Because Justin Bieber won't take my calls.

A lot of people are asking me why I don’t just self-pub THE MOONLIGHT WAR. Why bother looking for an agent?

There are a number of reasons, but for me the main one is the business of publishing. I simply don't know enough or understand how to sell my books.

I self-pubbed Darkside and its sequel Waking the Dead, and by self-pubbing I mean, "Put it up for sale on Amazon and Smashwords." That was pretty much the extent of my marketing genius.

Sure, I created an author's page on Facebook, and I tweet about them occasionally. And by occasionally I mean once or twice a month, as opposed to four or five times a day like most indie authors I follow on twitter. (I'm still not convinced constant tweeting is an effective marketing tool, and not just a nuisance.)

I even managed to get my books reviewed on a couple of fairly reputable sites.

Probably the biggest marketing push I had though was the publicity my books received when they were stolen. That story hit a lot of websites, newspapers, blogs etc, although they were outlets aimed more at writers than readers, or at best business people.

Both books have been available now for a little over a year. Between the two of them, I sell on the average a book a day. That's not exactly quit-your-day-job-and-make-your-living-as-a-writer kind of money. (Maybe $400-$500 last year.)

Now, maybe my books suck. I don't think that they do, but I'm bound to be prejudiced and prone to ignore evidence to the contrary, and hang on the evidence that they might actually be good. After all, they get good reviews from people I've never heard of, and most people who bought the first one generally bought the second. There's even a whack of people asking me when the third is coming out.

Still, there are boatloads of indie authors on Amazon selling hundreds of books a day. (I've even heard there are some that sell thousands--but we don't like them. Not at all.) I've read some of these books, and while some are excellent, most are, at best (and again, prejudiced here) no better than mine. Many are worse. A lot worse - unless you don't care about things like grammar, spelling, plot, characters…um…formatting.

What this tells me then, is that if my books aren't selling, it's my fault.

Somehow I need to make my books more visible. The problem is that I'm not sure how to go about doing that. I've read a lot off stuff about increasing your sales on Amazon, most of it conflicting, and a lot of it by people who are selling their book on Amazon about how to increase your sales, so…you know…suspect.

There is just too much I don't know, and that's my fault too. (For instance, did you know that even as a self-pubbed author you can sell your foreign rights? Heck, I thought my foreign rights meant that my books were for sale on Amazon.uk, de, ect.) An indie author sent me this link (because we all have to stick together, eh). Check it out: http://www.bookmarket.com/foreign.htm

Of course, I never wanted to be in business/marketing. I always wanted to be a lumberjack writer. But things change. Apparently now you need to be both (or be a successful enough writer that you can hire someone to do you business/marketing for you--which seems like a Catch 22 to me).

So who knows, maybe self-pubbing THE MOONLIGHT WAR is the way to go. Maybe I'll have no choice. For now, though. I'd like to go the traditional route if possible.

That is at least until they piss me off enough to self-pub out of spite.