How the hell do you self-promote your self-published book, anyway? That’s a damn good question, because I’ve heard so many different and varying (and often conflicting) answers that I sometimes wonder if anyone knows at all.
So I’m doing a bit of everything, to be honest. I’ve created flyers for the trilogy. I’ve posted hither and yon on social media. I’ve sent copies to various websites like BookLife, NoiseTrade, and so on. I’ve posted to GoodReads. I’ve submitted to legitimate novel writing contests. I’ve created a mailing list. I’ve promoted myself at cons. I’ve read a lot of different blogs and listened to various podcasts. I’ve done a lot of it in one way or another, to varying degrees of success.
This isn’t to say no one knows what they’re doing, far from it; it’s that there’s a hell of a lot of different ways to do it, and they’re doing what works for them.
When I uploaded A Division of Souls as a pay-what-you-want e-book on NoiseTrade a few years ago, I didn’t get much money out of it, but I certain got a hell of a lot of downloads, over 250 of them. And even though I haven’t done any major promotion on the trilogy for quite some time, I’ll still get the occasional download hit either on Amazon or on Smashwords. [Those might be few and far between, but they still put a smile on my face when I get an unexpected payment!]
Right now I’m planning out how to self-promote Meet the Lidwells!, and this time out I’m thinking of being a bit creative with it. I’ll reach out to the websites I tried before, with a focus on music-related blogs and sites (such as NoiseTrade) as well as any other bloggers who might be interested in doing a review. I’m also thinking of doing some minor advertising in some of the writing magazines I read as well — maybe a one-column thumbnail ad or something. The book will drop later this month, so I’ve got to work on getting all this out pretty soon!
If I’ve learned anything over the past three years that I’ve been self-publishing, it’s that this field truly is all about the DIY, where the long-established rules don’t always apply. Sometimes your attempts at self-promotion will fall flat, other times it’ll catch on and grow far beyond your expectations. There’s a lot at play here: the kind of book you’ve written, the people and businesses you interact with, the people you’ve hired for production work, right down to the price you decide to give it. And you can do exactly what professional self-publishers (such as David Gaughran or Joel Friedlander) suggest, and it might work for you, or it might not. It really is a bit of a gamble each and every time.
It’s a learning experience every time I release a book. In a way, it’s like the classic Babes in Arms trope: ‘Let’s put on a show in the barn!’ You’re out to show that you can do it, and that you want your audience to enjoy it, but you’re really not sure if it’ll work unless you actually do it. But regardless, the payoff is still worth it.
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