For over 15 years, I’ve been teaching authors how to promote their books, and I’m constantly exploring ways to simplify marketing for them. In 2013, I began building tools to streamline the process, starting with WordPress plugins that helped authors sell books on their websites and secure speaking engagements.
In 2019, I launched the Podcast Host Directory, which became a popular resource. A couple of months ago, I created another tool for authors, then another, and another. Soon, I had a dozen tools, then two dozen, and eventually three dozen. Things have gotten out of hand, and it’s time I share these tools with you.
To see these tools in action, check out this episode on our YouTube channel.
Let’s begin by exploring The Patron Toolbox at AuthorMedia.com.
Tool #1: AI Thomas
AI Thomas is an AI chatbot trained on over 500 episodes of the Novel Marketing Podcast, as well as my other podcast episodes, including those where I’ve been interviewed about publishing and book marketing. AI Thomas excels at answering book marketing questions.
For example, if I type, “How do I launch a book I’ve written?” the chatbot scans my blog posts, generates a detailed answer, and lists relevant episodes discussing book launching, creating a launch team, and email sequences. It also cites its sources by linking to the episodes and posts used to craft the response.
You can ask follow-up questions, and AI Thomas will build a customized launch plan for you. This tool has proven invaluable. After testing it for a while, I recently upgraded the AI model it runs on, making it even more effective. Plus, it’s now trained on additional episodes, so it continues to improve. Every new episode of Novel Marketing enhances AI Thomas’s capabilities.
Think of AI Thomas as your coach in a box. Nearly all the questions people email me can be answered by asking AI Thomas.
Tool #2: Blurb Generator
Describing a book in a compelling way is a significant challenge for authors. We often struggle with “the curse of knowledge.” We know so much about our books that distilling it into actionable steps is difficult.
At this year’s Novel Marketing conference, I gave a talk on creating a book pitch. Shortly after, I realized I could build a tool to guide authors through the step-by-step approach I presented. Using the different pitches from that session, I developed the Blurb Generators.
You start by entering your book’s title. Then, answer four key questions:
- Who is your primary protagonist?
- What is your protagonist’s initial desire?
- Who or what prevents the protagonist from achieving that desire?
- What is the inciting moment early in Act One (teasing the twist without spoilers)?
For example, for a story like Star Wars, you might say, “Before Luke can leave, he must find the lost droids.”
After submitting these answers, the tool generates a three-paragraph back cover copy, a one-paragraph pitch, a one-sentence pitch, alternate book title ideas, and suggested subtitles. If you want to see what the Blurb Generator produced, be sure to watch the YouTube video of this episode.
This tool provides a solid starting point for crafting your book’s description.
Genre Blurb Generators
These Blurb Generators are each built with a different philosophy and are tailored to different genres:
- Nonfiction Blurb Generator: Focuses on the reader. You describe your target reader, their desire, the obstacle they face, how your book helps overcome that obstacle, and the reader’s envisioned happy ending. This generates compelling back cover copy centered on the reader’s journey.
- The Setting Pitch Generator: Emphasizes the story’s setting, making it ideal for sci-fi and fantasy but applicable to other genres. Answer six questions about the setting, and it creates tailored back cover copy.
- The Plot Pitch Generator: Known as the “plot pitch,” this focuses on the story’s plot, producing a distinct pitch that highlights suspenseful elements.
- Romance Blurb Generator: Crafts a pitch around the two love interests and is tailored to the genre’s conventions.
I recommend trying each generator to see which best suits your book, then refining the output to create your final pitch.
Pitch Optimizer
The Pitch Optimizer works differently. You provide your book’s genre, title, and current description, then paste the description into the tool. It analyzes and refines your pitch to make it more effective, enhancing its appeal and clarity.
These Blurb Generators offer authors versatile tools to craft compelling book descriptions that hook readers.
Tool #3: Website Tools
Homepage Scanner Tool
To use the Homepage Scanner tool, simply paste your website address, and it will scan your homepage and evaluate your SEO. It focuses on the title and meta description and provides feedback.
For example, I tested Jonathan Shuerger’s website. In Jonathan’s case, it noted the absence of a meta description. The scanner highlights strengths and areas for improvement, similar to the website reviews I occasionally feature in my podcast episodes.
About Page Builder
The About Page Builder is designed to help you craft your About page. Simply input your full name, genre, personality traits, quirky facts, and reasons for writing. The tool asks a series of questions and then generates a detailed About page narrative.
If you’ve listened to my episode on making your About page less boring and more engaging, these questions may feel familiar. I essentially transformed that episode into this tool.
About Page Scanner
The About Page Scanner works like the Homepage Scanner but is tailored to About pages. This tool is unique because it’s tuned to provide my specific advice and customized for your About page. By pasting your About page URL and clicking “Scan,” you receive feedback on what your page does well and areas that need improvement. The process is straightforward and user-friendly.
