Help for a shy person D:

Welcome to the forums!

E-book marketing is not for the faint of heart. There are so many self-pubbed books being offered now that leaving success to the mercy of your sales platform alone will be insufficient.

Successful authors I know spend a great deal of time and effort at social media activities (twitter, facebook, and all the rest), blogging (of their own and in concert with others - reviewing other authors, interviewing other authors and being interviewed) so that sales platforms and search engines take notice of their works.

Formatting your work for all the "major" platforms will help insure against losing sales to people who "don't use that reader". Query your e-book platform(s) about circulation to international customers.

In addition, personal appearances (radio, youtube, bookstore readings if you are in-print, festivals, etc.) are used to create a more real-life presence to potential readers.

This is entirely different to having a publisher do the majority of the marketing work for you (and being paid primarily up-front, instead of solely per-copy).

Those who I see being "successful" (selling daily and selling sequels and/or subsequent works) have their own marketing style and an indefatigable drive to find/reach Their audience.

The only two things that have ever worked for me to bring in more sales are A) writing and releasing more books and B) offering something free for a limited time on Kindle.

Hi there! Welcome to Absolute Write! I sympathize with you; I'm really shy myself.

SWest said:

Successful authors I know spend a great deal of time and effort at social media activities (twitter, facebook, and all the rest), blogging (of their own and in concert with others - reviewing other authors, interviewing other authors and being interviewed) so that sales platforms and search engines take notice of their works.

Formatting your work for all the "major" platforms will help insure against losing sales to people who "don't use that reader". Query your e-book platform(s) about circulation to international customers.

In addition, personal appearances (radio, youtube, bookstore readings if you are in-print, festivals, etc.) are used to create a more real-life presence to potential readers.

This is entirely different to having a publisher do the majority of the marketing work for you (and being paid primarily up-front, instead of solely per-copy).

Those who I see being "successful" (selling daily and selling sequels and/or subsequent works) have their own marketing style and an indefatigable drive to find/reach Their audience.

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izanobu said:

The only two things that have ever worked for me to bring in more sales are A) writing and releasing more books and B) offering something free for a limited time on Kindle.

Click to expand...

I guess what I can add to these already-informative responses is that you (and I, for that matter) may be more comfortable in the online world instead of real-life situations, but a little face exposure will help. It's easy enough to hide behind the veil of the Internet, but readers will (or might, I guess ) like getting to see you--the writer behind the books.

EDIT: There's a book for it, if you're willing to pay 10 bucks. Linky
I found a nice blog, too: http://wordpreneur.com/the-shy-writers-guide-to-generating-backlinks-to-your-blog/

I'm just pointing out what has worked for me. My best-selling books are the ones under pen names with zero internet presence. Maybe they would sell even more if I had at least a website for those names, but who knows? I prefer to just let them do their thing and write more books.

The name that has traditional publishing history, a website, blog, twitter, FB, etc and is active? Sells the least number of ebooks. The two things I listed above are what I have found produces the best bumps in sales. Might not work for everyone, but they are methods that take zero time away from writing.

Yes.One has to be quality writer, and at least good sales person

I'm very shy too and wouldn't do a personal appearance either. It took me a long, long time to even find a decent picture (which is very dark and taken almost 10 years ago) of myself to even put up on my Author Page at Amazon.

I find myself much more at ease through social networks. Twitter, FB, forums, etc. I've considered a youtube trailer for my next book. But you would catch me talking on it... so I can definitely understand.

I would say a blog is the best route.

I have a bit of an issue with publishers demanding that the author promote the book. It's a bit nuts for two reasons: 1. the amount of promoting an author can do on a personal basis is minimal to what publishers can do when it comes to pulling media strings. 2. Especially in fiction, the book is not about them; the magic of mystery that Salinger, Lee, Dickinson, etc. beheld is becoming non-existent as publishers are trying to turn their writers into corporate objects. Writers generally aren't super-cool people; they're usually not entertainers or models, and probably don't fit enough conventional standards to actually sell a book ... the book sells itself if it's a good work that has something to say. Suffice it to say, I think the publishing world has kind of fallen victim to the modern obsession with extroversion. They should stop being so entirely focused on trends in literature and start producing works that don't always deal with whiny/horny teenage girl protagonists and Chinese/East Indian diaspora.

George said:

I would say a blog is the best route.

