Support for Indie Authors discussion

I began writing a blog as soon as my first book was published. I'm at my ninth post within 6 weeks. Tonight, one of my most highly-esteemed colleagues shared some statistical analysis that revealed that blogging really doesn't work. (Was I surprised? Not really. I only have eight readers who've chosen to read my blogs anyway.)

I'm new to marketing. I want to market smarter. I don't have a very significant budget, and my time is limited. So far, it seems that speaking to friends has gotten me sales, but not much else has resulted in sales. Even when I had a really encouraging review of my work this past week (I was overjoyed, sincerely), I had very few residual sales to speak of.

How do you put yourself out there so people can separate your work from the masses demanding their hard earned cash? I don't mean that to sound money-hungry, but certainly a successful career as an author would be wonderful. And I feel very strongly that the book is good and could relate to quite a few readers if they knew about it. (And though it is my only book released, I have another coming shortly.) I know that if I could just find a way to draw an audience, I could put my focus right where I want it, on writing the next good book to share.

Thank you for any advice you're willing to share.

Hi Iffix----I have the same questions you do. I came to Goodreads because posting to all these groups on Facebook was not working. I am trying out different things to see what works and what doesn't. I have to say I really like the people on Goodreads---they are nice and helpful. I will share any strategy that appears to work. :)

Thanks, Steve.

Just keep writing. More books will always equal more sales.

There is no magic bullet and the odds are against all of us as far as making a living goes. No matter how many times this question is asked, that isn't going to change. I will suggest, as I did to the last person who asked, that you look through these threads. There have been a number of suggestions as to what may work. I suggest trying one or two, giving it some time, and if they don't work, try something else. Just keep in mind that not everything works for everyone.

Thanks, Christina.

I'm in exactly the same boat as you, Iffix. Sales have been to friends and family - I can't find a way to break out of that dismal demographic. I've been interviewed by two newspapers (neither piece have come out yet), but I am hopeful that may jump start a local following. I'm also scheduled to do a couple of reading/signings at book stores this weekend. I will let you know how that goes.

Fingers crossed.

Iffix wrote: "Thanks, Christina."

I appreciate your question Iffux as I am worried about the same! My frustration comes from the unknown and also the fact that I rather just spend my time writing!!!! Out of the thousands of authors out there only a small number actually make huge profits off their work. It's a long process so patience is needed to figure out what works for you and your book. Wish you the best!

Christina wrote: "Just keep writing. More books will always equal more sales."

I second that! Okay, mainly because this is my strategy - just write, write, write, write. I write a lot of different types of stories in the hopes that I will net more readers by giving people a variety to choose from. I am trying to build a fan base before I start putting out major works.

Keep writing!

And the second best bit of advice I can come up with is to make sure everything you publish is ready to be published. I see a lot of people putting thought into their blurbs, their covers and so on and when I look at their stories I can see they didn't focus enough on that. People will not continue to buy your work if the one thing they buy is not ready for publication. Study the craft, study the language. Edit, edit, edit. And then do some more editing. And if your editing skills are poor, hire an editor. Have people read your work and give you feedback. Then write and edit and edit and edit some more.

Iffix wrote: "I'm new to marketing. I want to market smarter. I don't have a very significant budget, and my time is limited..."

First, where is your book available now? I clicked on the Amazon link of its page here on GR, but that didn't bring anything up.

Next: Keep in mind that I'm the guy who spend time rationalizing why not marketing is OK. So for what's it's worth -- and I know it may sound heretical -- this is my advice.

Release your next book. Start doing research: How well do books like your sell and in what formats and thru which outlets? What can you find out about potential readers? Where do they congregate? Are they social or not? If they are social, reach out to them, here on GR, thru your blog and elsewhere. Try to get word-of-mouth going -- that's the main way I think new authors sell.

