I have many book marketing woes. Everything I try confirms two things: (1) Self- and traditionally published small press authors have a tough time getting their books noticed; in fact, most authors do, even Big Five authors, unless the authors are among the Big Five’s anointed. (2) For the rest of us, having a successful book (whatever that means these days) is like winning the lottery because of #1. It’s fortunate that I derive so much joy from storytelling that I can say, “To hell with marketing ideas and sales figures—just let me write!”

That’s all rather general and not uncommon for most authors with very few exceptions, famous and otherwise. However, some authors, especially newbies, think that all they have to do is rip off a novel and they’ll become rich (one measure of book success, I suppose). But I have some particular woes that are worth mentioning and should give those authors pause for thought.

In what comes after, authors now must do most of the marketing. By “after” I mean after publication and before the author passes on to write advertising for harps. The latter caveat is because death doesn’t do any author any good, literally or in her or his books’ successes. Those books might become wildly popular, as in Jane Austen’s case where twenty-first century fans of her schmaltzy nineteenth-century romance novels are all the rage among some readers. Believe me, old Jane, wherever she is, doesn’t give a rat’s ass, although whatever publisher owns rights to her books is tickled pink right now. We see many examples of nostalgia movements. All the creators of those works involved are probably asking, “Where the hell were the readers when I was alive?”

But I digress. Not only do most authors have to market their books after they’re published, they’re the only ones who will do so, and that costs money most of them don’t have. Maybe Grisham can afford to take off for a year on a nationwide tour (he did for his first book—he was already a rich lawyer—and he’s still doing them, but he doesn’t pay for them anymore), but most authors cannot do that. And, assuming an author is traditionally published, the publisher will rarely pay for any kind of book marketing, let alone nationwide or international tours. For self-published authors, they’re on their own a priori.

Marketing help just focuses on one book. I have yet to see one publicist who will help authors promote their entire oeuvre (maybe Jane if she were still alive, or Grisham himself in his later tours?). Many genre fiction books are evergreen—they’re as fresh and current as the day they were written. Okay, maybe historical fiction can’t be called current, but its themes often are, and they usually interpolate between real historical events in a clever way. I suppose authors with just one book are okay with that, but ones with more than one book shouldn’t be.

Of course, retail sites are terrible in their treatment of oeuvres and series too. As a consequence, readers don’t often know about evergreen books. Both marketing and retail people are hypocritical in that sense, the first ignoring their own advice one often hears, “A good marketing ploy to market an existing book is to write the next one”; the second is that retail people (and often readers!) think that any book with a copyright older than the current year is old. That’s all BS. Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird belies all that garbage-talk—her first and only book was widely popular for many years, and marketing and retail people ruined all that by forcing the publication of her rejected manuscript!

No, the reason for writing the next book isn’t to help market previous ones. The only reason should be that an author loves to tell stories.

Social media doesn’t work. There are many reasons for participating in social media. Selling books isn’t one of them. The reason is simple: authors connect with other authors, and the latter want to sell their books, not buy someone else’s. While one can see this as arrogant and self-serving, it’s probably more due to the fact that readers have more and more distractions. They might have authors they like and follow, but they’re bombarded with ads all the time on social media, so they largely ignore them. Social media is at best just the e-version of word-of-mouth marketing, and that only rarely turns a snowball into an avalanche.

I participate on social media for two reasons: (1) to make friends with people I can never meet locally; and (2) through quips, quotes, and quirky advice, to help other authors as much as I possibly can while still finding time to write. For me, Twitter’s #readers and #writingcommunity are just that, a large group of people with similar interests to mine—reading, writing, and book publishing—that generate discussions to enrich my life. (Even my email and online newsletter are more geared to that than selling my books.)

Let’s face it: most marketing of books using social media is just spam, and both readers and writers know how to treat spam.

What does work? Not much. And publishers don’t have the marketing answers either—they do so little of it in general, they can’t know.  Do the Big Five full-page ads in the NY Times for big-time authors’ books sell those books? I doubt it. Does Grisham’s nationwide tours sell books? Maybe, but who can afford tours? And does any marketing service do pro bono work because they believe they have sure-fire ways to make a book into a bookseller? Never!

Conclusion. If you enjoy storytelling, stick with it. If your only motivation is that you think your books will make you rich, stop writing—otherwise, you will be very frustrated.

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Comments are always welcome.

“Mary  Jo Melendez Mysteries.” Meet the MECHs (“Mechanically Enhanced Cybernetic Humans”–a Pentgon acronym, of course). Mary Jo is accused of murdering her sister and brother-in-law as a mysterious US agency tries to cover-up Russia’s stealing of the MECHs inMuddlin’ Through, and she spends the rest of the book proving her innocence. In Silicon Slummin’…and Just Gettin’ By, CIA and Russian agents are pursuing her for the location of the MECHs, along with a stalker, as she’s aided by an autistic boy in thwarting their efforts. In Goin’ the Extra Mile, it’s now China that’s after the MECHs, but the CIA is still in the picture, as the Chinese agents kidnap her new family to force her to divulge the MECHs’ whereabouts. You’ll find continuous action and intrigue in this evergreen series. Available on Amazon and Smashwords and all the latter’s affiliated retailers (iBooks, B&N, Kobo, etc.) and lending and library services (Scribd, Overdrive, Baker & Taylor, Gardners, etc.).

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!

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