Sell Your Books
Most book marketing advice is written by people who have never actually marketed a book. They’re gurus who decided “book marketing” was a profitable niche. They’re bloggers recycling tips from other bloggers. They’re coaches who will happily take your money to tell you things that sound good but don’t produce sales.
Sell Your Books: Marketing Without the Hype is different.
Richard Lowe has published 113 books, ghostwritten for clients who used their books to raise millions in venture capital, and spent decades learning what actually works in indie publishing — including what used to work and doesn’t anymore, what the platforms don’t tell you, and where authors consistently throw money away. This book is the result of that experience. Not theory. Not recycled guru advice. Practical, tested methods that working authors use every day.
The book covers the full scope of indie author marketing across four parts. Part I builds the strategic foundation: how to define what you are actually trying to build, how to identify your reader, how to build an author platform, and how to price and position your book for the market you’re in. Part II covers tactics in detail: covers and descriptions, launch teams, launch parties, reviews, social media, Amazon advertising, newsletters, podcast tours, speaking opportunities, and distribution platforms including KDP, IngramSpark, Draft2Digital, and the wide vs. Kindle Unlimited decision that every indie author faces. Part III addresses the situations that come after the basics: marketing a large catalog, what to do when a book simply will not sell, marketing with ADHD, competitor research, AI tools for marketing, and how to protect yourself from the scams and vanity presses that target authors at every stage. Part IV covers revenue expansion: audiobooks, selling direct through Payhip and Shopify, special editions and Kickstarter campaigns, and promotional tools including BookBub.
Throughout, Richard writes from real experience. The book includes firsthand accounts of what worked and what failed — including the Facebook ads money he lost, the Amazon advertising landscape that was far more profitable five years ago than it is today, the platform that terminated his account without explanation, and the client who built a launch team through years of relationships before his book existed. The book does not pretend the game is easy. It explains exactly how hard it is, what realistic timelines look like, and what separates the authors who build sustainable careers from the ones who publish one book, wait for sales that never come, and give up.
For indie authors at any stage who are ready to treat publishing as a business.
| Amazon Kindle | Paperback (IngramSpark) | epub (Kobo) |
| 📖 Look Inside | Need a Ghostwriter? Let’s Talk | |
| ISBN (Paperback): | 978-1-972810-34-7 |
| ISBN (eBook): | 978-1-972810-35-4 |
| Publisher: | The Writing King |
| Publication Date: | April 12, 2026 |
| Print Length: | 660 pages |
| Language: | English |
Questions
Read the Preface
Most book marketing advice is written by people who’ve never marketed a book.
They’re marketing gurus who decided “book marketing” was a niche they could dominate. They’re bloggers who regurgitate advice from other bloggers who regurgitated it from someone else. They’re consultants who’ve never published a book but somehow think they’re qualified to tell you how to sell yours.
This book is different. I’ve been in the indie publishing trenches for over a decade. I’ve published books across multiple genres. I’ve run thousands of dollars in ads. I’ve built email lists. I’ve launched books that succeeded and books that flopped spectacularly. I’ve made every mistake in this book and learned from most of them.
I’m not a marketing guru. I’m an author who figured out how to market books by doing it badly until I got better at it.
Marketing is work. It’s not sexy. It’s not a shortcut. It’s running ads, writing descriptions, building email lists, analyzing data, testing strategies, failing, adjusting, and trying again. It’s boring, repetitive, and necessary if you want to make money from your books.
In 2013 I quit my job as Director of Computer Operations at Trader Joe’s, packed up, and moved to Florida. I had decided I was going to make it as a professional writer. My first book was on cybersecurity. I published it, told a few people, and waited. It sold maybe a dozen copies. I had written a decent book and done nothing to put it in front of the people who needed it.
Then I figured out LinkedIn. I had a cybersecurity book. LinkedIn had an audience of professionals who worried about cybersecurity every day. I stopped waiting and started showing up where my readers already were. Three days later the book had sold 15,000 copies and hit number 43 in all of Kindle. Not because the book got better. Because I found the channel.
By then I understood something I wish someone had told me before I published that first book: the writing was never the hard part. Marketing was the variable. A decent book with real marketing beats a great book with none, every single time.
I watched that pattern repeat too many times with ghostwriting clients. The talent was there. The book was there. The readers existed. The only thing missing was someone willing to go find them. That is what marketing is. Going to find the readers. Everything in this book is in service of that one idea.