Why Empathy is the Future of Consumer Marketing in Publishing

Guest post by Emily Lyman, CEO & Founder of Branch & Bramble

As book communities grow and develop, their expectations for publishers evolve with it. According to the 2025 Edelman Trust Barometer, overall trust has declined significantly, particularly trust in businesses. With people increasingly distrustful, this makes cultivating brand trust difficult, yet more important than ever before.

Luckily, the key to achieving trust and preventing backlash or boycotts is simple (but definitely not easy): empathetic marketing. This approach is a complete game changer with how you engage with readers, ensuring you stay relevant and achieve your sales goals.

What is Empathetic Marketing?

At its heart, empathetic marketing recognizes, understands, and appeals to the role that emotions have in the decision-making process. Neuroscientist Antonio Damasio famously said, “We are not thinking machines that feel; rather, we are feeling machines that think,” so it only makes sense that emotions would drive our buying behavior. However, too often, marketers across industries overlook the emotional motivators and focus solely on data—instead of effectively marrying the two.

For publishing, this means readers don’t just expect quality books—they expect publishers to align with their values, show transparency, and engage authentically. Book communities are vocal and interconnected, and they’re going to speak the loudest for brands that share their ideals. Publishers who cannot meet these expectations risk losing trust and their ability to remain competitive across widespread demographics. By practicing empathetic marketing and connecting with readers on an emotional level, publishers make genuine relationships that create lifelong fans.

Emotional Motivators for Connection

At the heart of empathetic marketing lies a deep understanding of emotional motivators. Readers aren’t just here for the books—they’re looking for an experience that resonates with them on a deeper level. They’re not reading dragon books just because they want a pet dragon—they also long for the relationships, community, and self worth the main characters develop along the way.

Knowing this, publishers can craft marketing campaigns that feel personal and purposeful. For example, instead of focusing solely on a book’s content, a campaign might highlight the themes of found family or the immersive setting of the story. An in-person activation is a great way to bring books to life in ways that are meaningful and marketable.

Putting Empathy into Action

Empathetic marketing isn’t just a concept—it’s a practice that publishers can start implementing right this minute. Start by listening to your target audience. Pay attention to reviews, social media conversations, and content that resonate most with your audience. Studies show that even the best marketers can have empathetic blind spots, so it’s important to view this as more than data gathering. It’s about understanding the values and emotions that drive their decisions.

Next, shift the focus of your storytelling throughout your marketing materials. Instead of centering your marketing around a book, share what kind of reading experience your audience can expect to have with the title. How will this story make them feel? How does it reflect their experiences or open their eyes to completely different points of view? If a reader can see themselves in your messaging, they’re more likely to connect, engage, and ultimately convert.

Finally, make engagement simple and meaningful. Whether it’s through a preorder incentive, an interactive newsletter, or a community-focused event, give readers clear and compelling ways to connect with your brand in a manner that will mean something to them. Forget a cheesy tchotchke (although everyone still loves bookmarks) and instead cultivate an experience that aligns with values data you’ve collected. These engagement efforts don’t have to be big to build trust—even small actions cultivate profound loyalty.

With BookTok and other marketing channels hanging in the balance, practicing empathetic marketing is crucial for publishers who want to survive and thrive. By recognizing the power of emotions in decision-making, aligning with reader values, and building meaningful connections, publishers can build trust that lasts and sells books.

Emily Lyman has spent a decade working in-house with global publishers such as Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster managing both corporate and title marketing initiatives. Today, she is the CEO and Founder of Branch and Bramble, an award-winning marketing agency for lifestyle brands.

Emily’s specialty is in blending data with heart and values to create meaningful audience connections for my brand partners which include Patagonia and Paramount. She’s worked with companies with household names to individual authors just trying to get their books out in the world.

Announcing NetGalley’s 2022 Promotions

View the 2022 Media Kit here!

Hundreds of publishers use our powerful platform to launch their frontlist and leverage their backlist. Whether your goal is to reach trade professionals and early influencers, generate reviews, run giveaways, collect pre-orders, advertise around the pub date, or connect directly with your audience—we have options for every budget, goal and type of book.

74% of members said NetGalley Promotions influence their decision to request or download books and audiobooks!*

These popular programs continue to deliver outstanding results while remaining at a competitive price—even while NetGalley has sustained record-breaking traffic over the past two years. NetGalley.com continues to average nearly 7 million pageviews each month, and our promotional programs are highly valued for their strong engagement rates.

Our dedicated team is committed to meeting the increased demand, so we’ve expanded our inventory for 2022—including brand-new offerings, too!

It is our sincere pleasure to be part of the success of your books, and we look forward to working with you on great campaigns in 2022.

