Called to Write: Sell 1,000 Books with Susan Neal

This post was adapted from Writing Off Social: The Podcast, Episode 70. You can listen in here!

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How One Writer Built a Thriving Author Career Without Chasing the Algorithm

Listening to Susan talk about the writing life, it’s impossible not to feel the weight—and the gift—of being called to write. She speaks about the work of Christian authors with the same reverence someone might use for ministry, reminding us that writing isn’t just creative work or business strategy. It’s obedience. It’s stewardship. It’s a calling that shapes how we approach our craft and how we persevere when God seems to redirect our steps.

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Building Your Foundation Before You Build Your Platform

Susan describes herself as “the healthy living lady author.” For years, God’s assignment for her was clear: write books that inspire people to improve their health so they can serve Him better. Then in 2021, God redirected her path. “He gave me a new mission,” she said, “to help Christian authors get their books into the hands of more readers to further the kingdom of God.”

One of the first things she teaches authors is that everything starts with a solid foundation—not marketing tactics. “It’s like having a foundation in Christ,” she explained. Before you focus on selling, ask:

• Who am I as a writer?
• What genre am I called to?
• Where has God opened doors?
• Where has He closed them?

Susan herself tried devotionals and Chicken Soup stories but received “no, no, no, no, no.” She now sees those rejections as divine redirection toward her background in nursing and health science—expertise God wanted her to use in her writing.

Why You Need a Writing Community

Most of your family and friends won’t understand why you write. That’s normal. “This is a crazy career that you don’t make hardly any money and it takes lots of time,” Susan laughed. “But it’s eternal.”

To support that calling, she recommends finding a Christian writing community, such as Word Weavers. She’s in two groups and brings 1,500 words to each monthly—meaning 3,000 of her words get peer-edited before they ever become a book. That level of accountability shapes excellent writing, and excellent writing is what sells.

Email Over Everything

Using Lead Magnets to Build Your List

At Writing Off Social, we’re big believers in the power of email—and Susan is too! One of the most important early marketing steps, she says, is creating a lead magnet that directly connects readers to your book.

Two of her best examples:

• glutenintolerancequiz.com — a quiz that pairs with her book on gluten sensitivity
• candiquiz.com — a quiz that ties into her book Seven Steps to Get Off Sugar and Carbohydrates

Each quiz addresses a real question readers have and funnels naturally into the book that helps them go deeper. No complicated funnels. No gimmicks. Just a clean, obvious path.

Creating a One-Year Email Automation

Susan has a full one-year email sequence for each quiz, but she didn’t write it in a weekend. It took ten months, and she approached it slowly and intentionally:

• Wrote four short emails (300–350 words each)
• Added a calendar reminder two months later
• Repeated until she had 12 months of nurturing content

“You can’t do everything at once,” she reminded us. “It’s a journey. It’s a marathon. Don’t get overwhelmed.”

Growing Your Audience Without Being Online

Start With Writers Conferences

Writers conferences are one of Susan’s favorite offline marketing tools. As director of the Blue Lake Christian Writers Conference, she designs her event around three core values:

• Spiritual depth (morning spiritual stretch)
• Healthy living (walk around the lake and nutritious meals)
• Intentional community (campfires, s’mores, poetry slams)

The conference is small—about 135 people—which invites relationships, not overwhelm. “It’s not all about knowledge,” she said. “Relationships are important.” Conferences open the door to connections with fellow authors, publishers, podcast hosts, and influencers.

Why Endorsements and Influencers Still Matter

Susan encourages authors to be intentional about seeking endorsements. And the best place to get them? In person. After seeing your face, hearing your story, and understanding your message, influencers are much more likely to say yes. She recommends making a list of 25 potential endorsers and expecting around 8–10 yeses. The rest will be no’s—and that’s normal.

She also differentiates endorsements from editorial reviews, which come from organizations like Publishers Weekly. Many editorial reviews are paid, and she provides comparison charts through her associations to help authors evaluate their options.

Why You First 50 Reviews Matter More Than You Think

Susan’s honest about how hard reviews can be. “It’s like pulling teeth,” she admitted. It took her two years to get 50 reviews for Seven Steps to Get Off Sugar and Carbohydrates. But hitting that threshold changed everything:

• Before 50 reviews: slow, painful progress
• After 50 reviews: reviews came in organically

Those first 50 signal credibility. They tell readers, “This book is worth your time and money.”

Susan’s approach is simple:

• Build a launch team of 100–125 people
• Ask them to buy the discounted Kindle version on launch day
• Ask them to read 20–25% so their review is verified
• Track responses in a spreadsheet
• Follow up at 1 month, 2 months, and 3 months
• Ask anyone who emails with kind words to copy/paste those words into an Amazon review

This straightforward approach is equal parts relational and effective.

Things Most Authors Overlook (But Shouldn’t)

Awards can be surprisingly powerful. After Susan won first place in the Selah Awards, her sales jumped from 50 books a month to 250—and then to 400 as she did more interviews. She adds award emblems to her covers and mentions wins in her Amazon descriptions.

She also sends press releases to local newspapers—a strategy many authors skip entirely. Her press releases have landed her in local media multiple times.

Where to Find Media Opportunities

One of Susan’s best recommendations is the National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) Convention. If you attend with an association that has a booth, you receive the media list—over 100 outlets. Susan once dropped off her media kit at the TCT booth, and months later, they invited her to appear on their show. She has since been interviewed again, this time via Zoom.
For bookstore visibility, she suggests the Christian Product Expo.

For the Introverts Among Us

If conferences, booths, and interviews feel overwhelming, Susan understands. “A lot of the things we talked about, extroverts love,” she said. For introverts, she recommends:

• Guest blogging
• Writing for magazines
• Using written visibility rather than live events

Her book even includes a chapter on marketing based on your personality—very much in line with our belief that God designed you with purpose, strengths, and preferences that should shape your marketing.

“Don’t Give Up”

We closed our conversation by asking what she would say to an author who feels discouraged. Her answer was sincere and comforting. She still experiences rejection today. She has self-published eight of her ten books. Those early “no’s” didn’t mean failure—they meant redirection.

“You don’t know which book is going to sell,” she reminded us. Her first two books didn’t sell much, but they were “great practice”—the early pancakes of her writing life. And then she said something we haven’t stopped thinking about:

“The biggest thing is don’t give up. Failure is when you give up before you succeed.”

As Christian writers, we’re not just selling books; we’re, as a friend of Mary Kathryn’s once said, “paper missionaries.” Our work has eternal impact. And there are so many meaningful, relational, God-honoring ways—far beyond social media—to get our message into the hands and hearts of readers.

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This post was reformatted from our original transcript by ChatGPT and edited for accuracy by Mary K.