Landing Page Drafter
I created the Landing Page Drafter tool for the “Send Your First Email Challenge.” You don’t need to be a patron to access it because participation in the challenge gives you free access.
This tool drafts landing page text for three types of pages:
- an email newsletter to gain subscribers
- a book for sale
- a free reader magnet
For example, I used my brother David’s information to create an email newsletter landing page. After selecting the type of page and clicking “Submit,” the tool generates headline options and a well-crafted landing page. See the YouTube video to review the results.
Tool #4: Book Cover Tools
Design Brief Generator
Authors often struggle to communicate their vision for a book cover to their graphic designer. The design brief generator simplifies this process. To use it, upload your book manuscript, enter the title, provide a book description (a tool is available to help craft this), and select the subcategory. Then, click “Create Brief” to generate a design brief you can share with a graphic designer.
This tool builds on the principles from my episode, How to Create a Design Brief for Your Book Cover. It will produce a rough draft based on your input. For example, it generated a brief for my brother David’s book called Pilgrim’s Progress Reloaded, including the title, author, genre, visual elements derived from the manuscript, and a suggested color palette.
You can review and tweak the template before sending it to a designer. Simply copy the brief into a Word document, make adjustments, and you’ll have a solid foundation for an amazing book cover.
Book Cover Analyzer
The book cover analyzer evaluates your book cover after you upload it. To demonstrate, I’ll use Jonathan Shuerger’s new book cover for Semper Die (affiliate link), which was designed by his publisher. Notably, the tool doesn’t require you to input the book’s genre or title, and that’s intentional. A good cover should communicate the genre through its design alone.
For Semper Die, the analyzer identifies military, zombie, and patriotic themes, accurately suggesting a blend of military science fiction and horror. It also evaluates thumbnail visibility and design effectiveness and then provides suggestions for improvement. No cover is deemed perfect, but this one scores well, which means it’s a quality cover.
Book Cover Designer
The book cover designer is a brand-new tool that is still in development and has some bugs to resolve. I’ll demonstrate its functionality using a concept for a trilogy I’ve long wanted to write about King Cyrus, titled The Peasant Prince, a Persian historical fiction novel by Thomas Umstattd, Jr.
The primary visual element is a peasant boy holding a wooden scimitar. You can choose a style like hyper-realistic, illustrated, minimalistic, or cinematic (I selected cinematic), and include a brief book description. Then, click “Generate Cover.”
For The Peasant Prince, the tool created a cover reflecting the story of King Cyrus, who begins as the son of a pig farmer (or so he believes) before discovering his grandfather was an emperor. This historical tale, detailed in sources like Herodotus, could inspire a future book.
While the tool isn’t meant to create your final book cover, it excels at quickly creating solid covers for reader magnets and the free content you give away to grow your email list. My goal isn’t to replace professional designers but to elevate the quality of reader magnet covers, helping authors expand their audience faster.
Tool #5: Publishing Tools
These publishing tools are designed to assist you in creating a compelling book proposal. The suite includes a plot synopsis generator, chapter summarizer, query letter writer, book proposal generator, and book title brainstormer.
Book Title Brainstormer
The book title brainstormer is inspired by my episodes How to Pick a Strong Book Title and How to Rank in Amazon Search Results with Dave Chesson. The tool helps authors craft titles that boost visibility on Amazon, which is the world’s largest bookstore and a powerful search engine. A strong book title is critical for ranking in Amazon search results.
To use the tool, upload your manuscript (optional but recommended), select fiction or nonfiction, choose your category, provide back cover copy, and list keywords readers might type into Amazon to find a book like yours.
For example, using Semper Die by Jonathan Shuerger, we input the back cover copy, category, and the search term “Marines versus Zombies.” The tool generates title ideas, including short titles:
- Dead Watch,
- Terminal Order,
- Quantico Fall,
- Undead Zone Alpha
It also generates longer, creative titles:
- Rot and Rifleman
- Teeth, Tactics, and Terror
It will give you 24 search-optimized titles.
Remarkably, the tool suggested the actual title, Semper Die, as the top title, even though it wasn’t explicitly provided in the inputs. While it may not always produce the perfect title, it sparks creativity and jumpstarts the brainstorming process.
Plot Synopsis Generator
Authors often dread writing a synopsis, yet it’s essential for a book proposal. The plot synopsis generator simplifies this task. You simply upload your book, and it creates a synopsis for you. Currently, it struggles with books over 250 pages, such as my brother’s novel, but improvements are underway to help it handle longer manuscripts.
The tool can generate a 500-word, 1,000-word, or 2,000-word synopsis. Authors can take this draft and edit it down to their desired length, which is far easier than writing a synopsis from scratch.
