Little Golden Books have sold billions of copies with almost no advertising. Once you know how they did it, you can sell any kind of book and more books in your series. You may think the selling point is cute animals and the low price, but lots of book marketers try that and fail.
The reason Little Golden Books sell is due to a form of marketing psychology so powerful it works on babies who can’t read, and it works even better on adults.
It’s called the Diderot Effect, and most authors have never heard of it.
So what is this powerful psychological trigger? I’ll give you a hint.
The Poky Little Puppy, one of the bestselling children’s books of all time, triggers it.
I Can Read With My Eyes Shut! does not.
Book 1 of The Boxcar Children tries to trigger it and fails.
So what is the Diderot Effect, and how do you trigger it in your readers?
Back in 1769, Denis Diderot received a beautiful scarlet dressing gown as a gift from a benefactor. He loved it. But the new robe was much fancier than anything else he owned. In fact, it made everything else in his room look shabby. So he replaced his chair. Then his desk. Then his prints. He tried to make his whole life fit his new robe. This one gift triggered a chain reaction of purchases that nearly bankrupted him.
The Diderot Effect describes a psychological pattern where a single new possession triggers a cascade of further purchases, not because they are necessary, but because they match the new object.
If you have ever purchased new shoes to go along with a new outfit, you’ve experienced the Diderot Effect.
Unfortunately, this powerful tool can be used to do great harm, as indeed it did to Diderot himself. But it can also be used to get children reading or to get someone to lose 50 pounds.
So, please use this powerful psychological tool for good.
Before we talk about how you can add Diderot Triggers to your book, we must learn how readers can trigger the effect on their own. It is a lot easier to jump in front of a parade than it is to organize a parade from scratch, and readers who trigger the effect on their own will make selling books easier for you.
Section 1: How Readers Already Trigger the Diderot Effect
Readers sometimes take actions on their own that can trigger a Diderot Cascade with one tiny nudge.
Buying a Bookshelf
One of the most important moments in a reader’s life is buying their first bookcase. An empty bookshelf calls for a reader to fill it. Imagine the impact on your sales if you partnered with your local furniture store to give away a free paper copy of the first book in your series with every new bookcase purchase.
What looks better than a book on a bookshelf? A series of books on a bookshelf.
Some book buyers purchase books simply because they are beautiful. They are “self-candy.” They want a bookcase full of beautiful books and have no intention of reading any of them. This kind of reader cares about how your book looks, and a print-on-demand paperback is unlikely to get them excited.
But they just might spend a hundred bucks for a fancy hardback.
Loving a Book
A reader who loved a book they just finished has just put on Diderot’s scarlet robe. They have started seeing themselves as a reader. They have a new identity. Now they want more of that good feeling. This is why read-through rates matter so much for authors. You want to write the kind of book your reader can’t put down.
If you want to learn how to write this kind of book, consider going through our Five Year Plan to Become a Professional Author.
Buying a Kindle
A new Kindle is just like an empty bookshelf. The device demands to be filled with content. The early days of the Kindle were a gold rush for indie authors. Brand-new Kindle owners had a powerful Diderot motivation to buy as many ebooks as possible.
Signing Up for Audible
Getting an Audible account creates the same dynamic. That monthly Audible credit burning a hole in your pocket is a Diderot Trigger. But the same is true for Kindle+. Readers who have never had cheap access to audiobooks before will be keen to check it out.
Starting a Goodreads Reading Challenge
When a reader publicly commits to reading 52 books this year, they have said, “I am the kind of person who reads a book a week.” The Goodreads challenge is a way for readers to voluntarily trigger the Diderot Effect. They may not know the name of the effect, but they know they want to commit to reading more books.
This is why the best time to promote on Goodreads is in January to leverage all that New Year’s resolution energy.
Section 2: How to Add Diderot Triggers to Your Book
How do you engineer the Diderot Effect into your books so that one book sale triggers a sales cascade?
Consistent Book Dimensions Across Your Series
When a reader lines up your series on their shelf, and one book is a different height, the books are no longer a matched set. The spell is broken, and the Diderot Effect fades. They may technically go together, but they don’t look like they go together. Authors rarely care about this, but readers do. Some readers will literally rebuy a book in a different edition to fix this problem. That is how powerful this internal need for consistency is.
If you buy a brand-new Little Golden Book, it will match the 50-year-old Golden Book you found at an antique store.
