Marketing Struggles?

I don't see any links to your books, so I can't really take a glance and give you any ideas... do you write fiction or non-fiction writing-advice stuff? Have you written one book or multiple?

If this is your first book and you're struggling with the invisibility issue.. I hear you. So many books get published every week and month and everyone from authors to bloggers to marketers are fighting for oxygen... and it's easy to disappear.

Agreed that you might want to share a link to your books. Sometimes it's the books themselves that's the issue. Not saying that's the case, just saying it can be difficult for an author to tell what is wrong with their books on their own. Sometimes it's simple like the cover doesn't match the genre (if it's fiction) or isn't flattering. Sometimes it's the writing. If readers read samples of your book and it's unedited or needs work in other areas that can hurt you too. Yes, it's hard to get visibility if you are just starting out especially, but I'd advise letting others see your work and maybe there is another issue. It's a difference between not selling due to a lack of visibility and getting visibility but not selling. Sometimes a book isn't selling and people assume it's a visibility problem when there could be an issue with the product.

I assume you're self-publishing since you're doing all this marketing? I'd hope you didn't sign away your rights to a "publisher" and having to do all this. All authors have to promote even with publishers but if you are with a publisher you shouldn't be doing everything. They should be doing something.

If you are on your own I highly suggest you let someone take a look at your books in case they need fixing. As the other poster suggested, you can post a link here to your work.

You need promotion to get visibility but unfortunately nothing promises sales. Also, sometimes we can be impatient and expect sales to come fast. If your book hasn't been out long then just keep working at it and see. But if it's been out for months without ANY sales there is definitely a problem.

It's highly searchable since you have the title of your book in your avatar, BigJ1, so I hope you don't mind me posting it.

https://www.wattpad.com/story/119072678-strand-the-silver-radio

Having read some of it I have to say, marketing is a great tool, but it can only sell a product that people ultimately want. You might want to think about improving your writing skills and/or sharing/critiquing on SYW to start to figure out where your strengths and weaknesses are. Unfortunately there's a reason only one in a thousand (or fewer) self-published books go on to any kind of commercial success, and that's because generally the industry has a pretty good eye for what people will buy. So if you're not getting even a sniff from agents and editors, the problem is likely not with them.

I checked out the link and please don't take this anyway but as positive criticism but the blurb is confusing and you might want to revisit the cover and change to one that conveys genre. I still have no idea what your book is about even from reading the blurb. That's a huge problem. Readers need to be able to tell what your book is about from the cover. You only get a few seconds to catch a reader's attention before they scroll on to something else.

SYW is a good place to workshop your book's opening. It can be a rough ride, but you'll also learn a lot.

BigJ1 said:

Forgive me for seeming dense but what is SYW?

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Show Your Work is a subforum here, under the AW Writing Lab, where users here can post excerpts from their work and related pieces such as query letters up for review from other users. It's behind a password to protect users' WiPs; the password is "vista".

You need 50 posts before you can post your work to be critiqued; that rule is to encourage people to contribute and give back to the community.

BigJ1 said:

Thanks guys, for all the advice, really. I can't tell you how much I appreciate you all opening my eyes to some of the concerns I completely overlooked. I've been so fixated on the content of the book and promoting it places, I didn't pay much mind to the blurb. Of COURSE this is crucial, it's the first piece of my writing people see! I actually have a whole revised blurb to put up now, which I will ASAP. You all went above and beyond to help me, and I truly appreciate it. I plan to disperse my next book for a wider circle of critiques and beta readers.

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I just looked and I'm not sure if it's the new blurb (the date on the post I'm quoting suggests it is), but it's ... very confusing. From what I can parse, it seems like it's a Divergent-type story, but I shouldn't have to work that hard to figure it out.

I also looked at the opening, and it's equally confounding, for me at least. I've got no clue what's going on there. As people have said, SYW (Share Your Work) might be helpful to you for both the blurb and general writing assistance, after you've got more posts under your belt. Feel free to peruse the section on queries (Query Letter Hell), which also covers blurbs, and the sections for prose by genre and offer critiques on other people's work until then. It's a great way to both improve your own writing and get a feel for how crits work on AW. Password for everything in SYW besides the erotica section (which requires you msg a section mod to confirm your age and receive the password) is: vista.