Christmas in July: Your Holiday Book Sales Plan Starts Here

Holiday book sales do not start when shoppers begin panic-buying gifts in December. They start months earlier, when smart authors begin positioning their books for the gift guides, media mentions, newsletters, local segments, creator roundups, and seasonal recommendation lists that influence what readers actually buy.

In this episode, Penny and Amy are talking Christmas in July — and why authors who want stronger holiday book sales need to start planning long before the holiday rush. Waiting until Thanksgiving to chase seasonal visibility is one of the biggest missed opportunities in book marketing, because many magazines, websites, bloggers, newsletters, creators, and regional outlets plan their holiday content months in advance. If you want your book to be part of the holiday shopping conversation, the time to start is now.

We’ll walk through what “holiday book marketing” really means and how to think beyond the obvious. Gift guides are a powerful part of the strategy, but they are not the only opportunity. Your book may also fit into seasonal media angles, local holiday shopping stories, niche newsletters, podcast recommendation episodes, bookstore roundups, reader gift lists, school or library recommendations, and specialty audience features. The goal is to help your book show up where your most likely buyers are already looking for ideas.

We’ll also challenge the myth that holiday marketing only works for “gifty” nonfiction, cookbooks, coffee table books, or children’s titles. Children’s books, YA, romance, memoir, business, self-help, niche nonfiction, local interest books, and even certain fiction genres can all work beautifully when they are framed for the right reader, buyer, occasion, or seasonal need. The question is not simply, “Is my book a gift book?” The better question is, “Who would be excited to give, receive, recommend, or share this book during the holidays?”

Then we get practical. You’ll learn what to prepare before you pitch, including a clean book one-sheet, a targeted email, a clear audience fit, and a subject line that does not sound like every other author asking for coverage. We’ll talk about why audience alignment matters more than sheer volume, how social media can extend the life of a good placement, and why bloggers, newsletters, regional publications, local morning shows, and niche creators can often be more accessible — and more effective — than chasing only national media.

We’ll also share places to look for active opportunities, including HARO, Source of Sources, and similar journalist request platforms, plus the quick credibility check curators often make before they consider your book: your author website, Amazon book page, reviews, description, bio, and overall retail presentation.

Most importantly, this episode gives you a starting point. Holiday book marketing does not have to be overwhelming. Start with one strong-fit pitch this week. Build from there. The authors who sell more books during the holidays are usually not the ones scrambling in December — they are the ones who started earlier, pitched smarter, and gave their books time to be discovered.

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Transcript

Welcome And Quick Updates

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hello and welcome back to the Book Marketing Tips and Author Success Podcast. This is Penny Sansaver. And Amy Cornell. And I can't believe that we are uh technically kind of sort of at the end of June. Um next week is 4th of July. I mean, not the entire week, obviously, but next week we're getting into July already. It's amazing. It and which is what makes it super timely to have this conversation about marketing for the holidays, which I know those of you listening, your head's probably spinning spinning. You're like, oh my gosh, wait, I have to think about the holidays already. Um, but welcome to the show. We're so glad that you're here. I want to remind you a couple of things. First off, we love reviews wherever you listen to podcasts. So we check them all. We check Spotify, we check um the uh podcast store on iTunes, Apple. Um, and text the word podcast to 888-402-8940. It's a great way to communicate with us. We get questions all the time. In fact, we got a really good one just the other day, which we're probably not gonna have time to address on today's show, but definitely in the future. And so excited. Um, my local book marketing book really struggled with that cover. It's a long story. Um covers are so important. I mean, I spent a lot of time, you know, figuring out this cover, but it is now done. I'm super excited. And um I would say if it's not up for pre-order, it's probably it's definitely up on Amazon either way, either for pre-order or for sale. We haven't, I haven't picked the on-sale date yet. So we're, but we have the cover, and that's that's really exciting.

Why Holiday Marketing Starts Now

SPEAKER_00 1:43

Um holiday marketing, you know, it's interesting because there's a term called Christmas in July, and we see a lot of advertisers using it. And there's a reason for that because anybody, uh marketers, products, all the things trying to get into that holiday market starts or it has to start early. Because I am not one of these people, but a lot of people, you know, start their Christmas shopping pretty early. Amy, do you do you shop early for Christmas?

unknown 2:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:18

So that's a hard no.

SPEAKER_01 2:19

No, well, I don't I don't purchase early, but I'm also one of those people I tend to just keep an eye on things. And I am absolutely one of those people that buys when I'm inspired to with something that I think somebody that I know would like, if that makes sense. So I am a hundred percent aware of what's coming out, what's going on. Like I'm always kind of keeping an eye out for things. So this 100% resonates with me. I do not have like a set, like, okay, it's November now, I need to do all my stuff. I actually will get things throughout the year when it makes sense and when it I feel like it really resonates with somebody I know. So I appreciate having some lead time up until and not because I'm organized, it's quite literally just the inspiration behind it.