Here is my advice: Pick a trim size at the beginning of your career and stick with it until you die. If you write shorter books, choose 5.5 by 8.5 inches. If you write longer books, choose 6 by 9 inches. Do not change trim size between books in a series or between series. In your last will and testament, require your heirs to keep your book dimensions at 6 by 9 inches so they match on the shelf.
This requires discipline, but it can pay off over time.
If you are already published, switch to standard sizing today. It’s never too late to get your books looking good together.
The one partial exception to this rule is book type. While ideally you would choose 6 by 9 for everything, keeping all your hardbacks at 5.5 by 8.5 is fine, as long as you commit to it. The hardbacks match the other hardbacks; the paperbacks match the other paperbacks.
Consistent Design Vocabulary
This also applies to cover design. If books one through three have a consistent visual style and book four looks different because you changed designers, you have broken the spell. The set no longer feels like a set. Invest in design consistency across your entire series from the beginning.
You can work with multiple designers and keep things consistent if you have a design vocabulary document and a brand guidelines document. Many designers love selling you a brand guidelines document; you just need to ask.
Once you have a beautifully designed series, show them off by displaying them in your office background for calls, podcasts, and online presentations.
But there is an even more advanced version of this technique.
Spines That Complete a Picture
Some publishers design book spines so that when you line up the whole series on a shelf, the spines form a single image. This is the Diderot Effect at its most engineered.
World Book Encyclopedia did this with what they called “Spinescape” bindings. The 2007 edition featured an underwater coral reef scene that spread across the spines of all 22 volumes. You could not own volumes A through M and have half a reef on your shelf. Readers’ need for consistency demands the complete picture.
If you own books one through four of a six-book series and the spine scape image is 60% complete, books five and six are not optional purchases. They are splinters in your mind begging you to complete the series every time you walk by your bookcase. You cannot have most of a picture on your shelf. Your brain will not allow it.
Good graphic designers would love a project like this, by the way. And good ones can even craft the designs in such a way as to give you some flexibility in page length. Plus, they would all love to get commissioned for a series rather than just a single book.
If you have a completed series, you can rerelease your paper books as a box set with a spine picture. But for maximum impact, start the picture with the first edition. This extra effort will give you the edge over all the shortcut seekers.
Pictures of the Complete Collection in the Back Matter
This is the simplest and most proven Diderot Trigger in publishing. The key is to give a sense of incompleteness. So show a collection of books that includes the book they already have.
The back of the Little Golden Book Return of the Jedi displays the full canonical double trilogy. And Return of the Jedi is in the picture. This is the part most publishers miss.
Little Golden Books has been doing this since the 1940s. Flip over any Little Golden Book, and on the back cover you will see a colorful illustration featuring characters from dozens of other Golden Books titles. The Poky Little Puppy, the Shy Little Kitten, Tootle the Train, and the Saggy Baggy Elephant are hanging out together in one scene.
It’s so brilliant that it works on children who cannot even read yet. I have watched a baby who cannot speak point at the book covers on the back of a book and indicate which ones she wants. She cannot read, but she sees pictures of books she does not have, and her brain says, “I want that one.” That is the Diderot Effect operating at a primal level. This longing for completeness creates a desire for the books she can see but does not own. This is also why reading to young children matters so much. Spark that longing early, and you raise a lifelong reader.
The key to triggering the Diderot Effect is to share the complete collection, including the book they already own. And with print on demand, you can easily edit your older books to feature your newer books.
This is the mistake I Can Read With My Eyes Shut! makes. Same with The Best Nest and The Boxcar Children.
This is such a common mistake that you see it all over. The only place I see the collection strategy employed is with Little Golden Books, and they are going to hate me for doing this episode.
Beautiful Hardbacks
One beautiful hardback on a shelf makes everything next to it look cheap. Once I started putting hardbacks on the shelves behind my studio setup, I wanted nothing but hardbacks on the shelves. If you watch my older episodes, you will see far more softcover books on the shelves.
Millennials and Gen Z treat their bookshelves like decor. They are the background for TikToks, Instagram posts, and Zoom calls. A gorgeous hardback is a statement about who they are, and that statement demands consistency. A shelf of beautiful hardbacks says, “I am the kind of person who owns beautiful books.”
Brandon Sanderson understood this when he charged $250 for collector’s editions. Many readers who joined his campaign were transformed from identifying as mere readers to identifying as collectors of beautiful books. Once that identity kicked in, every subsequent Sanderson release became a choice to joyfully grow the collection or painfully leave it incomplete.
Learn more about creating beautiful hardbacks in my episode Should You Create a Premium Hardcover Edition of Your Book?
