You did everything right. Congrats, you made it further than most.

You wrote the book. You edited it, probably more times than you care to admit (and you may even still be editing it). You figured out the publishing side — the ISBN, the cover, the formatting. You hit publish on Amazon and watched your listing go live.

Then you waited.

And waited.

The silence that followed isn’t just disappointing. For a lot of writers, it’s soul crushing. Because you didn’t just publish a book — you put a piece of yourself out there. And nobody noticed.

Here’s what nobody tells you when you’re starting out…finishing the book is the easy part. Getting anyone to find it is a completely different game, and most writers are playing it wrong.

Amazon Is a Search Engine, Not a Bookstore

Think about how you find books on Amazon. You search. You browse a category. Maybe you click something a friend shared.

You don’t just stumble onto unknown authors.

Amazon’s algorithm works a lot like Google’s — it rewards books that already have momentum. Reviews, sales velocity, and external traffic all signal to Amazon that your book deserves visibility. But if you’re starting from zero with no audience and no external traffic pointing at your listing, you’re invisible. Your book is sitting in a warehouse nobody knows exists, or even worse, it’s not even printed until an order is placed.

The cruel irony is that Amazon will happily show your book to people once it’s already selling. Getting those first readers is entirely your problem (kind of a catch 22, right?).

The Social Media Trap

So most writers do what feels logical. They get on Instagram. They start posting aesthetic shots of their book next to a coffee cup. They join conversations on Facebook or Linkedin about writing. They maybe even start a TikTok because someone in a chat somewhere told them BookTok changed their life. And how about Pinterest? Let’s not go there; does anyone really understand how that whole world works?

And then six months later, you’re exhausted and your sales haven’t moved. So now you’re trying to get Amazon AND the social media world to notice you.

Here’s the problem with social media for authors: you’re building on rented land. You don’t own your followers. And just like Amazon, you don’t control the algorithm. Instagram could throttle your reach tomorrow and there’s nothing you can do about it. TikTok could disappear entirely — we’ve already seen that dance once. And the second you stop posting consistently, you vanish.

Worse, social media rewards entertainment, not expertise. Going viral as a writer has almost nothing to do with whether your book is good.

There’s a better way to build an audience that actually lasts. It’s not flashy. It doesn’t involve dancing on camera. But it works while you sleep, compounds over time, and the work you put in today is still paying off years from now.

How Google Actually Decides Who’s an Expert

Before we get to the fix, you need to understand one thing about how the internet works.

Google can’t read your book and decide it’s brilliant. It can’t weigh your five-star reviews on Amazon or decide your book deserves attention based on reader praise alone. It’s a machine that runs on data — specifically, on links. When other websites link to your content, Google interprets that as a vote of confidence. The more links you have from reputable sources, the more Google trusts you, and the more it shows your name to people searching for what you write about.

This is called Domain Authority, and right now, if you’re a new or emerging author, yours is probably close to zero (out of 100).

That’s not an insult — it’s just math. You haven’t accumulated those votes yet. And until you do, Google is going to keep putting your name behind every established author, publication, and writing resource that’s been earning those votes for years.

The fastest legitimate way to change that? Get other reputable sites to link back to you.

Before any of this works, you need one thing: a website with your own domain name. Not just an Amazon author page. Not an Instagram profile. An actual site you own — even a single page with your bio, your book, and a way to contact you. Because here’s the thing: backlinks need somewhere to point. If all roads lead to your Amazon listing, you’re building Amazon’s authority, not yours. A domain like yourname.com or yourbooktitle.com is your home base on the internet. Everything else — guest posts, backlinks, search rankings — they’re all just roads leading back to it.

Guest Posting: The Unglamorous Strategy That Actually Works

A guest post is exactly what it sounds like — you write an article for someone else’s platform, and in exchange, you get a byline and a link back to your site, your book, or wherever you want readers to land.

That link is doing a lot more than you think. Every time a legitimate, established site links to you, it passes a little of its authority your way. Stack enough of those links up and Google starts treating you like an expert too. Your name starts showing up in searches. People who’ve never heard of you find your content. Some of them buy your book.

Unlike a social media post that disappears into the feed within hours, a guest post lives on that site permanently. It keeps driving traffic and building your authority long after you’ve moved on to your next project.

The writers who figure this out early have a massive advantage over the ones who spend years chasing algorithms.

What to Write About

You don’t need to write about your book. In fact, you probably shouldn’t lead with that.

Write about your process, inspiration and creativity. Write about the research rabbit holes you fell into. If you write crime fiction, write about something true crime adjacent. If you write historical fiction, write about a piece of history your book touches on. If you write about grief, write about grief. Find the real-world topic that lives underneath your story and write about that — because that’s what people are actually searching for.

The connection to your book becomes natural. The author bio does the heavy lifting.

Where to Start

Most advice on book marketing points writers straight to paid ads and/or social media. But look for blogs, digital magazines, and online publications that your target readers already visit. Niche sites are often more valuable than big general ones — a link from a respected mystery fiction blog means more to your audience than a link from a massive lifestyle site that happens to cover books once a month.

Pitch something specific. “I want to write about books” is not a pitch. “I want to write about how World War II rationing shaped home cooking, and why it’s relevant again today” — that’s a pitch. Editors receive a mountain of vague requests. A specific, fully-formed idea cuts through immediately.

And be human about it. Read the site before you reach out. Reference something specific they’ve published. Nobody wants a copy-paste pitch that was clearly sent to 50 other sites at the same time.

At Feeling Creative?, we publish writers at all levels and genres who want to share their process, their expertise, and their perspective with a community that genuinely cares about creative work. You get a platform, a permanent backlink, and readers who are already interested in what you do. And, we offer this for free, which is not the case with a lot of sites.

Your book deserves to be found. Stop waiting for Amazon to figure that out.

Submit to Feeling Creative?  — and start building the backlinks your book needs.

Author Bio: Mike Meyerson is the founder of Feeling Creative? and has worked in the video, film, and advertising industries for over 25 years. He also enjoys photography and has dabbled in screenwriting. Unfortunately, he hasn’t written any books (yet) — but he is good at building backlinks. Based in NY’s Hudson Valley. Always looking to expand the network, find a new trail to hike, and track down a great slice of pizza.

Photo: ASphotofamily via Freepik.

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