If you decide to go with Amazon, given KDP Select a try, and see how KU does for you. I suggest giving it 6 months -- 3 months means very little, if you are a new author. Keep in mind the 1-mo & 3-mo new release cycle on Amazon. (Also, as I mentioned in another post, internal traffic seems to be the main sales driver on Amazon.)

Evaluate the response to your book[s]. Experiment with keywords. Adjust your blurb, if needed. Let the reviews come in naturally. Release another book (if that's in your plan). Once you have 3 or more books out there, you might try targeting paid ads, depending on the response.

To market smartly, you need to get "smart" about your genre and your potential audience and that takes time. In 2 years, you will know a lot more than you do now. So, in my view, the most important thing about marketing is don't let it become a distraction. Selling books is hard. Some books (very few) strike a nerve and take off; most don't. They grow slowly, if at all. There are no magic bullets. A book may have every virtue and still not click.

The bitter pill is that, at first, any form of marketing an author can do (outside of generating word-of-mouth) tends to be quite low return. And if it's low return, that makes it hard to tell what the effect was. You might try something (Twitter for example), and see a mild sales bump, but was it due to Twitter or a random event? At small numbers, there's no way to know. It takes time to build up a pattern that reveals actually trends -- and unfortunately, by the time one gets enough data, things can change, that change the "rules". So it's also a moving target. Marketing methods, in general act to support success that has been already achieved -- they rarely create success.

The best I think you can do is take whatever free steps you have time for. Note the results and learn about your market, and -- above all -- write. Nothing sells your last book like your next book.

Dwayne wrote: "And the second best bit of advice I can come up with is to make sure everything you publish is ready to be published. I see a lot of people putting thought into their blurbs, their covers and so on and when I look at their stories I can see they didn't focus enough on that. People will not continue to buy your work if the one thing they buy is not ready for publication. Study the craft, study the language. Edit, edit, edit. And then do some more editing. And if your editing skills are poor, hire an editor. Have people read your work and give you feedback. Then write and edit and edit and edit some more."

I'm with you on this one, Dwayne. I will admit that though I proofread my first book heavily, I could have likely benefited from more beta readers. I'm experimenting a little more with that for my next book.

Owen wrote: "First, where is your book available now? I clicked on the Amazon link of its page here on GR, but that didn't bring anything up.
"

Holy ****! Goodreads gave me a dead-link to other books named Impulse on Amazon!

I'm going to add a much more brief note to my text wall, to illustrate one aspect of marketing. What we think we've learned in 2 years is that our readers do not want to be marketed to. So marketing to them is basically a waste of time, and in fact might be counterproductive.

But from what I've heard from some romance authors I've talked to, romance readers are much more social and there seems to be a large and more cohesive on-line community thru which to get books noticed.

If this is true, then it would be beneficial for new romance authors to try to tap into this community. But if you write in our genre, you are better off just writing and ignoring marketing until you have a substantial readership.

Owen wrote: "I'm going to add a much more brief note to my text wall, to illustrate one aspect of marketing. What we think we've learned in 2 years is that our readers do not want to be marketed to. So marketin..."

And if I am not mistaken then, Owen, my genre is the kiddy version of your genre. Perhaps it would be wise for me to do the same, at leastfor now.

Iffix wrote: "And if I am not mistaken then, Owen, my genre is the kiddy version of your genre. Perhaps it would be wise for me to do the same, at least for now..."

We write (mostly) military sci-fi. Your book, I got the impression is more YA or younger? If so, I might guess that parents are involved. And where there are parents, I suspect there are groups that chat. And if you can find them, that might be helpful.

But, partly echoing what Dwayne said, I still think there is much virtue in waiting, researching, learning and trying things. A lot of marketing efforts seem to be going off half-cocked. This being a long game, why rush into anything before you're good and ready?

True. Thanks for the feedback.

