It's really hard to feel like continuing

First things first: I don't have any real experience here, and I don't have an answer, but I am very sorry to hear you've tried so hard and feel you've not got anywhere. I really hope others with more experience in this area can give you more in the way of suggestions.

However, the first thing I thought when reading your post was Twitter (Facebook to me has never come together as a decent platform for marketing books). I am by no means a pro on Twitter, but here's the thing: I've seen it work so well for other authors, and wish my hardest I had capitalised on my growing Twitter following when I was releasing books and in theory had the most to gain. Anyway, that's by the by. What I have seen is authors with one to two books to their name gather a huge following on Twitter - including support of other authors and influences such as bloggers - simply but putting the time in, engaging with other users and being friendly and supportive. To do it well, especially when nursing negative feelings, must be very hard, but I really think it gets your foot in the door of a key community. It's something that is worth trying seriously, and I honestly believe it pays dividends. You can't do everything yourself - much as you'd like to!

An excellent and short book on this is Tweet Right by Nicola Morgan.

Are you writing for Adult, YA or MG?

I'd like to encourage you, but I don't have any words of wisdom or facts to back up avenues to try. I wrote a couple novels years ago and tried the traditional route. I got nowhere real fast. I didn't even try the self publishing route. But after a six-year break, I'm back writing again. When I finish, I'll probably try the traditional route again. But when that isn't successful, I plan to look into self publishing. If nothing else, reading your experience does help me as I analyze what to do next. The main thing I'm trying to focus on now is to enjoy the writing part and write the story I want to write. If it doesn't sell, oh well. I still wrote the story I wanted to write. I'm not expecting to make money off of this, so I keep at my day job, which has turned out pretty well.

Write for you. If you like it, it doesn't matter if anyone else does. You didn't write it for them. You wrote it for you.

Saying all that, good luck with continuing to try to find ways to distribute. I'll keep checking in to see if you found the secret, so I can maybe avoid all the troubles that you have had to go through.

I think if Twitter is ever to be successful, you need to be very proactive and really commit to it. Annoyingly, it's a long term venture rather than something that give any quick wins. I'd look at some other writers and how they network to gain ideas about how Twitter can be used successfully. As I said, I'm by no means popular or great on Twitter, but as a result of being on it, I've been approached about several events, been invited to join a writers' social circle and helped judge some awards for a reasonably well-known YA event. Social media isn't something I especially love, either, but certainly for me (writing YA) I'd be pretty stupid if I didn't engage.

I guess I'd say that you could set yourself a time limit to really make the most of Twitter, and see how you take to it - a project, if you like - and then, if it's still something you can't stand, let it go. Much as I think Twitter is good, there's no point persevering something you really don't like. (Again, I recommend Tweet Right as an excellent intro).

I've found blogs pretty useless, too. I think they work best if you're already a big thing.

MG is Middle Grade. It's an American term that encompasses child readers i.e. the stage before YA but I think many countries are using it too, now.

Another thought, one which I'm sure you've already done - have you looked into what other indie and self-pubbed authors do? There might be helpful pointers there.

Sounds like you need to up your social media presence, as well as networking. You say you've tried it, but it sounds like it's only briefly. You're building relationships, not just readers. It's a long-term effort.

Also, your cover (at least the one in your avatar) could be stronger. And how are your blurbs?

One thing you didn't mention, which is big in the indie community is cross promotion. Are you getting with authors of your genre and promoting with them? That is key in the indie world. You're gonna need all the help you can get to get the word out and working with other authors is a great way.

First thing is don't try to do everything. You pick things you enjoy doing and out of those, things that work the best. I would definitely try cross promotion. You need to get with authors of your genre definitely.

Here are other things you can try:

Do mailing list swaps with other authors in your genre. In other words, they promote your book to their lists and you promote theirs to yours.

Try Instafreebie. Since you are in KU you can only put up a sample of your work but it's worth it and you can get mailing list sign ups or just buzz out of it.

Do you have an ARC group or ARC list to send books to? These can be readers from your mailing list and they can do reviews for you just stress that they give honest reviews and don't try to dictate the reviews. It's another way to get buzz.

What about a street team (it isn't my style) but many authors have street teams, which is a group of people dedicated to your work who will spread the word for you in creative ways. Just don't have them turn into a bullying mob and this is a good way of spreading the word.

What about promotion sites? Have you submitted to Bookbub (though it can be hard to get accepted if you are in Select). Bookbub is king but they are pricey depending on the genre you write. There are many other promo sites you can submit to as well. You'll have to discount your book for most of them if the books are over 99 cents but it would be for a short while and just to drum up sales. Doing discounts and free promotions once in a while creates buzz.

What about box sets? You can do a box set of your own books if they are a series and you can do multiauthor box sets where you go in with other authors. Be careful though because you want to make sure you are in a legitimate box set and not one run by an scammers, etc. But, getting with other authors in your genre and doing a box set will introduce you to more readers in your genre. It can be difficult to be invited to these sets if you are a new author because yes, many are cliquish, but there are authors who advertise for others to do sets with them so look around. If you can get in a set with some popular authors in your genre with decent followings that can get your name out there too.

What about giveaways? Ever run any contests or do any online events where you can reward readers with free books or other things? You can do a FB event. If you don't wanna do it alone, invite other authors in your genre to take part in it and that way more readers will be interested.

Do you have beta readers you can run the book by? Maybe there is an issue with the book itself. Sometimes a book doesn't click for whatever reason but we can't always see why. If a book has issues where readers can't connect then you will have a hard time selling no matter what you do.

Are you comfortable being on video? Why don't you make promo videos and put them on Youtube and promote them on social networks if that's your thing. Just film yourself talking about your book. You can also go on blogtalk radio talk shows and reach out to podcasters who might interview you. Better yet, start your own podcast or online radio show if you want. You can do a podcast where you just talk about your own work.

What about FB group takeovers? This is where you ask the admin of a group if you can take over for the day or a few hours and you can talk about your book with readers. Just make sure it's a group where they actually have discussions and not just promotion.

What about a personal assistant or promoter? They offer special services and will promote you to get you buzz to where you don't have to do all the heavy lifting.

Another thing, you're in KU. Honestly, it's getting near impossible for many authors to make a dent in that program now. I suggest leaving it if it's doing nothing for you. It makes no sense to stay in KU if you aren't getting decent page reads at least. You're closing yourself off to all the other retailers to be exclusive to Amazon and not getting the results you want. Different books sell better on different platforms. Have you ever been wide? Your books might sell better wide and internationally. KU is a mess and authors are finding themselves spending more and more money just to get an ounce of visibility there. Amazon has let scammers and content mills take the program over and they suck up all the visibility while burying genuine authors. It's hard as heck to get traction on KU now. You can try AMS ads but that's a racket because the price keeps going up and you end up giving Amazon back the little money you make.

I'd definitely go wide if I were you if you never tried it. What do you have to lose if being in KU isn't working?

You said you "tried" ads and things but the key is you gotta keep doing this stuff for a while to see any benefit. With marketing, you gotta keep plugging away and seeing what works. You'd be surprised but some authors spend thousands on ads a month! I can't do that but many do. I do what I can and what I can afford. There are great free ways to spread the word and the key is being creative.

Also, join as many self-publishing forums as you can. Post on them and ask for advice on your books. They can tell you why something isn't working. Post on the SP boards here at Absolute Write and you MUST join Kboards if you haven't already. It is the biggest site for self-published authors. If you wanna learn how to market or find out why things aren't working, that's the place to be. Join and post and straight out ask about your work and they will be honest and it'll help you see if there is any issues with your books you haven't picked up on. You can also join the SP forums on Reddit and the groups on FB.

Get with as many of your peers as you can to get more ideas for marketing and to get an honest opinion of your work and why it isn't resonating.

Last but not least, your expectations might be too high. You probably don't wanna hear this but not every book is gonna sell or meet our expectations. Nope. Most books don't make a blip on the radar whether they are self-published or trade published. The SP authors who are killing it are mainly outliers. There are a lot of indie authors doing well and making decent money but only a small percentage are racking in big money where they are supporting themselves from their writing alone.

What you want is to get to a point of consistency and growing your base. Keep looking for new ideas and be positive. I'd also suggest not to look at the "success" of other authors and don't pay so much attention to rankings and sales figures if you do. Many authors have a habit of comparing themselves to other authors. All of this will only make you feel worse.

