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Marketing
Decisions, decisions! One of the major things people forget is that with freedom comes all the work. We’re too busy preening over the fact that no one is going to delete that sentence in chapter four when we go indie.
That’s true. And whether that sentence should be deleted or not is a topic for another day. Do you have what it takes to publish indie? Let’s find out.
Have you done any marketing? Today’s world seems to be very putting-the-cart-before-the-horse. You need to become visible so readers will anticipate your book’s publication and consider buying it.
I started with Twitter. I tweeted once a week. Nothing happened. I was lost in a sea of tweets and no one noticed. So I upped the ante to tweeting once or twice a day (at different times of the day) and people began following back.
I noticed that some people tweeted BUY MY BOOK! repeatedly and nothing else. Boring. And frankly, off-putting. Be interesting. If you can’t be interesting, be accessible. I tweeted about washing my kitchen floor one day instead of writing. A number of people followed me after that. It’s all about connection.
Other people create a Facebook page for their writing and some prefer LinkedIn. Others use Pinterest, Instagram or Google+ and probably others that aren’t on my radar (yet). There are so many choices. Explore and pick one or two. Choosing all of them means keeping up with all of them. Do you want to market or do you want to write? There are just so many hours I can devote to both, and balance is important. Along with Twitter, I blog at my website once a week. (Full disclosure: I’m on LinkedIn but hardly ever go there.)
All this takes place before your book is finished. If you waited, you can still do it but you have work to do. You need to build up an audience. It’s great to say that you’d be earning 35% or even 70% of your book’s price when you publish indie, but 70% of zero is still zero.
To be continued….
What a great start to your series on indie publishing! I dove into the fray in 2007, and I expect to see a lot of the mistakes I made on the way in your future posts. However, I am happy I got this right with my Twitter author account:
“If you can’t be interesting, be accessible . . . . It’s all about connection.”
I look forward to reading the rest of this series, J.M.; thank you so much, and kudos!
I had always assumed I would traditionally publish so this has been a giant change in mindset for me. But now I’m fully on board (even while a tiny part of me wants someone else to do the grunt work). LOL
I still have a lot to learn. For instance, I notice that you’re well ahead of me on using graphics. 🙂
I remember how overwhelmed I was at first with building my “platform,” etc. I felt like an alien (or older than life itself!) I started way too late, of course. I never dreamed I’d be tweeting a dozen times I day! As with anything, it all gets easier as time goes by. Great post! Jan
But you started, that’s the important thing! I’ve met writers who don’t see the importance of it. The fact is, whether we go indie or traditional, we’re going to be doing most, if not all, of the marketing.
I’m encouraged that you find it gets easier with time. I’m still at the point where tweeting a few times a day is huge.