I’m quickly approaching another one of those forks in the road. You know, that familiar juncture that most writers reach, the one where you have to decide whether to seek traditional publishing or to self-publish. (Cue screeching violins and hair pulling.) I’m considered a hybrid author because I’ve done both — two trad novels and two self-published. As much as you hear about the pros of self-publishing — and there’s plenty — there’s some significant downsides. Perhaps the biggest downside is this:
If you’re going to self-publish and actually sell books, you have to promote yourself. A lot.
The more I study the market and interact with authors, the more I’m convinced of this — To sell your books, you’ve just got to talk about them. And talk about them. Yes, there’s oodles of different ways someone can do this without being obnoxious. But whatever strategy a self-published author employs, there’s just no way to get around this: You have to shill for yourself. Sorry, but that’s the bullet you have to bite.
Your only other choice is to be like me, and countless other writers, and be content with mediocre sales.
And that’s the rub.
In all honesty, I would probably sell more books if I talked about them more.
- If I posted more reviews.
- If I tweeted about my books more regularly.
- If I scheduled more promotions and giveaways.
- If I advertised.
- If I started a Facebook page and drove traffic to it.
- If I solicited more blog interviews.
- If I developed a promotional team and offered cool perks and swag.
But this approach poses another risk. You see, the more you talk about your books, your writing, your characters, your awards, your career, the more you risk alienating some potential readers. So it’s a double-damned proposition:
- Don’t talk much about your books and risk mediocre sales
- Talk a lot about your books and risk alienating readers
Writer friend Katherine Coble expressed it well in her Facebook update last week.
I agree with Katherine in that “I’m growing weary of authors who are always always pimping their books while doing little other interaction.” Which is exactly why I’ve unFriended some authors. Too much self-promotion alienates readers. The thing is, there’s a tricky Catch-22 in all this:
- Alienating readers is the downside of talking a lot about your books.
- Mediocre sales is the downside of not talking about your books enough.
Listen, I get that authors need to talk about their books a lot. I do not begrudge authors for this. In fact, if we’re going to gush about the upside of self-publishing, then we’ve no choice but to concede the inevitable promotional blitz required of authors.
Which brings me to my real questions in all this:
- Is it possible to back off the promotional barrage and still sell books?
- How much “other interaction” must you have with readers (meaning non-promotional types of interaction) to ensure you not come off like a “pimp” when you DO talk about your books?
- How do you balance promoting your books with simply cultivating social media friends?
- Is it better to risk mediocre sales or alienating readers?
Thus far, I’ve opted for mediocre sales over being construed as a shill. In all honesty, I still don’t know if this the right thing to do.
Your thoughts?
Maybe the solution is to have a lot of good friends who will do the talking about your book (that and Jimmy Fallon). The next problem is: How do you make these good friends. The problem after that is: How do you make them chatty?
Hmm. I need to go out and talk more about the Telling.
Mike,
I’m getting ready to self-publish my first novel, The Descendant of Destiny, next month and your post is a timely one. I’ve read a lot of blogs from successful self-publish authors and it seems they are constantly promoting their book. I just read a blog post this morning where this author is going to have a booth outside the BEA expo in NYC to promote their book. I posted good luck on this author’s blog but shook my head thinking I hope I don’t ever have to do that to promote my books.
You are right, there is a downside to self-publishing and authors who choose this route need to know both sides of coin. While, I do want to readers to find my book and buy it. I don’t want to be a pimp either. I’ve been a mortgage loan officer in my past and I know how off-putting asking for business constantly can be.
In closing, I want to write I have enjoyed your blog over the past several years and whatever route your publishing career takes you…may it be successful.
Marion
No one has come closer to being a consistently succesful self-published author than Hugh Howey. Just recently the 12 year old daughter of a friend asked me to join Watpad. It’s a little app for would-be writers and she had a short story there. A few days later, guess who requested to follow me and her on Watpad – Hugh Howey. Not a word about his best-sellers. Not a word that he was even a published author. Just thanks for accepting his friend reguest.
Did I reply with glowing words about Wool, the entire Silo Saga and just about anything Howey has written? You bet. Howey cotinually promotes other writers, and encourages fan-fiction with little oversight. He talks about his boat, his trip to see his mom, the last movie he saw. Hopefully that answers your question?
So… you are saying, great writing finds an audience?
What would Howey say?
Howey is proof of that. Wool began as a short story that he never envisioned being more than that. Reader acceptange and word of mouth (or social media word of mouth) convinced him of something more.
If you buy my book, I’ll give you a picture of my dog. Oh, wait, maybe that’s not what Katherine meant. I always get everything wrong!! Darn it!