Good luck and I can't stress enough how important it is for you to get out there with authors in your genre if you haven't already.

I wanted to take a look at the books and entered the Amazon page of the first one, The Call. I'm sorry, but looking at the reviews (and that out of 18 people it got 33% 5-star reviews), I'm not sure I would want to read it. I'm speaking as a customer. I'm sorry again for making it sound too harsh, but this is how I buy books on Amazon.

totally new here, and im sorry to here about the cliffs to climb that you face, that i will face.
SERIOUS QUESTIONs HERE NEEDS HELP FORM THE EXPERIENCED BOOK MARKETING PEOPLE HERE!!!

have you tried getting an agent for getting a big publisher.

1) i want to try getting an agent, so am i allowed to try to get excerpts of my book published in magazines. if we can try that... have you tried that?
2) for getting an agent, iv'e heard the best ways to get their quick attention is to meet them in real life at writing conventions/conferences and also to get a selling author to give you a recommendation...

christoph

I'm new here and I never published anything so I really don't know what to say to say but it crushed my heart reading your thread.

I know how you feel because sometimes I apply to some jobs and I don't even get an answer, I just wanted to know if it is a yes or no and even worse, they keep publishing on facebook that they need 1 person to the job I applied 3 days ago. It crushes you in a hard way but I think you can always overcome it. Just be strong and stay true with yourself. And never, ever, give up!

Op, join 20booksto50k on Facebook.

It will change your indie career.

Sorry, I'm not sure how much I can say within the forum rules! If I step out of line, apologies.

It's a group dedicated to making money from indie publishing. They have loads of aggregated data, research, strategies, help. If the pinned posts and saved files aren't enough you can just post with details of your situation and get assistance from loads of other indies.

It's not for the faint of heart, though. If you go in and ask for help, they will likely ask for links to your books. And they will give you honest (not cruel, but honest) feedback on your blurbs, covers, and strategies used so far. With a goal to helping, mind; they'll be looking to identify problems and give you actionable solutions.


I'm not looking to be an indie. But I've seen the stats and, in addition to writing a good book, cover and blurb are extremely important. An average book with a brilliant cover will probably go further than a brilliant book with a crap cover. Same for blurb; if nobody can tell what you're on about, nobody will buy it.

If it's the marketing that's dragging you down then just write and don't worry about the marketing side. Are you doing this strictly for money or because you love writing? If you don't need to deal with the business side of the industry then don't. If that's what's bringing the negativity then focus on what you enjoy, which I assume is writing.

But, if you are in this to make any sort of money then sorry, but you are gonna have to deal with the marketing side unless you try to do as someone else suggested and get a publisher. Still, you are gonna have to market. If you write and want to move copies you are going to have to get to a point where you enjoy at least some type of promotional things without feeling dragged down. It's a huge part of the process.

I gave you a lot of suggestions and you didn't acknowledge my post at all, which I hoped it had helped you. People gave a lot of good suggestions on the thread so at this point you have to just think about what fits you and your goals. Being a success is subjective. What might mean a success to others isn't a success to some. When speaking of success do you mean Stephen King success as in rich and famous or do you mean living off your writing income? Or do you mean selling 1000 copies a month? Someone who doesn't sell anything would think selling 10 copies a month was a success. Once again, a success is subjective so not sure exactly what you meant by what success you want to achieve. That makes a big difference with your marketing as well. Some authors just wanna make a ROI on whatever they put into promotion and others just wanna build their brand and don't care about sales right off. Some want to become the next James Patterson. The goals matter when analyzing your marketing results. There isn't one road to success and there is a different level of success but if marketing is something that gets you down (which it does some authors) then you might be best just writing and leaving all that behind. Just put out your books and find peace with that. But if you want to sell books, you gotta find a way to deal with marketing without it affecting you emotionally or nothing will work.

As for marketing groups, some are good in helping authors and then some aren't. Some are run by straight up scammers. Some groups promote scamming, botting, gaming the system, book stuffing, and other underhanded tactics to sell books aimed at Kindle Unlimited. Many who start these groups are not even authors but content mill operators or just straight marketers who use any tactic they can to sell books. They "teach" others how to do the same thing. Be careful what you join and who you listen to because some authors who were uninformed and believed certain groups were fine have gotten their accounts closed at Amazon and page reads yanked for following the wrong people.

