itself admitted in 2024 that “original video” is the single most prioritized format.

• Even huge brands only manage 0.52% per post (and that’s considered “good.”)6

• Only 3.5% of your followers7 see your post vs 16-19% in 2016-2018

The verdict? Instagram didn’t die of natural causes. She was algorithm’d to death.

What the algo’s slowly killed:

• Chronological Order – Once upon a time, “post at 9am” actually meant your followers saw it.

• Organic Reach – In 2016, a typical post reached 40–50% of followers. Today? Often under 10%.

• Predictability – Remember when engagement was steady? Now it’s a slot machine: one post goes semi-viral, your next five tank.

So, what can you do?

First, don’t panic. This isn’t the first time it’s felt doomsday-y. And it won’t be the last. Instagram, like all corporations, is trying to figure out a way to make the most amount of money. So you just need to figure out how to get your piece of that pie as it’s being served today.

The good news? People are still actively using Instagram to shop or find new authors to love. The user base continues to grow and there is no mass exodus away from it (yet). But it’s always worth keeping in mind a few things while we figure out this whole new world:

1. Use stories a lot more than you think you need to:

   Stories are great for resharing posts you’re tagged in. But they are also GREAT for fostering community. Use Instagram’s engagement tactics (polls, questions for an AMA, etc) to drive more engagement. Because…little known fact….when someone engages with you, they’re more likely to then see your next post.

2. Reshares are the new social currency:

   That reshare (repost) functionality Instagram recently introduced is an excellent way to get more people seeing your content. Think of this as the new repost where you don’t have to use a third party app. Instead, you can engage with and share readers’ content about your books AND get some reshares to increase the reach of your own. Engage in this! Trust me!

3. Be consistent! B-e Consistent!

   I know, the last thing you want to be doing when you’re not getting the engagement you used to, is keep posting to hurt your own feelings. But, fact of the matter is, there is little you can guarantee on these days in terms of what and when will actually be guaranteed to work for you. So…you will have to get comfortable showing up consistently. Again, this doesn’t mean daily but if you’re in the lead-up to release, try to post 3-4x a week. If you’re trying to push a sale, remember that people need to see things 12 times before they decide to make a purchase.

4. Measure what matters

   I have talked about this before but it bears repeating: do not look at your follower count and base your engagement on that number. Especially now after I told you that organic reach has been on the decline. The more followers you get, the lower your engagement on those followers will end up being (it’s a numbers game - as your account grows, you will get more and more casual readers, those that don’t interact, personal accounts that just want to stay updated but don’t want to necessarily engage, and even some spam accounts). When you’re trying to gauge how you’re doing, do this:

   ((# of likes + # of shares + # of reposts + # of comments)/accounts reached)*100%

   If you find yourself in and around the 10-20% mark there, you’re doing amazing, sweetie. But importantly, see the trend. It may not be as bad as you think…it may just be new.

5. Diversify that portfolio

   Look, I don’t know what your financial planner has told you, but if you’re not diversifying, you’re setting yourself up for stock market heartbreak. In this case (and with this awful analogy), I’m talking about getting out of Instagram. “And where am I going?” you ask. Excellent question - my suggestion? Pinterest!8

   Pinterest has a prime user base: over 76% of users are women, and about 60% are between 25-44 (i.e. the target demographic for most romance books). Users discover content much more organically on Pinterest (by theme, trope, keyword vs book title or author) meaning they are more likely to not only like what you’re selling, but also buy it! And with Pinterest you don’t have to get rid of your beautiful graphics that you have on Instagram…instead, you can amplify them!

6. Think snackable, shareable content

   Short quotes. Easy to read. Memes. Teasers. Anything that encourages a share or a repost. Our attention spans are at an all time low (and we are being overwhelmed by the world at large). So focus on making your followers’ lives easier and give them easy to digest, fun content they can get behind.

7. Don’t despair!

   This, too, shall pass. While it feels like this is the end of the line for Instagram, it isn’t. There have been downturns like this in the past and, as Instagram looks to create new and better ways to compete with the likes of TikTok and other social media platforms, they will continue to tinker and tinker and tinker. So ride it out the best you can, and know that, eventually, you will level off and see the right engagement for you (once again).

A note to traditionally published authors: now is an excellent time to really push your publishers to provide comprehensive media plans. They should be looking at offline channels and helping amplify your own content as much as possible. There’s strength in numbers and they have the buying power and offline reach you don’t…meaning they can get creative and do more with less!

Old Instagram was the friend who hyped every selfie, it was the coziest of book clubs full of community and heart, and to let your beautiful posts flourish. New Instagram? She’s that friend who insists you try Crossfit at 5am “for your own good.9”

Do we mourn? Yes.
Do we adapt? We kind of have to.
In the end, you don’t need Instagram nostalgia. You need visibility, discoverability, and connection. And those things are still very much alive, if you’re willing to evolve.

xo

Ada

I’m not an agent or a book publicist or even a bookseller1, but I can tell you that as a reader, comps matter. But only if you do them right.

First off, what exactly is a comp?

A “comp” (short for comparable title2) is a book or author you reference to help position your own work. Effectively a shorthand that says: "If you liked this, you’ll probably like my book, too."

What it isn’t, though:

• A comp isn’t your favorite book.

• A comp isn’t your inspiration.

• A comp isn’t aspirational branding.

A comp is a signal to the market that tells readers, agents, publishers, and booksellers what kind of experience they’re about to have with your book.

In the romance world, especially, comps work on two critical levels:

• Writing style: How your book feels on the page (voice, pacing, tone).

• Story/vibe: What your book delivers in plot, tropes, emotional beats, and genre flavor.

Why comps (for real real) matter:

Comps aren’t about imitation. They’re about communication. Readers don’t have the time or patience to decode your entire book description to figure out “Is this for me?” Comps shortcut that decision. And EVERY brand does this. Not just authors. Any time I plan a campaign or work with my team on coming up with a strategy, we use in-real-life examples of who we are and what we can promise to our audience to get inspiration and help our creative agencies come up with stellar creative for us.

