Podcast: From Reluctant Marketer to Successful Book Launch with Neroli Lacey
hosted by sue campbell
In this episode of the Write Anyway podcast, Sue Campbell interviews Neroli Lacey, an accomplished author known for her “delicious fiction for clever women.” They discuss the successful launch of Neroli's latest book, The Perfumer's Secret, covering her marketing strategies, the importance of building a brand and community, and the unexpected joys of marketing.
Neroli shares her journey from resisting marketing to embracing it, her experience with a hybrid publisher, and how she built a mailing list of over 3,000 subscribers. Additionally, they delve into the significance of a long-term vision for a writing career and the importance of balancing creative work with marketing efforts. The episode is rich with insights and actionable tips for both seasoned authors and aspiring writers.
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transcript
Anne Hawley: Indie Publishing can be a big job. If you wanna know about getting your book successfully out into the world, this episode is for you. Hello and welcome to the Write Anyway podcast from pages and platforms and the happily Ever Author Club today, Sue talks successful book launches with Neroli Lacey.
The author of Delicious Fiction for Clever Women, a role she's been training for her whole life as a journalist, Neroli wrote for all the great British newspapers, the Times, the Guardian, independent, et cetera. She's been an investment banker. She's traveled all over the world. She's the proud mother of two wildly spirited daughters and an adventurous stepson.
Nowadays, she and her husband divide their time between New York City at a medieval village in the south of France. Let's dive in
Sue Campbell: Neroli. Lacey, welcome to the Write. Anyway, podcast, I'm so excited to talk to you today. Sue. It is fantastic to be here. So Neroli is a long time client of mine, and we wanna talk about her book launch for The Perfumer’s Secret, which happened in February of 2025.
We're gonna talk about the marketing that she did, how many books she sold, how she's feeling about it all. We're also gonna talk about the amazing writer life that Neroli has managed to build for herself in hopes that it will inspire you to make little tweaks to your life to include more of your writing and prioritize your creativity so Neroli, why don't you start out by giving us the big picture of what you want for your career?
'cause I know you have a very specific vision, and The Perfumer’s Secret is pretty much like the first step in that vision.
Neroli Lacey: Yes, I'm definitely a career novelist and I want to keep publishing books, and more than anything, I want to keep improving who I am as a writer. You know, good writing is my great, great passion in life, so to keep learning and to keep on this journey and to keep it connected with the wonderful writers and marketeers that I meet.
That's my vision really. I've got a tagline, which is. Delicious fiction for clever women. And what I mean by that is at the end of a long day's work when your brain's a little bit tired. You want something that's nourishing and stimulating, but not too hard. So that is the space that I write in.
Sue Campbell: I love it so much.
So let's talk a little bit about the book launch for The Perfumer's Secret. You and I worked together on the launch. I provided guidance, but you did a lot of the implementation yourself. You also have a virtual assistant, so you had some help there, but why don't you give us the big picture of the launch and then let's cover anything that you think really made the difference for you.
Like what were the things that really moved the needle? We can get into some of those and after that we'll talk about what are the things that maybe didn't work as well that you wouldn't do it.
Neroli Lacey: Well, you got me started on building a brand, building a website. I started that probably two years before publication when I had signed with my hybrid publisher.
She writes, press, and you encouraged me to start a newsletter. Mm-hmm. So that's become a very important part of my life, actually. Amazingly, yes, for all sorts of reasons. I mean, it's doing really well. I've got over 3000 subscribers and it's still growing really fast. But more importantly, I have found my voice and it's hard work, but I really like writing it.
I spend. A lot of my time scavenging for the perfect books to recommend to my audience. And it means I don't watch TV at all anymore. Mm-hmm. Ever. Mm-hmm. Because I'm reading so much more. So that has actually impacted my life, you know, not just my career. And I love to think about why this is a great book for my audience.
So it's a sort of gift that gives back to me. And then I write also about fiction, nonfiction, and the author's life. It's really quite fascinating to find the right balance between being open, but also being a little bit upbeat. Mm-hmm. And I have discovered that I actually really love marketing and many writers hate marketing.
But the way I approached it was I would set myself a big task and then I would set. A tiny step every day and most days I didn't wanna take the tiny step and I did it anyway. Yeah. My confidence has really grown in my ability to do hard things. So that was the first thing, and that was way before publication.
I also wrote to all the writers that I know, including some rather big names, asking them to blurb my book. That was extremely hard. Mm-hmm. In particular, one who. Won the National Book Award and was a finalist in the Pulitz Surprise. And I, I was really squirming about that one, but he wrote me the most incredible blurb.
