Understand what marketing actually is: making a connection.
Strip away the tactics and it's one person telling another that a thing exists which might help them. That's it. The rest is just how you go about it.
Pillar four · The Connector
Marketing + Sales — connection, not hustle.
Marketing is much more than hawking your wares and hustling your latest launch. It's about creating tangible connections between your work and people's stories.
It's a lesson I'm still learning myself. These are my best resources for making lasting connections with the readers you already have — and the ones who haven't found you yet.
What this pillar covers
Let's empower your marketing + sales life
Marketing is more than hawking your book and hustling your latest launch. It's about creating tangible connections between your work and people's stories — a lesson I'm still learning, and one I'd like to invite you into.
Create a strategy to connect your books to interested readers.
Scattershot posting isn't a plan, and hoping isn't either. A simple written strategy beats frantic activity every single time.
Change your mindset to selling as serving.
If the book genuinely helps, staying quiet about it isn't humility — it's withholding. Selling is a way to love your neighbor by building trust.
Leverage paid + free tactics to entertain and inform your reader.
Ads and organic content aren't rivals. Both work when they serve the reader first and ask for something second.
Featured tools + training
From ick to connection, in order
Let's be real: the thought of marketing and — cough — selling our work feels major ick. Can't we just spin our yarns into gold? In a word: nope. 😳 Never fear. Training will empower you to create connections between the gospel and the people who need it.
GospelWise Author Marketing Mindset
Should Christian writers market their books? Yes — and there are good gospel-rooted reasons why. Start here for the biblically informed mindset and the confidence to connect your books to interested readers.
GospelWise Author Marketing Essentials
Marketing is nothing more than making a connection to readers. But that takes planning. Arm yourself with the essentials to connect your book to the people who'll actually want to read it.
Ultimate GospelWise Author Marketing Playbook
Supercharge your marketing and launches with the working tools: marketing plan checklist, book description worksheet, secret Kindle keyword categories list, email opt-in swipe copy with examples, and a connection marketing content tracker.
Who's teaching this
Hey there — Jeremy here. 👋
My work is to empower GospelWise Authors like you to wield the power of the pen for the sake of the cross, through training and resources that upskill and inspire — with room left over for your own style and creative freedom.
Former pastor and Capitol Hill minister, indie authorpreneur, developmental editor, eighteen years in Christian publishing. Proud husband and dad. Vintage jazz vinyl enthusiast. Apple fanboy before the cool kids were. More about the studio →
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Insights + skills + inspiration
Actionable marketing advice for the GospelWise Author™
The internet is chock full of advice from this and that guru promising bank for following their formula. Not here. Just insights and inspiration to grow your skills and empower your author journey.
Article
Why Christian Writers Should Market Their Books
The case for marketing at all — and why staying quiet about a book that helps people isn't the humility it feels like.
ArticleMarketing is Ministry: Sell Your Books without the Guilt
Where the guilt comes from, why it doesn't hold up, and what changes when you treat selling as a form of service.
VideoHow Can You Market Your Christian Book?
Marketing as a practical way to love your neighbor — and how building trust does the work that hustling never could.
Keep going
The other three pillars
Marketing makes the connection. Here's everything that comes before it.
Mindset + Motivation →
The floor under everything else.
Writing + Craft →
Practice is what wins the story day.
Publishing + Business →
Systems that send it into the world.
All for God's glory and your neighbor's gospel good.