• Good comps = instant clarity

• Bad comps = confusion and bounce

And it’s not just readers that care. Comps matter in every part of the publishing process: pitching agents, briefing cover designers, running ads (i.e. who to target), Bookstagrammer/influencer outreach… it all rests on the clarity of where your book sits in the market.

Now let’s dig a little into the types of comps you need to be looking for. Here’s where most authors trip over themselves: they treat comps like a single category when there are actually two axes of comparison. And your book may does need both.

Comps for Writing Style:
This is about voice, aka the cadence, humor, sensuality, emotional depth, or quirk in your words. Style comps signal how the reader will experience your book on the page.

Think:

• If your writing is tight, fast-paced, and banter-filled: maybe that’s Emily Henry.

• If it’s rich, lyrical, and full of emotion: maybe you’re closer to Jessica Joyce.

• If you write snarky banter with heart and heat: Tessa Bailey could be your comp.

Why it matters: Style comps help readers (and agents/editors!) feel your writing before they ever crack the spine.

Comps for Story / Vibes:
This is about the narrative vibes, aka the tropes, tone, setting, and emotions your story delivers.

Think:

• If your book is a small-town, second-chance romance: maybe Devney Perry.

• If it’s cowboy with a dirty-talking but emotional hero: Elsie Silver.

• If it’s dark romance with a heavy dose of humor: think Brynne Weaver.

Why it matters: Story/vibe comps signal to readers what kinds of characters, conflicts, and emotional payoffs they can expect.

How to find your comps:

Realistically, your best bet for finding your comps is to start with your critique partners & alpha/beta readers. Get them to help you figure out where you are on the prose/vibes comp scale.

In addition, if you’re feeling a bit adventurous, you can also try:

Amazon’s “Customers Also Bought” & “Customers Also Viewed”

• Go to a book that feels close to yours in tone/trope/vibe.

• Look at what else readers bought. These are market-tested proximity indicators.

BookTok and Bookstagram tropes

• Search hashtag-driven niches: #GrumpySunshine, #DarkRomance, #SingleDadRomance.

• See what’s trending but also what resonates consistently over time.

Become a scholar of blurbs

• Read how other authors frame their comp statements: “For fans of…” or “Perfect for readers who love…”

• This can reveal both tropes and tone that might match yours.

Scan (indie) bookstore staff picks & tables
Indie bookstores often organize romance tables around trends ("Spicy Summer Reads," "Cozy Small-Town Romance," "Enemies to Lovers").

• Walk into your favorite indie or browse their websites.

• See what books they’re pairing together and why.

Analyze publisher catalogs
Big publishers (like Avon, Berkley, etc) curate seasonal catalogs of romance titles.

• Browse their catalogs and see how they describe books similar to yours.

• Look for patterns: what tropes, vibes, or styles are grouped together?

Remember: comps you market can signal what your book is like. But it’s also important to know what your books are not like and use that information to target (reaching out to influencers or podcasts or similar authors that make sense for you).

I know comps can be a bit overwhelming and can feel a bit “why am I even bothering? I’m me! I’m unique! I’m like no one else!” But we are creatures of habit and afraid of the unknown. So the minute we can place your book into something known or familiar or close to what is in the realm of understanding, it becomes something tangible that we want. Readers are creatures of habit and it’s why you see massive trends in the types of books that get popular at the same time.

So, all that to say: spend some time and ACTUALLY be honest about your comps. Try not to default to the big names just because. Use comps strategically to get potential readers hooked before they’re even read a word from you.

After all, this Substack is for fans of long newsletters, with the comedic chops of a fairly decent but struggling stand up comic and the helpfulness of that paper clip from Word in the early 2000s…

xo

Ada

First, the differences.

Marketing: this is you talking to your audience. You’re controlling the narrative. You’re building the story. You’re pushing people to want to buy your book. Think: social content you create, newsletters, giveaways, sales, paid ads, pre-orders…

vs.

PR: this is you trying to get other people to talk about your book. This is you earning visibility. You’re less in control of the narrative. You put out part of the facts, and you hope the story told fits your overall narrative. You’re building third-party credibility and trust. Think: podcast guest spots, panel appearances, interviews in publications, bookstagrammer’s spotlighting you…

Both of these ultimately serve the purpose of getting you and your books out there. But while you are in full control of your marketing efforts, your PR efforts are less up to you (at least, the end result is). But it’s so important to be thinking about both of these as you go through your author journey.

Most of us are not in a position to get media training1, even if we are traditionally published authors. And if you’re an indie? Well…unless you’re spending thousands for your own training or happen to work in PR, it’s even less likely to happen.

But…there are some things you can learn and keep in mind that will help you feel and show up as a well-oiled PR machine. Move aside, Tree Paine2!

Think About Your Pitch:

If you want to get traction beyond your own feed, you have to pitch! I know, I know. What the hell is that and why and I don’t want to. BUT pitching yourself as a news story is the same whether you’re going to a bookstagrammer or a large media outlet.

Your pitch itself can be pretty simple: have a snappy subject line that makes them want to open, introduce yourself, and why you’re reaching out. The most important thing to remember is you need to highlight and personalize what’s in it for THEIR audience? When you’re looking to get traction with bookstagrammers, on a podcast, or on a blog or other outlet, you are (believe it or not) the least important part of the story. Yes, you might have an amazing author background and the book you wrote is special, but so what? You need to think about why your book will matter to their audience.

Pro Level Move: create a short media kit. This should include your author photo, bio, book blurb, cover and any other relevant information (i.e. author blurbs or reviews). Canva has templates for you!

Curate Who You Reach Out To:

Reaching out to bookstagrammers or podcasts or newspapers can be scary, but it becomes infinitely less scary when you know why you’re reaching out to that specific one. Think about your readership and what else they are reading. Think about bookstagrammers that often talk about books like yours. Think about podcasts or blogs or newsletters that you subscribe to or that have a listener/readership that seems to match your own.

And, it bears repeating, just because a bookstagrammer had tens or hundreds of throusands of followers does not automatically make them the right fit for you. If you’re going to be spending time and effort (and maybe money) in doing outreach, then do it to those that actually talk about books and create the type of content that can help you build your reputation and brand. Aligning with a few smaller outlets or bookstagrammers who will give you a feature will be more helpful than one or two big ones that won’t feature you as prominently.

