Thomas Umstattd Jr.
500 episodes listed below
Book marketing with receipts.
Novel Marketing treats authorship like a working business, not a vague creative dream. Episodes move from laptop buying and audiobook distribution to covers, taxes, AI, PR, productivity, and reader-focused sales strategy.
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Novel Marketing looks at authorship as a business with readers, costs, software, platforms, covers, publicity, and deadlines attached. Its core promise is practical: help writers make smarter decisions about how books reach people. The show is direct. It does not romanticize the work. A recent episode on Apple’s low-cost laptop weighs the MacBook Neo against the real way authors use computers, including Vellum, file syncing, iCloud, Dropbox, second screens, RAM limits, and battery life. Another episode treats book covers as conversion tools, not personal art projects, and pushes authors toward click testing instead of asking friends for opinions. Taxes get the same grounded treatment, with discussion of bookkeeping, Amazon deposits, Ingram payments, Kickstarter funds, affiliate income, QuickBooks, ratios, KPIs, forecasts, and the difference between simple tax records and deeper business analysis. The show also covers productivity through conversations with Jerry B. Jenkins, including discipline, procrastination, output, and long-term writing habits. Audiobook publishing appears through ACX, Audible, narration, consulting, and the question of why audio has become a credibility signal for modern books. AI is handled as a practical tool authors can learn to use well rather than a novelty to fear or worship. Publicity episodes connect traditional media, earned coverage, Wikipedia visibility, and how AI systems absorb reputation from established outlets. Sales strategy episodes return again and again to the target reader, insisting that books written only for the author are difficult to market. The voice is energetic, sometimes sharp, and comfortable naming tools, platforms, and uncomfortable truths. It suits authors who want operational clarity. It also suits writers who can handle feedback about covers, positioning, spending, and reader demand. The show’s strength is its willingness to move between big publishing strategy and small technical details in the same conversation. A listener might leave with a laptop recommendation, a cover-testing method, a bookkeeping framework, or a sharper understanding of why a book is not selling. Novel Marketing is best understood as a working author’s field guide to the commercial side of writing.
Made for: Novel Marketing is for authors who want practical help selling books, choosing publishing tools, and building reader demand. It especially fits writers who prefer specific tradeoffs over vague encouragement.
What sets it apart: The show connects author marketing to concrete operational choices, from cover tests and tax records to AI prompts, PR firms, laptops, and audiobook platforms. Its strongest episodes turn broad publishing advice into decisions an author can actually make.
The longest-running book marketing podcast in the world. This is the show for writers who want to build their platform, sell more books, and change the world with writing worth talking about. Whether you self publish or are with a traditional house, this podcast will make book promotion fun and easy. Thomas Umstattd Jr. interviews publishers, indie authors, and bestselling traditional authors about how to get published and sell more books.
This is the show that makes your book cover defend itself against eleven challengers.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A practical laptop buying guide that treats author workflows as the real benchmark.
Thomas Umstead Jr. keeps the piece grounded in the day to day work authors actually do. He lays out why memory, storage, app load, and file syncing matter more than CPU and GPU talk, then uses a week with the MacBook Neo to keep that point concrete.
A blunt reminder that book covers should win strangers, not impress friends.
The episode handles a familiar mistake with care: asking friends to judge a book cover and treating polite reactions like market truth. Its core point is clear and practical.
Book sales start with reader fit, not a clever promotional trick.
Novel Marketing treats book sales as the end result of work that starts much earlier: craft, audience growth, character, ability, and fame. Its strongest point is the refusal to promise a single clever trick.
Marketing war stories turned into usable playbooks.
Revenue leaders talking shop on AI, pipeline and value.
Novel Marketing hosts Thomas Umstead Jr.
Leslie Hensel says Amazon's enforcement logic rests on one thing: reframe every email around the buyer, not the law.
Thomas Umstattd Jr., host of Novel Marketing, reviews Apple's $599 MacBook Neo — described as the cheapest Mac ever sold — specifically for authors who use tools like Vellum, Scrivener, and Atticus.
Thomas Umstattd Jr.
A CPA provides advice on bookkeeping and tax preparation specifically for authors to manage their finances confidently.
Interview with Jerry B.
Thomas Umstattd Jr.
Thomas Umstattd Jr.
Thomas Umstattd Jr.
This episode discusses the importance of traditional media for authors in the age of AI and how to work with a PR firm for book promotion.
Thomas Umstattd Jr.
This episode provides a 2025 laptop buying guide for authors, debunking unnecessary features like high-end CPUs and extra cores that don't improve performance for writing tasks.
Thomas Umstattd Jr.
Thomas Umstattd Jr.