I don't know about you, but I never get too much info about marketing. My guest hijacker Renée Pawlish knows a thing or two about the topic and is here to share.
The Ever-Changing Face of Marketing
I’ve been an independent author for a little over a year now and I find that this new age of publishing is exciting, hectic and ever-changing. When I first came on the scene,
John Locke and
Amanda Hocking were the indie authors everyone was talking about, wondering how those two had such phenomenal success. I had just published
Nephilim Genesis of Evil and was hoping to be discovered as well. So what’s happened since the summer of 2011 and what might happen in the future?
First, don’t expect to have the same kind of success as Locke or Hocking. Locke was a marketing person before he started writing and he had a lot of money to throw at his marketing efforts (he’s also admitted to buying over 300 mostly positive reviews for his first few books, and that helped him suddenly sell well). Hocking created a zombie-based blog tour that helped her sales. Both of these approaches won’t work well now. There is too much negative press about independent authors, Amazon and reviews right now, so don’t think about buying reviews. And in my personal opinion, most blog tours don’t work either because lots of indie authors are doing it.
Twitter is next. Does it work for marketing? Yes, at least it has for me, but not like it did for some of the first adopters. There are tons of indie authors using Twitter so it’s lost some of its effectiveness. Authors need to be active on social media, but it’s important that you know your audience so that you can target your audience with your marketing efforts. And social media is, well, social, so you don’t want to just market your books.
What worked a month ago (or a week, or day) may not work now. How many have tried KDP Select, using free days to try and bump book sales? Those that were in the program in the first couple of months saw great success, but in March Amazon changed its algorithms and how it weighs free versus paid books, and it’s much harder to get any real sales jump. Sure, it happens for some, but not like it was in the golden first few months.
So what does the future hold? Who knows? I hear rumblings that Amazon expects another year of great ebook sales, especially around the holidays, but then ebooks sales are expected to level off. I don’t see print sales going away anytime soon, so I continue to offer all my books in paperback and ebook format.
KDP Select is dead, at least as a great marketing machine for indie authors. I think the next big thing may be with Apple or other e-reading formats.
Barnes and Noble might at some point get its act together and be a force for indie authors.
One thing I do know, and this is echoed by many successful authors: keep writing and keep publishing. The more books you have available, the more sales you generate. I now have nine books available and I do find that people will like one of my books and they come back for more. That’s flattering for me, but it also keeps me motivated to keep writing more (that, and that I love writing).
So keep writing, stay on top of marketing trends and keep pursuing your dreams.
Author Bio:
Renée Pawlish is the award-winning author of the bestselling Nephilim Genesis of Evil, the first in the Nephilim trilogy, the Reed Ferguson mystery series (This Doesn't Happen In The Movies, Reel Estate Rip-off, The Maltese Felon, and the short story Elvis And The Sports Card Cheat), The Noah Winters YA Adventure series (The Emerald Quest), Take Five, a short story collection, and The Sallie House: Exposing the Beast Within, a nonfiction account of a haunted house investigation.
Renée has been called “a promising new voice to the comic murder/mystery genre” and “a powerful storyteller”. Nephilim Genesis of Evil has been compared to Stephen King and Frank Peretti.
Renée was born in California, but has lived most of her life in Colorado. When she's not hiking, cycling, or chasing ballplayers for autographs, she is writing mysteries, thrillers and horror. She loves to travel and has visited numerous countries around the world. She has also spent many summer days at her parents' cabin in the hills outside of Boulder, which was the inspiration for the setting of Taylor Crossing in her novel Nephilim: Genesis of Evil.
Amazon link for books:
What has worked for you? Where do you think the future of marketing will go? Do you agree with Renée's assessments?
And just in time for April Yvonne Lewis has released her third volume of poetry. Distribution in the U.S. is being worked on. I'm particularly stoked about this release because I'm on the cover! That's me with Yvonne at the bottom of the cover. Plus I've written a few words about Yvonne in the book's Introduction. Wow, it's so cool to be sharing the stage with this poet whom I've admired for so long. Go Yvonne!