Build and Maintain Relationships:

Nobody likes feeling like they are being used. If you’re going to do outreach to someone, spend time in the months leading up to it following and (if possible) engaging here and there. Don’t just come in cold. And, if you get some kind of traction with a bookstagrammer, outlet, or podcast, maintain that relationship beyond that. You will have other books come out. They will have something that they think of you for invite you to be a part of. Either way, network like you’re a white man in a Fortune 500 company.

Remember What PR Truly Is:

It is long-term reputation management. It’s not a quick win. It needs to be consistently done, strategically built, and something that you embed as part of every book release, book announcement, or newsworthy change in your author career.

Ok, now that that’s out of the way, some FAQs for you (you’ll want to read these):

I pitched, got my book to a bookstagrammer/outlet/podcast, but it got an awful review. What do I do?

Simply: nothing. PR is unpredictable and not a narrative you can control. If it’s something you were tagged in on socials, you can (quietly!) untag yourself. Do not blast them online, do not complain about the negative review, don’t talk about it (outside of the group chat, of course)3. You shot your shot, it didn’t work, it’s not the end of the world (I promise).

I said something/was associated with something that’s caused some controversy. How do I save it from hurting my ratings or readership?

Depending on what that thing is, my experience is usually to let sleeping dogs lie. A few important things to remember: never delete posts or comments unless they are actively harmful to you or your community (i.e. threats, aggressive, any kind of -phobic, actively targeting other readers, etc). Try to not engage if you can - it stokes the flames unnecessarily. Assess the situation - is this a lot of people feeling the same way or is this a loud minority in your comment section. If it’s a groundswell and you do think you need to take down a post or limit comments, acknowledge it (you’d be surprised how far a very simple but sincere apology can go, if that’s what the situation warrants!) Remember: the internet is forever and people LOVE their screenshots, so trying to hide anything negative will just make the story that much bigger.

At the end of the day, if you ever find yourself in a situation that is less than favorable for you, you’re best bet is to minimize acknowledging it and focus only on facts. Never respond in frustration or anger, and encourage others to do the same. Stay cool, calm, and collected4.

Also, what is this thing I hear about…UGC? C’est quoi?

UGC - User Generated Content - is anything that’s created by not you for your book. This can either be PR (if it’s organic - i.e. a reader just making a post about your book, or talking about a book event) or marketing (if you incentivize a post by providing a gifted copy, creating or promoting a hashtag, etc).

OK, what about book signings/events/panels? Are they really necessary?

I mean…yeah. But don’t think of them as big sales drivers. The point of doing book signings or author in-conversations or panels is to get YOU out there. It’s to get your brand known. It’s to inception yourself into readers minds for when they may be ready to buy or read. You are positioning yourself as an expert, as a part of the community, as someone worth listening to, and that will drive your overall stock higher over time.

Ok, this is all great, thank you so much, Ada. You’re a genius5! BUT I don’t have the time, mental or physical bandwidth to do this so…whatdoido?!

The great news is, we have such a vibrant and BEAUTIFUL community that is full of independently-owned companies that can help you with all of this. If you’re a trad published author, you should be getting marketing and PR plans from your publisher (and you should absolutely be asking for their reasons for what they are proposing, and their expected ROI on everything…you can advocate for yourself!) If you’re indie, there are a lot of companies out there that offer services and can help you get yourself sorted out. I did a post about this a while back (related to ARCs specifically) with some great companies to check out!

You got this, besties!

xo

Ada

If you’re like me (and…many others) you’ve probably spent hours/days/weeks/months in stock image sites. Maybe your family misses you. Maybe you’ve spent a small fortune on subscriptions. Maybe you’ve built a whole second life in the search bar of Pexels or Unsplash or Dupe. And maybe you’re starting to hit that point where you’re thinking: “is that all there is? surely there is more to stock image life.1”

I’m a big believer in ROI and working smart, not hard2. Getting more than you put into something. And whether you’re paying for subscriptions or not, there is a significant time investment required in stock image sites to make sure you’re getting the most out of them. I’ve been on my own stock image journey for about a year now, and challenged myself to create edits and content without reusing stock images (because the Pinterest effect is real - I was tired of seeing the same image over and over and over again). And, for the most part, I’ve done that. It’s been frustrating at times, but I’ve learned some things that make my life easier along the way.

So here are (some of3) my tried and true stock image tips so you can go from frustrated to living your best life.

Build a Visual Moodboard Before You Write (Not After)

Stock is most powerful when it’s intentional, not reactive. As you start drafting or thinking about your next book, pivot away from Pinterest and head over to your favorite stock site. Spend some time there and follow the rabbit holes on images you like. Not only will it set you up for marketing success, but it can help bring some color and clarity to your world in your mind (and maybe even give you an idea or two!)

Before you write a single word, build a visual moodboard for:

• Character archetypes (what they feel like, not just how they look)

• Setting immersion (city? coastal? cozy? gritty?)

• Emotional tone (angsty? sweet? high-heat?)

Why it matters:

When you bake the visual tone into the story, you can pre-source stock images that will serve you later. This saves you from endless post-launch scrambling to “find something that fits.” You’re already ahead of the curve.

Ada’s Pro Tip: Save your moodboards as reference for your cover designer, street team, and ARC readers. Visual consistency is a ripple effect.

Search Beyond the Obvious Keywords:

Stop typing “hot man with abs” and calling it research. Let’s be honest - that rarely yields anything like what you have in mind, does it?

The best stock image finds? They live under unexpected keywords.

Try searching for:

• Vibes: “moody morning,” “late night city lights,” “quiet intimacy”

• Emotions: “yearning,” “tension,” “joy,” “bittersweet”

• Details: “hands brushing,” “back of head,” “stormy sky,” “coffee steam”

Why it matters:

The emotion sells the story, not the literal shot of a couple about to kiss. Deep cuts like these can make your visuals feel unique and bespoke and so perfectly you.

