There’s a million sites to promote one’s work. A gazillion, even. But where should I put my nonexistent royalties? I tried to answer that question recently and found sites that don’t charge a lot for advertising. Results? Zero sales. A waste of $30 or less a pop. So then I went to the sites I used before where I sold nearly 100 books the first time. I discovered a rather disheartening trend. Gouging the indie author. Prices have sky rocketed. Especially, if I don’t want to reduce the price to 99 cents or give it away. BookBub has always been ridiculously high and now it’s totally out of my pocketbook with ads for books priced over $2.oo being more that $1000. Why is this happening? With each new site coming online and trying to grab readership, other sites will then have less readership. Recycled readers who are probably sick of their inboxes stuffed with daily newsletters pushing books from unknowns. Unless the book is free, why waste your money or time?
So my dilemma is how do I market a book that I refuse to reduce to pennies or giveaway? Basically, I don’t. Would BookBub guarantee sales 0f $2500? Of course not, but they will still charge me as if I would make that much. And all the promo sites that charge for tweeting services. Who reads the tweets? Other authors that are trying to sell their books. So tweets are worthless. What it comes down to is that self-publishing is a hobby. Egos are not fed. Promo sites don’t deliver. And blogs don’t work either. I have more than 600 subscribers to this blog and not one has bought any of my books.
It’s all a game and the only ones making any money are the promo sites that sucker authors into thinking they can make sales happen.
Maybe my next book can grab a traditional publisher or trend on Kindle Scout. If not, I will continue to write and self-publish anyway. I am an excellent writer, as Rainman would have said. At least, it keeps me out of the mall.
