If there is a huge excitement on the day your book actually gets
published, you will unfortunately experience an anti-climax in the
aftermath once the dust has settled. Please don't misunderstand what I
am saying - I am not trying to put a downer on things! But seeing your
book on Amazon is one thing, now getting people to buy it is something
completely different.
Once you have exhausted your
friends and family, if you are serious about getting your book noticed,
you are going to have to start branching out. Previously I have talked about how I had got the ball rolling with a series of interviews with
local newspapers.
But now I need to find an audience of potential buyers for my book and
that is not easy. I did not realise how time consuming this part of my
book publishing adventure would be. I knew I would have to put time and
effort in, but I wasn't quite prepared for just how much time and
effort!
It has literally taken over my life! If you are
thinking about self-publishing but you are a bit work-shy, then I would
give up now! Seriously, give up and find a different hobby, perhaps
something like bingo, or even bowls - that is quite slow-paced. Because a
day has not passed in the last couple of weeks without me doing
something to try and promote my book.
The first thing I did was trawl the internet (no, not for
that you filthy beggar!). I have continued to build on the in-roads I had been making with social media.
Try to find out what the relevant hashtags are that will attract
readers to your book. I have been using a series of hashtags including:
- #books
- #ebooks
- #fiction
- #paperback
- #kindle
- #indieauthor
- #selfpublishing
- #readthis
The thing is, I am only scratching the surface with this list,
and for every Tweet I post, there are a thousand others like this. I
whole-heartedly recommend you use
Hootsuite,
as this is really is a fantastic tool to schedule your social media
posts, and saves you having to put time to one side every time you want
to post something on Twitter or Facebook.
But the one hashtag I have had the most success with has been #competition. About two weeks prior to
The Drought being
published I set up a competition using social media, offering a free
signed copy of my novel and a £25 Amazon voucher. As well as using the
#competition hashtag, I also posted my Tweets with tags such as #win and
#giveaway. All people had to do was follow me on Twitter and Like my
Facebook page. In less than a week I had over 400 followers on Twitter
and over 300 Likes on Facebook. It is amazing what people will do for
free stuff! I now have strangers Re-Tweeting my posts and leaving
comments on Facebook. I now have an audience.
I
continued to build upon this audience using online forums. I posted
information about the competition and picked up followers there, but now
I was picking up genuine book lovers and avid readers. But you have to
be careful with with forums and not go too overboard with the
self-promotion. You have to remember that the people on these forums are
like little communities. They come to these online meeting points to
discuss their favourite books with like-minded people, and you will
slowly irritate them and lose their interest if you simply post topics
about how great your book is. You need to fully immerse yourself within
these online communities; get involved with their discussions and engage
in debate with these people. Forums are a slow-burner but they are well
worth the effort and the benefit will be worth it in the long-run. I
have already managed to sell a couple of eBooks and get some reviews on
Amazon from people in these communities.
And last. but
by no means least - blogging. Content is king with it comes to people
finding you on the net. I have already established a healthy amount of
content on my own website, but a good blog will encourage people to engage with you. It also puts your book in the shop window, and by using
Amazon Associates, you can also advertise your book on your blogs to boost sales.
A special mention for book sharing website
BookCrossing.com.
I am planning to send copies of my book out into the 'wild' for people
to find. For example, I left one book on a London Tube for someone to
find. Each book you leave is assigned a special ID number generated by
BookCrossing.com. When someone finds that book, they can log-on to
BookCrossing.com and post information about where they found the book,
and a review, before passing the book on for someone else to find.
I
plan on sending about 25 copies out into the wild between now and the
end of the year, so make sure you check out the blog to find out where
they turn up (see you're interested already!).
