I wanted a catchy title for this post about marketing from a
self-published author who has not yet “gone viral”. Whenever I find a book
about self-publishing or marketing I always check to see how the author’s book
is doing. If they can’t sell their own book on how to sell books, then I won’t
buy it. With that said, I have not figured out the magic formula to sell a
bunch of books, but I will share my experiences here as they come. Marketing is
not one of my passions, but writing is. The self-published author has got to be
their own promoter, so whether you like marketing or not, it is necessary, or
your book can easily become lost among the millions of other books on Amazon.
Here are some things I’ve done to help promote my book and some things I’ve
learned along the way:
- One of my strategies is to remember that this is all about the long haul. I didn’t start reading the Harry Potter series until the fourth book was out in stores. There are many authors and series I didn’t discover until they already had numerous books out. I started the Divergent series when books one and two were already out and I have not rushed out to buy book #3. I loved the first two books, but I just haven’t been in the right mood to read the third. When was I in the right mood? Immediately after I read book #2. So, with that said, one of my strategies will be that I won’t spend very much money promoting my books until I have one or two completed series.
- I joined Twitter and Facebook and did not see any sales directly related to this. Is this a waste of time? I don’t think so. Because this is all about the long haul, I can see how these platforms will help authors who have gained a following. In the meantime, I have met some amazing authors and beta readers. This is a great place to see what other authors are doing and what seems to be working for them. Personally, I brush over posts saying “buy my book, buy my book”, but I pay attention to the things that do catch my eye throughout the social media overload and try to figure out what caught my eye in the first place. There is something in these posts that is able to stand out among the flood of promotions so pay attention and figure out what your thing is so you can stand out too.
- I really enjoyed this article and this article about free and cheap book advertising. I tried a $10 Awesomegang.com ad and did not see any sales. I also tried a free ReadCheaply ad and saw four sales the same day the ad ran. Read the guidelines carefully. Some places only let you run an ad if your book is below a certain price.
- Paying it forward. While I can’t directly link this to any sales, I firmly believe that if you want other people to do things for you, you have to be willing to do the same for other people. Beta read for someone. You can learn so much by being on the other end of things. Do you support other authors? If you like another authors work, let other people know about it. Treat fellow authors how you would like to be treated.
- I’m currently reading How to Market a Book by Joanna Penn. I haven’t gotten very far into the book, but I would already recommend it for strategies from an actual expert. On top of all of the other things we writers have to do (blogging, social media, marketing, and fitting in time to actually write) we have to keep reading and learning. I try to read about marketing and writing because we can always improve.
Oh my, that felt like a lot. Like I said before, I don’t
have any magic formulas, but I hope there is something in here that another
writer can gain from. I would love to hear from fellow authors. Is there something I left out? Something that has worked for you that you'd like to share?
Thanks for reading and happy writing!
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