A Goodreads user asked Jessica Gadziala:

Hey! Firstly I just want to say I love all your books, I even listed you as an influence on numerous pages as a fellow Indie author. Keep up the great work :) I just had a question in regards to your followers, and how you market your books in order to get them out there? I think I'm having a hard time trying to wrap my head around it all! How do you do it all? Thanks. -Aneta Quinn

Jessica Gadziala Wow. I feel so unworthy of answering this question! But I feel we, as indie authors, owe it to each other to impart whatever knowledge we do have so I will try my best here:

I don't think I owe any of my success to actual marketing. I think my biggest asset is visibility. By that I mean that since I first started publishing in April 2015, I have written, edited, and published a book every single month. I am constantly popping up on peoples' radar and eventually readers go "hmm, maybe I should give her a shot". I mean I know this is not a feasible option for most writers. To be able to do this, I work 80+ hours a week. But I really do believe it has been my "secret weapon".

Now... to the actual marketing question. To be perfectly honest, I don't market. At all. Which is probably quite foolish of me. Call it too much pride or what-have-you, but I can't bring myself to approach bloggers and ask them to read/review/promote/pimp my work. I also don't go onto the forums or blogs and promote/pimp myself either. Though I really advice you DO do that.

The most I do is create "teasers" for my upcoming books (a picture of the book cover with quotes from the book) and I release these on my Facebook and Goodreads accounts for my readers to read and get excited about. I also give out ARC copies of my books to... about... ten readers for each release. Many authors give away a LOT more ARCs than I do. You HAVE to give out ARCs. If you don't have anyone who wants an ARC yet (and trust me, we have ALLLLLLL been there!), go onto the book groups on here that allow you to promote yourself and post threads asking people to R2R (read to review). I did this maybe a handful of times at the very beginning. I found my first fans this way. It gets you exposure and creates a buzz.

My best advice is honestly to just keep working at it. I was seven months (and SEVEN book releases) into my career (and had eaten through all my savings and was days away from needing to go back and get a 'real job') by the time I released "Reign" which got a lot more traction than my other books. I credit this to it being an MC book (MC readers are voracious and I don't think any MC release slips past them). From there, readers just kept finding me and reading the old books in my catalog and buying my new ones.

But it took a lot of time. I know there are quite a few cases of new indie authors coming out and becoming a sort of "overnight sensation". It happens. It even happens often. BUT that is the exception, not the rule. The rest of us really had to claw our way to our positions.

Keep plugging. Swallow your pride a little and pimp yourself where you can. The readers will come.

Also, thanks so much for thinking of me as an influence! I can't believe I am at the point where other writers could possibly think of me as such. You made my day, doll!

flag