Chapter Summarizer
The chapter summarizer operates similarly to the plot synopsis generator but focuses on summarizing individual chapters rather than the overall plot structure. Upload your book, and the tool generates chapter summaries. For best results, upload one chapter at a time. This tool provides a quick way to create concise chapter overviews that you can use in your book proposal.
Query Letter Writer
The query letter writer helps authors craft a rough draft of a query letter for traditional publishers. Input your book’s title, genre, and description, and the tool generates a letter based on insights from my episodes about query letters, agents, and publishers. While the draft won’t be ready to send directly to publishers, it gives you a solid starting point.
Book Proposal Generator
The book proposal generator will create a rough draft of a full book proposal. Like the query letter writer, it draws on your book’s details to produce a document you can edit and polish, which streamlines the process of preparing a professional proposal for publishers.
Tool #6: Branding Tools
Life Themer
The theme analyzer, inspired by James L. Rubart’s approach to discovering the theme of your life, identifies your core themes based on your three favorite films. By analyzing the plots and themes of these films, the tool finds common threads and explains their impact on your writing. This tool has been extensively tested, and authors who’ve used it love it. It’s a fun and insightful addition to the toolbox.
Tagline Brainstormer
The tagline brainstormer is a marketing-focused tool that generates 20 or more taglines based on your responses to a series of questions. The more detailed your answers, the better the taglines. This tool helps authors craft memorable and effective taglines to enhance their book’s branding.
Tool # 7: Advertising Tools
Ad Strategizer
The ad strategizer helps authors create targeted advertising campaigns. Upload your book, select the advertising platform (e.g., X ads), and specify your genre. The tool reads your manuscript and develops a customized ad strategy, identifying similar books, preferred genres, and reader profiles. It also provides keywords to target specific readers with ads.
This tool is versatile. It supports various platforms like Facebook and delivers a tailored plan based on your book’s content. It’s a powerful way to streamline your advertising efforts.
Cover Suitability Scanner
The primary reason ads fail is an ad-unfriendly book cover. The cover suitability scanner evaluates whether your book cover is suitable for advertising. It asks: Will this cover work for ads? If not, what improvements are needed? The tool generates a report highlighting issues.
The focus is on thumbnail visibility, as a cover needs to be effective when scaled down. Elements that make a cover appealing at full size often lose impact in the thumbnail version, and the scanner provides suggestions to address this.
Reader Profiler
The reader profiler answers the question, “Where do I find my readers?” By analyzing your book and genre, it identifies potential readers and offers specific marketing suggestions to reach them. The tool provides psychographics, interests, and tailored strategies for connecting with your audience.
A professional would charge hundreds of dollars for a similar service, but it’s available to you instantly in the Patron Toolbox. It helps authors reach their readers quickly and effectively.
Tool #8: Email Tools
Email Drafter
I’m most proud of the Email Drafter because it’s my first tool that uses branching logic. It asks many questions, but the only one you’re required to answer is about your work-in-progress. Readers want updates on your work in progress, and they look to your website and newsletter for this information.
The tool crafts engaging emails based on your input, such as recent reads, book recommendations, news headlines, book sales, upcoming events, or interesting videos and blog posts. You answer only the relevant questions, and the tool generates a draft email. You can then edit the draft to finalize your email.
Subject Line Brainstormer
If you need help crafting compelling email subject lines, the Subject Line Brainstormer is the tool for you. Input your genre, paste your email (if already written), and optionally answer, “Why would readers love this email?” or “What’s the primary benefit to the reader?” The tool generates 36 subject line ideas, including content-focused, reader-benefit-focused, and creative or unique options.
Drip Email Sequencer
The Drip Email Sequencer creates a four- or five-email onboarding sequence for your newsletter, introducing you to your readers. Developed for the Author Email Academy, it’s also available to Novel Marketing patrons.
Answer questions about your genre, writing, and favorite books, and then paste your About page or back cover copy. The tool generates rough drafts for the email drip sequence based on the Author Email Academy training. You don’t need the Author Email Academy to use it, but Academy members get it with the course, and patrons can access it too.
List Cleaner
The List Cleaner is a companion to the Drip Email Sequencer and generates a three-email sequence to reengage subscribers. It reminds them why they subscribed, encourages interaction, and, if needed, bids them farewell. The wording is tailored to match your book, which ensures a personalized touch.
Book and Movie Reviewer
The Book Reviewer and Movie Reviewer tools function similarly and may be combined in the future. To generate a book review, input the book’s title, author, genre, a few bullet points on what you liked and didn’t like, and a star rating. Giving a book four stars allows the tool to craft a positive or negative review based on your input. It generates a rough draft, which you can tweak to create a robust review quickly. The Movie Reviewer works the same way, making both surprisingly effective tools.
