If you’re an Indie author, you know how hard it is to be discovered. No matter how good your book is, no matter how easy the Internet has made it to self publish and no matter how many books you write, the chances are extremely high that once you’ve sold a few books to friends and relatives, the number of books sold thereafter will be zero. The average number of books sold a month by Indie authors is one or less. I kid you not! In fact, the competition is so keen that we’re literally drowning in a sea of books. I’ve read that someone uploads a new book to Amazon every five minutes. Think about that! It’s mind boggling.
Before readers stumble across your book, three things must happen.
First, you need to sell copies of your book. Both electronic versions or paperbacks will do. The more you sell, the more likely you are to rise in the ratings sufficiently to place your book on the first five or six pages of an Amazon search. You’re a no name, so if anyone stumbles across your book and buys a copy, it won’t be because they recognize your name. And, they’ll never stumble across your book if it’s submerged in that vast sea of books on Amazon.
The odds are about as good as winning the lottery.
Second, you must get as many reviews as possible. Hopefully, the reviews will be favorable enough to not only push your book up in the rankings but also entice others to risk at the very least $2.99 on a Kindle version. It can be frustrating because most people who buy a copy of your book won’t write a review. That’s right! Even friends and relatives do not follow through with their promises. So, your book will suffer the death of the average self-published book. That you wrote a book, edited it, created a cover, and uploaded it to the virtual world of Amazon will have to satisfy you. Don’t get me wrong! That’s no small feat. Most people can never complete such an arduous task.
BUT, writers want readers!
The third magical thing self-published authors require is to repeat the first two things regularly. You can be on the first couple of pages on Amazon one day and a few days later fall to your death three pages down in a matter of hours. That means we have to dedicate ourselves to marketing our books for as long as possible, which translates to — FOREVER. That’s a daunting task. Eventually, most creative souls tire of the marketing bit and give up.
I don’t mean to paint a depressing picture for all the wanna-be writers out there, but these are the cold, hard facts.
Have I stumbled across the magic? Nope! I’ve had some success, but not enough to quit my day job. I suggest you keep yours. I have, however, had a measure of sporadic success and am constantly exploring better ways to promote my books.
In the next blog post, I’ll discuss a few things that I’ve tried. Until then, happy writing.
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