Sunday 14 April 2013

Is Book Promotion for Indie Authors A Waste of Time?

Since completing Big Brother, I have listed it on all the free promotion sites going, the latest being AUTHORSdb, Book Goodies for Kids, the Independent Author Index and Independent Author Network. If I'm not writing Goalden Sky, I'm trying to promote Big Brother and my other books, and it's been a rollercoaster of uploading book images, my photograph, adding Amazon links and so on, not to mention sending copies for review (don't get me started on reviews or I'll be here all night!) Frankly, I'm worn out with it all! And nearly all - if not all - of these sites happen to be US based. Not all of them are free, either.

And on top of all that I'm finally about to take the plunge and create a proper website.

Then earlier this evening I came across this article: http://www.forbes.com/sites/suwcharmananderson/2012/06/19/book-promotion-for-self-publishers-a-waste-of-time/ and after reading it I just wonder if it's worth all the aggravation.

Am I just wasting my time here? Is there any point to the endless daily tweeting and Facebook posts and the creating and sending out of bookmarks? Is there anyone out there getting the message? Am I writing for a genre which is just so big I'm just a small tiddler in a massive big pond?

'Yeah,' says my husband. 'Get off your high horse just because the magazine didn't give you a review. You're not the only one trying to get noticed. I know you're gutted 'cos they reviewed your other books and not this one, but they don't owe you a review, you know!'

(Thanks for the support, mate!)

I mean Big Brother is selling, albeit not in its millions, but some people are getting the message. Slowly. The problem is as time goes on interest will wane. It's no longer a new book, anyway. The problem is, what if I stop? I'm getting trickles of sales of Goalden Girl on Kindle and sold one copy of Abbie's Rival on Nook recently, but Epiworld has tailed right off now. It might pick up again when I put it onto Kindle, which I shall do this year, but if I don't tell people I've done it how will they know it's available to download?

However, the article quotes from another source which states that the best way for an author to promote is to write more books. I kind of agree with that, too, and I am writing. There's more interest in the Goalden Sky sequel to Goalden Girl because it's about football, and my Twitter followers are all footie fans, and most of my readers liked Goalden Girl best of all, but I have to tell people about it, don't I, or they won't know about it? Reading from the comments on the article people agree that writing more books sustains the interest, but they do argue you still need to promote. It's just getting that balance right. I am trying to keep the balance, but it's all internet based. I haven't got the time to lobby newspapers and say, 'Hey, look what I did!' or run into Waterstones waving my copy of Big Brother over my head. Apart from everything else I'd feel plain embarrassed and probably be arrested.

And the other thing is, who am I going to get to review a sequel? It's been hard enough getting the single titles reviewed, but who will review a sequel without reading its prequel?
Is it worth all the aggro? Who the hell knows! I do know one thing, though, I daren't stop; and for Goalden Sky I'm changing my strategy when it comes to asking for reviews. I'm going to do it BEFORE the title hits the stores! That's one lesson I should have learnt with Big Brother!

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