I have to spend far more time than I would like on marketing. It's a fact of life for an indie author that if you don't take steps to market your book, it will not get marketed. I initially believed that if I got the book out there on Amazon (A Ledge Outside Time, the link is on this website, go buy it!), that sales would somehow occur.
As the bad guy says in the movie Road Warrior, 'what a puny plan.' That don't work. If you are an indie author, I am sure you would agree with that. Well, what does?
I'm not sure I know yet. I know there are almost as many self-professed experts in book marketing on social media as there are indie authors. I've exchanged messages with bunches of them, and every day I see a few more. Then there are the ones I don't recall ever seeing on social media that send me emails offering to market my book for me.
The problem is, they all want to get paid for their efforts. Shoot, I'm not getting paid that much for mine - yet. I've not spent all that much on marketing and still, I am so far in the hole on this book that it will be a while before I dig myself out.
I will dig myself out, mind you. It's just a matter of time. We have to believe that. Maybe there is a marketing magic bullet out there somewhere, some little trick that once we figure it out we can go on autopilot and the books will just sell themselves, right?
I have done the social media thing. Instagram seems to work best for me. I like X but I don't get followers. I don't love Facebook, to be honest. Still haven't done anything on Tiktok. I am following literally hundreds of authors. And I love them, I love to read about their stories and occasionally chat with them. That's great, but what I really need are readers. To be fair, most authors are also readers, but it's kind of a secondary thing.
I need to find readers. After I find them we can get together and figure out what they like to read. I get that not every reader wants to read about Toshiro Marconi and his time travel invention and Alex Dolby's search for both Toshiro and himself. But some do, and I need to find them. It's what the corporate marketers might call a sales funnel. Start with a bunch of customers and toss them out as you move down the funnel, till at the very end of the funnel you have the qualified readers who are also buyers.
And there you go! Simple, right?
