Doper authors: any advice on marketing a self-published book?

Cafe Society
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I did NaNoWriMo last year and was pretty happy with the result, so I decided to take CreateSpace up on their offer of five free copies for NaNo “winners”. I did up my book in hardcopy, Kindle, and PDF format, got myself a real-live cover artist, and put it out for sale. I’ve got a small audience of folks who enjoy my web writing and I’ve sold a few copies already, but I’d like to get it out to a wider audience. I’m wondering if anyone here has experience with self-publishing and/or self-marketing and could give me some tips.

A few things:

  1. Why don’t I post it here? (a) Because I’m not sure that’s kosher, and (b) Because I’m one of those folks who likes keeping my real life separate from my SDMB life, and I don’t want my book connected with my username here. If you’re interested, PM me and I’ll send you the link.

  2. I’m kind of an introvert and pretty shy about “tooting my own horn,” which is why I have a hard time getting out there and going, “Look at MEEE!” I keep thinking in the back of my mind, “Yeah, but what if they buy it and they hate it?” So doing things like writing to published authors and asking them to review it, or anything like that, are pretty much off the table.

  3. My book is kind of a cross between urban fantasy and horror. No vampires or werewolves or romance, though. Think “magic and and an extradimensional threat in a near-modern-day setting.” The four people who’ve read it and told me so have liked it, but they’re all friends so I don’t have an “unbiased” review yet. I’d say it’s aimed at adults (rather than YA) due to some of the subject matter, but it’s definitely a genre “popcorn” book rather than great literature. :slight_smile:

  4. For those who aren’t familiar with CreateSpace and similar services, they’re a publish-on-demand company that requires no fee upfront from the author. They make the title available on Amazon (Amazon owns CS) and only print what is actually sold. Many published authors have said that these days it’s one of the best ways for a starting author, especially in genre fiction, to gain an audience. “Fifty Shades of Gray” started out as a self-published work (yeah, I know, not my cup of tea but it’s sold a LOT of books and the author did get a real publishing deal out of it, so one can dream!) :slight_smile: Just saying this to stave off any comments about “vanity press” (where you have to pay for the books upfront).

Thanks in advance for any help or suggestions.

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According to what I’ve heard you are supposed to have a “platform.” That means a web page, a Facebook presence, and a Twitter following. This is somehow supposed to make people clamor to buy your book.

Before all this there was a guy in my writer’s group who wrote and self-published a memoir about growing up in Rhode Island. He had a marketing background, and managed to get himself on radio shows there. He still had a pile of books in his garage.

Ever think of querying an agent to get some real feedback? It might be too late at this point.

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I subscribe to Pixel of Ink and they promote a lot of first time, self published writers who make their books available for free for a very limited time (usually 24-48 hours at a time). I’d gotten a book from there at one point that I really liked, so I looked up the writer to see what else she’d written. Surprisingly, she was on Facebook, and I ended up having a few conversations with her. (You are professionally on Facebook, right? If not, you’re missing the use of free social media as a self promotion tool.) The upshot of these conversations was that she was able to use Amazon to promote her book–including a few free days of access, which helps promote her book.

Another avenue you may want to pursue is to contact bloggers whose interest may coinside with the genre of your book, and ask them to do a review which they can then promote on their blog, and maybe even include a “free download copy” giveaway of the book for those who follow the blog and post comments. Some of the blogs I follow frequently do this and it’s a very popular way of getting exposure–that’s if your book is any good–especially if the blogger has a lot of followings. It’s not uncommon to see one of these review giveaways rack up comments in the thousands–all free exposure for you.

I mentioned above the use of social media. If you haven’t already, start a Facebook account and use it only for promoting your work. Include the availablity of your book–make it easy for readers to find it (hard or electronic copy). Include the lastest number of sells (“Now selling copies in the hundreds!”), any book signings you’ll be doing (check with independent book stores and coffee shops to see if they’re willing to host a book signing.), and any other news related to your book–regardless of how small it is! Also, use it as a way to engage your readers. This will also help whenever your book is mentioned elsewhere. (“Check me out on Facebook!”) If you can, you can even use Twitter (although that seems like it’s more of a PITA than it’s useful, but whatever floats your boat.) Once you’ve built up some friends on Facebook, throw out questions that will get dialogue started and that relate to the book. This will help build a relationship with the readers (and those who may buy your next book), plus help get you some exposure. (Remember, currently on FB, anytime someone makes a comment, it appears on their FB to all their FB friends–more exposure for you.)

