London Writers' Salon

#211: Laura Palmer & Jessie Sullivan — How to Market Your Book, from the Founders of Digital-First Publisher Pellerin Books, Finding the Readers Who Will Love Your Book, and Why the Best Book Still Wins

Episode Summary

Pellerin Books founders Laura Palmer and Jessie Sullivan on how readers discover books now, where to put your marketing money, and why the quality of the book still decides everything.

Episode Notes

Pellerin Books founders Laura Palmer and Jessie Sullivan on how readers discover books now, where to put your marketing money, and why the quality of the book still decides everything.

You'll learn

• The rule that quietly decides which authors get a publisher’s time, budget and attention.
• Why the first question about marketing a book is never “how?”
• How to research your readers and your market without paying for a single tool.
• The metric that makes an ad campaign look like it is working when nothing is.
• What a cover and a developmental edit should cost, and the one place never to skimp.
• Why raising your ad budget too fast makes it perform worse, not better.
• How subscription reading changed what a sagging middle chapter costs a writer.
• Whether a publisher actually cares how many followers you have.
• Three books on writing that between them cover almost everything, and the two-word rule that keeps readers turning pages.
• Why you cannot keyword your way into a reader’s life in the age of AI search.

Resources & Links

• 📄 Interview Transcript
• Pellerin Books
• K-Lytics
• Publisher Rocket
• Kindlepreneur
• Pellerin Submissions
• Bookbub
• Save the Cat! Writes a Novel: The Last Book On Novel Writing You’ll Ever Need by Jessica Brody
• On Writing by Stephen King
• A Swim in the Pond in the Rain by George Saunders
• Pellerin Publishing Advice

About Pellerin Books

Pellerin Books is a new independent publisher of popular fiction, built for the way readers discover and fall in love with books today. It publishes immersive, emotionally engaging stories readers can’t put down – from thrillers to romance, historical fiction to science fiction, saga to fantasy and everything in between. It is a digital-focus publisher, which means ebooks and audiobooks are at the heart of what it does, although all its titles are available in paperback for readers who love to hold a book in their hands.

At Pellerin, we believe deeply in good books and the difference they can make. We became publishers because we believe in the craft of storytelling, the power to create living worlds and characters that reach beyond the page. Making books, for us, is a way to be part of that strange magic that binds reader and author when the right book gets into the right hands.

About Laura Palmer & Jessie Sullivan

Laura’s love of storytelling drew her into the publishing industry in 2007 as an assistant at Quercus Books, where she was part of the team that discovered and published Stieg Larsson. In 2010, she joined Corvus, where she rode the ebook boom, delivering sales previously unheard of for new authors, and was shortlisted for the Kim Scott Walwyn prize for women in publishing. In 2012, she co-founded Head of Zeus, alongside publishing veterans Anthony and Nicolas Cheetham. As executive director and fiction publisher, Laura ran three imprints and published more than a hundred authors at Head of Zeus. Bestselling authors she has worked with include Dani Atkins, JP Delaney, Dan Jones, Graham Masterton and Amanda Prowse.

Jessie Sullivan has spent her career at the intersection of publishing and performance-led marketing. She is one of the most commercially effective marketers in modern publishing, with over £8 million in directly attributed revenue and more than £10 million in total marketing impact.