Signed and Numbered Limited Editions
When a reader owns copy #47 of 100, something changes. He is no longer just a reader. He is a collector. When the next book comes out, he doesn’t just want a copy. He wants a signed and numbered copy to keep the collection complete. Ideally, he wants #47 again.
As an author releasing a second book in a series, you can email everyone who bought a signed and numbered copy of your first book and offer them the same number in the new book.
“You own #47 of 100 of my first book. Would you like #47 of book two?”
This will be one of the easiest sales emails you ever send.
This is the Diderot Effect plus scarcity. There are 100 signed and numbered copies, but only one of them is #47, and that reader already owns the first one.
The limited number creates urgency. The matching number creates something deeper: a commitment to the set. And collectors do not stop at one.
Write Books in a Series
A series is a Diderot Unity by design. It is a set of objects that belong together. When someone reads and enjoys book one, the existence of book two creates a pull toward completion. The first book is Diderot’s robe. Every subsequent book purchase is the reader restoring harmony.
However, for new authors, I recommend writing standalone books until you have a hit. Once you have a book that sells well and readers love, you can build your series around the hit. If you commit to writing sequels for a book that only sold a few hundred copies, you will burn out and end your career.
The Diderot Effect only triggers if readers enjoyed the first book anyway.
You can trigger the Diderot Effect without a series. In fact, if you are disciplined with your cover designs, spines, and book sizes, all your books will feel like a cohesive whole even if they are all standalones.
Yes, series are where most of the money is for fiction, but only when the first book is a hit. If the first book is a flop, writing sequels won’t fix it.
But if the first book is a hit, you can ride the Diderot Effect to fame and fortune.
Put Books into a Collection
The Poky Little Puppy is bundled not with the other books in a series, but with other books in the Little Golden Books collection. And to make things especially powerful, that collection is constantly evolving. New books are added in every generation. But Little Golden Books have kept the same format for generations. The spines have been golden for years.
What kind of collection could your book be part of with other authors? Think of authors who write similar protagonists, use similar settings, explore similar themes, or write for a similar audience. Look for authors who write with a similar level of quality.
Section 3: How to Create Diderot Super Triggers
If you know how readers trigger the Diderot effect themselves, and you know how to add those triggers to your books, you can combine those two techniques to create super triggers.
Get Readers to Take an Uncomfortable Action
The most powerful nonfiction books do not just give readers information; they cause readers to do something. Once a reader takes an action based on your book, the Diderot Effect kicks in.
For example, Dave Ramsey tells people to cut up their credit cards. That is uncomfortable and dramatic, and it costs something. But once someone cuts up their credit cards, they are locked in. They have taken action to pursue this new way of living. Now their new identity demands consistency. They are no longer the kind of person who lazily runs up debt; they are now the kind of responsible adult who uses a budget, listens to the radio show, and buys the next book.
One uncomfortable action can trigger the entire chain.
Dave Ramsey is a hero for using psychological triggers to help people stop bad habits. Not all authors do.
This same technique can be used in a damaging way to convince someone to cut off their parents, practice witchcraft, or embrace a disordered lifestyle. Like all of these psychological triggers, it can be used for evil. Authors should commit to using it for good.
It is a lot easier to act your way into a new way of thinking than to think your way into a new way of acting. If your book just tells people to shift their mindset about your topic, you are unlikely to trigger the Diderot Effect. Call your readers to take hard action and, as they take action, the Diderot snowball will roll down the mountain.
I recommend making the initial action small and immediate. For example, your book on prayer should give the reader a simple prayer to pray before the end of chapter 1. The longer someone waits to take that first step, the less likely they are to do anything.
The more concrete and uncomfortable the action, the stronger the Diderot Effect.
Gather Readers in Person
When a reader travels to an event and spends time surrounded by other people who share the identity your book represents, they go home changed.
They are supercharged to buy more books, sign up for courses, change their habits, and tell their friends. This isn't because the event gave them new information. It's because the event solidified an identity, and now everything in their lives has to align with it.
This is one reason I started the Novel Marketing Conference and why I structured it to maximize interaction. Information hits different in person than while doing dishes. Attending the conference creates a chain reaction that makes people say, “I am the kind of author who invests in my career. Now I need to upgrade my website, hire an editor, fix my covers, and build a real email list.”
Attendees tend to turn into professional authors.
Create a Membership Program
A membership program is a Diderot machine. The moment someone subscribes, they have committed to an identity. “I am a member of this community.” Canceling would mean admitting you are not really that person after all.
Patreon, Substack paid tiers, and direct-from-author memberships all work this way. The reader is not merely buying content. They are buying a tribal membership. And that feeling of belonging, once purchased, is very hard to return.
It works for fiction too. Authors who write serialized fiction often find a steady income from subscribers on Patreon or Ream Stories.
Give Your Readers a Name
When a reader becomes a fan, every new release becomes something they purchase because of WHO they are, not because of who you are or even what you wrote.
You know the Diderot Effect is working when readers name themselves, or take on a name you give them. So if your readers give themselves a group name, embrace it.
1. Embrace Their Goofy Name
Friend of the show Scott Sigler released his novels as free serialized podcasts with a cliffhanger at the end of every episode. His fans started calling his first book “EarthCrack” because waiting for the next episode felt like withdrawal. The name evolved into Junkies, and it stuck. Scott leans into it. He opens his episodes with “Hello, Junkies.” Junkies earn badges, and the most active forum members earn “Pusher” status. Those Junkies are a big reason he became a #1 New York Times bestseller.
You may find the name they pick a little goofy, but that doesn’t matter. It is more important that your readers like the name than you do.
2. Name Them Yourself
If your readers haven’t picked a name, give them one.
Matt Dinniman’s readers are Crawlers (after Dungeon Crawler Carl). Lee Child’s are Reacher Creatures (after the protagonist Jack Reacher). Anne Rice called hers the People of the Page, and Kristen Ashley built the Rock Chick Nation.
The best names describe what readers do. A Junkie comes back for the next fix. A Crawler goes down to the next floor. When the name describes the behavior, every new book asks the reader to live up to it.
Pick a short name your readers would actually say out loud. Then use it everywhere from your newsletter greeting, your acknowledgments, to your signature line.
3. Give Them a Name Inside Your Book
Take this concept deeper by building factions into your story and let readers choose one.
Readers of Harry Potter sorted themselves into Gryffindor and Slytherin. Readers of I wore Team Jacob and Team Edward shirts. When Brandon Sanderson's Dragonsteel ran a Kickstarter for the Words of Radiance leather-bound edition, backers picked one of 10 Radiant Orders, and that choice determined which pin, coin, and banner they got. The campaign raised nearly $10 million on a $2 million goal.
I picked Bondsmith, by the way. I will unite them.
You can’t force any of this. A name doesn’t create a fandom; the fandom creates the name. If you are not using Diderot Triggers, your readers will be unlikely to claim any name. So write the book that makes readers want more. Then give them a tribe to join.
Section 4: Putting It All Together
The key to leveraging the Diderot Effect is to start thinking about chain reactions of Diderot Triggers.
For fiction authors, the triggers are in the book:
- Put images of your other books on or in every book you sell
- Keep your trim sizes consistent across a series.
- Keep your cover designs visually unified.
- Consider spine art that creates a complete image across the series.
- Create premium editions that readers want to display.
- Write in series with strong read-through from book one.
For nonfiction authors, the triggers are in the reader:
- Give your readers a specific, uncomfortable action to take
- Create in-person experiences that deepen commitment.
- Build membership programs that reinforce belonging.
- Design each product to lead naturally to the next one.
You will know you’ve succeeded when your readers embrace a tribal name.
Warning: Use This Power for Good!
In the wrong hands, Diderot Triggers can become a form of manipulation. But in righteous hands, they can direct readers toward the good, true, and beautiful. So please use this powerful tool for good.
After Charlie Kirk was murdered, I realized hard times were ahead and that I needed to get healthy. I started trying to eat less.
Then came the Diderot Trigger. I purchased an Apple Watch and started tracking my movement. Then I started tracking my exercise. Then I got a calorie-tracking app and started tracking my food. Then I started tracking my weight. Then I started running the data past Grok for analysis. Then I started taking supplements like fiber and protein powder.
The inciting incident of Charlie Kirk’s death, followed by a Diderot Trigger, led to a cascade of decisions that has resulted in me losing more than 50 pounds over the last year. I still have a long way to go, but I am much healthier than I was.
And my identity has changed. I’m the kind of person who works out every day, not because I feel like it, but because I’m the kind of person who works out every day, and I don’t want to lose that identity. That is the Diderot Effect.
As you learn to work Diderot Triggers into your book, you just might see your sales surge.
Speaking of Diderot Triggers, there is one you could try to keep you writing even when you don’t feel like it. Become a paying patron of The Novel Marketing Podcast. You will be more likely to listen to the episodes if you are a patron. And the more you learn and write, the more you will write, not because you feel like it, but because you are a writer and writing is what writers do.
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