— Mark Paxson
Months ago, I decided to try traditional publishing with my just-completed novel. That didn’t turn out so well, so I moved on to publishing it myself. I also decided to put some money into the publishing effort for the first time. I’ve paid for a Kirkus review, which I should get in the next week or so. I paid for somebody more talented than me to do the cover. I also joined the Independent Publishers Association, which has all sorts of “benefits” for its members — reduced prices for various editing, marketing, cover design, review, and all sorts of other services the indie publisher desperately needs.
Meanwhile, over on Twitter, I’ve started following a few Twitter accounts that promote books to their followers. Most of them boast follower counts of tens of thousands. One of them has over 114,000 followers. Each of these accounts will tweet out your short blurb about your book with a link to purchase it.
Now, I’m feeling overwhelmed by the choices and the options. I’m the type of guy who would prefer returning to the days when there were only plain and peanut M&Ms, only one kind of Snickers, only three channels on the television. I have Spotify and I absolutely love that pretty much every piece of music ever recorded is available there, but sometimes, I just don’t want all of that choice and I find myself wanting to curl into a ball instead of being confronted with the world of endless options we now have.
Which is where I’m at with my current publishing journey. As the title states, I feel like I’ve opened Pandora’s Box. I have unleashed the kraken. Everywhere I look, there are more sites that will promote your book, more services that will review your book. All of these things, of course, come with a fee attached. Everything from $25 to have your book pushed through one of those Twitter accounts to $500 for a discounted review through my IBPA membership. $500!! For a review!! And that’s a discount!!!!!! (Side note: yes, I paid almost that much for a Kirkus review, but I’m not doing it again.)
Meanwhile, those Twitter accounts that promote your book with tweets to their thousands of followers? There is almost no engagement on those tweets, and I know I pay almost no attention to them. Twitter isn’t where I go for book recommendations, you know what I mean.
There are a few places that will provide a review for free, and when the time is right, I’ll pursue those.
Beyond that … see above about wanting to curl into a ball. There are just so many options out there and I can’t help but feel like it’s an adjunct to the whole vanity publishing concept we discussed a week or so ago. Sure, we’ll be happy to promote your book, pay us, and … bwahahahahaha, good luck!
We’ve talked about this here before, but if you’re an indie author who has used any of these services — particularly the review and promo services — I would love to hear from you, and I’m willing to bet other writers would too. What worked? What didn’t? How did you decide which ones to use and which ones to stay away from? How did you decide how much pocket change to throw at these things? In other words … what’s the secret recipe to success?
Writers Supporting Writers 
I don’t know the secret of success. But if I had to guess, it’s “Go big or go home.” Good luck!
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Yep. You gotta spend money to make money. The issue is .. what’s the definition of success. A constant struggle for me.
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I’m with you when it comes to too many choices, Mark. Which is why I haven’t tried any of these things. So far, my recipe for success is to redefine success. But that’s like saying “True happiness is the absence of the search for happiness.”
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Truth! But I continue to struggle with how I want to define success.
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The first person to come up with a solution that works (and tells us what to do!) will become a saint at the very least!
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I totally agree!!
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BookBub is the creme de la creme, but you need at least 3 other books as follow ons – expensive but you do get a positive ROI. Try ENT, Book Gorilla and Fussy Librarian when books are discounted – again it helps to have a few read ons. First time round you should get sales, repeats with the same sites not so good. Build a mailing list, they are your followers and you have personal access to them. Takes time, but a newsletter once or twice a month should keep them on board and good luck! I’ve been at this for 7 years and still not cracked it!
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I’ve tried ENT and had some success with it with my first book, not so much my second or third book. I haven’t seen Book Gorilla or Fussy Librarian before, so I’ll check them out.
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Good post, with much food for thought for the Indie Writer.
Personally I’m a stubborn and hopeless case, as my wife says ‘You won’t be told’, so I don’t ask for any professional opinion, review or otherwise. People can point out spelling mistakes, fair enough; anything else, it depends if I know and respect the person (Hi Audrey. Hi Berthold)
Which is why I languish in the more unknown parts of Amazon Kindle-land.
Like I said….hopeless case.
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For the very first book I self-published, I spent $500 on an editor and another $200 for the cover. I don’t regret the editor at all because I learned so much from her. Just for interest, she’s an author herself and I love her books and writing so I felt I’d be in good hands, and I was.
The cover however…meh. It just didn’t look anything like a scifi cover.
Long story short, these days I do it all myself. Some of it it enjoy – like the covers and the editing, believe it or not. Some I loathe, and yes, that’s the marketing.
My compromise with the marketing is that I only do those things that I enjoy. For me, that includes my blog, and Twitter, although I doubt that anyone has ever bought one of my books via Twitter. But every now and then, someone stumbles onto my blog from Twitter, so it’s all good.
Bottom line: My books are my legacy, the fly-specks on history that say ‘phoo was ‘ere’. I just want to be /read/. 🙂
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It all comes down to objective, as we frequently say on this blog. I just want to be read. Yes. But by a group larger than a few friends and family and a few readers I’ve acquired via my blog. 😉
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I’ve tried a bunch of ’em myself, with disappointing results except for ENT, and now ENT won’t accept my books because they don’t have enough reviews. So I’d say the more reviews you can garner ahead of time, the better for any marketing campaign.
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It’s interesting. When I tried to put Irrepairable on ENT, I read their guidelines and they make a point of stating there is not a minimum # of reviews required, but they rejected Irrepairable for some unstated non-compliance with their guidelines.
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I’m been at this for 12 years and I wish I had a magic bullet for you. They don’t exist. The only promotion site that has actually paid for itself is Bookbub, and it took me years to get on there. I’ve pretty much focused on blogging and making blog connections. It’s through blogging that I’ve garnered the most sales and reviews. But it takes work. I read and review 100-150 blogger books per year. Goodreads also has a Reading Rounds group that has built up my reviews. Good luck!
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Thanks for the reply. Your response is consistent with an on-going conversation we’re having around here. About objectives. You just can’t go into indie publishing expecting to make a big splash. It’s virtually impossible.
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