The road to discouragement and disillusionment is paved with…

…poor book sales.

I am going to try and not make this the downer post it is sounding like running about in my head right now. Pray for me, lol.

I have been in the business of writing/publishing for 10 years, almost 11 at this point. I have over 65 titles currently out in the world, over 25 with traditional publishers. I have been on podcasts for bookstagrammers, won many amazing contests for my books, been featured in 2 highly valued e-zines about books. I’ve been to over 30 book signings, 8 of my own and 22 multiauthor events. I’ve spent thousands of dollars on ads promoting my books on the huge social platforms where ads are encouraged. I’ve done book giveaways, been a guest at dozens of facebook parties, and basically done everything that every book marketing analyst says to do to get your books in front of readers. I sell books directly from my website and do preorders for all the conferences and book events I attend. I’ve done ARCS giveaways to readers I don’t know hoping agianst hope they’ll write a review. My return rate on that is ( this is for the last book I promoted this way) 100 arcs/14 reviews.

And we all know authors live and die by book sales and book reviews.

I promote myself and my books every single day on my social platforms. And only about 20 percent of the promos are “buy this book” ones. Most are exactly what the marketing geniuses say to do – promote yourself and your brand: Be real. Be engaging. Be funny. Send the message your video/ad/post is worth viewing.

And I’m tired.

And you know what else I am?
I’m discouraged.

My book sales are nil. Really. NIL!!! Nada. Zilch. No bueno.

If I had to support myself, I’d need three jobs to just to get by.

Someone close to me (okay…my hubby.) says it’s because I write in a glutted genre and he’s not totally wrong. Covid brought out the I-can-write-a-book-and-make-millions crowd who basically, a. can’t write for shit, and b. must have had disposable income to spend on ad after ad after ad to promote their “work,” because all I see are videos and ads promoting it.

They are selling books. Or at least they appear to be. I’m not privy to their KDP page and they could be lying for all I know.

In the good old days when marketing was done for you by the publishers, writers could just crank out the work and someone else was charged with getting your name in front of the book buying public. With the advent of the indie author, this job falls to the author, along with writing, distributing, formatting, editing, cover production and then hawking the book.

All writers want to do is write. I know hundreds of authors and I have never EVER heard one of them say they would rather be marketing their books than writing them.

Not one.

That tells you something right there, doesn’t it.

Even writing this post and then uploading it to all my media sites is taking time away from writing my next book. I sound like I am whining, and you know? I kinda am. Okay, no kinda about it. I am whining. But the frustration is real. Just once I’d like to actually come out on top financially when I have a new release.

I don’t know any other profession that’s a sustainable lifestyle with so little income and such a load of outgo in the finance department.

Okay, whining, for sure.

There is one major factor in my writing career I am doing moving forward. I am not going to be doing the amount of multiauthor booksignings I have been doing the past 10 years. Right now I am a small cog in a wheel. The majority of readers attending this conventions seem to want to read smut ( and that’s the term for it. It’s not a prejorative), romantasy, dark romance, and mafia romance.

I don’t write any of those and am not going to start now just to sell a few books.

I write mostly small town, 40+ h//h characters who have lived lives and ar looking for love. I write everything from sweet to steamy with open door. What the characters are telling me is the story I give them, so if that means nothing more than a kiss, okay. If it means getting frisky between the sheets ( and other fun places), okay. My niche is small, and because if that I am not finding readers at conferences or on the social anymore.

So, moving forward, I am eschewing the big events for smaller, individual ones. Library events are my favorite! The cost is nothing except a donated book and you actually get to talk to people and commune with them.

I sell books on my website and will continue doing so because if I’m not going to big events, I need a way for people who do want my books to get them autographed, personalized, and get some swag to them.

I have one new big event booked for 2026 and so far that is it.

I have 6 more events for this year ( 4 multiauthor, one personal booksigning, and one library event.) and then I am done.

Done.

In between i will still try to hawk my books on socials, but I am hoping I won’t be so whining about it moving forward.

Thanks for listening to this rant.

I really am tired and just want to write.