First of all, let me thank you all for your wonderful comments about Aluria thus far. Everyone has been so supportive, and apparently, are already eager for the sequel. I can promise you that a sequel is already in the works, and if my schedule permits it, I’ll have it finished by the end of the summer.
On this Memorial Day weekend, between sleeping, eating and playing on my PS4, I juggled between writing the sequel to Aluria, and trying to promote Aluria. The writing part is easy, because you have complete control over it. And if you’re not happy with the result, you can change it so it meets your creative plan. But with advertising and promoting, it can either have a good effect, minimal effect, or no effect at all.
When you put money, time and effort into a promotional campaign, no matter how planned out it was, and it doesn’t increase the sale of your books, it can get discouraging. And that’s how I’ve felt this weekend. I didn’t do any paid advertising, but I gave discounts on my books, up to $5, and still no one would touch it.
So, if you were hoping for me to give you ideas on how to make your promotions work in this blog, you came to the wrong place. The truth is that I don’t have any solutions. I have tried a bunch of ideas. They would include giving books away at a discount, throwing ads into Facebook, Twitter and Goodreads, doing live chats on Facebook and Periscope, sending out email newsletters, putting links in my forum signatures. And most of the time, little or nothing came out of those ventures.
Just when I thought of giving up on promoting, my great-aunt and fellow author, Eva McCall, who didn’t even know that I had been trying to push these books over the weekend, said, “You just have to keep getting the word out.”
And you know what, she’s right. Becoming a successful author doesn’t happen over night. I knew that, but I kept telling myself that I could be the exception. But I’m not, a rarely does it happen where an independent author strikes it big fast. For the rest of us, we have to continue to work hard, attend every festival, speak at every conference, pass out business cards to anyone that will take them, and keep posting worthy content on social media channels. One day, our hard work will pay off, and someone will have our books in their hands.
But until then, keep chugging along, and I’ll be doing the same.
Click here to purchase your copy of Tyler’s new novel, Aluria!