Most book launches don’t fail because the writing is bad. They stall because we treat publishing like a sprint, not a marathon. Joel Pitney sits down with bestselling author and publishing strategist Jane Tabachnick to get painfully honest about what it actually takes to build an author platform that lasts, and why so many authors “quiet quit” about 60 days after launch when the instant-results fantasy wears off. 

We dig into the long-game mindset that keeps a book alive for years, especially for nonfiction and business authors. Jane explains why most books are evergreen assets, how “good for book and good for business” simplifies your marketing, and why you probably already know more about book marketing than you think if you’ve ever grown a brand or sold a service. From there, we get tactical: leveraging word of mouth, building relationships with thought leaders and community builders, and making asks that feel value-driven instead of transactional. 

You’ll also hear practical guidance on mapping the network you already have, organizing contacts early, avoiding the pitfalls of adding people to email lists without opt-in, and deciding when a one-to-one email beats a generic blast. We close with the unglamorous realities authors underestimate: getting reviews, securing endorsements or a foreword, and respecting timelines that can run 3 to 12 months for people with real editorial calendars. 

Jane also goes over  the seven audiences she’s identified for book launches and book marketing:

1. Ideal Reader / Prospects
2. Friends & Family
3. Email list
4. Professional Network & Contacts
5. Social Media Connections & Followers
6. Media
7. Paid Traffic

If you want smarter book marketing, stronger relationships, and a clearer plan for the long haul, subscribe, share the episode with an author friend, and leave a review so more mission-driven writers can find it.

About Jane Tabachnick

Jane Tabachnick is a four-time bestselling author and publishing strategist who has spent 16 years helping nonfiction authors, coaches, and thought leaders turn published books into real business assets. She writes about book marketing on her Substack, Author Alchemy. As founder of Simply Good Press, she has helped more than 350 authors hit bestseller lists and built AI-powered tools like the Expert Content Engine and Author Portrait Studio to help them market smarter after launch. Named to Fast Company’s Top 100 People Online and honored as a Woman of the Future by the New York Women’s Agenda, Jane believes publishing a book is only the beginning, and no algorithm replaces genuine human connection.

www.simplygoodpress.com​

Welcome And The Long Game

Joel 0:11

Hi, everybody. Welcome to If I’m Being Honest. My name is Joel Pitney. I’m your host. And today I am very, very excited to have Jane Tabachnick on the show. She’s going to be speaking with me about building an author platform and the long game and all the good stuff that’s required to make your book successful. Jane’s a best-selling author herself, and she’s she’s built a career helping mission-driven authors to leverage their books to achieve all kinds of outcomes from building their business to improving their brand to growing an audience. So I’m really excited to have you on the show, Jane.

Jane 0:48

Thank you for having me. Excited to be here.

Joel 0:51

So this is uh this is actually Jane and I’s first time meeting. Um, and so I’m very excited to pick her brain about things. And I think the thing that uh that Jane and I uh have in common is we like uh we like to be honest about what authors should expect for their author journey. And also, in particular,

Quiet Quitting After Launch

Joel 1:10

I think the thing that compels me about your approach, Jane, is is how um is how you can’t you can’t expect a book to be a short, a short game. It’s a long game. It’s a marathon, it’s not a sprint. Um so I kind of want to open things up and talk a little bit about um your your philosophy there.

Jane 1:30

Yeah, so that is the philosophy. It is a long game. And you know, I feel for authors who have gotten the impression either from media ads they’ve seen or the success of someone else that you can be an instant success when your book comes out. Because the truth is when you’re seeing someone who appears to be a great success, you have no idea what went into that moment. You’re just seeing the moment of success. You’re not seeing the years of planning, the years of building the platform, of building relationships. And so it’s really a long game, as you said. And the mindset of that is really important because I see what I call quiet quitting by a number of authors where they put effort into the marketing perhaps before the book comes out, and then for maybe 60 days after the launch, and then they think, well, nothing’s really happening, so I’m just going to give up. Maybe the book isn’t good. And it’s almost never about the quality of the book. It’s that they don’t have either a marketing strategy or they’re not playing the long game, they’re expecting instant results.

