I put up my novel at Amazon - but it's going nowhere

That's the real trick, isn't it? We're all trying to answer that question, or at least one very similar--How do we get our books to sell and keep selling? As far as I can tell, there's no magic sauce. No one thing I can tell you, "Go do this, and your problem's solved."

Promoting takes a lot of different forms because there are so many choices. I'd suggest settling in for a long period of trying to educate yourself. I've been trying to answer this same question for three years, and I'm just now getting to feel like I have the beginnings of a plan.

There's a limit to what you can do for free, but a good start is to set up your social media. This gives you a place to announce news (not to spam every day about your book... to post about other things and mention the book sometimes). It also helps you keep up with what's going on in the book world, which can mean seeing submission calls, people putting together lists, and other things like that. And you can chat to other authors and see what they're doing.

There's a sticky in the this 'ere very forum with suggestions on promotion: https://absolutewrite.com/forums/sh...-intelligent-human-being-and-not-an-SEO-Dweeb

Might be worth having a wander through that for ideas.

Polenth said:

There's a limit to what you can do for free, but a good start is to set up your social media. This gives you a place to announce news (not to spam every day about your book... to post about other things and mention the book sometimes). It also helps you keep up with what's going on in the book world, which can mean seeing submission calls, people putting together lists, and other things like that. And you can chat to other authors and see what they're doing.

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THIS. Never underestimate the power of the internet, and especially never underestimate the power of internet friends. I've a separate Twitter account for my writing, and I'm friends with a lot of other writers there. Not only does it give me a fantastic community with similar interests, but in my times of rare self promotion (and it's so important to keep it rare) I've had great promotional support that's helped me get sales and KU reads. As a free medium of promotion social media is fantastic.

What have you done to promote? You have to promote and advertise to get sales.

I just went back and re-read your post. Am I getting this right? You published a book in 2016 and you still expect it to show up early in the searches? Do you realize how many books are published on Amazon in a DAY let alone in almost three years? There are books that were published last week that won't be in the first few pages of the searches.

You're at a disadvantage anyway with older books because Amazon favors new releases. So once a book gets old, unless you do some heavy-duty advertising it's hard to stay visible. Amazon's algorithms alone will push an old book into the abyss. With Amazon there is a 30-day cliff and once that cliff ends, books automatically start falling unless you advertise or they sell extremely well.

But, no way a book from 2016 is going to still get good visibility. Too much working against it. You gotta promote to even get eyes on it. Try some ads or see if you can get a Bookbub, something to juice some attention back to it.

Also, don't take this the wrong way but you said you are trying to figure out how to sell your book yet you published in 2016? That's something you should've been figuring out years ago before your book came out. You're behind the curve now.

You need to have a social media presence or some way to reach readers. Make it easy on yourself and at least have that. How do you think readers are going to find your book if you don't promote or aren't somewhere reaching readers? Did you think they would just happen to find you among billions of other books on Amazon?

Get thee to Facebook or Instagram or wherever! Get thee somewhere and let readers know you exist. LOL!

Another thing, advertising doesn't have to take a lot of money. You can run an AMS ad on Amazon for a dollar a day. You can pick how long you want the ad to run too to meet your needs but you gotta do something if you expect the book to sell.

Setting up your GR profile and interacting there is also a good way to meet other people who like books. You can friend people who read the same sorts of books as you do and there are also community groups who are interested in nearly every kind of book. You can join some of those and meet like-minded people that way.

I've had some success whoring up my books on Internet message boards that I frequent (that are unrelated to authors and writing.)

Promoting a single book is tough. Free ebook giveaways aren't effective, and paid advertisements, like AMS and Bookbub ads are not cost effective. The picture starts to change however when you have multiple books.

These are the big marketing goals you HAVE to hit (barring a miracle or a lightning strike)

--Publish a new book/novella every 30 days (a lot of successful people have backlogs of dozens of books)

--Great cover/copy

--Mailing list with a "reader magnet" (usually a free book)

--Great website

--The right genre - military SF and Romance will sell heaps, literary and memoir will not

Otherwise it's gone for good!

I hope you are writing another book? It's the best way to keep yourself fresh while the book fails to sell!

Treehouseman said:

These are the big marketing goals you HAVE to hit (barring a miracle or a lightning strike)

--Publish a new book/novella every 30 days (a lot of successful people have backlogs of dozens of books)

--Great cover/copy

--Mailing list with a "reader magnet" (usually a free book)

--The right genre - military SF and Romance will sell heaps, literary and memoir will not

Otherwise it's gone for good!

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Agree these are the minimum requirements. I erased "great website," for I don't think that's important. Have one, yes, with a landing page, have content (stories, or blog posts that relate to your content) to entertain your fans, but it doesn't have to be "designed" beyond plucking one of the free layouts from the free blog places and keeping it simple.

I'd replace that line item with "write in series"

Also, your first few pages of your first book needs to have a great hook. That first page some readers do look at needs to grab a reader and not let him or her go.

In general, writers don't begin to sell until the sixth or eighth book they release, and even that number is no guarantee.

