That’s me. The anti-marketer. Maybe I should cap it like a title: The Anti-Marketer.
Everytime I try to do some type of marketing thing, it turns into a big fail. I mean like, zero sales for that period. Obviously, not the point of marketing. I actually bought a fairly large ad on a big romance site and was put on a page with some heavy-hitters…. sales drop to zero. I did an interview with someone who focuses on hand selling indie books she liked…. sales drop to zero. It goes on.
I stopped doing marketing for this reason. I’ve actually been asked not to RT someone’s launch kiddingly… Geez, I hope it was kiddingly!
Now, here I am in April, traditionally the worst sales month for me, with horrible sales and an eh-showing in the Best Indie Romance Novella finals (go vote! go vote!) and wondering, what’s an Anti-Marketer to do?
I can tell from my sales when there’s been chatter or a good review from someone with a following. Readers trust readers. I know that’s true for me. Most of my book purchases are based on word-of-mouth or reviews. But, word-of-mouth (true, honest WoM) can’t be bought, brought, or bribed for. I don’t believe in spamming or “casually” bringing up my book places that are meant for readers not writers.
So, here I am, riding out April and wondering if there’s some secret Marketing Club where any attempt to share the word about your book doesn’t kill your sales. Sometimes, just writing the next book is all you can do… not for the marketing (although so many writers swear by that) but for the sanity.
This is one of the reasons I think it’s important to track sales. I know April is not my friend. Maybe I’ll start naming all the antagonists April and just get it out of my system that way.
My point? If you don’t know when your downtimes are, when they hit they’re always going to hit hard. They’re always going to feel like the end of the world. They’re always going to give you something to worry about. And, if you’re an Anti-Marketer, it forces you to stop and ask, what if this time was different? What if this time I tried something and it worked.
Me, I have two books due to editors in the next month. I think I’ll go focus on that.
Good luck with that darn April, everyone.
~~Caitie~~
I’m the same way. I really hate marketing but there’s always that part of me that wonders what sort of impact it could have if I really gave it a shot. But I also think success is so subjective and so much of it is based on luck–one of many factors completely out of my control. So for now I think I’ll just focus on the things I can control like writing and increasing my virtual shelf space.
I agree. It kind of goes back to the complaint post about all the things you can’t control are all the things a lot of people focus on.
With my Marketing Kryptonite, might as well just focus on those two deadlines (and stay ahead of them so I don’t panic!) 🙂