Getting Creative When the Market Gets Crowded

Here’s a disheartening fact that concerns all authors (traditional or indie): there are over ten thousand e-books published every year on Amazon. Not even half of them will be best-seller material, but that’s still an awful lot for readers to wade through to find their next favorite. I’ve realized that marketing online isn’t enough, but it’s awkward trying to sell your work to people you know.

This has forced me to get more creative. Even if people don’t read my books, I’ve found other ways to get my name out:

Leave my books at any coffee shop with a bookshelf or a book swap, or a place where someone is guaranteed to find it (but since I don’t have an endless supply of paperbacks on hand, this is an expensive and rarely used tactic).

Post business cards on public bulletin boards. Panera and lots of other coffee shops have these available for customers to advertise their businesses (and yes, writing counts as a business). In fact, leave business cards anywhere you can, so long as you aren’t littering or leaving piles of paper around for someone else to clean up and throw away.

Make friends with the employees of indie book shops and ask if it’s possible for them to recommend your book if a customer purchases one of a similar genre.

Anyone else have other ideas? I’d love to hear about them!

Filed under: Self-Publishing Tagged: Author Sarahbeth Caplin, Indie Author Life, Writing