Thanks-Giving is a Way of Living—and Marketing

Do you struggle with the idea of marketing, promotion, and platform? As an author, I grappled with this part of the ministry until God placed me in His school of marketing. I’d attended many conferences and taken all the marketing workshops I could fit into my schedule. 

I’m a good little student, so I came home and implemented every marketing strategy I’d learned. And the results? I was worn out, tired, and broke, with very few book sales to show for it. 

In frustration I said to the Lord, “There’s got to be a better way.” 

And His response was, “There is.” Now He had my attention.

For the next several months I poured over all my workshop notes, praying that God would reveal something to me that I’d missed. 

All I kept hearing in my spirit was It’s not about you. 

But as I looked around the piles of handouts and notes spread out on my office floor, it sure looked like it was about me and my book. 

Lord, I don’t get it—how can it be about me and my book and not about me and my book? 

Slowly, God showed me that if I made the focus about my readers and serving them, then it no longer was about me, but about what God had taught me, how He met my needs, and about how He could meet their needs, too. 

As this new way of looking at marketing permeated my soul, I began to get excited. Marketing was turning into ministry, and that was something I could get excited about. 

I began looking at my social media campaigns and looked for ways to serve my readers with encouragement, hope, and truth. 

Then I looked at my proposals and how I planned to market my books. When I looked for ways to serve my readers instead of selling to them, I became more creative, and God began to open doors to serve more and more people. 

Fellow authors began asking me to teach them what God had taught me in His School of Marketing, and I began coaching. Then those coaching sessions led to marketing retreats, and eventually to our marketing coaching strategy with EABooks Publishing. 

I don’t share this to brag, but to put an exclamation point on the idea that you can’t outgive God. 

All I wanted to do when I prayed that first prayer was to learn a better way of marketing my books. 

God wanted to not only teach me a better way, He wanted His army of authors to learn a better way—His way! 

• His way is giving. 
• His way is loving. 
• His way is sharing what we’ve been given, freely, without constraints or with the motive to sell anything. 

He will sell our books if we are filled with a grateful heart that overflows with all that He has done for us. 

Now that is a marketing strategy that we can each get excited about!

Question:  What is one specific way you’ve served your audience or your readers in a way that has encouraged them?

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