From In Plain Sight….
Marshall: Patience, grasshopper.
Mary: Suck it, sensei.
I read a post earlier today all about marketing (author marketing) on a go-to site. But I could not disagree more with the author’s take on marketing.
I read a post within the past month, dang, can’t even remember any longer where I read it or who wrote it, but the blogger discussed how he’d entirely forgotten that he’d scheduled his KDP Select free promotion, hadn’t done any promo, any marketing, yet his sales skyrocketed after the promotion ended. Thank you, Lord. At last, someone else who’s not obsessed with marketing.
I have cut back on the promo over the past year - I don’t do the like me stuff or the follow me stuff or the buy me stuff or the vote for me stuff. You can like me or dislike me, follow me or not, buy me or not. I’m not going to ask you to vote for a book you probably haven’t read. Free will, baby. It’s up to you. Blog tours, interviews and reviews can be valuable, and I love hosting new-to-me authors and old faves. But I personally haven’t noticed a resulting bump in sales after a blog tour or a review.
I love my readers, and I thank everyone of you for reading my books. It’s that simple.
Judith Brile says this:
“Here’s one of the secrets of a successful author: Five percent of the author’s time goes into the creation of the masterpiece—the remaining 95 percent will go into marketing and support of it over a period of time. Ninety-five percent!
“Your book journey is similar to an iceberg—your completed and published book is just the tip of it … it’s all the marketing effort under the surface that needs to be created, implemented and supported that leads to success. It’s what successful authors know … and what naïve and newbie authors need to know. The 95 percent factor.”
J. W. Manus has this to say in response:
“Call me old fashioned or even lazy, but I do not believe all that mad marketing sells many books. It’s nice to believe that writers/publishers can manipulate readers through marketing campaigns. I DO believe, and know for a fact, the system can be gamed. What I actually think about all this is the same thing that I’ve always thought, write a great story and then write another and don’t freak out about marketing and promotion. I think the key is having one’s name out there. That’s where social media and blogs and websites and all that other stuff is useful. But for selling a single title? I don’t buy it for a moment.
“The trouble with marketing is that no one really knows how it works or why it works when it does, so it’s actually more like the lottery where there just enough big winners to get everybody excited and salivating.
“Personally, I think writers should focus on what they do they best and make honest efforts to connect with readers and keep writing and keep putting books out there. Some books find big audiences and some books find small audiences, and who knows why? Nobody knows. So why drive yourself crazy thinking about it?
“The urge to Do Something, Anything! is as old as the writing profession itself. Slow sales are disheartening, but they aren’t the end of the world. The nice thing about ebooks is, they’re around for forever (whatever that might end up meaning) so if the magic of right place/right time occurs, there the book is, available.
“Funny things happen in publishing. They always have. A book or an author might chug along quietly for years, then SOMETHING happens and suddenly it’s overnight success time and everybody races to emulate whatever it is the book or author had been doing all along.
“I try not to think much about marketing advice. 99% of it is pure hooey and the 1% that actually does anything worthwhile can be done quietly and without much fuss. Mostly it irritates me because it tends to put writers into panic mode, which causes them to act like nitwits or obnoxious spammers, and that’s sad. It makes a lot of money for the “gurus” pushing it, though, so I doubt we’ll see the end of them any time soon. (did you notice how the Book Shepherd blamed the authors for not trying hard enough? Never once entertained the thought that all that marketing bullshit was, um, bullshit?)
“I do suspect (and greatly hope) the Era of the Blockbuster is coming to an end. And none too soon. A book beloved by readers, even if it is only a handful of readers, is a worthy book. I am sick and tired of those books being called “failures” because they don’t hit best seller lists.
“Write your best, keep the books coming, connect with readers honestly, and you’re a success.”
(I don’t know about you, but I sure feel better.)