SPEAKER_00 3:06

Right, right, right. Exactly. And you know, gift guides are something that we don't we haven't done a show on gift guides before, I don't think, unless it's unless it was in year one of of uh of the show. Gift guides are really fun because people like what other people like, right? So when you get into a gift guide, whether it's, you know, a magazine, which would be amazing, or you know, online media, blog, influencer on Instagram, whatever, it's a great way to get your book into the hands of people who, you know, may not have otherwise be, you know, be exposed to it. So thinking about that early, and the reason that we wanted to do this show now, and not just because of the Christmas and July angle, but because now's a really good time to start looking for them. Thinking about, you know, um book sales. And you know, a lot of times as authors, we kind of pivot to November and December. We're like, those are those are my big months, those are the months that I have to focus on. However, what's interesting about that is um November and December account for more than 20% of avenue, you know, the average total US book sale revenue. That's a kind of a big thing to get out there. Um which is not a small number, right? Okay, that's not a small number, but you're not gonna start. So sometimes we have people who show up after Thanksgiving and are like, I want to do all the things for holiday book sales. You're already too late. And I I remember last year I had an author and I said, So you mean for 2026, right? And and they were like, No, I meant for this year. So thinking about getting out ahead of that. And we're gonna do a separate show just on, you know, other some of the other things that you need to prepare for. So for this show specifically, we're just talking about gift guides, but a lot of Americans, you know, a lot of shoppers like Amy, always on the lookout for things, really start to do their shopping early. I think 42% of American shoppers, according to this the statistic, start their shopping as early as October. And the reason that gift guides are really fun is because a lot of them hit, obviously around that time. Like you'll start to get them, they'll you'll start to see them in September issues of magazines and October issues of magazines and things like that.

Gift Guides Work For Any Genre

SPEAKER_00 5:27

Um one thing that I think is really important to remember too is that although we are focused on the holidays for the purposes of this podcast, gift guides exist all year long. And if you are subscribed, and we're gonna talk about a couple of ways to find gift guides too, once we get deeper into the show. But gift guides have, you know, gift guides are all year long, like Mother's Day, Father's Day, graduation. Um obviously the biggest is gonna be the holiday gift guides. But Amy, they're out there all the time, right? So this is something that I think this is it's great timing if you want to hit the new year, but it's also something that is an all-year-round kind of a thing, right?

SPEAKER_01 6:12

Right. And I think this has definitely become more lucrative thanks to social media in a lot of ways, because it's the algorithm. You know what I mean? Once people start, if they click on something for any sort of guide, like I've been recently clicking on things for works, it's summer vacation. I've got small people in my house, you know, but it's amazing how quickly the algorithms on social media start giving you what you want to see. And so once these gift guide things around any major holidays, like you said, Penny, you know, Father's Day, Mother's Day, things like that, once those start happening, they show up more and more, you know, if somebody's interested. So that's why it's really important to kind of to, I think, to work ahead a little bit, because you want to get ingrained in that algorithm too, if you can, you know, if you can get any sort of coverage or recommendations by any sort of influencers or thought leaders online, especially, or get within those kind of niche markets where once you're in front of the right people, you know those are your people, which I love about that algorithm aspect of this too, you know, is that you're reaching the people that are really appropriate for your book. And that's something it doesn't it doesn't happen overnight. You know what I mean? That takes some networking, that takes some, that takes some prep work and but it's totally worth it.

SPEAKER_00 7:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:34

But you definitely don't want to be thinking about this in like you said, you don't want to be waiting until the holidays are just around the corner because everybody's inundated at that point.

SPEAKER_00 7:43

Yeah, and everything is everything is pretty much set. And I think, you know, when we look when we when we look at what so when you think about gift guides, I think the mind automatically goes to, well, they're probably, you know, gifty type books or nonfiction books, you know, that tends to be where I think people gravitate to when they think about gift guides. But really, I've seen gift guides for every type of book that's out there, right? Gift guides for for for kids' books, for young adults, for, you know, um uh romance, you know, romance and certainly nonfiction, certainly gift books. But I think there really isn't, I mean, am I missing something in this, Amy? I mean, I really don't really think that there's an there's a genre that this doesn't fit for. And it's not that you're gonna see these gift guides pop up every time everywhere, but I think that keep them on your radar screen, certainly regardless of the genre that you write in.

