22 Jan 2026 15 min read Author Blog

A Marketing Cheatsheet

To grow your social media following. Also, an overview of an author's marketing funnel.

Title Slide

I gave a workshop for the Writers' Community of York Region in Newmarket, Ontario, on a very snowy 22 Jan 2026. I'm incorporating some of the discussion that was had on that evening.

What this is about: In this presentation/blog post, I apply my experience and knowledge to marketing my books via social media.

Who should read this: This presentation is for you if you are overwhelmed by social media, want a more grounded approach that removes anxiety, and need to make marketing a sustainable part of your writing routine.

Accessibility: I did not add alt text to all slides. I may well do so in the future. If you're trying to read this article with a screen reader and you're lost, let me know.

About Me

I'm an experienced coach and product leader who has worked with content, marketing, and founder teams on their product development and go-to-market product strategy.

More recently, I've published several widely available kidlit and fantasy novels.

Just like most authors, I'm streamlining my authorial marketing, publishing, editing, and networking. You will find more on these topics in my author blog. Subscribe to my newsletter and follow me on social media for more of the behind-the-scenes as a self-published author.

Set Your Intention

Before you go any further, please set for yourself an intention:

Ask yourself, is this for me?
Intend to learn something new.
Leave feeling like you've received some answers.

Agenda

In this presentation, I talk about

Why Social Media in 2026
Examples of authors with successful followings
My social media step-ladder
What are you selling?
What do you do while waiting for results

Does this feel like you?

What Authors experience with social media.

I see a ton of authors on Threads mostly complaining about how all the time and effort they've spent procrastinating from their writing (and on social media marketing) has yielded no increase in sales.

What we'd like to think happens is illustrated below:

What authors expect to happen on social media.

But that's not what happens. Instead, the algorithm is the gatekeeper for how readers discover you. Most of the time, they aren't looking for a book to read; they're doomscrolling. To be honest, a lot of people with social media addictions aren't readers.

If you're a subscriber, you can access the whole essay and slides.

Not ready to take the plunge? My thesis is that social media should be used for discoverability, and I illustrate the why and how below. This is free content. I'm not selling anything, I promise.

Well... except the books I've written, but there's no obligation to buy them.