Joel 2:44

Interesting. I like that. Quiet quitting. So um, and and I’ve heard very similar things. A lot of people think that, you know, that first one to two months, if something hasn’t hit, then maybe maybe the book isn’t just isn’t gonna work for them. Um I I guess one question, so so when you talk long game, what are we talking?

Your Book As Evergreen Asset

Joel 3:05

Yeah, time interval.

Jane 3:08

So I work with nonfiction business building books, and so but most books really don’t have an expiration date, right? So they’re an asset that you can market and should market forever. Now, some books might need updating. If you were to write a book about AI today, then it’s out of um it’s already dated by the time it’s published because it the technology is moving so quickly. But most books don’t have that challenge. So they’re evergreen type content. And so if especially with a business book, if it’s about your business and your methodology, you’d want to keep marketing it. I call it good for book and good for business, right? They’re kind of the same. Yeah. If you’re marketing the book, you’re marketing the business. If you’re marketing the business, you’re marketing the book, you know, and they should go together. And that actually makes it easier. So you’re not running two marketing campaigns after the launch, that is.

Joel 4:10

Right. No, that makes sense, right?

Jane 4:12

Yeah, it does. But people, I think, get overwhelmed thinking they need this other heavy lift with the book for the long term. And I think that’s what kind of messes with them, with their heads, you know.

Joel 4:24

Yeah, it’s interesting. I’ll often speak to people who um have had success in business and they’ve done a great job of building their business, and then they’ll write a book, and they’ll come to me and they’ll go, I don’t know anything about book marketing. And I’m always like, Well, actually, you probably do.

Jane 4:39

Exactly.

Joel 4:40

It’s probably about nine 80 or 90% of what you use to build your brand or your business is kind of the same thing for for for your book. It just your book is just one tool.

Jane 4:51

Exactly. It’s kind of like releasing a new product or service offering. You would market it differently initially, and then you’d fold it into the rest of the marketing you do for your business or your practice, right?

Joel 5:04

That’s right. So, okay, so let’s let’s talk some brass tacks here, some more specific. So, what are some of the uh tactics or tools that you found

Word Of Mouth That Compounds

Joel 5:15

to be effective when you use them in the long run?

Jane 5:18

Okay, my favorite is going to be a surprise. But it’s humans, it really does take a village and it’s the power of word of mouth that really helps get your book out there. So whether it’s people that you know in your network, whether it’s podcast hosts, whether it’s the media like TV, radio, magazines, newspapers, blogs, substacks, LinkedIn, it’s all about the people that you know and can serve and inspire with your book. And if you can get in front of people who are influencers and or thought leaders, so I don’t mean like Instagram influencers, but people who either have a community, they lead a tribe, they have a big following. If you can connect with them and share with them why your book brings value to their community, right, then you have a great chance of having them want to get it in front of their community because their goal is to bring value to their community and share good things with them, right? So they’re going to want to share your book if you present it that way. And then you get this incredible leverage effect. I call it the umbrella or the lazy approach in a way, because it’s one to many. And it’s even better than just the numbers of people you can reach with that. It’s like a warm endorsement from the thought leader or the the person at the top of that group, because if they’re recommending you, they could have recommended 10 other books, but they’re recommending yours. So there is a lot of value in that, a lot of power in that.

Joel 6:58

That’s right. Okay. So, all right. So you’re talking about having people, you know, influencers, whether it’s a podcast host or someone who’s got a following on LinkedIn or uh someone hosts a local radio station, uh, being able to at finding ways to get them to promote your book, right? Or talk about your your expertise in a way that’s gonna

Relationship First Outreach

Joel 7:20

compel their audience.

Jane 7:21

Yeah, I like to think of it as building relationships. I think it’s a lot more fun. If, well, not everyone is a a people person. Some writers are more introverted and that may make them uncomfortable. But when you build relationships with a lot of these people and you find levels of connection, and as I mentioned, ways to share the value that the book is going to bring to their audience, it really goes a long way. And I think it makes it a lot more fun.

Joel 7:48

That’s really interesting. So I like that you’re talking about relationships. And I and forgive me if I’m wrong here, but I think that really connects to the long game. Absolutely. And you know, in my experience marketing nonfiction books, uh, we we we talk a lot about kind of authors going out there and trying to establish these connections, right? And we always emphasize um trying to be value driven, not uh transaction driven. So you’re not out there trying to just say, hey, I’ve got this book, will you please promote it?

Jane 8:23

Exactly. It’s a big difference. You know, I get a lot of messages like that on LinkedIn because people see that I’m an author, a publisher. And so I’ll get random cold pitches asking me to buy their book. They wanted to become a bestseller. They don’t even tell me what the book is about or why they’re passionate about it. And of course, I wish them luck. I congratulate them. I don’t buy the book. I don’t share it with anyone. But if someone tells me why they’re excited about a book and what it’s about, why they wrote it, who it’s going to help, it’s a game changer. Of course, I think of three people who need to find out about this book, who I can share it with. And I think that’s how all of us are programmed.

Joel 9:08

Mm-hmm. Well, it’s interesting, Jane. I mean, uh just uh practicing what you preach, you actually reached out to me and uh told me about your approach, and you got very concrete about some of the things. And and in your in the in the outreach, I saw that we shared a philosophy. You talked a lot about this long game about about building a platform as opposed to just trying to promote a book. And that sparked my interest. And I was like, oh, I see a kindred spirit here. We could have a great conversation. So all of a sudden, here we are having a conversation and starting a real relationship about something that’s real that we share. Whereas if you would have just been like, hey, can you bring me on the show because I have a book I want to promote or a service I want to promote, I I I would I never would have even opened it.

Jane 9:54

Well, thank you. So here’s the thing though, I want to say it just, you know, I love books. I love authors, I love working with them. It breaks my heart to see authors who spend all their time, energy, money to put their book together and then put it out there and feel frustrated. You know, and it’s easy for that to happen. And um, sometimes it’s just a minor tweak in the approach that they’re making. Like they may not realize they’re being transactional. They get so focused on the book is launching. Like, what if no one buys it? You know, I hear this a lot. What if no one buys it? What if no one reads it? What if I don’t get any reviews? Like there are all these, you know, reasonable fears that come up. It’s very confronting and and uh you have to make yourself very vulnerable to put a book out there.

Joel 10:42

Yeah.

Jane 10:42

Because you’re putting yourself out there in a big way. But that said, you know, giving into those urges and being transactional, saying, please buy the book, please, is just not going to get you what you want. Right. So trying to build those relationships and the earlier you start that, the better.

Joel 11:02

Right. So let’s say, let’s say, you

Pivoting After A Transactional Start

Joel 11:05

know, someone launched their book last week and they were being very transactional and they’re listening to this interview and they’re like, actually, I want to take this other approach, right? Is it too late?

Jane 11:22

No, I don’t I with most people, no, unless you’ve really pissed someone off, and then, you know, there’s not much you can do. But no, I think you can always go back to people and say, hey, you know, I was thinking about you, and I wanted to share with you what motivated me to write this book. And I think this you’re someone who I kind of had in mind when I wrote the book. Like if you think about the other person and what is in it for them and share that, it goes a long way. And it may not be for them. Like people always try and get their friends and family to buy the book, and typically that’s not their audience, but they probably know someone if you share with them in the right way who the book is for. They’ll say, you know what, it’s really not for me. I hope you don’t mind. I’m not gonna read it, but I’m going to give it to my best friend because this book is perfect for them. Okay. And that’s a great approach, right?

Joel 12:12

Yeah. Well, that that’s interesting. That would that leads me to a question I was I want to really ask you, just, you know, person to person, curiously, is your your own networks, right? And I in my experience when I’m working with people, um, I have noticed that people tend to overlook the contacts and the connections they already have. Absolutely because they’re so obsessed with finding the new audience and the new people and this and that and the other thing. And or they don’t think they have a lot of resources or a lot of contacts compared to what they think they should have. And so people will often overlook this treasure trove of of networks

Mapping The Network You Already Have

Joel 12:55

that they can start with. So I’m curious, how do you how do you advise authors work with their own networks?

Jane 13:02

Yeah, so I’ve actually identified seven different audience types that we work with when we’re planning a book launch. And I would just say map out your network, you know, and and start early. You know, the best time, look, what’s this old saying? When’s the best time to plant a tree 20 years ago? Yeah. I don’t feel like it’s ever too late for starting to market a book. You might not get an interview with a newspaper that only wants a book that’s like brand, brand, brand new. But, you know, there are only a handful of opportunities that won’t be available to you. So you can always start now. But I think it’s important to map out your network of friends, family, colleagues, if you know any podcast hosts or people in the media, do you follow people who write on your topic? Like you really have to think about who the book is for and who’s already talking about it. That’s the main thing. Who’s already talking about the topic that you can tap into. And undoubtedly, everybody listening follows one blog or one newspaper column or one Substack or person on LinkedIn who’s talking about their topic, and that’s a great start. There are probably more than one. Then you can look at who is following or commenting on theirs. Like you can use one and kind of make ripples out from each connection of two degrees of separation, you know, and just map it out and then start reaching out to them, even before you think you’re ready. Just, hey, I’m working on this book. This is the topic. I’m really excited about it. You know, if it’s something of interest to you, I you can follow it here or I can keep you posted.

Joel 14:39

I love

Organizing Contacts Without Spamming

Joel 14:40

that. That’s very cool. It’s very that feels very accessible. It’s something you can just do. You know, there’s no big barrier to that.

Jane 14:46

Exactly. You know, one of the things I find happens when people get ready to launch a book, they’ve got all these contacts in different places and they haven’t organized them. So that’s another thing that this process starts is like identifying who the contacts are and maybe then make a list or tag them in your Gmail. You don’t want to add them to a constant contact or an email service provider like a mail light, whatever, because people haven’t opted in and they get very unhappy if they see that you’ve mailed them through a list. There’s nothing wrong with using like a mail merge and Gmail. That can work really well. But when they see they’ve been added to a list they didn’t ask to be on, that makes them uncomfortable. And, you know, rightly so. So you have to be a little careful about how you do it. But organizing it early is really helpful because you know who you want to send it out to. It gives you time to find people in nooks and crannies where they may be stored, and then you have this list ready when your book is ready to launch, or to give them a what I think Jeff Walker calls a shot across the bow, so to say, hey, it’s coming. So not like my book is launching tomorrow, but a few weeks before, hey, don’t know if you know, but I wrote a book and it’s coming soon. So watch your inbox and that kind of thing. So to build a little bit of anticipation and get people watching the inbox.

One To One Email That Lands

Joel 16:10

That’s awesome. Watching the inbox. I like that.

Jane 16:12

Yeah.

Joel 16:13

I’ve got a question about that, but first I just want to remind everybody who’s listening. If if you’re enjoying this show, if you’re enjoying this episode, listening to Jane and I, um, I encourage you to subscribe to this podcast wherever you tend to listen to your podcast. We’re on all the platforms. Please uh rate us and uh share it with your friends if you find it interesting. My mission here, and it sounds like it’s Jane’s mission also, is to educate and empower authors. And so when you do that, it helps us uh achieve that mission. Um, so a quick question, you know, speaking of email, I’m I’m always curious about this. Um I think a lot of people uh want to do email blasts in especially uh when they’re reaching out to influencers or different people. I tend to prefer one-on-one communication. So I’m curious where you stand on the email blast versus one-on-one emailing when it comes to you know running your your book launch.

Jane 17:08

I think it really depends on the relationship. And uh, you know, if you’ve got a bunch of colleagues, let’s say you you’re in touch with and you don’t think they’re the top of the list. I’m not rating people, I’m not saying that, but they may not be like your ideal target audience. I think it’s okay to add them to like a general announcement list. You’re not gonna be able to email everyone personally, but people who are those influencers, people who can really share it with a number of people who are already talking to your ideal reader, you want to craft a message just for them. It could be the exact same message with the addition of one unique line that relates to them. Hey, I caught your last, you know, Substack article and it really, you know, got me thinking about XYZ, whatever the topic of it was. So personalize it so they know that you actually did read something of theirs and um it really helps build that connection deeper. And so they don’t feel like oh, it’s just a one-off. They’re like a number on your list. Right. Taking that time and it it is time consuming. I’m not gonna lie, but those investments of time are what can make the real difference.

Joel 18:21

Amen. And just on a technical, from a technical standpoint, you know, people’s email services are getting really good at filtering out promotions and putting them into a box that don’t land in your main inbox. If you’re sending a one-to-one email, that’s not gonna happen. You’re gonna actually get into someone’s email box, but if you’re sending a one-to-many blast, you know, Gmail or whatever their server is will often just sort it out. They’ll never even see in the email.

Jane 18:49

Yes, unfortunately, that does happen. And we don’t even know it’s happening.

Joel 18:53

Yep. You know, and it’s not like spam or bouncing like it used to be. It’s it’s literally, you know. And that’s how it should be. I mean, as all of us, I mean, I always feel like people people forget what it’s like to be a human when they’re marketing. They put on this marketing hat and they think that there’s some magical thing that they can do that uh will appeal to some other person out there who is somehow weird and different from them. But I I’m always I’m always like, well, how would it sound if you got this email? Or would this approach work for me? Right? Yes. Because we’re all we’re all pretty similar in many ways, you know. So trust your instincts.

Jane 19:36

Yes. It’s a it’s a good reminder. You know, it’s easy to get lost in the numbers, like I want to, you know, reach out to a thousand people and I want to get 50 reviews on the book the first week, and all those are great goals, but if you lose that human quality, then it doesn’t matter how many emails you send out, you know.

Joel 19:55

Yeah. Um so you mentioned something earlier. You talked about the seven different audiences. Would you be willing to kind of uh state what those are or summarize what those are briefly?

Jane 20:07

Let’s let’s see if I can. So they’re friends and family, they’re colleagues, there’s media. Um oh gosh. I’m I’ll send it to you for the show notes. How’s that?

Joel 20:21

Okay, that sounds good. Yeah, we’ll put them in the show notes. So anybody listening will have those seven levels. Um we it’s funny, we’ve broken them down into three levels. So my guess is that those two Venn diagrams will intersect. Yours is probably just a little bit more more specific. Um I’m sure. We’ll share that in the show notes. Um great. So, you know, Jane, if you’re working with, you know, what is kind of the

Setting Real Author Goals

Joel 20:45

first step you take when you’re working with someone?

Jane 20:48

So that’s a great question. Thank you. It really depends on when they come to me. So I sometimes work with authors building out their idea before they start writing. We call it the book blueprint. So if they come to me at that stage, I really want them to get total clarity on the book they want to write. But I also want them to focus on their author goals. This is something that authors don’t often think about. I want the book to be successful, I want it to be a bestseller. Those are nice, but they’re not really goals. Those are milestones. So, what do you want to have happen as a result of publishing this book? It could be you want to get on stages, you want to impact a thousand people and help them solve a problem, you want to build a a mission, a movement, whatever it is. But it’s important to know that in advance, because I believe you can design the book to help meet those goals. And it also then helps you think about the people who are aligned with that mission who you can start to connect with or reconnect with to start nurturing that relationship so they’re in place as part of your human network, your village, when you’re ready to put the book out there.

Joel 22:01

That’s good. That’s good. Um so what if someone is what if someone’s already written the book and they’re and maybe they didn’t they didn’t have that clarity when they wrote it and they’re sort of midstream?

Jane 22:17

Yeah, I mean I think it’s again not too late to stop and think, well, what do I want to have happen? And what can I now do with the book? It’s out, okay. I’ve got this great asset. How do I want the book to be out there in the world and what do I want it to do for me and the people I wrote it for? And then once you identify that, it’s easier to get there because if you don’t know where you’re going, you know, the saying any road will take you there. So having those goals and that vision is really helpful. And again, it’s not going to happen overnight, most likely, but you can take one step forward and another step and like you know, building blocks, you get there, but you’re making forward movement in a positive way.

Joel 23:03

That’s awesome. Well, yeah. So um, so Jane, I feel like uh yeah, I want to ask you one more question. Um, but before we do that, I want to give you a chance to let everyone know where to learn more about you.

Jane 23:17

Awesome, thank you. Yeah, so I have a substack called Author Alchemy. You can follow me there. I write about some of the things I’m thinking about and things that are working or not working for authors that I speak to. And you can also go to my website at simplygoodpress.com.

Joel 23:35

Simplygoodpress.com.

Jane 23:38

Yeah.

Joel 23:39

And author alchemy on Substack.

Jane 23:41

Author alchemy, yeah.

Joel 23:42

I’m gonna check that out.

Jane 23:44

Thank you.

Joel 23:44

Love that title.

Jane 23:46

Thank you.

Joel 23:47

Um so uh, you know, forgive me if you’ve already answered this question, but I you know, the name of the show is if I’m being honest. So if if you’re being honest, what’s one thing that you find authors tend to have the

Reviews, Endorsements, And Timelines

Joel 24:05

the the biggest misunderstanding about?

Jane 24:10

I think they think the hard part is writing the book when I think the marketing ends up being a little more challenging than they thought it would be. You know, like people will my clients will say, Oh, I asked someone to write a review, they said they’d write it and they still haven’t written it. And I suggest they go remind them, you know, or ask them. Sometimes help people, you can’t write it for them, but say, is there something you liked about the book or something that’s stuck with you about the book and say, Great, if you could post that as a review, that’s a great review, because I think people are afraid to say the wrong thing. So that’s why I think some people hesitate to write a review, but people don’t expect certain people, they kind of in their mind earmarked as being like a sure bet on a review to not then write the review. And they kind of take it personally, and I don’t think as personal. I really think people aren’t sure what to write, and they don’t want to hurt the person because they care about them. So I think that that’s a big thing that the marketing is going to be a little more effort than you thought, like nudging people to get those reviews. The other thing, can I add a second one?

Joel 25:18

Do it, yeah.

Jane 25:19

So the second one is a little bit related, but I really think that I see with my authors, they often underestimate timelines. Like if they want someone to write the forward to their book or to give them an endorsement for the book, they’ll say, Oh, I know him really well. I can just send it to him and give him like a week. And I’m like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You need to give someone like three weeks is probably a reasonable amount of time. But also with trying to get people to promote it, you may not plan your newsletter or promotions far out, but people who have good sized lists and are very strategic and uh, you know, have either a marketing team or systems will plan their content out at least three months in advance. So

Where To Find Jane

Jane 26:05

you can’t just show up no matter what your relationship is and think they’re just going to put you on the calendar next week and market it. So find out what those timelines are, and you’ll have a much better chance of success and getting people to say yes.

Joel 26:21

That’s awesome. I mean, some people have six to twelve month timelines.

Jane 26:25

Exactly. I mean, it really depends on the audience, the size of their audience. So you want to show up knowing and not making an ask that’s kind of ridiculous. And, you know, you’re gonna get rejected, but not because the book isn’t good or because they don’t like you. Right. And but you still take, I know people, I take that kind of thing personally. And who needs that? You know, you want to succeed. That that’s what we’re here for, to help our authors succeed.

Joel 26:54

Well, amen to that. So, Jane, I again, I really appreciate you being on the show. Um, and you know, we seem like kindred spirits when it comes to helping authors. So uh it’s it’s great to meet you, and and I’m glad everybody got to benefit from your wisdom today.

Jane 27:12

Thank you so much.