Ugh, Marketing!

I think I know one, maybe two, authors who actually like marketing — and that’s out of over a hundred authors who I know.

Marketing is the bane of my authors’ lives. Whether you are traditionally published or indie, you have to market the books you publish (unless you are a multi-million dollar traditionally published author and then your publisher will take care of that for you).

That last bit, by the way, just kills me. The traditional publishers will market their best-selling authors perpetuating their popularity, but they won’t market the little guys who really need it. No, they’re happy taking a loss on those books. Why?

Anyway! You, Published Author, need to market your books. There is absolutely no getting around this nasty fact. There are thousands of books published every day. Your beloved masterpiece is a tiny speck of dust in a galaxy of books. If you don’t do anything to let the world know it’s there, they’re not going to buy it.

So, now that I’ve told you stuff you already know, maybe I can tell you stuff you may not know.

Marketing is like throwing spaghetti at a wall and seeing what sticks. And once you find something that works, you keep with it until it doesn’t work any more — in about six months to a year.

Honestly!

Trends change fast. Readers are fickle beings who flit from Facebook to Bookbub to Instagram, and then to some random other book newsletter. And you, Dear Author, need to keep trying to find them…