So that was another sort of discovery of just do it and let the universe bring back what it will bring back. Yes. When we, when we got closer to publication, I remember that the Advanced Reader copy arrived in a box. And I've got a friend in PR in London who's been telling me for a long time, you have got a bestseller here.
And I sort of resisted this. And when I opened the box and I put the book up in my apartment and I started to sort of think about it and look, look at it, and I suddenly thought, hang on a second, I've got something here. And so that was a sort of a moment when I started to really believe in this book.
And around that time, you and I had one of our many sessions. Mm-hmm. And you said to me, do you want to make money? Would you want to get the book into as many readers hands as possible? That turned out to be a very, very important. Decision, a very clarifying decision because I decided it wasn't about making money.
You can't make money on a first novel anyway. I mean, unless you are Kristen Hannah or something. So at that stage, I decided to try and go after many reviews on Amazon and I wrote to 400 people, which is really hard for me. I'm a big introvert. I'm a very sociable person, but I am an introvert. I wrote to 400 people.
I offered them a free ebook. I put it up through Book Funnel, which is a website service, and it was absolutely an amazing experience. The people I thought would never respond were incredibly supportive. People I thought would help me didn't I was very, very persistent. In following up, I sent four or six emails saying, this is exactly how you post a review.
Click this link, and so on. And. I was able to get, I've got, think I've got 135 right now on Amazon and we're only a few months out from publication and I, I, I think I very quickly had 75.
Sue Campbell: Yeah.
Neroli Lacey: Which was my target. So that was another exercise in putting myself out there and learning that. Actually I really like doing it.
And everywhere I go, I say to people, what do you do to relax? Lots of people say, I read and I say, well, would you like to copy The Perfumer's Secret and please would you post me a review? And it's a very nice exchange. Really. Yeah. You taught me to be generous that it's not about trying to get somebody to buy your book.
Mm-hmm. It's about being generous and being kind of, of service with your marketing. And I know a lot of writers who don't understand that, but that was a real gift that you gave to me, Sue.
Sue Campbell: And I wanna pause and talk about, because you're talking about how much you enjoy marketing and how much you are getting out of it.
And for a lot of writers out there, they're like, oh, she must just naturally be like that. That must be the way that she's always been. So, do you wanna talk a little bit about before you embarked on marketing and decided you were gonna do it, how did you think about it at the time?
Neroli Lacey: I mean, I had such huge resistance.
I had total imposter syndrome like everybody else. I'm from Britain. You know when you are English, if you don't emerge from the womb exactly like Jane Austen, you know, people think you shouldn't tackle it. And you know, my niece's husband is a very high powered literary agent. I mean, it's very, very intimidating kind of world that I come from in terms of literary excellence.
Mm-hmm. And I just put one foot in front of the other. And it's been an incredibly exciting journey and I feel like, you know, I come from a business background, so it's been exciting for me to sort of step into that part of my life.
Sue Campbell: Yeah.
Neroli Lacey: It didn't come naturally to me. It's been a growth journey, just like writing house.
Yeah. And it's been thrilling. I've really loved it.
Sue Campbell: That's fantastic. And it's very in line with what I see in people who are willing to. Have those uncomfortable feelings at the outset, right? They're willing to squirm a little when they ask for the review, when they ask for the blurb, and they actually find it really enriching in so many ways that are surprising.
So thank you for being such a great example of that.
Neroli Lacey: I was lucky to get a book, Bob Deal. Bob is a promotion. They send it out to, I think hundreds of thousands of readers at, at a discounted price. Mm-hmm. And that put me into the Amazon bestseller charts for a short while next to, honestly, Emily Henry, Kristin Hannah, Colleen Hoover.
I mean, it was crazy, but that was really fun. Just for a moment there. And now in a sort of wider sense, I'm using the book as a kind of calling card. It's kind of interesting, like. It's a way to start a conversation with people. It's a way to build relationships, and so that's great fun for me because I'm an introvert.
So that has been really exciting as a way to meet people and get out into the world. Yeah, so it's not only about selling books. Selling books is something, but there are many other facets to it that I'm discovering.
Sue Campbell: I completely agree, and most of the writers who I talk to, there are a lot of ways to make money that are easier than writing books, right?
And not that you can't, not that you can't make money, but when your motivation is grounded in these other things. I think it's easier and the money comes more naturally from that. But when you're really tensed up and wanna make money right out of the gate, I think it changes the energy around what you're doing with the market.
