Writer woes: Marketing and the author platform

Writing is my thing. And I write books. Then I self-publish them. And… then what? Book marketing and maintaining your author platform. All skills we learn along the way.

Book promotion and marketing

I wasted two hours of my life on a video presentation on how to basically how to successfully market your book. It was free, which at this point in my life, free is essential. It Said it wasn’t selling anything, and I’m broke, so I thought, hey, some author pointers on marketing wouldn’t hurt. I suck at marketing.

Halfway through he asks have you learned anything? And the poll shows most everyone did. I didn’t. I didn’t learn one thing I didn’t already know. Except this guy was definitely selling something. And his method was primarily for non-fiction. How to make loads of money Off your book. With presentations and webinars and whatnots. And I have to say even if I had a book I could do that with? I am very introverted and terrified of public speaking. Sooooo not for me. Gave me chills just thinking about it.

One take away was how to get into bookstores. If you want to go that route. But, I don’t really. I don’t have A book. I have a few books. With more on the way. I’d spend every minute dealing with bookstores if I went that route. If I wanted to do that I’d try traditional publishing, which I haven’t for some time. I have no idea why I haven’t in the last decade. I just haven’t. Originally, I put that aside because the economy tanked. And all my rejection letters were like this ‘due to the economy we are looking to support just one author (or a few)…’ So I self-published.

But due to my health, I haven’t been able to sustain working. Actual working. So money is a constant issue for me. So cover design… me. Editing… me. And also my Dad helped edit my last one. Always nice to have someone take a second look. And every year or so I go Back to those published works and edit Again. Just as I did recently with my Haven Series. Would I like a professional cover? Hell, yeah I would. Would I like them to be professionally edited? Definitely. Yes, that, definitely. And maybe if I was better at marketing them I’d make enough to then add that on after. But I’m not.

So basically he made me think about marketing. And my author platform.

Self-published authors and traditionally published authors do a lot of their own marketing. And they manifest their own author platform. I have a platform for my health blog and writing that is significantly larger than my author platform. Because people want to hear what I have to say. My author Facebook page is mostly writing memes I find funny and a whole lot of fandom images I find funny. I promote once a year?

And promoting your work takes a bit of self-worth that I seem to lack. Read me! I have no idea if it is good or not but I wrote it and I like it. So read me?? And how many times can you promote your work without totally being a drag? Like people I mute on Facebook because they are selling makeup on their pages all day long. I don’t even wear makeup. But I bet they sell a hell of a lot more makeup than I sell books.

And author platform

Well, you have to actually say things that keep people interested to make a social media platform. You just do. It can’t all be about the book you are selling. Although it is also about the book you are selling. I clearly need to put a little more elbow grease into that. Pinterest alone is a boon to my other health-related blog. You’d be amazed at what a pin can do, man.

Book Promotion

Well, now. This can be done a lot better than I am doing now. I could create images to promote my work. I am pretty decent at creating content for my health-related Page. Do it all the time. 90% my own content. Book trailers are another aspect I have yet to explore. Fiverr is one place to get someone to handle that if I can’t.

I suppose there is a learning curve for all of this. Write the book. Yay! Have to market the book. Boo! Then when you figure it out you apparently do a webinar and sell that process to someone else? Yeah. No. I am just ecstatic when I get a review. Someone buys the book? Yes! They star rate it or review it? Holy hell!