There’s one question I hear from almost every new author sooner or later.
“How do I get found?”
A client asked me this on our very first call.
She’d just published her book, built a good-looking website, and created profiles on every platform she thought she needed to be on.
Six months later, hardly anyone knew who she was.
She was doing plenty. Posting, updating, showing up. Yet somehow, she still felt invisible.
Most authors run into this sooner or later. And when they start looking for answers, the advice is almost always the same.
Post more. Be on more platforms. Grow your audience. Make videos. Start a newsletter. Run ads.
In other words, do more.
But I don’t think most new authors have a visibility problem.
Rather, they’re challenged with a findability problem.
Here’s the difference. Visibility means people see you. Findability means the right people discover you and remember why they should. You can be visible all day and still be forgettable.
So I wouldn’t tell a new author to start by trying to be everywhere. I’d start somewhere else.
First, decide what you want to be known for
Before people can find you, they need to understand where you fit. What problem do you solve? Who do you help? What do you want your name attached to?
“Author” isn’t enough. Neither is “speaker,” “coach,” or “consultant.” Those words describe what you do. They don’t give anyone a reason to pay attention.
When your niche gets clear, everything shifts. Podcast hosts know why they should interview you. Journalists see where your expertise fits. Associations understand why their members would care. Readers know whether your message is meant for them.
If people have to work hard to figure you out, most won’t bother.
Use the words your audience already uses
Authors tend to make their language more complicated than it needs to be. They describe their work in polished phrases their readers would never say out loud, then wonder why nobody finds them.
Pay attention to the words your audience uses. What do they type into Google? What do they ask ChatGPT? What do they complain about to a colleague or a friend?
Those words belong on your website, your LinkedIn and Substack profile, and your book description. Use them in article titles, podcast pitches, bios, and media materials. Findability starts with speaking the language people already search for.
Stop trying to build every audience yourself
One of the fastest ways to get found is to stop assuming you have to build the audience from scratch. Someone else already did it for you.
Podcast hosts have audiences. Associations have members. Newsletters have subscribers. Conferences have attendees. Community groups have networks. Companies have employees and clients.
Find where the people you want to reach already gather, then look for ways to contribute. Get interviewed. Write an article. Lead a webinar. Speak at an event. Teach something useful.
A small, relevant audience beats a large one with zero connection to your topic. You don’t need more eyeballs. You need the right ones.
Become a local expert before trying to become a national one
New authors often skip local media because they’re chasing bigger outlets. Big mistake.
Your local newspaper, radio station, TV program, regional magazine, community newsletter, and local podcast all need stories, and your expertise can become one of them.
But here’s an important distinction: your book isn’t automatically the story. “Local author publishes new book” won’t cut it on its own.
Ask instead what’s happening in the world around your subject. Can you connect your expertise to a current issue, a local trend, an awareness month, a community event, a statistic, or a problem people already talk about? Now you’ve given the media something to work with.
Press releases help when real news backs them up. So do interviews, story pitches, and simply introducing yourself to the right reporter or producer before you need anything. Learn who covers your topic. Read their work. Listen to their programs. Understand what they care about. Then become a useful source.
Local media hands you something valuable when you’re starting out: credibility. One interview leads to another. One article gives you something to share when you pitch a podcast. One radio appearance makes the next media conversation easier.
You don’t have to start with national attention. You build toward it.
Don’t keep talking about your book
This sounds strange coming from someone who works with authors, but your audience doesn’t want to hear “buy my book” every day. They want ideas, answers, perspective, useful information.
Talk about the problem your book solves. Share the lessons behind it. Challenge an assumption. Answer a common question. Explain a mistake people make. Comment on something happening in your field.
Your book gets more interesting once people get interested in the conversation around it. Authority doesn’t grow from repeating your title. It grows from repeating the ideas you want people to associate with you.
Look beyond one reader at a time
Authors get trained to think about readers, and that matters. But I’d ask a different question too.
Who already has access to hundreds of those readers?
An association. A company. A nonprofit. A school. A professional organization. A healthcare group. A conference. A membership community.
Those relationships open doors far beyond individual book sales: speaking, workshops, consulting, partnerships, bulk orders, introductions.
You stop asking “how do I sell one more book?” and start asking “who could put this book in front of 50, 100, or 500 people at once?” Now you’ve changed the whole conversation.
Ask for introductions
This might be the simplest strategy on the list, and authors forget to use it all the time.
When someone likes your book or believes in your message, ask them: Who else should know about this? Who runs a podcast on this topic? Who works with this audience? Who books speakers? Who writes about this issue? Who leads an organization where this message would matter?
One good introduction outperforms weeks of posting. Visibility gets built through people long before it gets built through platforms.
Make it easy for people to understand you when they arrive
Getting found is only step one. What happens next?
When someone lands on your website, your LinkedIn profile, or your author page, can they understand you in a few seconds? Who do you help? What do you know? Why does it matter? What should they do next?
Bury the answer under clever copy, long bios, and too many choices, and you’ll lose them. Clarity isn’t boring. Clarity is useful, and useful gets remembered.
The goal isn’t to be everywhere
Here’s where a lot of new authors make life harder than it needs to be. They assume more visibility means more opportunity, so they spread themselves across five platforms, three marketing strategies, a newsletter, a podcast campaign, videos, speaking, media outreach, and whatever someone told them to try last week.
Then they wonder why nothing gains traction.
More isn’t always the answer. Here’s the kicker: the better question is “where would it matter most for the right person to find me?” That’s where I’d put the energy.
You don’t need everyone to know your name. You need the right people to connect your name with a specific idea, problem, or solution. You don’t need 50,000 followers to make that happen. Five hundred highly relevant people create more opportunity than 50,000 who have no reason to care.
So when a new author asks me “how do I get found?” I start here: who do you want to find you? And just as important: what do you want them to remember you for?
Answer those two questions first. The marketing gets a lot easier after that.
So, who do you want to find you, and what do you want them to remember you for?
Knowing you need to become more findable is one thing.
Knowing where people are losing the trail is another.
Is your message too broad? Are you using language your audience would never search? Are you showing up in the wrong places? Or are people finding you, yet leaving because they don’t see enough proof or a clear next step?
This is where more marketing won’t help. You need to find the missing link.
In Thursday’s paid follow-up I’ll walk you through the Author Findability Blueprint, a five-part process to help the right readers, podcast hosts, journalists, event organizers, and potential partners discover you, understand what you offer, trust your expertise, and know what to do next.