Download in Batches and Build an Image Bank:

Don’t waste time hunting every time you need a post. Not only will it stress you out, but it won’t get you what you’re looking for at all. You’ll settle. And, like the FMC who is in a crappy relationship before the MMC comes to sweep her off her feet, you shouldn’t have to settle.

Instead:

• Block one hour a month to batch download images by theme, trope, season, or character vibe (I do this. It’s been the best use of my time. And you can do it with your snack of choice + a movie in the background. If you need movie suggestions, may I recommend KPop Demon Hunters?)

• Organize folders IN the stock image sites, and title them like: “Fall Small Town,” “City Billionaire Vibes,” “Tender Moments,” “Spicy Looks.”

Why it matters:

When it’s go time (aka time to create), you’ve got a curated library waiting for you. No scrambling. No last-minute settling.

Zoom, Crop, Flip, and Make it Yours:

The same image has been downloaded by a thousand other people. Stock image sites are starting to feel like Pinterest of yore, where everyone had the same images. But...to that, I say: so what? We know better. We have ways to make images our own, besties!

Make it yours by:

• Cropping in tight to highlight a hand, a look, a moment.

• Flipping the image horizontally to match your cover or carousel flow.

• Adding your brand colors as overlays to unify your feed.

• Adding texture overlays (like paper grain, dust, film burn)

• Using light leaks, shadows, and grain to create mood

Why it matters:

You don’t need unique images. You need images that feel unique in your world. Your edits are your fingerprint4. Stock photos don’t need to look stock. With a few simple5 layers, they can look custom-shot for your brand.

Use Details as Visual Storytelling Breadcrumbs:

Your book’s not just about the couple - it’s about the world they live in. You may not find the perfect couple photo (and, my two cents, you don’t have to - vibes can matter more), but you can definitely set the mood.

Pull in:

• Scenic shots of the beach town your book takes place in

• Objects like a vintage car, a teacup, a leather journal that may be important to your story

• Weather moods - rain, sunrise, snow (or seasons)

Why it matters:

Readers fall for the world as much as the people. Bring them in with subtle, scene-setting posts between your quote graphics and your couple shots.

Build Visual Signatures:

If you’re writing a series? Create distinct visual cues for each book. And, even if you’re not but have multiple books, have vibes set up so that you’re constantly searching for visual cues to give your readers regarding what they can expect from you. Think of it like this:

• Book 1: muted blues, coastal scenery

• Book 2: warm tones, bustling city streets

• Book 3: moody greens, intimate indoor spaces

Why it matters:

This makes each book stand on its own and ties the series together visually. Readers will feel the difference between each love story, even at a glance. They’ll know exactly what you’re talking about before they read a single word.

Ok, ok…you’re reading this and you’re thinking: “Ada of Archetype, none of this is really THAT new to me. Do better.” I hear you, I hear you. So think of the tips above as your base layer, your starting point to get you going. And now for some tips that - for me - have been an absolute game changer.

Go Deep on Search (like a DAMN PRO):

Searching in stock image sites feels a lot like finding a needle in a haystack sometimes. It can be hard to not only get that perfect vibe, but to find more niche elements of your books. And it can feel like all of the couple photos are at weddings (which is great and all, if your book is solely centered around a wedding).

Here’s how to unlock deep stock libraries. My biggest tips ever. You ready?

• Use negative keywords to filter out the junk.

  • I’m talking: “couple on beach” -wedding6 -stocky (to remove overused or cliché images)

• Use descriptor stacking for hitting those niche vibes:

  • I’m talking: “Tattooed man + cozy sweater + winter forest” or “Soft morning light + rainy window + loneliness”

• Explore regional tags to avoid repetitive Americanized7 images:

  • I’m thinking: “European street,” “Canadian cafe,” “Japanese bookstore”

Why it matters:

Specific, layered searches surface underused gems that won’t make your feed look like everyone else’s. You’re not a template so don’t market like one.

Create an Image Ecosystem Across Your Entire Funnel:

Stop thinking just about Instagram when you’re sourcing stock images. You need images that can flex across your entire marketing funnel. So, when you’re spending that one hour a month sourcing, think about what works for:

• Social posts

• Website headers

• Newsletter visuals

• Teaser trailers

• Print assets (bookmarks, swag, etc.)

Why it matters:

When your images speak the same language everywhere, you build subconscious trust. Brand consistency is so key, and can be the difference between a good release and a great one. Readers feel like they know you, they recognize you, they remember you. That’s the silent stickiness that builds loyalty.

Ada’s pro tip: Tag images in your folders by potential usage (header, square, print) so you can grab fast without resizing.

Maximize Image Lifespan through Layered Reuse

You think you’ve used an image once and it’s done? Oh no, babe. You take that image and you get creative with it like a 5 year old who swears that their scribbles are actually a photo of the pet dog.

Where you can play so that your reused images feel fresh:

• Zoom in to reframe (get tight on a hand, or a part of the pose that speaks to you)

• Flip it for variety (remove the background and flip the couple around for a brand new image)

• Apply seasonal overlays (winter snow, autumn leaves) or more of your brand colors

• Use it as a blurred background for quote graphics

• Turn it black and white for mood shifts (my personal favorite)

Why it matters

One image can stretch across 10+ posts if you know how to manipulate it. That’s visual ROI, babe. Smart reuse creates feed cohesion and saves your time.

Use Image Sequencing to Tell Micro-Stories:

You don’t have to post standalone images. You can:

• Sequence a hand brush → lingering glance → skyline shot → quote in one post

• Show the same setting in different lights to tell a mood shift

• Drop visual Easter eggs for your books (and then have a good chuckle to yourself as readers try to guess them)

Why it matters

Your feed becomes a visual story, not a scattershot collection. Readers stay engaged because they’re subconsciously piecing the narrative together. It’s sticky & smart & serial content in disguise.

Ada’s pro tip: Plan these sequences in 3-5 post arcs. Create tension while making them want the next image like they want the next chapter.

