Once you've written your book –
hundreds or thousands of hours of work and got it published you hope
it will sell itself on the strength of its content. Sadly this is
rarely the case, especially if you are doing it yourself, without the marketing clout of the traditional publishers. Often finding all those readers who would love your
book is even harder than writing it. There's lots of advice out there
and a lot of sharks. I'm fed up with people taking advantage of hard-working writers.
Hopefully you may have avoided those
awful people when you published: avoided “partnership publishing”
where the sharks rob you, playing on your hopes of success. First tip:
never pay more than a few pounds to publish – you can do it very
cheaply (see here for example). I suggest you start off assuming you will
sell 300 - 400 copies maximum (a realistic figure for an indie-published book) then work out your
return on your investment – does it add up?
So back to the sharks. These people
will promise to connect you with readers through promotions on social
media through their millions of Twitter followers etc. But stop and
think. Are the people who would like your book on Twitter and
Instagram? Who ever buys a book based on what they see on Twitter?
Sometimes perhaps this can work but it carries a risk. Be aware of
that risk.
Everyone says that Amazon reviews are
important – algorithms and all that – so there are people who
promise you reviews. Let's look at one of them: they go by the name
of Author's House/BooksHouse/ Reader's House. I fell for it: was
duped. (See Twitter DMs below. Only a selection of them to give you a flavour.) They provided money back guarantees and seemed genuine so I
thought it was worth a punt. Sadly their promises were all hot air –
my $100 got one review on a blog and one on Amazon.com. I direct-messaged them to try to get them to honour their agreement, they
never replied, or rarely replied, then did nothing. Two years later
they are ignoring me. They are based in Egypt it seems but exactly who they are or whether they have ever
delivered for anyone I do not know.
Selling your books to people you know would love them remains the hardest challenge. Anyone else got any tips or advice?
This was from July 2019:
