Resources - Bridget Marmion Book Marketing

We will be regularly updating this page with downloads and links we’ve found that we think will be helpful for writers, publishing professionals, or anyone trying to market their work.

Advertising and Marketing

9 Advertising Trends to Watch in 2024 by Scott Weiss — Scott Weiss from Hubspot reviews trends in digital advertising and social media advertising — April 9, 2024

Behind the Bestsellers: Best Book Marketing Campaigns of 2024 On Authors Breeze, Christina N. Hummell reviews the marketing campaigns of three recent bestsellers and what made these campaigns successful — March 6, 2024

Brenda Novak on 9 Book Advertising Tactics I’ve Tried… And Which Ones Worked! – from BookBub

How Rebecca Skloot began promoting her bestseller, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, years before publication (subscription to Wall Street Journal required)

Author Platform Lessons from #1 New York Times Bestseller Rebecca Skloot by Dan Blank

Timeline-for-Publishing-Success-2014 (from the 2014 Brooklyn Book Festival Workshop)

Artificial Intelligence

ChatGPT vs. Google Bard vs. Bing Chat vs. Claude: Which generative AI solution is best? Eric Enge on SearchEngineLand compares genAI tools ChatGPT, Bard, Bing Chat Balanced, Bing Chat Creative, and Claude based on four metrics. January 26, 2024

“Confessions of a Viral AI Writer” by Vauhini Vara in Wired (September 21, 2023) The author of the viral essay “Ghosts,” published in The Believer in 2021, reflects on how collaborating with AI tools has changed since.

“What Remedies Do Authors Have When Fraudulent Work Appears on Amazon?” by Jane Friedman (August, 2023)

“The Supreme Court Case of Andy Warhol Foundation v. Goldsmith: What, If Anything, Does It Mean to Artificial Intelligence?” by Roy Kaufman of Copyright Clearance Center on Scholarly Kitchen (June 6, 2023)

“Generative AI and Intellectual Property Law: A Special Report” from Variety Intelligence Platform (May 1, 2023) (subscription reqd)

Web Metadata and Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

What is Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)? by Christina Adame on Search Engine Land (July 29, 2024)

The Profound Impact of Generative AI on Search by David Shapiro, Senior Vice President of Earned Media at NP Digital (June, 2024)

GEO: Generative Engine Optimization (PDF) – the foundational document describing “the first novel paradigm to aid content creators in improving their content visibility in generative engine responses through a flexible black-box optimization framework for optimizing and defining visibility metrics.” By Pranjal Aggarwal, Ashwin Kalyan, Vishvak Murahari, Karthik Narasimhan, Tanmay Rajpurohit, and Ameet Deshpande (June 28, 2024)

Zero-Click Content; The Counterintuitive Way to Succeed in a Platform-Native World by Amanda Natividad on SparkToro (July 25, 2022)

How to Optimize Your Meta-Titles, Descriptions and Keywords by Robin Burton

Seven Essential Content Marketing Lessons from Rand Fishkin’s Whiteboard Fridays by Michelle Lin

BookTok

Does Literary Fiction Also Work on BookTok? On Book Riot, Arvyn Cerézo explores the problems literary fiction has getting traction on BookTok — January 9, 2024

I’ve Got 60 Seconds to Hook You: Bookstagram vs BookTok On Book Riot, Ashlie Swicker gather opinions on readers’ different experiences — January 9, 2024

BookTok’s Racial Bias On The Cut, Tyler McCall investigates the evidence that BookTok’s secret algorithm is racist — November 18, 2022

Instructional Videos

THE AUTHOR AND THE MARKETER: Working Together to Connect to Readers: Bridget Marmion & Dale Kushner (March, 2022)

THE YA TODAY: An Editor, Agent, and Blogger Discuss the Book, the Audience, the Crossover
A Presentation by Emilia Rhodes, Peter Knapp, Katiebabs, and Bridget Marmion (June, 2016)

CAN I WRITE THAT WHILE THEY’RE STILL ALIVE?
A Presentation by Bridget Marmion, Boris Kachka, Elinor Lipman, and Jan F. Constantine (March, 2016)

Editing

Kinds of editors and levels of edit–what every writer and editor should know (updated) – blog post by Pat McNees on Writers and Editors

Some Tips on Editing Your Manuscript (PDF) – from the William Faulkner – William Wisdom Creative Writing Competition

Publicity and Promotion

The Art of Publicity: How Indie Publicists Work With Writers by Tess Taylor on Poets & Writers

Seventeen New Book Release Marketing Examples – including Social Media Headers, Author Q&As, Giveaways, Book Excerpts and Peeks Behind the Scenes – from BookBub

A General Book Campaign Timeline by Sarah Russo (PDF)

Public Relations Snapshot (Jennifer Maguire from FINDING AND BUILDING YOUR COMMUNITY OF READERS Confab — 2015)

Sample Author Questionnaire compliments of Bridget Marmion Book Marketing (.docx)

Writing

A Writer’s Secret Weapon: Add a Listening Pass to Your Editing Arsenal – Author and writing coach Suzy Vadori on how to enable your laptop to read your work to you and why that’s useful – April 24, 2024

Publishing

Start Here: How to Get Your Book Published — Jane Friedman offers basic advice on how to get traditionally published and on how to self-publish — updated April 10, 2024

Part One of Aevitas Literary Agent Donya Dickerson’s Eight-Part Series of Posts on Pet Peeves about Nonfiction Book Proposals (June 2024 thru August 2024)

The Big Five U.S. Trade Publishers and Their Imprints. A graphic showing all the imprints of the “Big Five” U.S. trade publishers by Ali Almossawi, a software engineer, data visualization designer, and author. Updated August, 2023.

General Setup and Who Does What in a Publishing House by Barbara Greenberg and Julie Schroeder (PDF)

Commonly Used Terms in Publishing – from the AAP’s BookJobs.com

Best Practices for Product Metadata (2015) – from BISG

Self-Publishing

The Indie 50 – The 50 Best Sites for Indie and Self-Published Authors – from August Wainwright

Website

What’s More Important: Author Websites or Social Media? by Jane Friedman

A Step-by-Step Guide to Build Your Author Website by Jane Friedman

AUTHOR WEBSITE: EXAMPLES, TEMPLATES, AND HOW-TO BUILD ONE by Tim Grahl

Blogging

Revealed: 19 Things to Know Before You Start a Blog by Blog Tyrant

How to Start a Blog — Beginners Guide for 2016 by Jessica Knapp

Email

25 Ways to Measure the Success of Your Newsletter by Dan Oshinsky, former director of Newsletters for The New Yorker and BuzzFeed, January 17, 2024

What You Need to Know About Gmail and Yahoo’s Big Changes for Newsletters by Dan Oshinsky on Inbox Collective, January 24, 2024

Your Contacts List Is Your Most Important Social Network. Here’s How to Make It Better. David Pierce reviews CardHop, HiHello, and other apps that help you manage your contacts (Wall Street Journal – subscription required)

Why Email Marketing is King by Arthur Middleton Hughes (Harvard Business Review)

What Ten Studies Say About the Best Time to Send Email by Nathan Ellering

Ten Rock-Solid Reasons Why an Author Should Build an E-mail List by Joan Stewart

How to Build an Author Platform Through Email Lists by Joel Friedlander

BookBub

Carlyn Robertson of BookBub Partners Team on “Getting Started with BookBub Ads” (59 min video on YouTube from February, 2023)

Book Metadata

Mastering Metadata: The Key to Marketing Your Books by Carla King

Best Practices for Product Metadata: Guide for North America Data Senders and Receivers by Pat Payton, Sam Dempsey, Richard Stark (BISG/Book Net Canada report, last updated June 1, 2015)

Social Media Platforms and Tools

The 10 Best Social Media Metrics to Track in 2024 (+ Quick Tips) — On Smartblogger, Sam Driver describes in detail ten key social media metrics — and how to track them — January 3, 2024

Why You Should Be Writing on Social Media by Allison K. Williams (@guerillamemoir) (August, 2023)

Modern Authors Delve into Digital and Visual Storytelling – report by Stephanie Walden on Mashable on how several authors are using social media and blogging to reach readers