SPEAKER_01 8:42

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there are some that are, you know, more obvious, but again, this is yeah, this is, you know, I think even getting in the right headspace for thinking about gift guides and gift giving and where you need to be, I think it's also just really great practice for zeroing in on who your really your closest, most realistic readers are. Because again, like once you land in those conversations, those kind of referrals, and then you start popping up in more and more. And again, not to harp on the social media asset, but it's true. So even if you have a business book, you end up in roundups of like, you know, the top five, you know, business books that I've read this summer that really had me thinking differently. You know what I mean? Even those kind of things, it's the same type of attitude and approach. Like you want to reach those really specific markets, but with a really great timely angle where people go, oh, I should pay attention to this right now. And that's what's great about the gift guides too, is that it feels urgent in a good way. You know what I mean? It makes psychologically people read those and they go, Oh, I need to, I need to save this. I need to bookmark this, I need to, you know what I mean? Like there's something about it that is a little more urgent, a little more timely than the standard type of coverage that you would normally be getting. So tying yourself to something that has an expiration date can be really strategic and smart.

Where Gift Guides Actually Live

SPEAKER_00 10:08

So I think that the um, so in terms of where the gift guides are, so I I touched on like national magazines, you know, good housekeeping, real simple, oh magazine, they all have, they all do gift guides. They're all looking for those now. Usually they're about six months out. So if that's your target, I would say now is a good, you know, you want to have you want to have everything ready to go. Now, but I actually really like digital, some of their, you know, the the the online media versions of these magazines. If that's again going to be your target, it's not going to really work for everybody. But um, the other piece of it, and this coincidentally ties into my local marketing book, which is which is out currently, um, local and regional publications. And that's something that I think so many authors overlook. There are a lot of lifestyle publications, style guides, things like that in local newspapers that have gift guides, and they would love to feature local authors. You know, um, and you may not have been aware of it, so it's probably really good just for you know, peruse them online, do a search for gift guides. Maybe you pull up last year's because they're probably still online somewhere. Um, and then also local morning shows. This is really fun because you can, and we've all seen this on big national shows like today in Good Morning America, where they have people come in and they look at gifts for, you know, again, gift guides run through all year, depending on, you know, depending on the season that they're angled for. But your local morning shows, which is really an underutilized area for gift. They're they're not so like the gift guides that you see online or the influencers necessarily, but I mean, I wouldn't say no to a local morning show wanting to put my book in one of their gift guides, right?

SPEAKER_01 12:03

Oh my gosh, that'd be amazing.

SPEAKER_00 12:05

Yeah, yeah. And then Amy, you want to talk a little bit about blogger and newsletter gift guides? Because those are probably I I think for for the market that, you know, for our listeners, I think that's probably the biggest get for them, right? Just because they tend to be more accessible to authors across a variety of genres. Right.

SPEAKER_01 12:25

And there's just more of them, too.

SPEAKER_00 12:27

Yeah, that's true. That right, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 12:29

You know what I mean? Like it takes a little research to vet your list and get things going, but you really just have more opportunities with bloggers, influencers, newsletters, things like that. And they have more flexibility as well. And a lot of times they're much more prolific. So they're needing content. You know what I mean? Very true. They are putting stuff out multiple times a week in order to keep their followers happy, you know, their brand, collabs happy, all the kind of things. So they need to be putting stuff out there. So they are always looking for what, and they actually, I would say, so much more than even local and national, they get immediate feedback on what their content is doing for their followers, right, Penny. So they are constantly on the lookout for I gotta keep it going. Like the bar is very high for anybody online that is feeding a follower system.

SPEAKER_00 13:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:23

So being able to take advantage of that. And we've done shows on pitching, and we'll we'll touch on it a bit, but really it's just about paying attention and being thoughtful about how you pitch yourself. But these are the kind of things that you want to get into because you can get more than one mention from some of these people as well, because a lot of people repurpose digital content. So you might end up on their Instagram page, but you can end up in their newsletter as well. You know what I mean? There's just potential for multiple opportunities there. And a lot of online people want to get the most out of their content too. So they may share a gift guide this summer and you'll see it pop up again this fall, and you'll see it pop, you know what I mean? So there's potential there also for multiple hits for a single collaboration with somebody like yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 14:14

And a couple of places. So if you're if you're thinking like this is a really great idea, I really want to do this. There are a couple of sources that actually run gift guide requests. Um, and that's Harrow. So help a reporter out. And it is, I think it's, I think the URL

Bloggers Newsletters And Repurposed Content

SPEAKER_00 14:30

is helpareporter out.com. And then SOS, both of these are great media leads newsletters. And SOS is actually sourceofsources.com, I think is the URL. But you can look up SOS Media Leads and you'll you'll find it very easily. Subscribe to both of those because you'll start to see, aside from media leads, you'll start to see like gift guide requests and things like that coming through, like I said, right about now. So let's talk about. I mean, when we've pitched our authors to gift guides, obviously we've had a pitch ready to go. Um, but what else do what else do you think that our listeners need, Amy, for you know, to get into a gift guide? Pretty much just a pitch and maybe a one sheet.