Iffix wrote: "Dwayne wrote: "I'm with you on this one, Dwayne. I will admit that though I proofread my first book heavily, I could have likely benefited from more beta readers. "

Thank you. I didn't do well in tying what I was saying to your topic, did I? I tend to think the best marketing is word-of-mouth. If people get excited about your writing, they'll tell others. While other forms of marketing can be helpful, nothing sells your book better, I think, than making sure the writing is solid. You want readers to come back for the next book. You want them to tell their friends.

Very true, and don't worry too much. I need all the good advice I can get.

Quote "Study the craft, study the language. Edit, edit, edit. And then do some more editing. And if your editing skills are poor, hire an editor. Have people read your work and give you feedback. Then write and edit and edit and edit some more."

Amen and amen. I am about to make a collection of all the editing guides I use, mostly gotten from Grammar Girl and other on verious subjects, like punctuation and capitalization rules, and other head scratching things you encounter when you need to edit. If you are interested, let me know. I can email it to you.

If you need an editor, I am available at a very reasonable price, and I am obsessive about getting it right.

Morris

Dwayne wrote: "Study the craft, study the language. Edit, edit, edit. And then do some more editing. And if your editing skills are poor, hire an editor. Have people read your work and give you feedback. Then write and edit and edit and edit some more."

But what about editing? Shouldn't we do that as well? I mean, after we finish editing, that is.

Micah wrote: "But what about editing? Shouldn't we do that as well? I mean, after we finish editing, that is. "

Yes. You should edit before and after editing.

Dwayne wrote: "Micah wrote: "But what about editing? Shouldn't we do that as well? I mean, after we finish editing, that is. "

Yes. You should edit before and after editing."



And then proof.

Charles wrote: "And then proof."

Don't forget to edit your proof while you proof your edit!

C.B. wrote: "Don't forget to edit your proof while you proof your edit!"

And then prove that you proofed and offer edict that you've edited.

What is proved? What is edicted? I'm tired of being prodded; you're all evicted. :P

Lots of very good advice here. I have recently started proofing by reading out aloud. It forces me to stop skipping over parts so I pick up more typos and the odd 'that doesn't sound right' piece.

Nearly all my sales are because I carry copies around with me. As for marketing, the only way I do it is by giving talks to people who might like my efforts. Find your target audience and tell them about your book.
If you have a personal story to tell, it helps.Some folk like to know about the author of books they read.
Good luck.

I don't have any advice, but since I published my book this month, I'm spending about an hour a day doing Promo. Researching promo sites, requesting reviews, posting on FB pages that share my interests, etc. Then I go over to my KDP site & find I haven't sold any books in a few days and my author rank is in the minus 10K rank.
That's an idea what NOT to do!! Obsessing over sales & rank will just make us discouraged, lower our self esteem and wonder "why did we bother?".
So when I see that only ONE person bought the book, I need to tell myself "I'm not in this to get rich...I just want a few people to read & enjoy the book."

L. wrote: "That's an idea what NOT to do!! Obsessing over sales & rank will just make us discouraged, lower our self esteem and wonder "why did we bother?"."

Sound advice. I think a lot of us (I know this is true of me) obsess over our graphs and sales when we first start publishing. I used to look at it about every twenty minutes when I could. NO MORE! Now it's once every couple of days or less.

L. wrote: "So when I see that only ONE person bought the book, I need to tell myself "I'm not in this to get rich...I just want a few people to read & enjoy the book." "

Exactly. I just keep putting my energy in the writing and not worry about where the next sale is coming from.

Hi Everyone! I am a new author, too, and I have to agree that one of the best comments here is to KEEP WRITING. The best marketing you can do is to produce more work that is well written and well edited.

Recently I learned about a couple of book marketing services that I think are interesting - although I have not tried them yet. DRC Promotions http://www.drcpromotions.com/ and Xpresso Book Tours http://xpressobooktours.com/. These two were specifically recommended to me but I've also done a search for "virtual book tours" and there are plenty to choose from!