Neroli Lacey: That's what I find in a lot of my fellow writers. They're very uptight about selling books. Yeah. And I'm much more focused on, can I get my book into Rita's hands and can it start a conversation? Absolutely.
Sue Campbell: Well, let's talk about sales. 'cause I'm sure people are curious and you're willing to share, which is wonderful.
We need more transparency in this area. So your book launched February 11th, and then you got a report from She writes press as of roughly when
Neroli Lacey: I should have looked this up. I think it was end of April, probably. Okay. And by that stage, so that was February, March, three months I had sold. Over 2000 books.
Um, which is
Sue Campbell: to put it in context for everyone, a lot of hybrid published and self-published authors and even traditionally published authors do not sell that many books in the first year.
Neroli Lacey: Most books don't sell, if you look at the average of books. Yeah. Most books do not sell more than a thousand in the lifetime of the book.
Right. So my goal is to sell 10,000 books.
Sue Campbell: Exactly. And I'm on my way. You absolutely are. You absolutely are. And now we're in July and you don't even have the next report yet. So, uh,
Neroli Lacey: you know, it's a busy life and I haven't even checked my numbers,
Sue Campbell: which is also saying something that it's good, that you're not, like I'm so fixated on the numbers that I have to check them.
The instant that they come, the more we can have some of that detachment, it takes that pressure off and makes it more fun and more of a like big picture experience. Yeah. Anything else about the way you launched the book? Was there anything that you did that you wouldn't necessarily do again or anything where you're like, I'm gonna double down on that next time?
Neroli Lacey: It's been a very interesting ride publishing with Why hybrid publisher? She writes press. Mm-hmm. And the best thing about it has been that they encourage us to connect with other writers publishing in the same season. I have met the most incredible community of brilliant women writing fiction and memoir, and I've hosted a monthly Zoom group for my season of writers, and I find community to be an essential part.
I could not possibly do this on my own.
Sue Campbell: Yes, a hundred percent. I think it's a total myth that the writer is just this solitary creature you have. A team who is helping you produce the best book possible, and you have a community of writers who you're all lifting each other up, and that is how you have a good experience while you're doing this.
Neroli Lacey: And then I've learned about the importance of the cover and positioning the book with the cover. I won't say that's, that was an easy ride. I think the cover's fantastic. I think it's doing the job that I need it to do. Everybody loves the cover. It's not remotely the cover that I wanted. Mm-hmm. I was very upset about it and my family had to sort of talk me off the ledge.
So it was a good lesson in letting go as well. You know, when you go to publish a book with a publisher, it's actually not a collaborative process. You have no control whatsoever. About what's going on. So that's been a big learning curve for me as well. But there've been many, many advantages as well about working with a publisher instead of indie publishing.
Yes.
Sue Campbell: Fantastic. Well, let's talk a little bit about list growth, and then I wanna shift gears to talk about your writing life and the way you set yourself up your list building. The main way that we grew that email list from zero to almost three. What did you say? It's 3000 now. I think I'm 3,200 at the moment.
So we grew it from zero to 3,200 in under two years, and we weren't terribly aggressive, right? Mm-hmm. We had a small Facebook budget for Facebook ads, and originally you had a reader magnet that was talking about helping people find fiction, the same kind of fiction that you write. I wrote it quite quickly.
Mm-hmm. It was
Neroli Lacey: what to read next in women's fiction, and I picked out my 10 favorite books. But I did work quite hard to think about what to say about them. Yes. But I didn't invest a huge amount of time putting that together and it helped me to get started.
Sue Campbell: Yeah, absolutely. And you've been running that longer than you've been running now what you have, which is a novel, so most of the list was built on that reader magnet and a minimal Facebook ad budget.
And then now you basically took out a beautiful drawer novel and polished it up and you wanna talk a little bit about that?
Neroli Lacey: You encouraged me to do that and you said we would just test one against the other. So I took the first novel that I wrote, which I, I will be publishing later in this year. It's called Which Way Love.
And we just offer that you run an ad for me on Facebook and we offer this free novel and the list is kind of exploding. A lot of people are signing up for that, that is performing. Extremely well. Mm-hmm. And of course, in the traditional publishing world where I, I sit even with a hybrid publisher, the culture is very traditional.
Mm-hmm. That is an absolute no no. Giving away a novel that is just No. But, you know, I live a secret life. I, I'm, or I live a double life and I'm interested in the flexibility of indie publishing as well. I like to have a foot in both camps. It's really interesting to see how, well, I mean, the list is growing.
I get 300 new subscribers a month. I write my newsletter, but apart from that, it's effortless,
Sue Campbell: right? Yeah. You set it and forget it. Right? So we did the testing for you to figure out which of the images, which of the copies gonna work the best. Then we compared those two lead magnets against each other.
The novel was the breakout winner. So you're just set it and forget it. Your list is growing in the background while you write the newsletter and while you write the next book.
Neroli Lacey: Yeah, and I've got lots of ideas about how to get the newsletter to perform better, but those are ideas for the future. Right.
Sue Campbell: Also, I just wanna put in a little plug here, neroli lacey.com. If you go to the website, you can sign up for in Narrow Lee's newsletter.
Neroli Lacey: Maybe we could put a link in the show notes for any of your listeners who would like to have that novel. Sure. We would offer that to them. Sure, we can absolutely do that.
Sue Campbell: Okay, well this is a good chance to pivot, to talk about you writing the next book and your writing life. So one of the things that really impressed me when we started working together was your long-term vision of what you wanted your life to be like and your publishing career to be like a lot of people.
Are in the stage of their writing life where they don't really believe in possibility for the long term. They're kind of just like, I just need to work on this book. If I get this book done, maybe I'll believe there's a future for me doing this, which is understandable, but I think you are a great example that if you take a long-term approach, it actually provides this wonderful fuel for creating what you want, not just in your writing life, but in your whole structure of the way you do your days. So why don't you talk a little bit about your intentions behind it and then what that actually looks like for you.
Neroli Lacey: I have two previously written novels. This Perfumer’s Secret is actually the third one that I wrote. So I was in the lucky position to be coming in with three manuscripts.
One still needs a bit of revision. To make things a bit more complicated. I'm actually working on the fourth right now. But that's with your advice to write the next book in the series, because that's a better way to build visibility so that people who've like The Perfumer's Secret will like the Vineyard of Secret, which I'm currently working on.
Mm-hmm. So now I'm in that place of, I'm juggling different manuscripts at different stages of publication. I'm juggling the marketing and. It's a lot of things. I did have to sit down and think about what was the commonality between all the books that I'd written, and there definitely is a commonality.
You know, it's definitely a woman at a crossroads in her life making a major decision. They're all written in a literary fiction style, but they've got quite a fast plot to them, so they're delicious fiction for clever women.
Sue Campbell: Let's go a little bit further and talk about what did you want your life to look like as a writer.
In terms of just the way you operate within your day, because I know you've got your writing time, you've got your reading time, you've got your marketing time. You've really been thoughtful about what your day looks like while still having time to look after your family and travel and all of those things.
Neroli Lacey: What I'm learning is flexibility to be able to pivot, and I'm also learning to be mindful about what brings me joy. So in an ideal world, I'll be working on, you know, a new manuscript. I'll be marketing, I'll be reading, I'll be writing my newsletter, I'll be coming up with, I want to start doing video now.
Right now in my life, a family member really needs my help and I've had to really scale back on how much time I put into my career and. I'm learning to be okay with that. You know, I know a lot of writers who just get very upset and frustrated with that. Mm-hmm. So, given that my day has shrunk a little bit, just for these weeks and months, I've had to ask myself what really brings me joy?
And what brings me joy is creative writing. I'm amazed mm-hmm. In a way because the marketing is easier and the creative writing is a lot harder. Mm-hmm. Right now that is my absolute focus and my newsletter. I'm doing a few other things, so I try and prioritize creative writing first. Then my newsletter is an absolute priority 'cause I've got an audience of more than 3000 people depending on, and then the marketing in terms of selling more books, do run ads on Amazon for sales.
So I've got a few things sort of ticking away, but I try to prioritize and I try to understand. Fast dopamine and slow dopamine. Yeah. Like what's gonna bring me real satisfaction?
Sue Campbell: I don't know if everyone is familiar with that concept. I think it's very useful.
Neroli Lacey: Oh, we live in a world where we're sort of sucked into so many distractions on our phone, on Netflix and so on, and we get a sort of burst of, I don't know, relaxation perhaps from these easy things.
They don't really sat. That's fast dopamine, like you get a hit of a good brain chemical, right? For me, producing two daily pages of creative writing, that's a mountain I climb every day, but that's slow dopamine. That gives me a real feeling of satisfaction. I created a little exercise a few weeks ago before I write my two pages.
I write one line, I write before, and then I write how I feel. All the reasons why it's not gonna work. Today is usually what comes out. And then after I write after, and then I write the joy, the excitement. And so that little exercise is training me that every day when I sit down and I don't want to write my pages, I'm doing something that is going to bring me great satisfaction and joy.
Yeah. It's the step, step step that builds something. Yes. And I'm also. Pretty interested in the idea of writing and reading. There's a big study that's just come out from MIT about how using AI to write anything is making us very dumb. It's fast food for the brain, and so writing is a struggle for me every day, even though I've been a writer for many, many, many years.
And also it makes me smarter and stronger, so I wanna do it.
Sue Campbell: Yes. That is such a beautiful, healthy attitude. The other thing that I think is really tied in with that is something you mentioned earlier about how through the marketing and through the writing, you've built confidence in yourself to do the thing you said you were going to do.
And I think that's really tied to that long dopamine payoff. If there's a way where I could just feel better right now. By opening Instagram and watching a cat video, and I'm instead choosing to keep my word to myself to sit down in your case, do your two pages, and that is such a deeper level of satisfaction because you've produced something instead of consumed something, and because you have honored, you followed through to a promise to yourself.
Neroli Lacey: Yes, and I'm thinking about this a lot at the moment. And another thing that's maybe a little different, but maybe a bit aligned with this is that because I have this big community of writers who published in the similar season to me, and I run these zooms, so I'm watching and I'm seeing where other writers are and the writer's life changes before publication.
At publication, there's a burst of euphoria. The euphoria afterwards, you get this incredible burst of attention from thousands of people you didn't know we're gonna pay you attention. And I think that we have to continually ask ourselves, why am I doing this? What meaning does it have for me? And continually be flexible and pivot.
I mean, I've certainly seen writers whose books are not selling, getting very, very despondent. To me, that would be an opportunity to really ask myself, why do I write? What joy does it bring me? What am I really trying to achieve here? So I think we have to be a little bit mindful, even, you know, with the success that I'm having about what's my personal why for doing this.
Sue Campbell: A hundred percent. And you've been through Goal Getter School, one of my programs, right? One of the first things that we start with in that five step goal setting process is what is your why? And it has to be strong enough to override all the uncomfortable things you're gonna face. And a good why also has this mix of long-term and short-term.
So I'm Why is because when I show up and I do my pages that day, I feel amazing and accomplished. And when I ultimately hold my book in my hand, I feel amazing and accomplished. And a lot of writers are like thinking they're gonna beat themselves up on the way to feeling amazing and accomplished, and that's not how it works.
We've gotta seek out the pleasure and, and honor that why every single day to get where that goalpost is.
Neroli Lacey: One thing that I, we haven't covered, Sue, is how important you have been in my journey. You have been absolutely central and essential, and you've been a just right coach for me because you pushed me quite hard, but not too hard.
You, well, you did push me too hard. Perfect. But you get me totally. And it's been an absolute. Thrilled to work with you, and I find you so exciting, so informed, so clever, so personable, and you've met me where I'm at at every possible stage and you've just pushed me just a little bit harder and it's just a total thrill to work with you.
And if any of you are out there and are having the slightest doubt, this is the best. Game in the universe. So you gotta work with Sue. She's amazing.
Sue Campbell: Oh, thank you Narly so much. I have been so thrilled working with you as well because of your commitment, your commitment level to making your journey. I don't even like to use the word journey 'cause it's so overused at this point, but you are crafting a very intentional life.
For yourself, and I always wanna support that. I always wanna go all in on helping people realize that. And your commitment to doing the mindset work and the growth work that is a part of that. I feel like we are very, very well matched for many of those reasons because we both understand the mindset work that has to go into getting that result that everybody says that they want.
Neroli Lacey: I know a 65-year-old woman from cold, rainy England, and there's. You know, kicks, hit. Woman from Portland, Oregon, and here we are meeting in the middle and making magic together. What could I say?
Sue Campbell: It's brilliant. Thank you so much Neroli for your time today. We'll let you get back to writing and writing your fabulous newsletter.
Check Neroli out at nerolilacey.com. We'll put links in the show notes.
Neroli Lacey: Thank you so much, Sue. It's been such fun talk. My pleasure.
Anne Hawley: Neroli's novel, The Perfumer's Secret has been praised as an utterly captivating story by a hugely wise and talented novelist. You can find it wherever you buy books, and you can learn more about neroli@nerolilacey.call if you'd like a weekly dose of writing, insight, and mindset and marketing tips in your inbox.
Subscribe to the Write Anyway newsletter@pagesandplatforms.com slash subscribe. And that's it for this episode of the Write. Anyway podcast, thanks for joining us. We'll see you next time.