Some days ago, I read a posting on the cheerleader and voice of self-publishing, that REALLY opened my eyes about trying to market my novels. The things he had stated was a whisper of something I’ve heard before
Author are always given advice to talk about what they like to do, and what their thoughts are, to socialize and: blog about your ideas, Tweet about them, Facebook about them, and Forum about them…and They Will Come. The Readers, that is.
But according to J.A. Konrath’s posting (The Value of Publicity), that’s not what works and that’s not what is selling his novels.
Huh?
I heard a few other authors mentioned that they don’t do a thing with online socializing, and just write, and somehow readers find them.
Huh?
“Less Tweeting, more writing,” J.A. Konrath states. With that he emphasizes the basic facts that he’s always state, which is to supply more virtual items for your personal book store. Basically stating that you don’t want to walk into a store that only has ONE item on the shelf. You want to walk into a store with multiple choices. With the pure vastness of the novels you write, and with a good story and great cover, someone will read you and the word would spread.
Wow. More writing, huh?
I do have to admit that I’ve been sidetracked. I’ve been so busy managing my blog-sites and trying to make improvements and coming up with ideas and participating in forums that I haven’t really written anything more on my novels since NaNoWriMo.
Huh. Well. Let’s try it. You know my Motto.
DO EVERYTHING
Time to re-focus.
Time to write.
Until Next Time 🙂
Too much time on social media takes away from producing material, and makes most writers look hungry. Nix the blogging and hustling. Readers, and potential customers not only see books that didn’t get picked up by the bigs, but; smell a certain second ratedness. It’s a cruel world and if you’re out hawking one or two novels, no matter how wonderful they may be, they look rinky dink when a link pops up on a Facebook page. That’s an automatic: hide this page, offensive or uninteresting waste of resources. The more you produce, the more you have to offer. Why waste time and energy selling unknown material, when the majore houses have lots more oomph in their arsenal? Remember the economy is in a pretty crummy place, buying items from unknown authors, even for the price of a cup of coffee is, to some, a stretch.
Twitter has helped some authors and Facebook helped others. And these authors have written books about how social media helped them gain a fan base. But when that isn’t working, it’s time to look at other items. Sometimes authors, in our world, forget who readers are. If you ask your mom or dad or sister or brother or neighbor or co-worker how they find a particular book to read, the answers would all be different. But I BETCHA, none of those people would say they bought the book because of “the company” that published it. Mostly they choose a book because its an author they’re familiar with, or saw a cover they liked, or was referred by someone or a friend. The only way they will know that a book is self-published is if it contains amateur writing. And, to be honest, not many readers go looking up an author unless they liked the novel. Only other writers do that. Every book that a reader reads would be by an unknown if they weren’t already familiar with the author’s name. However, spamming (buy my book! buy my book!) definitely won’t get much readers either. I suggest my list here, and this new idea of: Just. Keep. Writing. I think this idea is another major item on the list for authors to try.
And who knows what actually works. I, myself, am always surprised when I get another person who purchase my book. How did they find it? I have NO IDEA. But being respectful online and continue to produce for my virtual book store…I think I might just get a few more readers to read this here writer 🙂