*per August 2021 Member Survey with nearly 10,000 respondents

NetGalley Marketing is Holistic

NetGalley’s new promotions support publishers’ goals throughout a book’s lifecycle, including backlist and audio

At NetGalley we always strive to meet publishers where they need us. We love listening to our customers and learning from their ever-evolving needs–from secure digital galley files, to marketing promotions that reach targeted audiences, to a desire for more data and reporting, and even into new formats like audiobooks.

Publishers often adapt NetGalley’s tools for their unique goals and, based on trends we see across all of our clients, we work to expand the breadth of the NetGalley service. In 2020 you’ll notice greater emphasis on a holistic approach to promoting books, across formats and beyond the pub date. As we continue to expand our offerings, we’re emphasizing a more comprehensive approach to book promotions across format and lifecycle.

NetGalley was originally designed to predominantly support books in the pre-publication stage, but our tools and promotions are flexible enough to help publishers and authors achieve a variety of goals throughout a book’s lifecycle. Publishers are increasingly taking advantage of that flexibility! While 44% of titles on NetGalley in 2019 were archived within 1 week of their pub date, 29% were available on NetGalley for at least 2 months after pub.

Lately, our marketing team has received more questions and interest from publishers about promoting their books to members in new ways–and during new times: close to on-sale to drive pre-orders specifically, or post-pub to reignite activity for backlist titles.

We’re supporting this pivot by launching brand-new marketing promotions in our 2020 Media Kit, flexible enough to encompass a variety of goals, timelines, and formats.

Book Club Kits

Book clubs are a crucial audience for publishers, as they are often interested in backlist titles (especially when available in paperback, or have a movie tie-in). We’ve heard from many clients that they wish to interact more directly with book clubs, but don’t always have the bandwidth to create marketing assets in-house. That’s why we’re introducing custom Book Club Kits: created especially for your book and promoted directly to book club members in the NetGalley community.

Each bespoke kit is crafted by our editorial team to be unique and fitting for the particular book. Book Club Kits contain, at a minimum, an Author Interview, Discussion Guide, Readalikes, Printables (such as bookmarks, decorations, etc.). Possible additions include quizzes, food and drink recipes, playlists, and more. See page 17 in our Media Kit for more info.

Dashboard Spotlight

The NetGalley member Dashboard receives an average of over 36,000 unique impressions each week, offering huge exposure for your book! Publishers can now showcase their books on all member Dashboards with the new Dashboard Spotlight promotion. The CTA is up to you, so consider using this placement to drive pre-orders, promote retail offers, or to boost a backlist title. See page 5 in our Media Kit for more info.

Sponsored Social

Our community engagement team has built a loyal and engaged following of book advocates across social media platforms: Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest. We are now offering publishers the opportunity take advantage of NetGalley’s influence to promote your book in a relevant, valuable way to our social audience.

Audio Excerpts

With the introduction of Audio Excerpts on NetGalley, there are many opportunities to showcase these clips to our community across the site. Members will see a new, additional Featured carousel on the main Find Titles landing page which will highlight books with Audio Excerpts–free for publishers! Our marketing team can also include the audio icon in NetGalley Newsletters and Category Spotlights for books with Audio Excerpts.

And this is just the beginning: by BookExpo 2020, we will support full audiobooks in addition to Audio Excerpts! We’re thrilled to help audio publishers benefit from early feedback from the NetGalley community, and we aren’t the only ones… NetGalley members are already excited! We asked, they answered: check out hundreds of comments on our Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram posts.

As publishers start experimenting with these new promotions, we’ll be sharing their successes here on NetGalley Insights. Stay tuned!

If you’re looking for more detail about post-pub strategies, check out our Case Studies on NetGalley Insights. Jayne Allen shared how listing Black Girls Must Die Exhausted on NetGalley after its pub date actually improved its sales numbers. She said, “Allowing the book to be offered for sale during the NetGalley window worked best for me because it allowed NetGalley reviewers to post directly on the Amazon sales page as a consumer review…At first, I was concerned that being on NetGalley might somehow erode sales, but the simultaneous window actually served to increase sales and start Black Girls moving up the charts much more quickly.”

If you want to discuss your own campaigns, please email marketing@netgalley.com. Our dedicated marketing team would be happy to help you strategize and find the right plan for your timing, budget, and goals.

Beyond the Book with Women’s Media Group

How Authors, Publishers and Agents are Developing New Revenue Streams

To help their authors make a splash and to stay financially viable, publishers are on the hunt for additional revenue streams. They’re launching ad-supported podcasts with authors as experts, teaching online courses, partnering with brands, and more. And last week in Penguin Random House’s Maya Angelou Auditorium, Women’s Media Group gathered several heavy hitters who have track records helping authors in this arena. The panelists discussed developing content that audiences want while maintaining an authentic feeling of connection. Here’s a taste of what they covered:

Pay attention to your audience at all stages

Christy Fletcher, founder of Fletcher & Company, described her approach to creating new revenue streams for her author clients as creating a “noisy, robust launch while listening closely to the audience.” This means paying attention to what platforms they are using, what questions they are asking, and what other media they are consuming. Then, she is better able to amplify the work her authors are already doing and give that audience new material that they will enjoy.

Kathy Doyle, VP of Podcasts at Macmillan rigorously researches before committing seriously to a new venture. Before she started working with Ellen Hendricksen on what would become The Savvy Psychologist, Doyle and her team had already conducted a study to determine that psychology was of interest to their pre-existing audience. With that audience insight in place, she was able to confidently launch a new project with the assurance that there was an audience waiting for that content.

But the research doesn’t stop there. Doyle advised the audience to keep track of podcast appearances or online tutorials in a marketing and publicity calendar so that when publishers see a spike of interest, they can better trace it back to specific timing and strategy and replicate it in future efforts.

Scaling intimacy

During the Q&A, audience member Leah Siepel, founder of Leah Siepel Courses asked the panel about scaling intimacy with larger online courses. She told the audience that in her own work building online courses for clients, courses with higher degrees of contact between the educator and the audience led to higher course completion rates. She wanted to know how to build bigger audiences without sacrificing the personal attention that leads to greater end-user satisfaction. The panelists all agreed that this is a challenge when growing audiences, and that successful online courses must be more engaging than a video of someone talking for 30 minutes.

Christy Fletcher described how she and Gretchen Rubin tackled this issue for The Happiness Project Experience, an immensely popular year-long course with a waiting list. They created smaller groups of participants within the wider course, using a cohort-based model with monthly modules and live call-ins to help members feel more connected to each other and to Rubin. Moderator Stephanie Bowen suggested filming lessons in front of a live audience to help viewers feel more like a part of an active learning community. Bowes suggested working with a company like Creative Live. Joan O’Neil, Vice President at Skillsoft Books, incorporates visuals to give online courses more of a Ted Talk feel. With options like live call-ins, production companies creating live lessons, and more, it’s possible to create truly dynamic and engaging online courses that resonate with viewers.

Podcast revenue model changes

Kathy Doyle described the changes that are happening in podcast advertising. Currently, most podcasts use live-read ads where hosts read ad copy for a product. This method capitalizes on the intimacy that podcast listeners feel when they hear a host speaking directly into their ears. Ads read by hosts feel like recommendations from a friend. However, as Doyle noted, the process of matching podcasts to products to create natural-sounding ads is both highly manual and highly time-consuming. Plus, podcast listeners are quick to recognize when an ad doesn’t sound natural or doesn’t fit with the host’s brand. Podcasts are beginning to go the way of digital advertising more broadly, which is to say programmatic. Increasingly, brands will be able to buy podcast audiences rather than listeners to a specific show. Programmatic advertising is show-agnostic, meaning that it will be able to, for example, target young urban parents who are likely to purchase a meal kit subscription rather than all listeners of The Racist Sandwich.

With any effort to build in new revenue streams or platforms for authors, the key is to listen to what their audience wants and to provide an engaging and authentic experience.

Speakers

Kathy Doyle, Vice President, Podcasts, Macmillan Publishers
Christy Fletcher, Founder and CEO, Fletcher & Company
Joan O’Neil, Vice President, Skillsoft Books
Moderator: Stephanie Bowen, Senior Manager, Publishing Development & Author Platforms, Penguin Random House

Women’s Media Group, founded in 1973, is a New York-based nonprofit association of women who have achieved prominence in many fields of media. Their 250-plus members, drawn from book, magazine, and newspaper publishing; film, television, online and other digital media, meet, collaborate, inform and support one another as well as mentor young women interested in publishing careers. They seek to advance the position of all women through the power of communication and media. Find out about their upcoming events here.

Case Study: The Trans Generation by Ann Travers

**How NYU Press used strategic timing, leveraged comp titles, and engaged with NetGalley members to make The Trans Generation a success**

On NetGalley Insights, we highlight the successes of NetGalley publishers and authors, and share some of their strategies. Today, we’re talking with Betsy Steve, publicity manager at NYU Press about how she used NetGalley to ensure that The Trans Generation: How Trans Kids (and Their Parents) are Creating a Gender Revolution got the enthusiastic launch it deserved.

Published on June 5, 2018, The Trans Generation uses interviews with trans children and their parents to explore gender in the 21st century, and the experiences of navigating schools, healthcare, and society as a trans youth. Written by trans activist and advocate, Ann Travers, The Trans Generation is designed for both academic and popular audiences.

Our audience is always eager to learn more about how others are planning their publicity and marketing efforts on NetGalley. Where did NetGalley fit into the overall strategy and timeline for The Trans Generation?

At NYU Press, we find that NetGalley exposure plays an extremely important role in elevating the titles that we believe have potential for a more general readership. These are also titles that we want on librarians’ and booksellers’ radar as soon as possible. We pay close attention to early feedback from users as it helps us position our books in the marketplace.

We knew in the early stages of planning for The Trans Generation that NetGalley would play pivotal role in its success. Last year, we had a separate book dealing with issues affecting the transgender community that was hugely popular with NetGalley readers, so we knew that there was a strong interest in the topic. As soon as we were ready to make ARCs, which for us is about 4-5 months ahead of publication, we posted the materials to NetGalley. We were able to use the widget in our ARC follow up and also email reviewers that we work with who primarily use digital galleys. The book’s publication month was during Pride month, so we also wanted to do a push with readers during that time.

Tell us a little about the various communities you focused on to promote The Trans Generation.

Outside of the academic community, we definitely wanted parents and caregivers of trans or gender fluid children to be made aware of Ann’s work. The book also has important information that can help teachers, social workers, community organizers, LGBTQ activists, even lawyers and medical providers.

With so much interest from a wide variety of readers, how did you use NetGalley to access these different readers?

Our previous success with Beyond Trans by Heath Fogg Davis helped inform who in the NetGalley community might be interested in The Trans Generation, so we targeted those same users. We were thrilled by the response from parents, many of whom I think were drawn to our book because of the title and cover. We also made mention of the author’s deep involvement with the trans community in our marketing copy to highlight that they are more than just an academic researching this area. Ann is deeply committed to the improving the lives of anyone who identifies as trans.

In what ways were these specific communities important to the success of the book?

Many of the reviews left on Goodreads, NetGalley, and Amazon were from parents or general readers interested in learning more about the trans community. It was fascinating to read that they learned so much from Ann’s work and that they would recommend the book to friends, their local libraries, and community outreach groups. We are thrilled that the book carries a 4.3-star rating on both Goodreads and Amazon, which we believe has helped in the book’s success.

What about the trade community on NetGalley? Were Reviewers, Librarians, Booksellers, Educators or book-trade media especially important to you? Why, and how did you go about reaching them?

The trade community is very important to us. Though we are an academic press, the titles we choose for NetGalley are accessibly-written on topics that appeal to a broad readership. We have cultivated an extensive list of auto-approved librarians and media that regularly check on our listings. We also notify users when we have a book they may be interested in because of their previous activity. When we see that a user posted a review to a blog or website, we make sure to tweet out the link.

How did you optimize your Title Details page to drive requests and reviews for your book?

For this, we made sure to add all the excellent advanced coverage the book received in the “Advance Praise” section. We find that endorsements from library pre-publications and other long lead media appeal more to general readers than praise from academics and scholars. We also added to the title page all the amazing reviews users submitted.

Which NetGalley marketing tools did you take advantage of? How and when did you use them to increase interest?

NetGalley offers some excellent marketing opportunities that I take advantage of whenever they fit with our titles. For The Trans Generation, we nominated it to appear in the “Featured on NetGalley” promotion that coincided with “GLBT Book Month,” which was a perfect and timely tie in. We definitely saw an uptick of requests once that ran.

How did you engage with members who requested access? How did this fit into your overall timeline for marketing and/or publicity?

We create a personalized approval email for each title that encourages members to leave reviews on sites such as Goodreads, Amazon, B&N.com and their independent bookstores’ website. We rely on their positive feedback on these platforms to boost our titles’ visibility. For The Trans Generation, we did a promo push to celebrate both pub and Pride month with all members who requested access. This was a follow up email that encouraged members, if they hadn’t already, to please leave a review of the book as a way to celebrate Pride. We did see an increase in engagement after we sent that campaign.

How has NetGalley been incorporated into your post-pub strategy?

For our more popular titles, like The Trans Generation, we often leave them up for a few months after pub. We definitely want to leave enough time for users to leave reviews with Amazon. National and local review coverage plus radio interviews often provoke members to look up a book and it’s important to us that everyone who is interested in our titles have an opportunity to download them. We also will use the widget in course adoption campaigns that may go out after the pub date.

What are your top tips for academic publishers and nonfiction publishers listing titles on NetGalley?

For academic publishers, try to post titles that are accessibly-written and would appeal to a general reader. This definitely helps with relationship building.
Take advantage of the NetGalley marketing programs. They do an excellent job making readers aware of books they might be interested in. It’s a great way to boost your visibility on the platform and gain some new readers.
NetGalley is a process. The more you take the time to engage with users, the stronger your following becomes.

Betsy Steve is the Publicity Manager at NYU Press.