Paperbacks will not be the bulk of any self-published writer's income. Ebooks and audio--that's where the sales are, with ebooks being far easier, as there is no significant overhead in producing them. You cannot deeply discount a PB. You can discount an ebook, and you can advertise it. A competetive advantage

There are over 10,000,000 books for sale at Amazon. The search functions don't work that well, and you are competing against a lot of marketing-savvy people in that 10M. You need to up your business game to make it in a very competitive field. Best of luck to you.

I'm going through the same thing with my New World series. (It's in Spanish) That's why I decided not to self-publish, because it's hard to get sales that way. Self-published books are rarely successful, and when they are, it's because the author has spent thousands of dollars in promotion.

I'm not sure I understand your point. I typed Noah A Novel into Amazon's search and it was there on the first page. I also googled it and again it was there on the first page. I also noticed it is placed 4,323,349 in Amazon's sales ranking. In other words, it is a non-seller. If you do nothing, that fact will remain the same. You can't expect Amazon to do anything, and offering it for sale is all they will do.

I self-pubbed my first book in 2012. I now have 3 books total in the series. I have 2 other books in an unrelated series. The only way I can get eyeballs (and sales) on them is by promoting. There are a lot of websites where you can promote a book for free or very low cost. I understand the money thing. I was hit by unemployment and big bills last year and we are now recovering from it and I don't have the money either. But with free or low cost sites, you can still spend a bit of money and hopefully get more sales (nothing is ever guaranteed though).

It is tough out there. It's changing every day. The big thing I've been hearing now is rapid releases, which is impossible due to my health. But I've made peace with not being a full-time author.

I'd also suggest getting another book out there, preferably in the same series.

Do newsletter swaps if you have a newsletter. One of my VA clients does this and she's selling like hotcakes. Well, she's also writing contemporary romance which is a hot genre anyway. Still...the more people who see it, the more sales. At least theoretically.

mrsmig said:

Gotta say, I would be pissed off if I suddenly started receiving an email newsletter from an author I don't know. And if I figured out that an author whose newsletter I do subscribe to had given away my email addy - well, that would be the end of my subscription to that newsletter, and very likely to purchasing that author's books.

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+1000 to this. (Just something to keep in mind if considering that route.)

And in the end, after your successful promotion brings the potential buyers to your book, you'll still need to have a book that's attractive to them. Especially when you have the "look inside" feature. And especially when you have a book with a plot that's well known to a large portion of the audience. Because, you know, people are getting quite choosy these days and there's a lot on offer all around.

mrsmig and Riv,

Normally, "newsletter swaps" means that you swap mentions in your newsletter, not that you exchange email lists. The latter is clearly illegal under GDPR.

And...it depends on how it's done. People have ruined their effectiveness with their lists due to too many blind swaps. And I can see why. Nobody wants to be a commodity, and swapping list mentions with other people just because they share your genre and have the right size list kinda reduces people to one, IMO.

I think it's best to only recommend books you really like.

CathleenT said:

mrsmig and Riv,

Normally, "newsletter swaps" means that you swap mentions in your newsletter, not that you exchange email lists. The latter is clearly illegal under GDPR.

And...it depends on how it's done. People have ruined their effectiveness with their lists due to too many blind swaps. And I can see why. Nobody wants to be a commodity, or at least part of one, and swapping list mentions with other people just because they share your genre and have the right size list kinda reduces people to one, IMO.

I think it's best to only recommend books you really like.

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Thanks for the info!

That's exactly right. You swap mentions/features. And it's geared toward readers of that specific genre. I think it can be overdone sometimes, but if the readers of the list are receptive...I think it's great promotion.

You say you used CreateSpace to publish your novel. If that means it's only out in POD form, that was a big mistake. I've become moderately successful with my seven books on Amazon but sold only 1% in "pbook" form.

All the other advice given you in this thread is very useful. But no one venue, or ALL of them together, will sell many books. They are necessary, but your book must sell itself in the long run. Then (when or IF magic strikes) people will tell other people about it, and they other people, in a cascading fountain of excitement. Your book has "gone viral," which is not only a catchy phrase but captures an essential truth.

Your first book is unlikely to launch your career. That does happen, but it's very rare. Usually you have to publish several books before you begin to make substantial sales. With me it was book seven which went viral. (The reasons still escape me. It broke several important "rules" I'd always thought universal: it has a near Mary-Sue main character, lacks a central conflict, has a prologue, etc.)

We're in a tough business. Face it and keep going. Your day may come, but only if you persevere.

I've been doing this for 8 years, almost 9. And I've only sold around 3 paperbacks TOTAL. You definitely need a Kindle edition at the very least.

I don't sell many paperbacks but they do sell. I've been self publishing for a little over three years now and offering paperbacks for two. Doing the math, I've sold a little over 30 paperbacks.

The thing about it though is that I make less margin on a $9.99 paperback as I do on a $3.99 ebook. A little over half, actually. So even though in terms of units, paperbacks account for roughly six to seven percent of my sales, the revenue percentage is far lower.