This is a common topic of debate among indies over on the Kboards writer’s cafe. The single best thing seems to be a mailing list. Get one through you webhost or MailChimp or somewhere, and stick a big fat link at the back of your ebook. Apparently every new book you release wins you more subscribers. (You have a nice website following who might sign up for one.) then you only mail the list when you have a new book coming out. This gives you a nice sales bump at release.
Everybody I know swears by the mailing list. You can do no marketing but your list and still sell books.
One problem that I have observed, is that writers have many friends online who happen to also be writers.
Writers: these are your peers in your career field, NOT your primary market of readers. No wonder they get offended when (if) you constantly promote your latest book to them.
They have a book they are similarly trying to market that they are equally proud of and want to be successful.
Go find a readership somewhere outside of your current ‘Writer’ peer group. Market to them.
This would be like Coke and Pepsi marketers hanging out, talking shop, and trying to get each other to buy and recommend their respective products!
Yes, yes, yes. This is one of my biggest gripes! Too many of us get sucked into that bubble of marketing to each other. I think it naturally develops because aspiring writers are reaching out to other writers in order to work on their craft and get critique, and then you find yourself stuck among *only* writers, and it’s hard to get back out and beyond that community. Also, you’re basically pushed to find other writers to “cross promote” with….but too often you’re all promoting to the same people anyway, and those people are other writers….
The problem is finding a way to get out of that bubble and connecting with readers who are just readers. That is such a different journey for each author.
The problem is that many people here are writing to a fandom with no visible, organized presence and possibly very few fans at all; Christian speculative fiction. If you wrote straight SF, there are multiple magazines, conventions, and websites where you can connect to fans, but Christian SF doesn’t seem to have that. Apart from spec faith, I really don’t know of any forum with readership that likes Christian spec fic specicially; Goodreads groups tend to be single or double digit member numbers for that genre if they stand alone, and a small part of general Christian reading groups.
I’m at a loss at what to do, honestly. I interact with this genre as a fan, but there’s a limit to what I can do as one without being seen as a shill either. I think at some point, a big publisher or wealthy person has to take steps to organize or build a fandom; we need a Tor.com or a Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction of our own.
Mike, I think you could definitely promote your books more…just sharing reviews, etc., and no one would be remotely offended. You’re right–as an indie author, if you want to move books *unless your book goes viral like 20 Shades* you have to push it yourself to a certain degree. I do think this requires being interested in your readers’ opinions all along the way. I feel that’s something tradpub authors can’t always have–that direct link with their readers, letting READERS help determine things, such as, say, cover blurbs or series titles. For me, that’s one of the most exciting aspects of indie publishing. Not that we can please everyone all the time. But your true readers are a generous group, I believe.
Anyway, I spend a lot of time each day marketing. I thought I’d stop soon after my book released in November. Here it is May and I’m still marketing. But the nice thing is that at this stage, the pendulum has shifted and instead of me approaching reviewers, etc., they are now approaching me. I don’t think this would have happened if I hadn’t run down all kinds of avenues to get the word out that the book existed in the first place.
Bottom line, whether tradpub or indie, much of the marketing will fall on your head. I used to wish I could be tradpub so publishers would take that burden off me. But I see tradpubs dropping the marketing ball for their authors more and more…and as indie, I can determine all my marketing strategies and MONITOR THEIR IMMEDIATE RESULTS.
Anyway, all this to say, no, I don’t think you’re a shill for believing in your books enough to give them shout-outs on social media and ask reviewers to consider them. We don’t write books only for ourselves, we write them to reach a wider audience.
Market away, Mike!
I’ve started including links in at the end of my ebooks (right after THE END) that lead directly to (partly) pre-populated posting forms for tweets, pins, reviews on Amazon & Goodreads, to name a few. I’m hoping this will encourage readers to go right from finishing the story to talking about it. It’s a little fiddly with all the code, but hey, it comes with the job. For paper books I may start including a link to the book’s page on my site where the same pre-populated social media links can be found.
All these little tiny things we can do…really hoping they will add up someday.
And I suppose it’s always very hard to find creative ways to promote books while being completely natural and having a great time…
THAT is what I want to figure out how to do.
Well…. this is the reader/fan-girl in me talking – if I love your book (and I fall in love with books really easily, as my friends will tell you) I WILL talk about your book. To everyone…. it’s sort of…. embarrassing.
In high school, I forced all my close friends to borrow, and at least *try* Kathy Tyers’ “Firebird” trilogy.
Now, I just try to warn people before launching into gushing/fan-girling when they ask me about my favorite book — which usually means whichever one I’m trying to recover from that moment — you know, book hangover.
So… I guess what I’m saying is the answer to the dilemma is make people like me love your books and then send us forth into the world to foist your books upon all we meet… 😀
(I *did* promote this blog enthusiastically to my housemate….. true story.)