I recently attended the US Book Show, and one statistic really stuck with me—80% of book sales come from backlist titles. Backlist discoverability has become one of publishing’s biggest priorities, yet there’s still so much opportunity that’s being slept on. Since coming home, I’ve been thinking about how AdBiblio can help make that process easier, more strategic, and more affordable. Here’s how we can help…
Finding the Right Moment
The way I’ve come to think of backlist is not as “old books,” but as books waiting for their next moment. Every month brings new seasonal interests, holidays, cultural moments, and reader trends that can make a backlist title feel timely again. One example shared at the US Book Show was Red Rising by Pierce Brown. As excitement builds for the next Dune movie, readers have been searching for similar books to fill the gap, giving Red Rising a surge of new attention years after it was first published. The challenge isn’t finding books to promote—it’s knowing which books to promote and when.
That’s something we think about every day at AdBiblio… We’re always watching trends and tracking reader interests to help publishers tap into the best times to run a campaign. Honestly, I’d love it if a publisher emailed me at the start of the month and asked “Which three to five backlist titles should we be promoting this month?” We enjoy following these trends and uncovering audience insights, so helping great books find their next readers is genuinely so much fun for us.
Discoverability Doesn’t End at Launch
My twins are starting Pre-K this fall, so I’ve been on the hunt for SEL picture books. And because my son is currently obsessed with dinosaurs, my searches look more like “T. rex books that teach empathy” or “funny dinosaur books about sharing” than simply “picture books.” Those kinds of specific, natural-language searches are only becoming more common, especially as AI search grows. As that shift continues, publishers will need to think beyond traditional metadata. The more descriptive your messaging, keywords, comps, and creative are, the easier it becomes for readers—and AI—to discover your backlist titles.
But of course, all of that takes time—something most marketers don’t have enough of. That’s where we can help. Every AdBiblio campaign can include free custom banners, native ads, and book trailers designed in house that publishers can repurpose across places like Edelweiss, Amazon, B&N, social media, and more. We can also refresh your messaging, identify timely comp titles, and create AI-friendly videos with on-screen text to help maximize discoverability.
A Little Goes a Long Way
I’d say one of the most important points from the US Book Show was that backlist marketing doesn’t have to mean a massive relaunch. Even small, consistent efforts can make a real difference. Our custom campaigns start at just $1,500, making it easy to keep your backlist in front of readers without a huge investment.
The AdBiblio carousel ad is another simple way to get the most bang for your buck. Instead of promoting a single title, you can showcase multiple books in one campaign, with each title featuring its own image, copy, and landing page. It’s an easy way to highlight books around seasonal moments, awareness months, or new releases by the same author.
Think Beyond Book Buyers
Once someone falls in love with a genre, they’re constantly building their collection, and it doesn’t matter whether a book is brand new or an old favorite. That’s why backlist marketing can be so effective. Instead of trying to create interest from scratch, you’re putting established great books in front of readers who are already looking for what’s next.
It reminds me of a backlist campaign we ran with Sourcebooks. Rather than promoting a single title, we spotlighted six historical fiction novels by Marie Benedict and Kim Michele Richardson and reached readers who were already passionate about historical fiction. We also expanded into adjacent audiences, like viewers of period dramas, which became one of the campaign’s strongest-performing audience segments. That’s exactly the kind of audience overlap we love identifying—readers who may not be searching for books, but are already engaging with the same themes, stories, and genres across other forms of media.
Great books don’t stop being relevant after launch; they simply need the right audience, the right moment, and sometimes a fresh way to be discovered. If you’ve got backlist titles that are ready to shine again, let’s talk! You can find me at marybeth@adbiblio.com.
