Doomed To Fail?

I've read a few of the threads here and they all seem to be telling me that I am doomed to fail with my hopefully soon to be self-published novel because I may not have what it takes to promote the thing. Here is my reasoning:

1. This novel is the result of 25 years (That's right, a quarter century) of work and refinement, writing, rewriting, re-rewriting and scrapping the whole thing and starting over with a new base storyline. There will NOT be another novel coming from me after this one. Ever. This one is my one and only shot. So workng on my next novel while promoting this one is not an option.

2. I don't "Tweet." With all due respect to those who think it's the greatest thing since sliced bread, I don't want to tell people what I'm doing every second of the day. I find that inane, annoying and an self-invasion of my own privacy. I don't have a Twitter account, and never will.

3. Facebook. I only got on that thing in the last 2 years. I don't spend a lot of time on it and I really don't have a lot of "friends" on it because I tend to stay in contact with my friends the old fashioned way: I talk to them, either face to face or on the phone (What a novel idea! Personal contact!). So using that as a promo tool would be very limited in scope.

4. Blog. For what? Like I said, I don't have any other works in the pipeline, and never will. I don't view my life as all that exciting and I don't think I have enough "fresh" things to say to keep a blog updated every day, or week, or even month.

I do have an idea to advertise in a couple of magazines that specialize in the area of interest that my story is set on (A railroad). But that does seem to be an expensive proposition. Beyond that, what do I do to have some kind of success with my story after it hits Kindle, Smashwords and Create Space? I think I need some real help with a marketing strategy, but I have no idea what to do. Suggestions?

Medievalist,

As a matter of fact, I read through that sticky and that's how come I feel like I may be circling the drain here. This is all new to me. I'm just coming away from the traditional method of trying to get an agent to sell it to a publisher. After over 50 rejections, I had enough. It was time to find an alternate route and the self-publication option, which did not even exist when I first came up with this story, looked like a promising way to go. But why bother if it will only result in a couple of dozen books sold? I used to be in sales and marketing, but that was back before social media and computers took over a lot of that work. Now I'm completely at a loss to find any route to market my story beyond old fashioned hard copy advertising, and that is just too expensive to risk to take when the outcome could only be tepid sales. On the other had, it could be the spark that sends this thing into the stratosphere. When you say to submit to commercial or trade publishers, are you saying to go the traditional route? I need an agent first, and they don't seem to care for the story. What publishers do you know don't have a literary agent gurding the door like the guy at the club with the clipboard who only lets in the "beautiful people?" I've never found one yet. Trade publishers I'd deal with would only be interested in non-fiction, mostly histories, or they just publish magazines. Is there someplace else I could try to promote my story? It is going to be put out there once I get all the elements in place for it. It would be a damned shame if it only sells a couple of dozen copies.

Only 2 partials. Patricia Ahearn rejected me, but was very gracious with her advice and information on what I could do to improve the ms. She really went the extra mile. The second guy asked for a partial back in November, and after waiting until July to trace him, has still not responded with either yes or no, so I colored that a "No". The rest were either the standard, "Sorry. Not right for our list," or no reply at all (Those are the worst. I find agents whose policy is "no reply means no interest" to be incredibly rude and inconsiderate.) The query was battered over on Query Letter Hell and reworked so many times. I really did have a harder time writing that than I did writing the ms. Boiling down 300 pages into 200 words is unbelievably difficult. So then, I guess I should just put the thing out there and be happy with the few sales I'll make. Guess I'll be able to say I actually wrote a book then, huh? Even though nobody read it!

Ari,

Absolutely to all your questions. The agent's advice was fantastic. And the beta readers I had here on AW were just awesome. I can honestly say, they taught me how to write, not just put words together on a piece of paper (Or on a computer screen!) In all I was able to cut my very bloated, overwritten original ms down to a streamlined, fast moving story. (See the thread, Cutting Down Wordcount, Slow Going, on the MTS site.) The ms has continued to go through improvements. It seems that it'll never truely be finished until it gets published. I find it very similar to my primary hobby of model railroading. A model layout is never really finished. There's always SOMETHING that you'll find that can be improved or replaced, and that's what's been happening with this ms. Creative processes at work?

I put a new, very short and sweet Q letter up on QLH. If anyone wants to look at it and comment, please do. Interested in hearing feedback.

All,

The trade publishers I was refering to are just hypothentical. I've never had any dealings with any publishers because of the need for an agent to deal with them. The thought of trade publishers was put out there earlier in this thread, and the only trade publishers I knew of were of that type, hence my comment. I've been rejected by over 50 agents. I've never gotten my ms into the hands of any publisher, so I was throwing in the towel and going for the self-pub route. Now it seems why bother if the outcome is going to be only a few sales unless I shackle myself to a computer and a smart phone and spend all day flogging my story. Sent out another query last night and sent a second trace out to the one agent who asked for a partial back in December but has not gotten back to me since. I later found out that his wife has been ill, so that may explain the delay. I've got the ms formatted for Create Space and Smashwords and will make the adjustments needed to convert the Smashwords version for Kindle. I also have a graphic artist working on a cover image for me. Once that's recieved, I'll be a few hundred in the hole already. Given the return rates for self pub, I figured I have to sell at least 100 copies just to break even. Now it seems I won't even sell that many with my computer illiteracy. 25 years, on and off writing this thing. What a collosal waste of time!