SPEAKER_01 15:12

Yeah, I mean, I think a one sheet is really smart because that one, it looks super professional. Let's just let's just be honest, right? Sometimes it's a hundred percent about how you present yourself because they're getting sent a lot of pitches, but having a book one sheet, which has the actual specs of your book, it has your elevator hook, it's got it, it makes it look pretty, professional, polished. You make it look like you're going to be somebody that's easy and beneficial to collaborate with. Like if we're gonna be really candid here, right? Penny versus they can flicker through the 50 emails they got this week with people saying, I want you to include me in your gift guide, but yours shows up. You have a book one sheet, you look like you have your act together. Honestly, most of them are gonna gravitate toward that just because you're going to make their life easier. So I think that's maybe like a an un and not a hack that we don't talk about enough about how just showing up with that level of professionalism, how that puts you on a different level and kind of cuts through that noise as well.

SPEAKER_00 16:12

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And then I think the other piece of it though, too. So once you have the pitch and you have the one sheet and everything looks professional, you just have to make sure that there's a match, right? So um, I wouldn't pitch something like, you know, a women's uh, you know, a female focused influencer, something that is not in her wheelhouse, right? So you want to make sure, and and I think part of putting together a great pitch is something, you know, a subject line in your email that says something other than like a great gift book for everyone, that's not very interesting, right? Or, you know, instead it could say something like for the friend who can't stop talking about her new sourdough obsession. I mean, I think that's a little bit long, I would shorten that definitely. But these are the kinds of things. So even though you're pitching, so you want to make sure that you're pitching to the right audience. And Amy talked about that earlier, right? There has to be audience alignment. There, a gift guide is not going to feature you just because you pitch them. They're getting hundreds, if not thousands, depending on the outlet of pitches. So you just want to make sure that there's a really, really good alignment. Um, and one of the best alignments, I'm sorry, not just like, you know, pound this home again, but the regional angle is something that so many, so many authors overlook. And in particular, you know, for for the gift guide market. So you just want to make sure that there's an alignment somewhere. And you may have a book that actually ties in regionally in someplace that's not your area. And that's actually okay if you can find a gift guide that's appropriate for that, you know, for that particular market.

SPEAKER_01 17:53

Oh, yeah, absolutely. And I think that, yeah, that is the biggest. I think, I mean, if you walk away from this and you want to do this, that is the you cannot cut corners on how you pitch the fit for who they are trying to serve, you know. And and we've talked about

Pitch Tools One Sheet And Fit

SPEAKER_01 18:12

this on our other media episodes, but I think it's worth, you know, reinforcing that this is not about them helping you out out of the kindness of their hearts, right? Like they have followers, they've got listeners, they've got readers that they are catering to and that they want to make happy. That is how they do business. And so you have to add value to that. So you really need to understand who their followers are, readers, listeners, et cetera, what they're looking for. And then you have to make sure your book fits that what they're looking for. You know, you have to answer that question with your book. And that's when you get the responses, that's when you get the clicks, the opens, the things like that, and the conversation continues.

SPEAKER_00 18:54

And then I think it's worth mentioning too, because if you're gonna go after a gift guide, you know, the first thing that they're gonna look at is your website, right? And potentially not the first thing, you know, one of two things is gonna happen. They're gonna look at your website and they're gonna look at Amazon. Maybe not necessarily in that order. So I think that making sure, go back to one of our Amazon shows, we don't have to go down that rabbit hole now because we've done a ton of shows on this, but make sure that your Amazon page is the best representation of your book that it possibly can be, right? Yes, absolutely. Because that's the thing that they're gonna that, you know, and if you don't have an author website, they're so easy and inexpensive now to do. You definitely want to get an author website. I mean, look, if you're getting into a gift guide, they are looking for somebody who has who's really a serious author, you know, they want to feature great, you know, gifts from that are that are aligned with their audience, but also ones from authors who are take themselves seriously. And obviously you're listening to this podcast, so you do. Um so what are what so Amy, what are some actions that authors can take this week um to get started with gift guides?

SPEAKER_01 20:06

Oh my gosh, I know. I love this part. Let's see. So I think start small. I think that's I mean, in terms of don't bite off more than you can chew with this, because I think that happens a lot with marketing in general, Penny, right? Like it just seems like everything needs to happen all at once and then it becomes the impossible task. So I think focusing on find one gift guide that's a great fit, like we said, write a pitch for it, you know, just do the one. Because once you do one, I think you you learn a lot from that experience in the first place, right? I think I think that's huge. So going through the process of one, don't, you know, don't start with like, okay, I need to find a list of 20 gift guides first, and then I need, you know what I mean? Like get the one out the door, but have it be one that really, really makes sense, you know, low-hanging fruit in a very good positive way. You know what I mean? Just the slam dunk one and get that out the door. And you'll learn a lot from just going through that process alone. And then look, you get to check that off your list. You're doing something for your holiday marketing already. And I think mentally that means a lot, you know, because the prep can feel like good busy work, but then you realize six weeks down the line you haven't actually gotten anything out the door yet, right? Because you've been focused on the prep and the pitch and the getting everything perfect. Focus on getting one communication done at a time versus, you know, there's a lot of things that you can do. A lot of, we've

Simple Actions To Take This Week

SPEAKER_01 21:36

done shows on being productive and how like a lot of preparate ones can be great for some things. Not this, it's timely. Just get that one out the door and give yourself, you know, if you get one, one or two out a week, I think you're doing better than 99% of the authors out there.

SPEAKER_00 21:52

Yeah, exactly. And I think that it's also important because we're gonna do so, we're gonna take a little bit of a hiatus work. So we're gonna rerun a show for um. Um, the July 4th weekend, because we figure y'all are probably taking time off on vacation, little partying, whatever. So you're probably not really um going to be looking for a brand new show. So we're gonna rerun one for next week. But the week after, we're actually gonna be doing a really a show that I think very much ties into this one and how to market yourself in 15 minutes, because that's something that I think we, you know, time is something that I think, regardless of where you're at in your book journey, we all sort of struggle with. But yeah, I mean, set some set some realistic deadlines. It feels really good to do all of this busy work, but make sure that you get, like Amy said, just get, you know, get one gift guide. And I'll tell you something else too. Once you pitch one, it becomes incrementally easier, right? It's kind of like rip that band-aid off. Yeah, rip that band-aid off. I mean, it's kind of like, you know, when you're when you're getting your, you know, getting your feet wet in social media or whatever it is that you're doing, right? The first one is always the hardest. Get that one out the door, right? And um and then the other ones will start to come easier. And what happens is it's a little bit kind of like the little red car theory, right? You're thinking about buying a new car, and then all of a sudden you see them every like everybody's driving the car that I want. The same thing is true for gift guides. Once you start to focus on, I want to, you know, I this is something that I really want to focus on. I want to get at least five pitch this year, whatever that number is for you. You'll start to see them pop up everywhere. And absolutely, yes. And as a final note, I mean, do not forget your local gift guides because those can really be super beneficial. And in some cases, even, you know, those are easy wins for authors too, because you're already in that area.

SPEAKER_01 23:41

Yes. Do do some networking locally with your local retailers. Like, think about it when, and I love, you know, Penny, when you mentioned that once it's in your head, you start seeing more opportunities everywhere. I think that's brilliant because so when you're out doing your shopping, when you're out doing your normal life things and you walk into a store and you're like, actually, chat with whoever's there. Ask if they do a gift guide, ask if they do a newsletter, ask if they do a flyer or an event. I have so many bit local businesses that do special holiday events that get a lot of great foot traffic. And so you might be the inspiration that they're looking for. Maybe they haven't done it before. And all of a sudden, not only have you created an opportunity for yourself, you know what I mean? You you've given them something to work from which is invaluable to them. I mean, talk about good networking, right?

SPEAKER_00 24:30

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And you know what? Take a chance on uh, you know, have a big um target.

Local Networking Big Targets And Wrap

SPEAKER_00 24:40

Take a chance on at least one really big target. The only thing that they could say is no, right? Whether you're whether you're hitting up, you know, a national magazine, if you're getting this out in a timely fashion, obviously. Have have one national, you know, target that you want to that you want to hit. If there's something that's appropriate to your book, that's always worth mentioning. But definitely add this to your author toolkit this year. You'll be so glad that you did. I want to thank you all again for listening. Just as a reminder, uh, join the conversation. Text the word podcast to 888 402 8940. Send us your questions, your show ideas, your show feedback, all the things, and leave us a review. We love reviews. We always check them. Leave us a review wherever you listen to podcasts. Thank you so much, and we'll see you next time. Bye bye.