If your local art center, etc. has a charity auction coming up, donate a signed copy of your book for auction, especially if they can promote it as work from a local author. Word of warning on this though–you MUST have tough skin to do this. An artist friend of mine donated one of his art pieces for a charity auction when he was first starting out, which resulted in a pity sell for a ridiculously low price. (So have a friend at the auction who is willing to bid on your work, if no one else will bid on it.) However, as he built his career over the years and become more well known, this pity sell quickly became MUCH more valuable. Those from the auction remembered his piece and it did serve as exposure for his work.

Right now, I’d say you need exposure more than you need to make money (although making money wouldn’t hurt, it shouldn’t be your driving force at this point). The more positive exposure you can get (ie. the more people who read your book and like it and tell their friends), the more you’ll build a fanbase (ie readers who will want to BUY your next book).

Speaking of which, one of the things the writer I’d contacted told me is to have ready your next book, as a lot of readers, if they like what they’ve read, will search for what else you’ve written, and it frustrates readers not to be able to go onto your next piece of work. So, if you haven’t started on Book Two, then get busy.

Oh, and good luck.

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Voyager: No, I haven’t contacted an agent, and I don’t think I really want to at this point. Maybe if the book sells well (right now I’m sure all the copies I’ve sold–not many yet–have been to my own Facebook friends) but at this point it’s really more of a fun exercise for me.

phall0106: Thanks for some great advice! Yes, I do have a Facebook page for the book, and I keep hoping that somebody who isn’t one of my Facebook friends will find it and like it. :slight_smile:

Love the blogger idea! One of the places I have it listed allows you to send up to (I think) 150 comp copies of the PDF per month, and I’ve been trying to think of ways to use that to get the word out. I’m thinking of asking a friend of mine who has a lot more contacts than I do if he’ll consider reading it and giving me a review if I give him a free copy. He’s very active on RPG Net and everybody knows him, so that might be a way. Right now he’s really frazzled with two big cons, though, so I’ll wait till he’s gotten through that alive. :slight_smile:

I don’t think I’d be brave enough to ask a bookstore if they’d let me do a book signing–not until I’ve sold quite a few more copies, anyway!

As for money vs. exposure–money is nice, but I knew going in that I probably wouldn’t make much. As yet, I still haven’t made enough to recoup what I paid my cover artist…and that’s fine. If I can get the word out to more people, then the money will follow, I hope.

And I’m already about 6,000 words into Book 2. :slight_smile: The books were conceived as a trilogy, so I’ve got the basic idea of what will be going on in both 2 and 3.

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The only known successful way to promote a first novel is to set yourself on fire at a public demonstration. Your name will be in all the media. There really is no second good way.

Lots of sites do this these days. Goodreads has an abundance of tools available for you and is probably the largest reader site on the web.

Do NOT send your unpublished book to authors. Do NOT send a book you have published online to agents. Do NOT ask a chain bookstore to have a signing. Do find a online writing community that deals with these issues daily and knows all the etiquette and pitfalls. The Critters workshop specializes in f&sf. The Absolute Write forums have information on everything, and they are dominated by genre writers. You can find links elsewhere from those.

I’d wish you luck, but mostly I’ll wish you a thick, thick skin. The reality is that success of any kind is akin to winning a lottery. Someone always does eventually, but it can not be predicted from any previous behavior.

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<chuckle> Maybe I could rob a bank…

Thanks, I’ll check those out! And believe me, I wasn’t planning to do any of those ‘no-nos’. Like I said in the OP, I’m pretty shy about personal interaction and putting myself forward.

Thanks for the good wishes, and I figure I’ll be fine because I don’t have any illusions. I think I’m a decent writer, but I have no idea if the stuff I write is going to have a wide appeal. I’m just happy to have it out there where people can buy it, and I’m thrilled every time my little sale counter goes up by 1. :slight_smile: