I read a lot of blogs written by folks who self-publish, like me. I do it to keep up on what's going on in the indie world, to see what other folks are doing, and of course to see if there are other ways to get my books out there. I really enjoy reading about the industry, both the traditional and self-publishing side, and it always intrigues me to see what others are up to, even if I don't ever plan on doing it for myself. Which is a pretty good proportion of the time.
Let me give you some examples. It's common wisdom among writers that you have to build your platform (one thing I don't like about marketing is the words they use. Platform? Like I'm drilling for oil?) They tell you to use Twitter, your Facebook page, your webpage, connect with people on Goodreads, and to post regularly to your blog.
Now, I have all those things, and I publish them all in my books, and if you're reading my books, I'd love it if you'd follow me on Twitter, or "Like" my Facebook page, stop by my webpage, read my blog or compare books with me on Goodreads. I'd really like to hear from you, what you thought, what moved you, what pissed you off. I'd like it if you stop by my Facebook page - that's where I'm most likely to post frequent updates on my writing, because it's short and super easy to just drop a quick comment on there and move on. With Goodreads, you can see what I'm reading, occasionally I'll write a review, but that's about it. I suck at "building a platform" in traditional author terms, and I'm okay with that.
I doubt I'll ever regularly post on my blog (I do it approximately "whenever I feel like it"), because non-fiction doesn't interest me as much as fiction, and I'm rarely going to dedicate valuable time to ranting about stuff on here when I could be writing a scene involving Sienna Nealon beating the crap out of somebody. And when I do show up here, I try to make it fun, and it's usually unrelated to the marketing or selling of my books. Not knocking anyone who does that, but my books are in the sidebar, and if you really enjoy what I'm saying that much, you can click through and check out Defender for free (okay, that was shameless self-promotion).
I bought a book a while back from a writer named Jon F. Merz, who I had seen a guest post from on J.A. Konrath's blog. His book was about how to really sell ebooks (I think that's what it was called) and it was oriented around using Twitter to follow people and get people to follow you, and then send out ads to your books several times per day. He advocated doing it in a respectful manner, you know, using twitter as a tool to engage with people, to get them to try your works, and build a fan base from there. That makes sense to me, I believe it works well for him as well as others who have used his system with the right intentions and spirit.
I also believe that my @robertjcrane Twitter account got followed by about 100 writers who did nothing but spam links to their books all day and night to the point where I couldn't even read my timeline. It might not have been spam to them, but when you set up a macro to tweet the same thing day after day, it feels like spam to me and it pisses me off because I don't like repetition. I finally had to unfollow almost all of them, just so I could read my timeline again without having to scroll through a hundred messages of bleh to see what I really wanted (I kept a few really good ones, and now if you see @robertjcrane following someone, it's because I ACTUALLY want to know what they have to say).
I wasn't actively pursuing the strategy that Merz advocated, instead I would accept the follows from others who were, just sitting back and letting them collect while I wrote another book. I figured I'd get around to following massive amounts of people at some point; I just wasn't going to do any kind of marketing (like building a bajillion followers) until I had at least five books out, and now that I'm about to hit that threshold, frankly, I still don't have that much in the way of plans to aggressively market. You know why?
Because I write fast, and I write long series. I can see you asking, "What does that even mean?" The answer is something I alluded to in an earlier post. The Sanctuary Series will be eight books, plus a short story collection or two, maybe a few novellas that focus on other characters, and leaving the option open for a three book prequel. My second series, the Girl in the Box, is plotted at ten books right now. Each of these books in both series will be $4.99, except the first book.
The first book in each series will be free, at least for the forseeable future. That's it when it comes to my marketing strategy.
Here, try this, I hope you like it. If you do, tell a friend. If you don't, please forget you ever read it. As far as sophistication goes, I don't have much. Writing fast and enjoying tinkering with the same characters is my biggest asset, and that's what I'm gonna run with.
I'm not knocking anyone else's marketing strategy. To each his or her own, and bless you if following a thousand strangers and turning them into new friends is the sort of thing that appeals to your personality. If for some reason in the future, sales dive or level off, I'll re-examine things, maybe do it differently. But after doing the math from what I've seen from two months of having Defender free on all platforms, I think I can make a good living doing it this way - offering a quality selection of books, giving you a chance to try the first for free, and relying on those who enjoy them to keep reading. I'll keep writing, keep trying to push the boundaries and get better, and hopefully folks will keep enjoying my books.
All I want to do is engage with people who read my books, and write more of them. That's my platform (I still hate that phrase). There's nothing wrong with aggressively going after people to put your work in front of them, but I'm not to the point where I want to do it like so many others do. The best use of my time at this point seems to be writing more books and engaging with the fans who send me letters or personal communiques. So that's where I'll be. And if you want to talk, well, you can certainly find me...on Facebook, on Goodreads, on Twitter, on robertJcrane.com, and on my blog.