Using relevant keywords can also help increase visibility. If you establish a Google Ad Words account, under their "Tools" menu, there is a "Keyword Planner" that can help you determine the best keywords to use to reach your audience. I changed several of the 7 keywords allowed on my book listings on Amazon KDP and have seen a small uptick in sales- it has only been a week since I changed them.

Hope these tidbits help!

Dwayne wrote: "L. wrote: "That's an idea what NOT to do!! Obsessing over sales & rank will just make us discouraged, lower our self esteem and wonder "why did we bother?"."

Sound advice. I think a lot of us (I k..."

YES. I know it's highly unlikely that I'll get rich from this, but I don't care. I want to share my stories with the world. Now, if I suddenly became a bestselling author, I'd take it. But I'm not in this for that. ;)

Well, my monthly quota just doubled in one day, and I don't know why. The only thing I did different in the past 24 hours was mock Fred in my blog. I shall remember to mock him again.

Iffix wrote: "I shall remember to mock him again."

Yes, do. You were too nice this time. Writing should not be painful.

Lol. Thanks for the like, by the way.

Iffix wrote: "Owen wrote: "First, where is your book available now? I clicked on the Amazon link of its page here on GR, but that didn't bring anything up.
"Holy ****! Goodreads gave me a dead-link to other b..."

The kindle edition doesn't show on goodreads. It shows one edition with an ISBN (but the ISBN on amazon.com has a "-" after the 978). the other edition says "alternate cover edition" and doesn't have an ISBN. That probably affects the link. The buy links I have all do a search for "Impulse" instead of the kindle ASIN or ISBN. Maybe ask the goodreads librarian group to fix?

I had the issue w/ the main book fixed a few days ago, but I will investigate further.

Dwayne wrote: Now it's once every couple of days or less.

Me, I look at sales once a month, and mainly for accounting reasons. However, if you leave it this long, you are more likely to get a pleasant surprise, or less likely to get annoyed, or, if you do get annoyed, at least it is only once per month.

You need to create a core readership, small group of fans of people that love your work. 10, 15, 20. Keep them engaged, they will help you build those number so long as you are writing and producing great content. Then the aim is to aim for 100 core fans, etc. Each true fan is a potential marketer that would do the most important thing of all 'spreading the message via word of mouth'.
Secondly as popular as sites like goodreads, facebook twitter etc are, they are all flavours of the month on somebody else's platform. If your whole campaign and book promo is based on that, what if these platforms became obsolete tomorrow. How will you connect with your readers.
The best thing is to build an email list of true loyal fans that want to know more about your work. It will be slow but at least you know that you are writing for them.
That after every book you have a fan base of 100, 200 etc that are looking forward to your book.
So if all these platforms that you have no control over disappear (like myspace did and many musician were left feeling lost) you would still have a direct line to your readers.
I am on that journey of building my core fans base. One person at a time, it will not happen overnight.

one thing you can do to draw people to the blog, and then your book, is clever keywording on each post.

that hasn't worked for me on my novel, but it has helped me get viewers to one of my blogs.

Promote promote promote! Continue to use your facebook page and share everything about your writing. It might seem like you're annoying people and you might be actually annoying some, but you have to keep doing it regardless. Join several groups on here. Read their books, make connections, promote within the groups that allow you to promote. Use twitter, tweet your work, retweet others work. Reach out to different review groups and ask them to review your work. Author spotlights, any and everything you can do, do it! And of course... Continue to write!

Christian wrote: "Promote promote promote! Continue to use your facebook page and share everything about your writing. It might seem like you're annoying people and you might be actually annoying some, but you have ..."

I fall in with the views expressed here: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

It's interesting from the buyer's perspective. Here on Goodreads, if I am looking at a book I enjoyed and I see a book ad for a similar book, I'm more inclined to investigate, but when I see it on Facebook, interrupting my friends' posts, I'm put off, so I can see your point. I think, as with the advertisement on the road, it's location, location, location.