I Did My Own Study and Here's What I Found Out..

I launched as an Indie author almost eight months ago and since that time I have done a ton of different things to get the word out about my novels. Here's what I found out:

1. The more money you spend on an ad campaign through Amazon the more reads you get. Yes, the sad truth of it is money talks. I am not wholly surprised because let's be real the big publishing houses don't spend those big bucks on marketing campaigns just for fun.

2. Free book offers don't really turn into sales. Yes, giving your book away for free can be a rush as so many people rush to get a free copy of your novel, but that's where it ends.

3. Alternate campaigns to reach readers on different sites don't result in the same level of response as the Amazon campaign does.

4. Facebook groups can be helpful in getting you reads and sales but it's not gigantic amount. I guess if you want that you will have to pay Facebook. I haven't done that, so I can't say it's good, great or anything at all about it.

5. Social media overall is helpful in getting you a presence as an author but it is not the key to sales overall. I have made sales from social media but it's not enough to encourage a rigorous continued effort there.

Right now my novels are not running on Amazon ads because I tipped the balance of money to test what would happen if I increased it to what they said was needed and it worked. I got daily reads on all my books. But, it also went over my budget so my ads are down until I can pay them up. I will of course but it's going to take a few weeks to put that together since as a full time writer I live off a pretty strict and measly budget.

So if you are a fellow indie author, yes, we have challenges, but if the stories you wrote are ones you love like I love mine, all those challenges are worthy of your time, effort and dedication to the bitter end or not.