Wayne Aubry
asked
Matt Carrell:
Hi Matt, I just published my first book, "Memoirs of a Dirty Old Man in Thailand". It took me one year to write and I'm dedicating the next tear to promoting the book. I am impressed by your list of books and ratings. Do you have any advice on marketing? Wayne Aubry
Matt Carrell
Hi Wayne - happy to help if I can.
Marketing is the hard part I'm afraid - there's literally a million self published authors out there all screaming for attention. All I can do is list the things I did that worked and the things that didn't.
What worked -
No 1 - I did a lot of my research on a Thai forum - made some friends on there and one of them gave my first book a good plug. I've engaged with a lot of the members and they are really good at spreading the word.
Facebook - I've hooked up with a lot of other writers (Thai bias) on Facebook - they have their own fanbase and they've been kind to me. I've had really successful authors like Tim Hallinan share my posts. If you are on there - find me and I'll help you get acquainted.
GoodReads participation and giveaways get you noticed. Maybe you'd never have heard of me if I wasn't on here.
Are you doing e-book or paperback too? Highly recommend the latter. I've given away a lot of review copies.
You need to know who you're targeting and get in front of them. The forums are good for that but I've also offered free articles for magazines that give me some coverage.
I've got three or four blogs and reshare the posts regularly - with an autolink to Facebook - one is here http://journalism-factorfiction.blogs...
One other thought - your title suggests something quite lurid. Are you sure this is what you want to do. It will draw a lot of readers in - but it will drive far more away. I write about the dark side of Thailand but there is no explicit sex in my books - so I get a lot of women readers.
I have a pretty decent web-site that brings all my stuff together in one place. I'm not an IT geek - but if you know you're way round a computer it isn't that hard to create and maintain.
I entered three or four writing competitions and got into the winner's circle in two of them - good PR for your Amazon page.
Finally - stuff like this is good. Contacting other authors is a great idea and you're already guaranteed a sale. Send the link when you're ready and I'll buy a copy. If I like it I'll post a review.
Things that didn't work (for me - others may disagree)
Twitter - you have to really work at this to get any feedback. I did make some contacts and definitely sold some books - but at disproportionate cost in terms of time and effort. Also I joined a site for authors wishing to promote their books and my followers leapt by 1,000. All authors. SO when I tweeted - half my followers were not interested in buying books only selling their own.
I've done a few free promos of books - and of short stories that are supposed to draw people in to the short stories. It didn't llok to me as though it had any longer term impact on sales.
I haven't tried it - but I'm very skeptical about paid advertising - there's just too much of it out there.
Summary - it's all about targeting people who might like your book - not about just shouting from the rooftops. If you do social media - don't just spam people. Most of my Facebook posts are nothing to do with the books.
Find me on Facebook - happy to chat about this. Good luck with your book.
Matt.
Marketing is the hard part I'm afraid - there's literally a million self published authors out there all screaming for attention. All I can do is list the things I did that worked and the things that didn't.
What worked -
No 1 - I did a lot of my research on a Thai forum - made some friends on there and one of them gave my first book a good plug. I've engaged with a lot of the members and they are really good at spreading the word.
Facebook - I've hooked up with a lot of other writers (Thai bias) on Facebook - they have their own fanbase and they've been kind to me. I've had really successful authors like Tim Hallinan share my posts. If you are on there - find me and I'll help you get acquainted.
GoodReads participation and giveaways get you noticed. Maybe you'd never have heard of me if I wasn't on here.
Are you doing e-book or paperback too? Highly recommend the latter. I've given away a lot of review copies.
You need to know who you're targeting and get in front of them. The forums are good for that but I've also offered free articles for magazines that give me some coverage.
I've got three or four blogs and reshare the posts regularly - with an autolink to Facebook - one is here http://journalism-factorfiction.blogs...
One other thought - your title suggests something quite lurid. Are you sure this is what you want to do. It will draw a lot of readers in - but it will drive far more away. I write about the dark side of Thailand but there is no explicit sex in my books - so I get a lot of women readers.
I have a pretty decent web-site that brings all my stuff together in one place. I'm not an IT geek - but if you know you're way round a computer it isn't that hard to create and maintain.
I entered three or four writing competitions and got into the winner's circle in two of them - good PR for your Amazon page.
Finally - stuff like this is good. Contacting other authors is a great idea and you're already guaranteed a sale. Send the link when you're ready and I'll buy a copy. If I like it I'll post a review.
Things that didn't work (for me - others may disagree)
Twitter - you have to really work at this to get any feedback. I did make some contacts and definitely sold some books - but at disproportionate cost in terms of time and effort. Also I joined a site for authors wishing to promote their books and my followers leapt by 1,000. All authors. SO when I tweeted - half my followers were not interested in buying books only selling their own.
I've done a few free promos of books - and of short stories that are supposed to draw people in to the short stories. It didn't llok to me as though it had any longer term impact on sales.
I haven't tried it - but I'm very skeptical about paid advertising - there's just too much of it out there.
Summary - it's all about targeting people who might like your book - not about just shouting from the rooftops. If you do social media - don't just spam people. Most of my Facebook posts are nothing to do with the books.
Find me on Facebook - happy to chat about this. Good luck with your book.
Matt.
More Answered Questions
Wayne Aubry
asked
Matt Carrell:
Thanks much Matt. Your advice. I have both an eBook and a paperback at Amazon. Oct. 22 thru Oct. 26 you can download my ebook for free. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0100W111O I'm on Facebook but I am terrible with its rules of usage. My goal for today will be to get up to speed on Facebook. Which is your best book? I will buy and review. See you on Facebook Wayne
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