There are a lot of helpful people in the indie community but a lot of opportunists as well.

As for 20kbooksto50K, you need to check it out yourself. No one can tell you if it's gonna be helpful to you or not. I was in it but left because I rarely visited and from what I saw it didn't fit me or my goals. Others might feel differently. Not everything works for everyone but the only way to know is to join different groups and be ready for some hard criticism if you ask for what's not working.

yeah, the content mill thing really bothers me, but it looks like those people are drowning themselves with their own flood. Or starting to.

One can hope ¬_¬

OP, coolpop's advice is bang-on for self-publishing.

When I changed the cover on one of my titles and had it made by an artist who specialized in the genre, that book's sales increased several hundred percent - with absolutely zero marketing.

I flushed an idiotic amount of money on advertising when I started self-publishing, and Bookbub was the only marketing that amounted to anything. That was four or five years ago when other advertising venues were considered more effective - these days, it's all Bookbub, mailing list, Instafreebie, as a lot of other options such as blog tours have lost their punch. Some people love Facebook and some not so much.

It's also a marathon - the more series you have, the better. Generally. Series tend to do the best.

Fwiw, your covers look pretty good to me, OP.

But you're going to hvae an uphill battle all the same, as fantasy authors make a fraction of money compared to romance. (Only literary makes lower on average, from what I remember).

efreysson said:

I write because I want to tell stories. Plain and simple. It would just be nice for a few more people to read them and comment.



That wasn't intended as some sort of slight. I always appreciate people taking the time to drop advice, I just don't always have anything good to say in response.

Click to expand...

"Thank you" would've been a decent response.

Also, if you just want to write and just get comments then try Wattpad or putting your work on your website for free. No need to waste time even publishing it if that's your main goal. Something tells me your goal is much more than that if you're spending money on ads, etc. You could make all your books free and get reviews and comments without lifting a finger if you just wanted someone to read your work and leave comments. Come on. LOL!

Anyway, wish you luck and hope our advice helps you in some way.

Harlequin said:

But you're going to hvae an uphill battle all the same, as fantasy authors make a fraction of money compared to romance. (Only literary makes lower on average, from what I remember).

Click to expand...

Really surprised to hear you say that. Seems like practically the whole world is into fantasy.

Nah. Practically the whole world is into romance

Self publishing makes most money in;

-Romance (about 40% of sales)
-Mysteries / Thrillers (can't remember, more than sff)
-SFF (about 5-6% each)
-Literary squeaking along at the bottom.


Fantasy novels are typically longer, and more time-consuming to write because world building and more variety (Romance has strict rules through necessity, with less variation that either SF or F). Someone putting out 100k novels every three months is going to get whipped compared to someone putting out 50k novels every month. And you'll be competing for a smaller, much more crowded market (compared to romance.)

I am told romance fantasy does well, but cannot verify or source. Just what people say.

Some very useful advice on here, particularly Cool pop. Thanks all.

Harlequin said:

Nah. Practically the whole world is into romance

Self publishing makes most money in;

-Romance (about 40% of sales)
-Mysteries / Thrillers (can't remember, more than sff)
-SFF (about 5-6% each)
-Literary squeaking along at the bottom.


Fantasy novels are typically longer, and more time-consuming to write because world building and more variety (Romance has strict rules through necessity, with less variation that either SF or F). Someone putting out 100k novels every three months is going to get whipped compared to someone putting out 50k novels every month. And you'll be competing for a smaller, much more crowded market (compared to romance.)

I am told romance fantasy does well, but cannot verify or source. Just what people say.

Click to expand...

When people are looking for betas, they almost all seem to be writing fantasy. And look at the Romance forum here. You can practically hear the crickets. But the fantasy forum is alive and kicking and thriving.

I know Romance dominates the publishing stats, but I scratch my head at how that can be, given by how everyone seems to be into fantasy.

Fantasy is a huge genre, and it's probably a struggle to find betas. I reckon the ratio of people who want ti write fantasy versus read t isn't as favorable as people who want to write romance versus read it. The forums tend to reflect what people are writing and nt what they are necessarily reading.