Editor’s Note: Previously, this series on scholarly publishing has offered advice on approaching an editor, getting a book contract, and responding to negative peer reviews.
Promotion is a crucial component of publishing a scholarly book — and academics are invaluable partners in the process, whether it’s your first book or your fifth. Self-promotion may feel awkward, but it’s not about selling you so much as helping to ensure your book reaches its intended audience. As the author, you are the expert. No one is better poised to spread the word and connect with readers.
Scholarly books are written to shape conversations and have an impact both in particular fields and the wider world. At its best, so-called self-promotion — whether posting on Bluesky, giving a traditional academic talk at a conference, or pitching an opinion piece to a major newspaper — means getting to share ideas, build relationships, and celebrate your hard-won accomplishments.
In my experience as an acquisition editor, while there is no one-size-fits-all model, promotion is most effective when started early and kept up consistently. Here are eight tips to help you develop a marketing strategy that’s right for you and your project.
No. 1: Know who your audience is. Academic presses will expect some discussion of your book’s “market” or “audience” in your book proposal. With which fields do you engage? Does your book have the potential to be used in the college classroom and, if so, in which courses? What level is it pitched to — undergraduate or graduate students? Will it appeal to general-interest readers? There’s a lot of buzz now about publishers wanting books with “crossover” appeal — i.e., the potential to reach readers outside of academe. I mean, sure, what publisher (or writer, for that matter) wouldn’t want that? It’s important, though, to be both realistic and specific.
Acquisitions editors want to see that you have a practical understanding of who your audience is. In his new book on academic writing, Leonard Cassuto recommends aiming for “the field next door” instead of some phantom public. I encourage writers to think in terms of concentric circles. Who are your primary, secondary, and tertiary readers? Maybe your project takes an ecocritical approach to Victorian poetry and you want to engage scholars in the environmental humanities more broadly. Or perhaps your book is on diversity in higher ed and you’re hoping to reach not only fellow researchers but also administrators and practitioners. Or maybe you’re writing about a popular figure and you’re hoping to appeal to their fans.
Remember: Acquisitions editors are seldom specialists in the areas in which we publish. Your book proposal is an opportunity both to tell us who you want to reach and to show us that you can effectively convey your argument to nonspecialists with some baseline curiosity or knowledge about the subject.
No. 2: Build an “author platform.” Devoney Looser, aka the “Jane Austen professor,” has a great 2018 Chronicle piece encouraging scholars to set aside their squeamishness about “selling” their work and create an author platform, which she calls “a plan to reach a broader audience, within or beyond academe.” Jane Friedman, an expert on the “business of being a writer” and an important resource for Looser, defines “author platform” as your visibility — to your target audience — as an authority (and, in more commercial terms, as “an ability to sell books because of who you are and who you can reach”).
Giving papers regularly at your home field’s annual conference, writing a Substack newsletter, publishing reviews of other people’s books on germane topics — all of those can be a means of building your platform by establishing your credentials among your intended audience. I could have a wildly popular YouTube channel, but if it’s devoted to funny cat videos, it won’t help much if I’m trying to find a publisher for a book on Marxism — unless the book is Marx for Cats. The point is: Your author platform should be a logical extension of your work. Looser stresses this, too: You need to be visible to the right people.
If you’re hoping to publish a book, now is the time to take stock: What are you already doing in the spaces where you want to find an audience? And what are you planning to do to further establish yourself? Think about the media you read, watch, and listen to for news about books in and around your field. Start making a list now of places — journals, podcasts, event series — where you’d most like your book to be reviewed or discussed. Think about where you know people — and where the people you know know people.
No. 3: Use social media. If you’re on social media, use it regularly. The number of followers you have on X or Bluesky may not readily convert to sales (if only!), but promotion on social media does have an impact. The University of Chicago Press has some fantastic guidelines for authors on how to approach different sites such as Instagram, Wikipedia, or GoodReads.
While some scholars are wary of posting about their book project until they have a publishing contract in hand, others use social media as a source of support throughout the writing process. You won’t get much of a reaction if you wait until your book is out to create a social-media account or revive a long-dormant one. Instead, use your social media to offer highlights along the way: when your cover is finalized, when you get blurbs (aka endorsements), when it becomes available for preorder (ideally with a link to your publisher’s website rather than to Amazon). And keep sharing once the book is published: if you’re giving a talk about it, if your publisher is running a sale.
No. 4: Or don’t use social media. As Looser noted in her 2018 essay, “most effective author-platform strategies involve social media,” and that remains true even though the online scene has changed a lot since then. We now have TikTok (and hence “BookTok”) for cover reveals and unboxing videos. Meanwhile, Twitter became X, and some — though by no means all — academics and university presses have since left X for Bluesky. In January 2025, Meta got rid of fact-checkers and relaxed its “hateful conduct” policies, causing concerns about the platform paving the way for more such conduct.
Those issues are on my mind a lot, not least because I acquire books in fields that are quite openly under attack. On the one hand, expert voices and perspectives have never been more desperately needed in public conversations. On the other, as a writer, you need to decide for yourself what level of public interaction you’re comfortable with in the current climate, whether online or in person. I always say I work with people more than I work with texts, and people come first.
No. 5: Talk with your editor. That’s the golden rule for most everything in publishing, and publicity is no exception. Promotion takes planning.
The wheels of bigger endeavors will likely need to be set in motion long before you’ve been connected to the marketing department. For example, whether or not your book is on an obviously “timely” topic, it’s absolutely worth pitching an op-ed or short essay that “applies” or riffs on your research. Your editor may have thoughts about timing and an appropriate venue, or even helpful connections. Or maybe your scholarly association holds author-meets-critic sessions, the deadline for proposals is fast approaching, and you want to know if the press will be there and hold a signing.
When in doubt, reach out to your editor. Depending on where you are in the writing process, the editor may gently encourage you not to put the cart before the horse. After all, we can’t always promise that “Yes, your book will absolutely be published by such-and-such date.” But that’s also why it’s important for editor and author to communicate early on about promotion ideas.
No. 6: Be meticulous in completing your marketing questionnaire. Either before your book goes into production, or shortly thereafter, you will be asked to complete a marketing questionnaire, also known as an author questionnaire. This document is where your publisher collects information about you, your project, your potential audience, and your ideas for reaching them. You may be asked to provide a draft description for the back cover and catalog along with lists of keywords, subject areas, “selling points” (i.e., important features of the project), associations you belong to, conferences you attend, courses it might be used in, and more. Be thoughtful and thorough. This document is your publisher’s primary resource in creating not only a marketing plan but also your book’s metadata — all the coding and details that make it discoverable to libraries, bookstores, individuals, and more.
This is also where your publisher will ask for a list of journals that should receive an announcement of your book’s publication and prizes for which it could be submitted. Be realistic, but also ambitious. Look back to those concentric circles I mentioned: What are the primary journals in your field? Are there other, more public-facing outlets where you’ve seen books like yours (aka competing or comparable titles) reviewed? Take advantage of whatever connection you or your press have to those outlets.
Once you’ve submitted your author questionnaire, keep the channels of communication open. If you learn of a new prize for which your book is eligible or have been invited to give a talk, let your press know. It may be able to provide a discount code or signal boost on social media. Be sure to share any reviews of your book so they can be quoted on your book’s webpage.
No. 7: Think locally and mobilize your networks. As the publication date nears, and in the months thereafter, there are lots of little things you can do close to home — and every bit helps:
- Add your book to your e-signature with a link to its webpage.
- Update your website.
- Let your university know so it can share the good news. Derek Krissoff, a longtime publisher, has argued that universities should celebrate the success of their faculty’s books as much as any big research award or sports championship, and I tend to agree.
- Ask your institutional library to purchase a copy — and ask your friends to ask their libraries to do so, too.
- Offer to visit your colleagues’ classrooms and give a talk, virtually or in person.
- Look into whether your local bookstore hosts readings.
- And, above all, don’t hesitate to ask both your publisher and your peers for guidance and help. No journal editor will be eager to publish a glowing review of your book if it’s written by someone you’ve praised prominently in your acknowledgments. But friends and colleagues may know others who would be appropriate and willing to pitch a piece about your book to a relevant journal. Or maybe you know someone who successfully pitched an op-ed based on their book to The Conversation,The New York Times, or The Chronicle. Ask about their experience and their contact at the publication.
No. 8: Promote other people’s books. I don’t mean in a tit-for-tat way, with the expectation that they’ll promote your book in turn. Build genuine goodwill. If you’re reading something you like, let its author know. Post about it on social media. Pitch a review of it. Ask your library to buy your friends’ and peers’ books. Buy a copy yourself if you can afford it.
These are challenging times. For some scholars, self-promotion may feel uncomfortable, if not outright cringe. For others, it may entail real professional and personal risks. I don’t take any of that lightly. But it is possible to craft a marketing plan for your book that feels genuine and appropriate.
We publish to be read. Self-promotion helps make that happen, but it’s also not the best term to capture what’s really at stake — the dissemination of ideas and expertise, the spurring of spirited debate, the amplification of stories and voices that have been silenced.
I’ll end on a practical note: Throughout this column, I have cited and linked to various Q&As for authors posted on Ask UP, a site sponsored by the Association of University Presses and a treasure trove of tips and information about publishing. Bookmark Ask Up. Read it. Share it. Full disclosure: I’m a member of the association committee that manages the site. But, hey, what would a piece on self-promotion be without a little self-promotion?