Blend Stock with Real-World Ephemera for Visual Depth:

If you follow my bookstagram (or have seen any of my edits), you’ll know I LOVE an ephemera moment. But first, wait…what is ephemera? Think of these as scrapbook or collage elements that add a real world vibe to your stock images. In Canva, you can find so many of these by searching for:

• Scanned receipts, postcards, handwritten notes (layer over images)

• Polaroid frames (to break digital perfection)

• Grain, dust, light leaks (to add nostalgia or grit)

Why it matters:

Adding these elements can create a layered, scrapbook vibe that feels personal, and not mass-produced. It also helps disguise popular stock photos by making them feel handcrafted.

Ada’s pro tip: Readers don’t consciously notice the textures, but they feel them. That’s where the magic is.

Stock images can be your best friend if you learn how to use them right (and find them).

Happy hunting!

xo

Ada

SO…welcome to a new (semi-regular, idk) series: the author class. It’s kind of like Masterclass but with authors. Get it? I’m going to be interviewing authors that are doing something unique or exciting or super successful with their book marketing game. Rather than hearing only from me - aka Ms Marketing Theory - I thought we could all use a bit of inspiration from fellow authors in the trenches.

For my inaugural one, I had to start with Autumn Woods.

Autumn’s story is what happens when talent, grit, and a little bit of luck collide. Autumn self-published her first novel, Evergreen, in 2023. She saw some success and managed to grow her readership nicely at that time. Then, earlier this year, she published Nightshade, her dark academia book that kicks off the Sorrowsong series. Seemingly overnight, this book was EVERYWHERE and Autumn’s social following and readership grew and grew. And she was able to translate that momentum into a deal with Slow Burn Books - and the trad version of Nightshade is out tomorrow!

Autumn’s feed has been an inspiration to me for all authors I work with (and more than a few of you have called her out as inspiration yourselves). It’s clean, aesthetic without trying too hard, and Autumn’s nailed a few key marketing must-haves naturally (she always has a call to action, her tropes are easy to find, her blurb is concise and enticing, and she leans into trends without feeling like she has to follow them all the time). But, since I’m not Autumn, I thought we could hear a bit from her on what’s made her marketing journey successful.

What’s one marketing move that surprised you with how well it worked?

Autumn: The super simple swipe posts on TikTok. I’m not someone comfortable with putting my face on my account or recording videos of myself for reels or TikToks, so I wrote TikTok off for the first 18 months of authoring. Then I got a couple of character arts commissioned and did some basic “the girl who… the boy who…” TikToks and had a lot of success with that.

When it comes to social media, what’s actually worth your time and what’s just noise?

Autumn: Worth my time - Character Art (if you have the budget) is such a powerful tool now on all platforms, and I reshare the same ones over and over so many times. You paid for that art, so get your money's worth out of it! Another good tool for the busy author is to reuse TikToks and reels to save time. Just because it didn't go viral the first time, doesn't mean it won’t go viral. Another thing that is worth the time is replying to DMs/engaging with your tagged posts when you have the time. And lastly, make sure to have a clear directory of links in your bio.

Just Noise - posting too often is a big one. (I get burnout, and I think people get used to seeing my posts in their feed everyday and therefore don’t engage as much). Having too much focus on follower count rather than engagement (when I started, all I cared about was follower count, but I barely had any likes or saves on my posts). A pretty banner/header - for me, it’s better to pin my high performing posts up there as they are what readers are engaging with. Lastly, it’s a bit of a controversial opinion but for me personally, big group giveaways/collab giveaways/follow trains/support groups won’t bring in engaged followers. If you’re doing them for fun then that’s great, but if you're doing them to bring in engaged readers, it might not work. Slower, organic growth is better.

How did you approach the launch of Nightshade compared to your debut?

Autumn: I took a slower, gentler pace that made me enjoy the whole process more, and when an author is enjoying their content and their promotion, you can really tell. Some weeks I only posted once in that week, but it was a higher effort post where I’d engage with all the reshares and get a chance to catch up with all the readers I love! Also, I was in the fortunate position to commission lots of character art for this book release, which has really helped too!

Where do you start when building the vibe or aesthetic of a book what’s your first move?

Autumn: Colour Palette! If you look at my page, I’m not that consistent with fonts etc, only really my colour palette. Pick three colours - a super light one, a darker one, and then a nice accent colour, add them to your Canva library and stick with them.

What’s something you tried that completely flopped and how did you recover?

Autumn: Before I released Nightshade, I had a few posts that flopped on IG, Threads and TikTok. I think my problem was, I was posting niche details about the story and characters that were supposed to be funny/relatable, but no one had read the book yet. E.g. which character would you choose, which university house would you be in etc. Now I know that before publication, it’s better to keep all the posts a little more simple, eyecatching, and intriguing, and then once you have more people immersed in your world, those other kinds of posts will do better! When I’m on Canva, I’m imagining I’m a reader who has never heard of Autumn Woods or any of her books. What is going to make me want to click on that post and read the book?

What do you wish more authors knew about turning readers into loyal fans?

Autumn: If I only have 30 mins to focus on my social media for the day, I’ll choose replying to DMs/comments/catching up with readers and authors over making a post. Posting every day really isn't necessary to keep an engaged audience. On instagram, it’s quality over quantity always for me.

If you could give one piece of advice to your past self before launching your first book, what would it be?

Autumn: There is no viral reel, cute graphic, TikTok, story etc that is worth getting burned out for. Coming back from burnout is SO hard. After my first book, I tried to do everything–reels, posts, stories every day, and then I literally logged out of my author account and stopped writing, and didn’t go back to it for eight months. It’s not selfish to protect your own sanity. If you feel the edges of burnout creeping in, slow down. You won’t fade into irrelevance if you take a little step back every once in a while!

You can find Autumn on Instagram and TikTok. If you don’t already follow her and want some inspiration, she’s got it in spades. I’m a forever fan and so grateful she agreed to participate in this series!

Make good design choices!

xo

Ada

You’re an author. A storyteller. A creator of worlds.

But you also live in this world and, sometimes, you want to speak out—about Palestine, book bans, queer rights, the rise of fascism...take your pick1. But you write books for a living and, well, you need to make a living.

There’s a real fear that speaking out may lose you followers, get you review-bombed, blacklisted, or lose support from your publisher. And that’s a legitimate concern that shouldn’t be overlooked.

So how do you, as an author and a brand2, show up with clarity when the stakes feel impossibly high?

I wanted to take today’s post to do a bit of a break down on how to navigate political fire while still protecting your brand and your soul—coming at it as both a marketer and a human.

Know what you stand for before you have to

If you only react in the moment, you’ll always feel off-balance. Instead, build a value foundation within your brand ethos. What are non-negotiables for you? What do you want readers to associate with your name beyond your books?

Be proactive. Get clear. Write your line in the sand before the storm hits. You don’t need to give everyone online all the information about you and your beliefs, but if you are strongly pro (or anti) something in your day to day life - and especially if it shows up in your writing, whether overtly or not - make that known without fear.

Try this:

Add a tagline to your bio like: “Writing joy in resistance | Queer stories always welcome”

Pin a values post.

Curate a highlight reel: “What I Stand For.”

And remember: people don’t follow brands - they follow belief systems. Every one of your favorite brands has a distinct belief system that resonates with their consumers. Think: Nike’s “Just Do It” as more than a slogan, believing that people can overcome. Or TOMs believing in business for good. So…what’s YOUR belief system?

Use your voice strategically, not just emotionally

Yes, authenticity matters. Of course it does. But, often, intention can matter more.

Instead of rage-posting or resharing without context, slow down. You know how the corporate advice is always “don’t send an email when you’re angry. Draft it and revisit in the morning”? Well…this kind of applies here.

You are, after all, a business - and I can tell you from working for massive organizations during pivotal political movements that we always discussed our responses at length before even making an Instagram post.

So share with purpose. Provide sources (and don’t get sucked into misinformation, publicly). Say why this matters to you. Frame it with your own story or within your own worlds you create, if you can. People relate to the personal, not the performative.

Ask yourself:

• How does this issue connect to my work or my core values?

• What’s the one clear message I want my audience to leave with?

• What action (if any) do I want people to take?

Try this in your newsletter or feed:

“This isn’t easy to write, but it’s important…”

“Here’s where I donated, here’s what I’m reading, here’s what I’m unlearning...”

Anticipate the fallout - the decide if you can live with it

You have every right to set your own boundaries about how much you’re willing to potentially lose or how much heat you’re willing to take. Not everyone can throw hot takes out there and just be ok with the pushback. And that’s fine, I give you permission to be sensitive if you are and to not want any kind of hate thrown your way.

So if you do decide to speak out, know you will likely lose followers. Some people may get angry. Many will tell you “just stick to books” (and, if they do, feel free to send ‘em my way because…no).

But here’s the thing about You, The Author™️. You’re not just building an audience. You’re building a community (remember? we’ve talked about this a lot!) And that community should reflect you. Ask yourself: would I rather lose a few readers who oppose my values - or betray my own voice trying to keep them?

Because marketing isn’t just visibility. It’s alignment. And misaligned readers won’t stick with you anyway. They’re flakey and likely not going to be your most vocal supporters

Try this:

• Change your profile link to a cause.

• Add a political book rec to your book recs on your feed or newsletter.

• Post about resources that mean something to you - books or organizations that shaped your thinking

Let the work do the talking, too

Not every author needs to post political takes all day every day. You can thread your values into your stories, your characters, you acknowledgements, your newsletter. Quiet resistance is still resistance.

So, think about the books you’re recommending. The creators or authors you collaborate with. The causes you amplify regularly.

This is marketing with integrity. Brand storytelling isn’t just the story you sell, but it’s the world you build around it.

Try this:

• Weekly “What I’m Paying Attention To” post

• Story Q&A: “Want to learn more about [x]? Ask me anything.”

• A link roundup in your newsletter

• If you have a bigger platform, give it to a marginalized author for the day to reach more readers

Speak, even if your voice is shakey

Your books are part of the resistance. But your brand—your public-facing everything—is where readers decide whether to trust you with their time and money. Remember - you don’t have to be perfect.

You don’t need a PR-worthy statement.

You don’t need to be polished or scared you’re not fully educated on a topic or worried about repercussions in the long run.

At the end of the day, you just need to be honest. Compassionate. Human.

The best brands, the ones that have stood the test of time, have built this into their DNA. And there have been missteps and sometimes there have been setbacks, but they ALWAYS bounce back stronger than ever.

So say: “This is hard to write”

Say: “I’m afraid, but I believe this is important.”

Say: “If you disagree with this basic truth, my books may not be for you.”

Say: “I write and read to escape. But reading is and forever will be political”

At the end of the day, I have seen so many authors speak out over the last few months and yes…some have been impacted with followers leaving or readers claiming they will “never read your books again!” But they always say they rebound, and find a new set of readers and community that strengthens them. Remember, buying a book is transactional. Feeling emotionally invested in an author because you believe them, because they stand for what you stand for …that’s what builds loyalty.

Try this:

• Create a “Reading for Justice” guide on your site.

• Collaborate with authors of marginalized backgrounds on joint giveaways or panels or during your release tour.

• Add a “what I stand for” slide to every preorder campaign.

You’re not here to be everyone’s favorite.

You’re here to write what only you can—and let your values shape the world that forms around it.

And the right readers? The right author groups? The right publishers?

They will be so happy if you show them who you really are.

And before I leave (and as a callback to the start of this newsletter) I was inspired to write this by a tweet I think and laugh about regularly:

Fight the power!

Xo,

Ada

One thing we don’t talk a lot about (because it can get SUPER techy and hard to follow) is the importance of good SEO. But we should be talking about it because it matters so much more than you think.

First, what IS SEO?

SEO = Search Engine Optimization.
In human-speak? It’s how you make your website show up when people type stuff into Google.

Google has bots crawling the internet 24/7 looking for signals. And the way your website is built - and I mean both the things you can and can’t see - is telling Google all it needs to know.

SEO vs Social:

I know - we talk a lot about building a base on socials and making sure that you’re doing the hard work of getting loyal readers that way. And I stand by that. But, whether you’re a trad author or indie, you only see a small fraction of your potential readership on Instagram or TikTok. There are so many more people that read and maybe just aren’t active online (I don’t believe it either, but I’m told they exist). With a few very simple and pretty straight-forward tweaks to your website and author bios (in socials and for retailers), you can potentially open up a new stream of readers from people that are simply searching things like “books about second chance romances” or “contemporary authors of romcoms”.

Why SEO Matters for You (specifically):

• When someone hears about your book, they Google you.

• When readers want your tropes, they search for them.

• If your site isn’t optimized, you don’t exist in search.

This isn’t about becoming a tech wizard. It’s about making sure all your hard work can actually be found by real people who want to throw money at you.

What are some steps you can take today (like right now!) to help make your website that much more searchable?

Here’s what Google actually wants from your site:

Keyword Clarity

Keywords = what your ideal reader is typing into Google. Think: “steamy small town romance,” “witchy enemies to lovers,” “romance books like Beach Read.”

Think like a reader (not like an author) and figure out the simplest ways to talk about your books. Boil them down to their essence. And then put those phrases:

• In your page titles

• In your headers

• In your book blurbs

• In image descriptions (aka that alt text)

Pro Tip: Each book page should name the tropes clearly and use your author name in the metadata.

Clear Page Titles

Don’t get cutesy with your page titles vested Google doesn’t know what to do with that or what it means.

So get rid of generic titles like “Home” or “Welcome.” Instead be super clear about what people (Google) will find on that page - think: “Books” or “Reading Order” etc.

Multiple Pages are better than one:

It is super important not to fall into the trap of scrollability/one page wonder websites. Yes, they feel intutive and like a better user experience, but they’re not helping you in your quest for Google Search Domination.

Instead, make sure that:

• Every book has its own page (it’s ok to list them all on your main page or in a “books” section, but link out to their own pages from there with information on the book including the tropes, links to purchase/preorder, bonus content, etc)

• Your Author Bio section lives on its own, with clear headings and information

• Your newsletter signup has its own section

• Your Events page is clear and concise (and that each event has its OWN page, too)

• Your storefront is clearly labelled and tied back to your relevant book pages

Tropes are Your BFF

You spent a lot of time on your book title, but your readers are searching “romance book grumpy sunshine age gap chef”. How can you help them get from A to B?

Start naming your tropes. Loudly. Everywhere.

Where to use them:

• Page titles (e.g. Books | Small Town Romance with Found Family Themes)

• Meta descriptions

• Book blurbs

• Alt text for images

• Blog posts

Use Your Author Name in Key Spots

Obvious? Maybe. Overlooked? Constantly.

Your full author name should be:

• In the site title (Settings → SEO Settings)

• In every page title (especially your book pages)

• In metadata and image alt text

• At the bottom of every blog post

• In the footer (“© 2025 AUTHOR NAME. All rights reserved.”)

Meta Descriptions Are Your Flirty First Line

That little blurb under your site link in Google search? You can control that.

What it is:

A 150–160 character teaser for your page.

What it should do:

Hook your reader, include keywords, and sound human.

Example for a book page:

“[BOOK TITLE] is a spicy small town romance with grumpy/sunshine banter, tattooed bartenders, and heart-melting second chances.”

I would strongly suggest going in and updating the meta description on all of your pages yourself, otherwise Google will write one for you (and would YOU trust the robots?! No!)

Use Blog Posts as Long-Tail Keyword Magnets

Remember how much I LOVE newsletters? Well, so does Google. Even if it’s a post a month, you will see benefits to this. Focus on posts that:

• Include keywords (book tropes, genre phrases, comparisons)

• Answer questions people actually ask

• Link to your book pages or newsletter

If you have a native newsletter out of your website platform (ie Squarespace), this is already included in your SEO. If you use something like Substack, you can integrate that in there as well but it may take a bit more effort on your part. Either way, think strategically when you’re writing your newsletters especially if they’re meant to sell or talk about an upcoming book.

Link Like You Mean It

Don’t just have pages. Link between them like a pro. Make it like an endless loop of link backs. Like one of those never ending staircases. Google LOVES links - the more things that tie back to your page (even if it’s just your own page - like Inception) the more it thinks “oh, they’re LEGIT.”3

Tips:

• Link book pages to each other (“If you liked this, try that” or “Read book 2 in the series”)

• Link blog posts to relevant book pages

• Add a “Recent Reads” section on your homepage with direct links

• Use buttons, not just text links (Google sees both, but readers click buttons)

And finally, a word on your social bios:

These TOO can be optimized (and picked up by search engines). It can be so easy to forget that you’re not just speaking to those that know and follow you, but those that could know and could follow you, too.

Instagram, TikTok, even Threads—your bio is your elevator pitch in under 150 characters. You’ve got 3 seconds to hook someone before they scroll on forever.

What you should do to your bio right now:

• Clear Name: ideally your username But at least make sure the name that shows up is your full author name

• Specific Genre: not just “author” - author of what?

• Link link link: minimum, Linktree. Pro move? Create a page on your website that is unindexed (not in the menu bar or linked) and make that your own Linktree with relevant buttons. Not only do you get readers to take the action you want, but you also get the website traffic!

It seems like a lot but spend a bit of time with this and, I promise, it will become second nature. You don’t need to aim for perfection and even a bit of improvement can help you realize significant gains.

Whether you’re working alone or with a designer, channel your inner computer scientist and go for gold. I believe in you!

xo

Ada

Am I slightly pandering with this post? Yeah probably. But do I think this is incredibly valid, too? Hell yeah.

The Eras Tour was the most successful global tour ever. It reached over $2B in revenue, sold over 10 million tickets across 149 shows in 21 countries. It, in a word, ATE. And, yes, Taylor is Taylor, but I do think there is a lot to learn from how this tour was managed and apply those learnings to releasing your own book. Because, at the end of the day, Taylor’s music is great but she created a global obsession and it wasn’t done on the value of her work alone1. This was strategic mythmaking at its finest.

So, scaling it down a bit, what can you take from the Eras Tour and bring it into your own author marketing journey?

1. Narrative Ecosystem: every new album was an era. So every new book of yours should be treated the same.

   

   Think unique color palette. Slightly different fonts. Elements that feel cohesive to you but are very of this era. If you want to know what I mean, check out Zarin Madiyha’s account - clear as day which book she’s talking about, right!?

