The One Thing Every Author Needs to Market Their Book

Want to be a bestseller? Dream of winning awards? Long to have your book in the hands of people who need it the most?

(6 Steps to Getting Your Query Letter Out of the Slush Pile.)

Then you’re going to need a strong essence.

Merriam-Webster defines essence as “the intrinsic nature or indispensable quality of something…that determines its character.”

Or as my niblings would put it, your essence is the “vibe check” of your book.

The key to a successful book is honing in on the essence from the start and using it to help you make every decision, from editorial direction to choosing a publishing route. Whether you’re at a Big 5 publisher or going at it alone, if you do a vibe check every step of the way, marketing your book will be both easeful and profitable.

Defining the Essence While Writing and Editing

Whether you’re writing fiction or nonfiction, cookbooks or poetry, to create a cohesive feel for your reader, you need to have a consistent vibe to your book.

But beware of defining your book too soon!

In the multitude of clients I’ve worked with at my company, School for Writers®, only a handful of them ended up with the same kind of book they thought they were writing when they started.

A pro who is multiple books into their publishing career might know exactly what their voice is from the first draft, but I find most of my clients—ambitious professionals who have always longed to write a book but are just now prioritizing it for the first time—have too many preconceived notions about what a “good” book is. They come in trying to be someone else’s voice, a.k.a. vibe, and it paralyzes them.

Think of it like this: You can’t start molding pottery until you’ve dumped all the clay onto the wheel.

So before you define your essence, I encourage you to write a crappy first draft. Aim for quantity over quality here, and see what dumps out of your brain.

Then, once you have that lump of creative clay, use these questions to help you decide what you’re going to mold it into:

How do I feel when I write this book?How do I want that reader to feel when they finish it?If I got the best critique in the world about my book, what would it say?What is one scene I’m deeply proud of?If this book were a painting, what would it be?

Answering those questions will help you start to define what your book is and who it’s for.

Still stuck? Try visualizing your vibe by making a mood board for your book. If you want help creating one, check out this free course.

Using Your Essence to Choose a Publishing Route

There is no right or wrong way to publish a book, but there definitely are better routes to take depending on your goals. By using your book’s essence to guide you, you can let go of assumptions and ego and focus on what matters most for you.

When I sent my contemporary rom-com, Because Fat Girl (publishing October 22, 2024 from Amara, an imprint of Entangled), out to agents, I was so solid on my book’s essence that I had eight offers of representation. Agents knew it would be an easy sell to publishers because everything from my query letter to title to manuscript showed that I knew my ideal market for this book and had already created a vibe to attract those readers.

(I Got 8 Agent Offers; Then, My Book Died on Sub.)

Which one did I sign with? The one who wined and dined me and said she could get me a seven-figure deal, of course! But had I followed my essence instead of my ego, I would have known we were not the right fit from the start, saving us all the heartache of breaking our contract months later.

My new agent got me a deal with a significantly smaller advance but with a much more enthusiastic publisher who loved the vibe of my book and was excited to work with me on it. While my ego took a hit at not getting that major deal the other agent had overpromised, my soul is so much happier working with a team that gets what I’m trying to do with this book—and is dedicated to making it a hit without compromising the essence.

For your own publishing journey, ask yourself these questions:

How do I want to feel when I look at the cover of this book?What other books would be near mine on the shelves? What colors, styles, and language do they use to grab my attention?Where do I want people to find this book? Where do I want them to read it?If I was throwing a party for this book, who would I want to attend? What kind of decorations would we have?Who is not invited to that party? Who am I happy to have hate this book?

Don’t overlook that last one! Knowing that my book should repel homophobic, transphobic, and fatphobic jerks helps me to lean into letting it be unabashedly queer and body positive. The same goes for you and your book. Who you repel with your vibe can be just as important as who you attract.

Again, a visual mood board can be very helpful here in making these decisions, and it can help you convey your vibe to your publishing team, so start making one if you haven’t already.

With a growing catalog of instructional writing videos available instantly, we have writing instruction on everything from improving your craft to getting published and finding an audience. New videos are added every month!

Marketing With Your Essence in Mind

Have you ever been able to tell you’re going to love a book simply by glancing at its cover? That’s the power of a strong vibe.

If you know your essence and imbue it into your book from start to finish, you will naturally attract your ideal reader. But if you don’t know the vibe of your book, or are wishy-washy about it, your ideal reader won’t know it’s for them.

The team at Entangled Publishing and I have used my defined essence to create an iconic cover for my book, make collaborative posts that draw in hundreds of comments on social media, and develop eye-catching promotional material that already has tens of thousands of people interested in the book, months before it comes out.

That’s the power of defining your essence and letting it guide the whole process.

On top of helping us sell the book, knowing my essence reminds me of why I wrote it. Every time marketing starts to feel tedious and too left-brained, every time I feel bogged down by numbers and KPI’s, and every time I wonder if it’s all worth it, I go look at that mood board and remind myself why I wrote this book in the first place.

When I leave this world one day, the thing I am most proud of won’t be the number of copies I sold of my books, but whether I said what I needed to say—and having a defined essence makes sure I focus on that legacy.

So, take some time today and think about the essence of your book and what you want to say with it. Your future readers will thank you.

Check out Lauren Marie Fleming’s Because Fat Girl here:

Because Fat Girl page