I recently published my fifth novel What the Hell Ever Happened to Yuri Rozhenko? and I’m really driven to market this book and try and make it successful. I think it’s one of the best things I’ve ever written, and my best chance for making a splash on the book scene.

But, as many indie writers do, I bemoan the art of marketing. Writing books is the easy part. Trying to get them to sell is another matter. I’ve written about this topic before, but I am thinking about the breakdown: Why is it so difficult to market books? Here are my ideas on the topic. (With the caveat that I’m not a marketing or economic expert!)

There are just so many books out there!

It’s hard to get noticed because the field is crowded. So many books! I go through daily writers lifts on Twitter and there are so many interesting and fascinating books being put out there by indie authors. I have bought a few and they’re lined up on my Kindle, but I can’t afford to buy everything that piques my interest.

One of the biggest challenges is just getting noticed in the crowd. Even avid readers are faced with a dizzying array of choices. Hooking readers means standing out in a very crowded field, regardless of your genre. Even with all of the co-promoting and support that authors give each other, showing up and rising high enough for people to notice your book is a challenge, simply because of the crowd.

Let’s face it, a lot of people do not read.

Video games, movies, music, television series… All of those forms of entertainment seem to trump reading. Some might say the art of reading has been lost, but I don’t think that’s always the case. There are plenty of people who still love books, never mind the teeming hordes of children and adults who have devoured the Harry potter series, yet how many people who have watched the Netflix series The Queen’s Gambit have read the book? How many people even know it was a book before it became a television series? Add up all of the people who have watched Game of Thrones and then add up all of those who have read at least one of the books and you will probably find a great disparity.

Don’t get me wrong. The one thing I don’t want to be is one of those cranky professor types who grouses “reading is a dying art!” or the ol’ pooperoo who yarks “We used to read in my day!” I think there is plenty of room for books to still go viral and become a big part of pop culture today, but let’s face it: we’re competing with video games and Netflix and a whole host of other leisure time distractions. It’s tough to go up against an XBox! (And yeah, I have an XBox!)

This time I got some pros to help
me with my book cover!

We’re writers, not marketers

I think I’m a good writer. I strive to continuously hone my craft, I have gotten a lot of really good responses to my writing. I have read a lot of really good and wonderful material from a variety of indie authors. There are a lot of great writers out there. But one thing is true: We are not marketers. I know I’m not. I am trying to learn: reading articles, watching YouTube videos on promotion and downloading BookBub‘s marketing guides. I’m trying to figure it all out, to try and push my material in a way that will make it stick with potential readers.

I have tried Facebook, Amazon, and Google advertising, and I’ve come to a conclusion: I could either a) Continue to use those platform’s advertising services, or b) Drive down the street and throw money out of the window. The results would be the same. I am thinking that these avenues of promotion aren’t that effective, or possibly they are not really effective unless one has already established a venture that has already gotten around, or, more likely, I do not know how to effectively use these tools. Many marketers talk about keywords, bid amounts, and optimization strategies for advertising campaigns. Apparently there’s a learning curve to using those tools. I know many other writers who have tried them out and have also gotten frustrated with a lack of results.

All in all it’s a big problem. Most writers simply are not marketers. It’s another discipline. And what breaks my heart is that there are many wonderful writers who never get noticed simply because they don’t know how to get their material out there, or they tried for a while and eventually just gave up out of sheer frustration.

Like all Indie authors I make
frequent social media rounds!

It’s the economy, stupid!

So many writers are frustrated with getting their books to move that I really believe we are overlooking one very salient point: Books cost money. Ergo a lot of people just don’t buy books for that fact.

Many writers, including myself, will sell Kindle copies at a generous discount, simply because we are trying to get our books to move. If I did start selling books at a healthy or even a viral pace I would raise the Kindle price, but for the moment you can buy Kindle version of any of my books for less than a Starbucks latte.

Even so, too many people are struggling, especially now with the pandemic strangling our economy. Too many people are counting their pennies, looking for work, and trying to make ends meet. Record numbers of people are filing for unemployment, and the shoplifting of food has risen significantly. With all of that, there are too many people who just do not have disposable income for anything extra like movies, video games, and books. When moths keep flying out of peoples wallets, your book sales will suffer, simply because they cannot spare the cost of a book, even a cheap Kindle copy.

Still, I soldier on…

With my new novel I have gone to great pains to make it marketable. I hired an editor to clean up the manuscript. I got an artist and a graphic designer to make my cover. I am currently reading and researching the marketing world, trying to figure out how to make Amazon ads work and trying to decipher whatever a “book funnel” is. As far as marketing advice goes there’s plenty around, usually by marketers who are interested in having you buy their services or sign up for their newsletters. (Which just happen to have affiliate advertising in them. AKA how to make money!)

I have not hired a marketer yet, mostly for fear of getting hustled or paying for a service that does not show results. I am trying to be cautious while at the same time thinking that too much caution will leave me stalled.

In any case, I soldier on in the hopes that one of my five books will go viral. I do dream of the day HBO or Netflix wants to make a mini-series out of one of my books, or maybe even a show about my