   This also includes what you do within each era. You want a story, a narrative, something that hooks people into your world and not just your words. Notice how Taylor really leans into a theme from her album art, to the people she collabs with, to the merch and appearances she does. For you, this can look like:

   1. Having a moodboard for your book as the first stop in getting readers excited

   2. Pick a defining quote or tagline for your book that becomes almost like a rallying cry (think: “It’s been a long time coming…”)

   3. Lean into the color and vibes on yourself, too, whenever you film a reel (get your nails done or wear something that fits the mood)

2. Fan Participation Rituals: the magic of the Eras Tour was all the call and responses2, the friendship bracelets, the glitter and sparkle and JOY that the fans brought. We - the audience - were part of the show in the most meaningful ways. And, even if you’re not selling out stadiums, you can build something like this for your readers, too.

   

   For your release, you can easily find some similar ways to get your readers involved in ways that can make it super fun and builds community3. Think:

   1. Naming contests - get readers to name your next fictional town or villain or a local business

   2. Coordinate with readers to help do a cover reveal - same time, coordinated release, like those sparkly wristbands at the Eras shows

   3. Give your readers full rein to fan-cast and moodboard your book. Get some of your favorite content creators to help you pull together the perfect playlist for your couple.

   4. Use an Instagram channel or a Discord to engage with those hard-core fans of yours. Give them special access to teasers or polls. Get them to vote on outfits your characters should wear. Tease where you’re going to be on tour.

3. Consistently Consistent: whether you went to a show in Paris, Rio De Janiero, or Toronto, you got a fairly predictable and consistent experience. Sort of like when you go to any fast food chain, you expect things to be…what you know. For you, as an author, this can be important to build both for readers and for your own sanity.

   1. Brand consistency: every book should have it’s own mini brand kit. Whether something involved or just a few colors that are distinct to your cover, make sure you’re showing up the same for each of your different eras

   2. Repetition is everything: those trope slides? Have one canned and throw it in at the end of every static post. Your character’s names? Make sure they are everywhere!

   3. Show up consistently: did you notice that we mostly had shows Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights? And the hardcore fans even knew the schedule for exactly when the stage set up would begin and end. No matter where the Eras Tour went, we knew when to expect it. Do the same for your readers. Give them consistency so good, they'll say, I knew you were trouble… because now they're addicted to you! Whether that’s a consistent publishing schedule (one every year? one every 6 months?) or just posting regularly4 (note: I did not say daily!), be something people can rely on.

4. Controlled Chaos: that being said, remember how we all got our own surprise songs at every show? Well as much as people love predictability, there’s something to be said for a little (planned and well-timed) (perceived) chaos. Or, you know, tension building like an angsty third-act.

   You want to think of certain parts of your release as opportunities to keep your readers on their toes. Tease your cover reveal in the lead-up to it (a super close up of your MCs sexy arms, maybe?). Drop a surprise bonus chapter like it’s your own All Too Well (10-Minute Version). Give your newsletter readers an extra pre-order goodie just for being in the crew. Get a fellow author to plan an exciting giveaway and spend the week leading up to it teasing it. Find ways to still surprise your readers in the midst of all the marketing they are expecting.

5. Emotional Resonance: put your hands up if you felt so overwhelmed at an Era’s tour show that you just…cried?

   

   Taylor Swift has an uncanny ability to write songs that really make you feel (I mean, I’ve been happily married for 11 years and I still shout sing “OLD HABITS DIE SCREAMING” every time I hear it).

   And, you know what? You as an author do the exact same thing5.

   So, lean into emotional hooks in your marketing. One thing I’ve noticed as a trend lately is a more even distribution between spicy and sweet posts from authors. There was a time where the spicy scenes drove the most engagement, but what seems to be resonating most with readers now is just pure emotion. Whether that’s steam, or a scene that makes you go “aww”, get readers excited about the feelings they can expect from your book. If your book packs a punch, let them know to have tissues on hand, and The Archer cued up. If they can expect to laugh and giggle, remind them to be careful listening while driving.

So…be your own main character and treat your book marketing like a lead up to night one of your very own Eras Tour. And, before we wrap, one more thing…

Authenticity Is Queen: here’s where I hope no one unfollows, because I’m going to (slightly) critique Dr. Taylor Alison Swift. While endearing and relatable, Taylor’s fame has made her (sometimes) feel less than authentic. During the Eras Tour, the asides and little monologue moments were very rehearsed (as they should be, realistically). EXCEPT, night 2 in Toronto where she was doing her band shoutouts and got very visibly emotional6. And, I don’t know about you, but for me as a fan…well, my love for her grew exponentially in that moment.

Author and reader spaces are becoming increasingly blurred and, frustratingly, increasingly demanding of authors. There is a (very very very) thin line between being accessible and keeping your peace. The creeping expectation for authors to be accessible at all times is, frankly, scary and there are now multiple examples of authors who have simply removed themselves from social discourse as a result.

So what do I mean when I say “be authentic”? I mean: find your comfort level with sharing yourself online (I’m talking outside of your books…it can be all, some, or none…all are the right answer). I mean: use your platform to let people know your heart (do not shy away from talking about causes or issues that matter to you, screw the haters).

I’m going to take this moment to shout out an incredible thing Susan Lee is doing over on her Instagram that is exactly this. If you’re an upcoming debut BIPOC author releasing in 2025 and feel like you haven’t had the best support from your publisher, check out Susan’s post below and reach out.

I mean: call bullshit or highlight when things are hard (but don’t complain to the point where you turn readers away). I mean: take time away if you need it, block people that aren’t helping your brain, focus on your writing, outsource if/what you can, and - above all - protect your peace like it’s your own Invisible String (sacred, personal, and not for everyone to tug on).

Actually, now that I write all that out, I think Taylor does this incredibly well. We get enough of her to know her, but not so much that we know her. You know?

Hopefully this post was useful or, at least, made you reminisce about a simpler time when we all rallied around Mother. At the end of the day, Mother may have given us Style, but you’ve got your own damn tour to headline.

And now, please enjoy one of my favorite Taylor Swift songs (and also one of my surprise songs):

xo

Ada