02 November 2012

Self Promoting in the Ebook World



Ebook publishing has really opened doors for many authors like me.  I may not have ever gotten my feet in the door of seeing my dream come true if technology hadn’t shifted, making it easier to get smaller bodies of work published.  My books usually average around 35,000 to 45,000 words, which is almost half the length or novels published through traditional media houses. 

This is a great thing, but consequentially, ebook publishing has its downfalls.  The main one being lack of marketing.  With ebooks, marketing falls directly on the author to drive attention and produce sales for their work, taking time away from allowing the author to create and produce more.  And it’s a fine line to walk in promoting and spamming. 

It can be quite frustrating to bring your story to life, fine tune it, oh and awe over your cover, and then have your sales fall flat because you’re just not finding the audience you need.  One of my great disappointments was with my book “Love Story for a Snow Princess”.  To me, this book is wonderful and I’m so proud of it.  I took a subject matter that was harsh to understand and created a love story that I (forgive the pun) fell in love with.  As a writer, part of my job is to push boundaries that are uncomfortable and make people fall in love with the characters.  But the book never found an audience despite wonderful reviews.

There are only so many avenues an author can market because we’re also competing against all the other ebook authors doing the exact same thing.  Perhaps the number one promotion is just building a body of work.  I had five stories (novellas & books) published this year and right now I’m busy writing for 2013, so for the rest of 2012 I won’t have a new book out there to promote.  But this can’t stop me from blogging, blog hopping, and all the various other tools authors use to keep their name out there.

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