Tool # 9: Beta Reader Tools
Twain Bot and Jane Bot
The Beta Readers, Twain Bot, and Jane Bot are my most controversial tools. These AI chatbots are trained on the public-domain writings of Mark Twain and Jane Austen.
Twain Bot, in particular, draws from Twain’s novels, nonfiction, speeches, and five volumes of correspondence, much of it about writing. You can ask Twain Bot about indie publishing or paste a chapter or scene from your book to receive feedback on strengths and areas for improvement. Twain Bot often quotes Mark Twain, as its dataset includes all his writings. It’s great for encouragement or quick feedback.
Jane Bot offers a different perspective, reflecting Austen’s distinct fiction style. Comparing their responses to questions like “Should I indie publish?” with AI Thomas is also insightful, as they answer differently due to their unique training data.
Tool #9: Reader Magnet Tools
Reader Magnet Brainstormer
The Reader Magnet Brainstormer generates ideas for reader magnets tailored to your book. You answer a few questions like “Is your book fiction or nonfiction?” and “What category does it fit into?” Then you provide the pitch or blurb for your upcoming book. This tool depends heavily on your pitch and the description of the target reader.
Drawing from my teachings on reader magnets, the tool adapts suggestions to your specific book. It delivers 12 standard reader magnet ideas and some highly creative, off-the-wall concepts. Students in the Author Email Academy, where this tool is included, often want to try all the ideas, but you only need one or two to succeed. This tool excels at sparking inspiration for your next reader magnet.
Coloring Page Maker
The Coloring Page Maker has become a favorite among patrons, who enjoy experimenting with it. Originally created for young adult or children’s book authors, it can create pages that appeal to adults too.
Input your genre and describe a scene from your book with as much detail as possible.
For example, I’ll demonstrate with “a wood elf hides behind a tree, holding a bow and arrow” for a teen audience. The tool takes time to generate, so be patient. The result is a coloring page with intricate details, adjusted by age group (toddler, child, teen, or adult), with adult pages featuring the most complexity.
These coloring pages can serve as reader magnets or be shared on your website for fun. I once turned a bedtime story scene into a coloring page for my daughter, and after she colored it, it became a prized possession in our home.
Whether for reader engagement or pure enjoyment, this tool is versatile and fun.
Tool # 10: Education Tools
Lesson Planner
The Lesson Planner helps educators, homeschool parents, teachers, or authors create lesson plans to teach a book in classroom or book club settings.
Upload your manuscript, select the target grade level, and specify the lesson plan’s goal. This could be a theological purpose, a specific lesson the book teaches, or simply to help students fall in love with reading. Click “Generate,” and the tool creates a lesson plan combining teacher presentation and interactive student elements tailored to the selected age group. It also includes discussion questions.
The output is a rough draft that may need formatting or minor tweaks, as the tool is still a work in progress. However, it can make your book more appealing to teachers, opening new avenues for sales as they recommend it to students.
Discussion Guide Builder
The Discussion Guide Builder simplifies creating discussion questions for your book. Upload your manuscript or a single chapter or section, and the tool generates questions automatically.
One patron who tested it reported that it outperformed Claude and ChatGPT when she tried creating questions herself. This is because the tool accesses large language models directly, bypassing chat interfaces, and is tuned based on my experience with book clubs and authors. It detects whether your book is fiction or nonfiction and adapts questions accordingly.
For nonfiction books, authors often include questions at the end of each chapter, so you may find it helpful to upload each chapter separately.
The tool provides a starting point, not a final list. It offers open-ended, conversation-inspiring questions. This is valuable because authors often struggle to write effective, non-leading discussion questions because they are so familiar with their own books.
Overview of the Patron Toolbox
The Patron Toolbox includes over 30 tools designed to support authors with a wide range of publishing and marketing tasks, such as:
- Crafting compelling book blurbs
- Improving and evaluating author websites
- Creating more effective book covers
- Collaborating more easily with cover designers
- Analyzing existing covers for effectiveness
- Designing covers for reader magnets
- Plot synopses
- Query letters
- Book proposals
- Enhancing personal author branding
- Planning and running advertising campaigns
- Writing and sending engaging emails
- Growing your email list using reader magnets
- Getting writing feedback from real readers
- Making your book more appealing to educators and book clubs
All tools are available to Novel Marketing patrons at the $10/month level or higher. They come with unlimited use, and you can be a patron for as long or as short as you like.
These tools are designed to help you:
- Sell more books
- Save time
- Focus more on writing
- Simplify your marketing and reader engagement
They’re not a replacement for the joy of writing, but they do make it easier to connect with readers. I hope you enjoy trying out these tools.
Featured Patrons
New April Patrons:
- James Christensen
- Julie Bond
- Steve Newcomb
- John Zachary
- Lori Behrens
- Wendi S. Harrington
- Lindsay Lock
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