AI: The Secret Weapon in Finding a Book’s True Audience
by Brittany Pinney, Chief Customer Officer for Shimmr
"Every book has its reader—AI is simply making those connections possible at scale."
Every author pours their heart into creating stories and insights that deserve to be read. Yet in today's saturated market, with millions of books competing for attention, ensuring a book reaches the readers who would love it most has become increasingly challenging. The traditional approach of genre-based marketing often falls short, missing the deeper connections that make readers fall in love with books.
With increasingly growing numbers of titles being published every day, adding to the hundreds of millions already out there, it can feel impossible for any single book to get noticed.
But there's hope.
The emergence of AI in book marketing is transforming how books find their readers. It's not about replacing human creativity—it's about understanding the deep psychology of what makes readers connect with books. In this article, we'll explore how AI is breaking down traditional marketing barriers, why genre-based targeting is limiting your book's potential, and most importantly, how these new technologies can help your books find their true audience.
Beyond Genre Labels
Think about it: when was the last time you chose a book solely because it was "science fiction" or "historical fiction"? Readers are complex beings with layered interests that transcend simple genre classifications. Your dystopian novel might resonate deeply with environmental activists. Your romance might speak to people wrestling with cultural identity. Your business book might captivate psychology students.
Many books transcend their genre and captivate readers due to their rich, universal themes. Take To Kill a Mockingbird, for instance. While it's categorized as Southern Gothic fiction, its exploration of racism, injustice, and the loss of innocence resonates deeply with readers across cultures and generations. Its enduring popularity stems from its ability to provoke thought and spark conversations about timeless issues.
Similarly, The Song of Ice and Fire may be classified as high fantasy, but its complex characters, political intrigue, and moral dilemmas appeal to fans of thrillers, historical fiction, and family dramas. The Last Days of Night delves into the world of innovation and ambition, raising ethical questions that go beyond the historical context. Even graphic novels like Maus can transcend their format, using a unique visual style to tell deeply personal stories about trauma and family. These examples demonstrate how powerful storytelling, regardless of genre, can connect with readers on a profound level.
The AI Revolution in Book Discovery
This is where AI is revolutionizing how books find their readers. Through advanced analysis of what we call ‘BookDNA’—the themes, emotions, cultural touchpoints, and psychological appeals within your work—AI can now identify and reach readers based on the actual substance of your book, not just its shelf category.
Through our proprietary BookDNA technology, that powers Shimmr’s Automated Advertising, we're uncovering fascinating insights about effective book advertising:
Visual storytelling that captures emotional moments consistently outperforms traditional book marketing approaches. For fiction, this means bringing pivotal scenes to life. For non-fiction, it's about translating complex ideas into visual metaphors that stop readers' mid-scroll. These visuals don't just advertise books—they tell their stories. We find that this type of advertising brings +6x more interest to your book than other digital advertising for books.
The sweet spot for building momentum? Books need around 50 authentic reviews (with a 4.2+ star rating) before advertising can truly amplify their reach. This "social proof" allows you to make the most of advertising spend. At lower levels of reviews, advertising goals should be focused on building awareness of your name and your great works.
Market dynamics matter: The US market, with its large and diverse reader base, allows AI systems to learn and optimize faster, often helping books find their true audience more effectively than in smaller markets. While the US market may be more competitive, its size and variety actually make it easier for your book to find its perfect readers.
Price positioning plays a crucial role: Books priced between £10-20 show the best return on investment for digital advertising, striking the perfect balance between profit margins and readers' willingness to take a chance on a new discovery.
What This Means for Writers
The implications for authors are exciting. AI-powered marketing means:
Your book can reach readers based on its unique essence, not just its genre label
Visual storytelling can bring your narrative to life in ways that resonate with potential readers
Marketing efforts can be continuously optimized based on real reader response
Previously overlooked books can find new life by connecting with their ideal audiences
Your work can find readers across different platforms, with social media platforms like Meta showing particularly strong results for book discovery
The Future of Book Discovery
We're entering an era where every book truly has the potential to find its readers. AI isn't replacing human creativity—it's amplifying it, ensuring that the stories and insights we create as writers can reach the readers who will value them most.
For writers, this means focusing on what we do best—creating compelling works—while knowing that technology can help bridge the gap between our books and the readers waiting to discover them. It's not about replacing traditional marketing wisdom; it's about enhancing it with tools that can understand and communicate the deeper value of our work.
Making AI Work for Your Book Marketing
Here are some practical steps to leverage these insights:
Think beyond genre when describing your work to determine how broad your audience might be. What are the emotional threads, philosophical questions, or cultural insights that make your book unique? Your book may have bigger opportunities than you thought!
Build your review base thoughtfully—aim for that critical mass of 50+ authentic reviews before scaling up marketing efforts. Consider reaching out to your existing readers and engaging with book communities.
Explore how your book's core themes could be captured visually. What scenes or metaphors might stop a potential reader mid-scroll? Think about the emotional core of your work and how it might translate into engaging visuals. Is this something you want to try?
Don't limit your audience targeting to obvious demographic categories. Your readers might come from unexpected places, united by shared interests or values rather than traditional marketing segments.
Price your book strategically, considering both your readers' expectations and the sweet spot for digital marketing effectiveness.
The publishing landscape is evolving, and AI is becoming a powerful ally for writers who want their work to find its true audience. In a world where hundreds of millions of books compete for attention, these tools are making it possible for each unique voice to reach the readers who need to hear it. The future of book discovery isn't about algorithms replacing human judgment—it's about technology helping great stories find their way to the readers who will treasure them.
What unexpected audiences might your book resonate with beyond its primary genre? Share your thoughts in the comments—we'd love to hear about surprising connections you've discovered between readers and books.
* * * * * *
About Britt
Britt is responsible for optimising our customers’ experience with Shimmr, ensuring we answer their needs and evolving our product with features and innovations to benefit their use of our automated advertising. After serving as Vice President of Sales, Strategy & Insights in marketing research, Britt was Chief Revenue Officer, leading sales, marketing, design, content and customer success, and President of the US operations, in an AI-driven brand management business. Affectionately nick-named ‘Fireball’, and lighting up your day, Britt is always focused on listening to what people need from software products and striving to deliver fulfilling solutions. She keeps Shimmr pre-occupied with delivering value and return on investment.
About Shimmr
Shimmr works primarily with Publishers and Author Services businesses. They can work directly with more established authors who meet the below criteria. Otherwise, they will work with your publisher or service rep:
Criteria for starting with Shimmr:
5 title minimum
Monthly subscription with 4-month initial payment
Requirements for books: 50+ reviews and 4.0+ star rating (ensures book is advertising ready)
Authors needing support to get to these requirements can use our Partners Network: https://shimmr.ai/partners
20 comments on “AI: The Secret Weapon in Finding a Book’s True Audience”
It's the 50+reviews that are the problem. How do you get people to review your books? I've done all the recommended things, and reworded my requests by changing the word 'review' into 'comment' as I think many people are frightened of the word 'review'.
Nothing has changed the fact that people can't be bothered to write anything.
But the idea of looking beyond the immediate genre is interesting.
Thanks for reading the article and leaving a comment. There are no two ways about it: generating reviews is a real challenge.
Shimmr helps to increase the discoverability of books, so our take on this would be to increase discoverability in as many ways as possible to in turn help reviews. We've laid out several ways to do this in our newsletter, The Signal, which you can find here: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/the-signal-7216436633171017730/
This 'disruptive December' topic is particularly eye-opening for me in that it strongly resonates with instinctive thoughts about the relevance of theme, emotion, and psychologic attachment in fiction. It's what I personally read for, and what I write for, which, frankly has always made me question the value of genre. I get the importance of genre, but I think the information you presented here bolsters my confidence to not rely so heavily on genre to reach readers.
Also, the repetitive suggestion of visuals has me also intrigued, although I have assumed the literal meaning of 'visuals', i.e., pictures, diagrams, films, etc. Forgive my naivete, but is that correct? Because I LOVE that!
This is James from the Shimmr team. Firstly, thank you for reading the article and taking the time to comment. We're glad that the 'beyond genre' aspect resonated with you. Matching books with readers based on psychology is a foundational idea of Shimmr's. Porter Anderson of Publishing Perspectives called it 'Reverse Discoverability'. We hope you are more confident to step outside genre with your marketing! Here is some more detail on how you can do that, from our LinkedIn newsletter 'The Signal': https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/unlocking-hidden-audiences-power-reverse-discoverability-shimmr-2jwvf/?trackingId=ZwUhFyIGSXuF2j2uXAWEyA%3D%3D
Isn't it interesting, Jennifer? I've actually been experimenting with having AI review my own books for genre and tropes.
One thing I've learned from hanging out with publishers is that "genre" is a marketing term. It is a box to put a book into that will then match up with a reader base. And when a book doesn't fit into a box, sometimes we just make up new boxes!! The trick is then to get our book in front of the readers who like those things. (Discoverability...)
And images are a big part of our current marketing environment. Watch yourself as you hang out on social media for a bit. See what draws your attention.
Lisa, I think AI is an incredible research, feedback, and brainstorming tool in so many ways. I hope writers and authors reach a point in the very near future where we embrace accept the benefits of AI and not fear it so much. Those who abuse AI to actually produce (write verbatim) their stories, are not writers at all, are they?
I'm late to the party here, but found this article fascinating. Lisa, I love the idea of having AI review my memoir (the genre is a given) for tropes and themes. How do I get started?
I used AutoCrit to identify them for me. But you can also use other AIs. Now I'm not touching on the issues related to feeding our work to an AI. I will say that when I work with ChatGPT, I use a custom instance that *says* it will not use the work for training anything other than MY custom GPT.
Then I send it my manuscript and can ask it questions.
Remember that AIs can make mistakes. A custom GPT, for example, may not be trained as specifically as Shimmr's AIs.
So that's an overly brief how-to. AutoCrit just does it. If you want to jump on my schedule over at deleyna.com, I can give the the quick run down on how to do it with ChatGPT if you have the $20/month plan.
Except for the last section, this reads as an add for Shimmr to me. An author can understand their themes and the book's context without AI support. I you can get to 50+ reviews on your own, you can build beyond that.
I'm not going to disagree with you that this could be read as advertising, Debbie - however, I included them in the Disruptive December for a few reasons.
First: individual writers are actually not their main market - they work with publishers. They are industry experts on book discoverability, something that we all struggle with.
Second: they show us how AI is being used in marketing, something that people may not have seen. And while it sounds like you can understand your themes, I've met authors who DO actually struggle to see the themes they use. I've seen books where the author believes it is in one genre, and then finds that their audience is looking for it in another genre. (Thinking... actually, I wrote one of those. LOL)
Lastly, these folks control a lot of advertising dollars, and they have access to stats FROM those advertising spends. That has given them insight into the industry that would cost authors a lot of time and effort to obtain, and they're sharing that with us here.
What we take and make of that information is on us.
So - apologies for it reading like an advertisement. It was actually not intended to be any more marketing focused than any of our other contributors. They're showing us behind the curtain how they take part in this industry and what they've learned.
I didn't interpret Shimmr as self-promoting any more so than most blog contributors, writers and authors alike. Don't you think we deserve to self-promote? And doesn't self-promote = advertising. This from someone who pays to not watch commercials (me!) - go figure. 🙂 I do appreciate your view and the freedom to voice it!!
I understand the power of the visual. I hadn't thought about using AI for marketing, but it makes a lot of sense.
This is something to consider.
Thanks Britt!
I have used AI to help me find a tagline for marketing, so I am not against using AI for a marketing. Used correctly it can be a really effective tool. I know in the creative world, which I am part of, AI is the big bad wolf right now, but this article helps to prove that it can be a tool to help creatives get the word out there about work in a new and inventive way.
I think one thing we forget is that the technical world is ever evolving and you either need to learn the new tools and tricks or get left behind.
I had never considered AI as a book marketing tool. That idea opens up all kinds of nifty possibilities. I've been considering carefully the benefits of AI in writing and publishing my books and this column just expanded my thinking about ten fold. I'm excited about AI because I see it as a tool that can fill some of the holes in my knowledge and skills. My workload just became a bit lighter, and that is a very good thing.
It isn't a type of reader or generic reader-type that novelists want it's specific individuals who will [likely] buy a specific book. I can well imagine how AI could help with that but it doesn't seem like that is what you are doing..
That's an interesting distinction, Matthew. And I haven't seen anything EXACTLY like what you suggest. Although Ingram's marketing (https://id.ingramcontent.com/)claims to do something similar.
I think everyone wants to find that exact connection, for sure!
It's the 50+reviews that are the problem. How do you get people to review your books? I've done all the recommended things, and reworded my requests by changing the word 'review' into 'comment' as I think many people are frightened of the word 'review'.
Nothing has changed the fact that people can't be bothered to write anything.
But the idea of looking beyond the immediate genre is interesting.
Hi there,
Thanks for reading the article and leaving a comment. There are no two ways about it: generating reviews is a real challenge.
Shimmr helps to increase the discoverability of books, so our take on this would be to increase discoverability in as many ways as possible to in turn help reviews. We've laid out several ways to do this in our newsletter, The Signal, which you can find here: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/the-signal-7216436633171017730/
We hope this is helpful!
Thanks,
James & the Shimmr team
This 'disruptive December' topic is particularly eye-opening for me in that it strongly resonates with instinctive thoughts about the relevance of theme, emotion, and psychologic attachment in fiction. It's what I personally read for, and what I write for, which, frankly has always made me question the value of genre. I get the importance of genre, but I think the information you presented here bolsters my confidence to not rely so heavily on genre to reach readers.
Also, the repetitive suggestion of visuals has me also intrigued, although I have assumed the literal meaning of 'visuals', i.e., pictures, diagrams, films, etc. Forgive my naivete, but is that correct? Because I LOVE that!
Thank you for your 'Shimmr' sharing!
Hi Jennifer,
This is James from the Shimmr team. Firstly, thank you for reading the article and taking the time to comment. We're glad that the 'beyond genre' aspect resonated with you. Matching books with readers based on psychology is a foundational idea of Shimmr's. Porter Anderson of Publishing Perspectives called it 'Reverse Discoverability'. We hope you are more confident to step outside genre with your marketing! Here is some more detail on how you can do that, from our LinkedIn newsletter 'The Signal': https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/unlocking-hidden-audiences-power-reverse-discoverability-shimmr-2jwvf/?trackingId=ZwUhFyIGSXuF2j2uXAWEyA%3D%3D
And yes - that is correct re: visuals. Visual assets that stir emotion, in particular, are often underused in book marketing. Our newsletter also provides practical guidance on how to create those yourselves: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/step-by-step-how-generate-eye-catching-book-ads-midjourney-shimmr-wyysf/?trackingId=8sLGuoM1TTqV4N6cq%2FMVfQ%3D%3D
Thanks again for reading!
James & the Shimmr team
Isn't it interesting, Jennifer? I've actually been experimenting with having AI review my own books for genre and tropes.
One thing I've learned from hanging out with publishers is that "genre" is a marketing term. It is a box to put a book into that will then match up with a reader base. And when a book doesn't fit into a box, sometimes we just make up new boxes!! The trick is then to get our book in front of the readers who like those things. (Discoverability...)
And images are a big part of our current marketing environment. Watch yourself as you hang out on social media for a bit. See what draws your attention.
Lisa, I think AI is an incredible research, feedback, and brainstorming tool in so many ways. I hope writers and authors reach a point in the very near future where we embrace accept the benefits of AI and not fear it so much. Those who abuse AI to actually produce (write verbatim) their stories, are not writers at all, are they?
Having AI review your books!
Lisa, that is the coolest thing ever! What a great idea.
I'm late to the party here, but found this article fascinating. Lisa, I love the idea of having AI review my memoir (the genre is a given) for tropes and themes. How do I get started?
I used AutoCrit to identify them for me. But you can also use other AIs. Now I'm not touching on the issues related to feeding our work to an AI. I will say that when I work with ChatGPT, I use a custom instance that *says* it will not use the work for training anything other than MY custom GPT.
Then I send it my manuscript and can ask it questions.
Remember that AIs can make mistakes. A custom GPT, for example, may not be trained as specifically as Shimmr's AIs.
So that's an overly brief how-to. AutoCrit just does it. If you want to jump on my schedule over at deleyna.com, I can give the the quick run down on how to do it with ChatGPT if you have the $20/month plan.
Except for the last section, this reads as an add for Shimmr to me. An author can understand their themes and the book's context without AI support. I you can get to 50+ reviews on your own, you can build beyond that.
I'm not going to disagree with you that this could be read as advertising, Debbie - however, I included them in the Disruptive December for a few reasons.
First: individual writers are actually not their main market - they work with publishers. They are industry experts on book discoverability, something that we all struggle with.
Second: they show us how AI is being used in marketing, something that people may not have seen. And while it sounds like you can understand your themes, I've met authors who DO actually struggle to see the themes they use. I've seen books where the author believes it is in one genre, and then finds that their audience is looking for it in another genre. (Thinking... actually, I wrote one of those. LOL)
Lastly, these folks control a lot of advertising dollars, and they have access to stats FROM those advertising spends. That has given them insight into the industry that would cost authors a lot of time and effort to obtain, and they're sharing that with us here.
What we take and make of that information is on us.
So - apologies for it reading like an advertisement. It was actually not intended to be any more marketing focused than any of our other contributors. They're showing us behind the curtain how they take part in this industry and what they've learned.
I didn't interpret Shimmr as self-promoting any more so than most blog contributors, writers and authors alike. Don't you think we deserve to self-promote? And doesn't self-promote = advertising. This from someone who pays to not watch commercials (me!) - go figure. 🙂 I do appreciate your view and the freedom to voice it!!
I understand the power of the visual. I hadn't thought about using AI for marketing, but it makes a lot of sense.
This is something to consider.
Thanks Britt!
Hi Ellen,
Definitely give it a try! We offer some guidance on how to get started, here: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/step-by-step-how-generate-eye-catching-book-ads-midjourney-shimmr-wyysf/?trackingId=OgQFBFTHTg%2B272zxC%2FR6iQ%3D%3D
Have fun!
James & the Shimmr team
I use AI for market research all the time in my day job, and I really love the idea of using it to identify readers and markets for our books.
This article gave me a TON of food for thought. Thank you!
Thanks Jenny!
We're glad it was of value 🙂
Shimmr
I have used AI to help me find a tagline for marketing, so I am not against using AI for a marketing. Used correctly it can be a really effective tool. I know in the creative world, which I am part of, AI is the big bad wolf right now, but this article helps to prove that it can be a tool to help creatives get the word out there about work in a new and inventive way.
I think one thing we forget is that the technical world is ever evolving and you either need to learn the new tools and tricks or get left behind.
Thanks for this inspiring post!
I had never considered AI as a book marketing tool. That idea opens up all kinds of nifty possibilities. I've been considering carefully the benefits of AI in writing and publishing my books and this column just expanded my thinking about ten fold. I'm excited about AI because I see it as a tool that can fill some of the holes in my knowledge and skills. My workload just became a bit lighter, and that is a very good thing.
It isn't a type of reader or generic reader-type that novelists want it's specific individuals who will [likely] buy a specific book. I can well imagine how AI could help with that but it doesn't seem like that is what you are doing..
That's an interesting distinction, Matthew. And I haven't seen anything EXACTLY like what you suggest. Although Ingram's marketing (https://id.ingramcontent.com/)claims to do something similar.
I think everyone wants to find that exact connection, for sure!