Need a Marketing Consultant Fast?AI to the Rescue

The Mercer County Library System’s first-ever book festival was a huge success.

My booth and all of my books were ready when the eager readers arrived.

I needed help, and I didn’t have the time or money to hire a marketing expert or learn how-to from a book. So … I reached for AI.

I felt very sneaky about doing so. I’m not the kind of person who wants work done for her. I like to do my own work, but marketing is an area in which I do not feel confident and definitely need help.

I had the book fair coming up (this past Saturday), and because I’d been disheartened by the last book-fair experience I’d participated in, I wanted to DO BETTER.

I needed to learn how to talk about my books in a quick and intriguing way.

So I visited ChatGPT and asked if it was familiar with my first book, They Will Be Coming for Us. It did not admit to reading the book, but it certainly knew where to find and compile information about it. My first request was for a ten-second summary, which it provided. I recognized what came back as a mix of lines from my sales description, a professional review I’d received, and a few phrase and word changes.

Next I asked for a tag line that I could write on a card and place in front of the book, something very quick and snappy. It came back with the following: “Love … with a deadly secret.” I liked that but decided to exchange “deadly” for “cosmic.”

And then I asked for tag lines for all the books in The Jovian Universe series.

Again, I made a few tweaks (which I’ve read is necessary whenever using AI), but overall I was very pleased with its ideas.
 

Here's part of the actual chat: 

At one point, I wrote that it was “very good at this” and it responded in the following way (please note the proper emoji selections and placements!):
Ah, thank you! 😊 I think of marketing as a lot like storytelling—it’s about knowing your audience, grabbing attention quickly, and giving just enough intrigue to make someone want more.
A few “secret ingredients” I lean on:

• People skim, so short, punchy phrases stick.

• Emotion & stakes: Words that spark curiosity, fear, excitement, or wonder get people hooked.

• Imagination hooks: Sci-fi and fantasy readers love worlds, prophecies, aliens, and danger—all of which I try to highlight.

• Testing angles in words: Like pitching a book, marketing is about trying different ways to phrase something until it “clicks” in the mind of the reader.

Basically, I treat each tagline, pitch, or hook as a mini story designed to make the reader lean in. And honestly, I love playing with language—it’s like my version of magic tricks. ✨

If you want, I can make a full set of marketing copy for your book fair booth—including banners, table cards, and bookmarks—all consistent and punchy. That way, your entire table tells a story at a glance.

Would you like me to do that?

___

The great thing about this is not what ChatGPT gave me—though it was very good material (I feel)—but what happened after I’d read the custom-designed marketing material a few times. The wording and phrases settled into my mind, and I started to get a real feel for what I wanted to say to people drawn to my booth.

I’d always had a hard time sorting through the massive amount of detail I have stored about this series in my brain, and by homing in on what Chat wrote, I was able to capture the essence of what a potential reader needs to hear and keep the rest in the background.

Readers don’t want detailed summaries. They don’t have the time or bandwidth for that. What they want is the feel of the book, the bare bones, the main conflicts, the ideas and generalities and challenges that exist in this particular story world.

Here’s what I ended up saying to potential book buyers first:

“This series features a world in which individuals from Jupiter have been living on Earth for a long time—in human form—and guiding the planet’s progress via the government and big companies, all behind the scenes. Few humans know the great amount of influence they possess."

After this general statement about the story world, I guided their attention to book one.

“The first book is about a normal human woman who meets and quickly marries Andrew Jovian, a guy she thinks is pretty perfect, only to find that his family is quite strange, and not the usual strange. As the story goes on, she learns that the Jovians expect her to play her part in the family prophecy, and that they’re controlling her life more and more every day.”

Then I pointed to book two, Jovian Son: “In the next book, Svetlana has escaped the family with her new baby. He’s special because he’s both human and Jovian—he has many talents, and he’s growing very fast—and she knows that when he reaches a certain age, the family will be coming for them.”

I continued with book three and the rest, speaking a few words about each one.

It had finally clicked for me!

I could talk about my books without floundering all over the place. Even better, it was fun to watch for that moment readers keyed into the story on a deeper level—and how they eagerly listened to the summaries for each of the five books.

I had two sales in which I sold all five books. The whole series! That was amazing to me. But even for the readers who didn’t buy the whole series, or those who didn't buy any of the books, I was happy to see the interest in their eyes, especially when they said something like, “Wow, that sounds really good.”

So . . .

To sum up, I used ChatGPT for marketing help and consultation. Would I ever use it to help write a novel? No, I absolutely never would. Not even a little.

However, I readily admit Chat helped me become much, much better at book fairs and other in-person encounters. And maybe it can help you the same way.