Hey
Everyone!
Happy
Monday! How’s your week going so far? Mine is going fairly well, especially for
a Monday. :-)
Today’s
Meredith’s Monday Musing post is: Marketing for an author is hard!
When
I first became an author, I thought all I’d have to do would be write, edit,
and publish. That’s it. But, the past three years have showed me, that isn’t
the case.
A
huge part about being an author is marketing one’s self. This can be really
tricky, especially since it seems every six months there’s a new thing that a
person has to do to make their books successful. When I started out, it was
blog hops. That was by far the best way to sell books. An author could share a
little snippet of their story and if readers liked it, they’d buy it. Today, it
appears that sending out a newsletter to your readers is the way to go.
I
really enjoy putting out a monthly newsletter to my readers. I can include
whatever I want in it. I can share a snippet of my latest story, give them a
kinky puzzle to solve, interview a fellow author, etc. The newsletter is
customized to my liking. Plus, only people who enjoy my books will receive it. I
don’t have to worry about someone bashing the type of stuff I write because
they accidentally stumbled upon it.
The
biggest hurdle with having your own newsletter though is getting folks to sign
up for it. I’ve found that adding a sign up list for your newsletter at the end
of each of my books helps. This way, if readers really enjoyed my story after
finishing it, they can sign up to be alerted when another one is coming out.
Another tactic that has helped get people to sign up for my newsletter is to
host a multi-author giveaway. This is where multiple authors get together and
each give away a copy of one of their books. In exchange for receiving a free
copy of the author’s book, readers sign up for that author’s newsletter. It’s
pretty nice and definitely a “win-win” situation for both author and reader. It’s
great to do a multi-author giveaway, so that many people are promoting the
giveaway, in hopes that it reaches more people and becomes more successful. Plus,
not all the responsibility is put onto one person to promote the giveaway.
Along
with newsletters, it seems that Facebook ads are another great way to sell
books today. When I first heard this, I thought it’d be super easy for me to
set one up. Wrong!! Facebook wouldn’t be Facebook unless it made everything
super challenging. With these ads, your picture better be respectable looking
and it can’t have too many words. This can be super frustrating because how are
new readers supposed to know what the ad is about if you can’t really explain
it to them?
Furthermore,
the price for the ads can really add up! So, an author gets to decide how much
they want to spend on their ad. For instance, on the last one I did, I spent
twenty dollars. My ad ran for about two days. It ended up reaching quite a few
people, but having an ad up for only two days didn’t help me as much as I
wanted it to. I could have chosen to spend more money on it and Facebook would
have kept it running, but I didn’t want to at the time.
This
leads me to another point. In order to market one’s self as an author, more
than likely you’ll have to spend some money. The amount is up to each person.
I’ve heard some authors say that they won’t spend any money on their marketing,
while some other authors I know have spent over two thousand dollars in a month
to market themselves. It’s a bit crazy to think about an author spending two
thousand dollar in one month on marketing, but if an author really wants to
succeed, they’ll have to spend some dough. The more money that one does spend
on marketing, the more of a “virtual presence” they’ll have. Thus, more people
will see them online and check out their books, making them more successful.
Besides
Facebook ads, authors can choose to spend money on creating promos for their
books, paying the newsletter website to allow them to send out their newsletter
through it, or if an author participates in a Facebook party, they’ll more than
likely need to buy some presents for it. No reader likes an author that comes
to a party without some presents to give out. These are only a couple
suggestions. There are plenty of others ways that authors can spend money to
promote themselves.
One
of the last things that makes marketing for an author so hard is the amount of
time one has to put into it. Sure, someone could go on Facebook, toss up a few
promos for their latest release and call it a day. But, they probably won’t be
as successful as the author who spends two hours of their day connecting with
readers via Facebook or other social media platforms. This also doesn’t include
the time it takes if an author chooses to write up their newsletter, create
promos for their books, participate in Facebook parties, etc. It’s crazy how
much time one could spend promoting their book.
Now
do y’all see why I think marketing is so hard for authors? It ends up taking a
lot of time, money, and hard work! Plus, when an author is marketing, they
aren’t writing. But, if an author doesn’t market, then there books won’t do as
well. So, it’s kinda a tough situation to navigate. Authors need to find the
balance between marketing and writing. All I can say to any author reading this
is good luck! It takes a lot to figure out the right marketing strategy, but
once you do, you’ll be a huge success!
That’s
all I got for today. Happy Monday, everyone!