I have a bit of an issue with publishers demanding that the author promote the book. It's a bit nuts for two reasons: 1. the amount of promoting an author can do on a personal basis is minimal to what publishers can do when it comes to pulling media strings. 2. Especially in fiction, the book is not about them; the magic of mystery that Salinger, Lee, Dickinson, etc. beheld is becoming non-existent as publishers are trying to turn their writers into corporate objects. Writers generally aren't super-cool people; they're usually not entertainers or models, and probably don't fit enough conventional standards to actually sell a book ... the book sells itself if it's a good work that has something to say. Suffice it to say, I think the publishing world has kind of fallen victim to the modern obsession with extroversion. They should stop being so entirely focused on trends in literature and start producing works that don't always deal with whiny/horny teenage girl protagonists and Chinese/East Indian diaspora.

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I agree with everything you say except for the last three words. I write East Indian diaspora and believe me, it is NOT easy to sell -- not even for a Big 6 previously published author! I think it's a myth that cultural minorities have an inborn advantage. I was told point-blank by my ex-agent that "publishers are xenophobic"; or at least, they believe that readers are xenophobic and like to read about themselves.

aruna said:

I agree with everything you say except for the last three words. I write East Indian diaspora and believe me, it is NOT easy to sell -- not even for a Big 6 previously published author! I think it's a myth that cultural minorities have an inborn advantage. I was told point-blank by my ex-agent that "publishers are xenophobic"; or at least, they believe that readers are xenophobic and like to read about themselves.

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Well, that really doesn't seem to correlate with all the Toni Morrison, Amy Tan and Jhumpa Lahiri works floating around, but I've never tried to sell a diaspora piece, so you probably know more than I do concerning the market.

Apart from those few big names, there really are very few diasporic novels around. At least in the UK. I know, because I LOVE novels with non-European or North American characters and settings but I can hardly ever find them. There certainly isn't a special section for them; "multicultural" isn't yet a genre. They really are few and far between -- not at all proportional, it seems to me, to the actual demography. Perhaps it only seems that way to you? Or are you in the US, and it's different there?

I agree that those big names do get special mention when they produce a new book -- but not any more so than, say, Johnathan Franzen or Lionel Shriver.

However, I didn't want to derail.

I'm a shy person myself, which is why I read this thread, and I have to say, I am much happier doing online promotion than in real life. I used to HATE giving readings or interviews, actually going out there to talk to readers. I love writing to them. I have a bit of a speaking phobia. When someone says "let's chat on the phone" my heart sinks a bit; I'd much rather do it in writing.
On the other hand, I still can't get into the habit of running a blog or posting on Twitter. I really am not the chatty type.

I consider myself the Reed Richards of writing. I lock myself in the lab and don't like to go out in public. My wife calls me a hermit and my legs have not seen the sun in so long they now provide light by which to work at night.

And I'm just starting off myself, so I don't have much experience to draw from, but I have been reading on the topic, trying to learn as much as I can. I try to read all the writing books (even Joe Konrath's monster of an eBook) and I frequent agent sites, these forums and any other source of possible information.

I have in my collection 42 books on writing, publishing and marketing that I am still working through.

What I've learned so far is this:

Everyone has an opinion

Sometimes they are right, sometimes they are wrong. Sometimes they are scams to get your money. And sometimes they just want to promote themselves. Innovators go against the common theories, and find success.

But the bottom line is this:

Last night, my wife asked my what I want most from life. I thought about it and said, "To be remembered as a good and loyal husband, a good father, and to have my writing remembered through generations."

My wife is a descendent of Edgar Alan Poe. I want my bloodline to talk about how they are descended from me.

I want to be remembered in much the same way as Doyle, L'Amour, Tolkien and other authors that changed their genre.

And if you write with an eye to achieving that goal...then I believe the attention will come.

Good luck on this venture. I'm not brave enough to do that.

I have a blog, a Facebook page, and the Amazon AuthorCentral page. There's an ad that I run periodically on Facebook (It's not terribly expensive, if it isn't run constantly.) Other than that, I don't do any promotion. Maybe once I have a sizeable list of content up, I will consider starting to do interviews or things like that. Otherwise, I don't feel that what I have would hold the interest more marketing would generate. It would mostly garner a "oh isn't that nice..." reaction and I'm selling enough for now without doing that...