Well, sometimes.
Let me give you some examples. It's common wisdom among writers that you have to build your platform (one thing I don't like about marketing is the words they use. Platform? Like I'm drilling for oil?) They tell you to use Twitter, your Facebook page, your webpage, connect with people on Goodreads, and to post regularly to your blog.
Now, I have all those things, and I publish them all in my books, and if you're reading my books, I'd love it if you'd follow me on Twitter, or "Like" my Facebook page, stop by my webpage, read my blog or compare books with me on Goodreads. I'd really like to hear from you, what you thought, what moved you, what pissed you off. I'd like it if you stop by my Facebook page - that's where I'm most likely to post frequent updates on my writing, because it's short and super easy to just drop a quick comment on there and move on. With Goodreads, you can see what I'm reading, occasionally I'll write a review, but that's about it. I suck at "building a platform" in traditional author terms, and I'm okay with that.
I doubt I'll ever regularly post on my blog (I do it approximately "whenever I feel like it"), because non-fiction doesn't interest me as much as fiction, and I'm rarely going to dedicate valuable time to ranting about stuff on here when I could be writing a scene involving Sienna Nealon beating the crap out of somebody. And when I do show up here, I try to make it fun, and it's usually unrelated to the marketing or selling of my books. Not knocking anyone who does that, but my books are in the sidebar, and if you really enjoy what I'm saying that much, you can click through and check out Defender for free (okay, that was shameless self-promotion).
I bought a book a while back from a writer named Jon F. Merz, who I had seen a guest post from on J.A. Konrath's blog. His book was about how to really sell ebooks (I think that's what it was called) and it was oriented around using Twitter to follow people and get people to follow you, and then send out ads to your books several times per day. He advocated doing it in a respectful manner, you know, using twitter as a tool to engage with people, to get them to try your works, and build a fan base from there. That makes sense to me, I believe it works well for him as well as others who have used his system with the right intentions and spirit.
I also believe that my @robertjcrane Twitter account got followed by about 100 writers who did nothing but spam links to their books all day and night to the point where I couldn't even read my timeline. It might not have been spam to them, but when you set up a macro to tweet the same thing day after day, it feels like spam to me and it pisses me off because I don't like repetition. I finally had to unfollow almost all of them, just so I could read my timeline again without having to scroll through a hundred messages of bleh to see what I really wanted (I kept a few really good ones, and now if you see @robertjcrane following someone, it's because I ACTUALLY want to know what they have to say).
I wasn't actively pursuing the strategy that Merz advocated, instead I would accept the follows from others who were, just sitting back and letting them collect while I wrote another book. I figured I'd get around to following massive amounts of people at some point; I just wasn't going to do any kind of marketing (like building a bajillion followers) until I had at least five books out, and now that I'm about to hit that threshold, frankly, I still don't have that much in the way of plans to aggressively market. You know why?
Because I write fast, and I write long series. I can see you asking, "What does that even mean?" The answer is something I alluded to in an earlier post. The Sanctuary Series will be eight books, plus a short story collection or two, maybe a few novellas that focus on other characters, and leaving the option open for a three book prequel. My second series, the Girl in the Box, is plotted at ten books right now. Each of these books in both series will be $4.99, except the first book.
The first book in each series will be free, at least for the forseeable future. That's it when it comes to my marketing strategy.
Here, try this, I hope you like it. If you do, tell a friend. If you don't, please forget you ever read it. As far as sophistication goes, I don't have much. Writing fast and enjoying tinkering with the same characters is my biggest asset, and that's what I'm gonna run with.
I'm not knocking anyone else's marketing strategy. To each his or her own, and bless you if following a thousand strangers and turning them into new friends is the sort of thing that appeals to your personality. If for some reason in the future, sales dive or level off, I'll re-examine things, maybe do it differently. But after doing the math from what I've seen from two months of having Defender free on all platforms, I think I can make a good living doing it this way - offering a quality selection of books, giving you a chance to try the first for free, and relying on those who enjoy them to keep reading. I'll keep writing, keep trying to push the boundaries and get better, and hopefully folks will keep enjoying my books.
All I want to do is engage with people who read my books, and write more of them. That's my platform (I still hate that phrase). There's nothing wrong with aggressively going after people to put your work in front of them, but I'm not to the point where I want to do it like so many others do. The best use of my time at this point seems to be writing more books and engaging with the fans who send me letters or personal communiques. So that's where I'll be. And if you want to talk, well, you can certainly find me...on Facebook, on Goodreads, on Twitter, on robertJcrane.com, and on my blog.
Well, sometimes.