There is Book Marketing Help Online and it's Free

I find that I don't mind going down rabbit holes. In fact, I'm enjoying it. As you know, I've now exhausted almost all my marketing options (that don't require a financial outlay), so I've just started asking questions.

The Instagram contact from a book publicist scammer got me wondering what real book publicists do, so I took to Reddit to ask. While I know I could never afford a publicist, I was curious about how effective paid publicity is and what true professionals actually accomplish for an author. I got one response, but it led to more "looking". The respondent linked to a publicity firm he (?) recommends to other authors, and while the site didn't answer my question regarding fees (likely one zillion dollars), it listed 110 tips for marketing a book. Granted, most of them are either crap or undoable, but a few included links to various organizations and companies that can help independent authors. I haven't yet perused these sites, and naturally, if they're fee-based, I'm screwed, but the thing is, one road tends to lead to another and another. Just like with the publicity firm, often there are some free hidden gems inside, if one takes the time to look. 

Truly reputable companies don't mind sharing information. The first site I pulled up has a list of articles ~ marketing do's and don't's, trade secrets, and tips for "mastering" Amazon, among others. Even if none of these gems help me in my marketing quest, they're still interesting! I'm learning. At the rate I'm finding new resources, I could be reading for weeks.

And I'm also doing a lot of subscribing. The great thing about subscriptions is, it's easy enough to change your mind if the mailings are duds, or if a company spams you with emails every day. There's one newsletter that's teetering on the brink, because it's both a dud and a spammer. But that's the chance one takes when signing up. All this one does is tout its seminars, something that's completely useless to me.

Book promo sites may not be effective for me from a selling standpoint, but many of them, including Written Word Media, send dedicated author missives with links to sometimes useful articles. Voracious Readers Only does the same. Face it; these outfits need to offer material that keeps authors coming back. If I'm turned off by useless spam, I'm not likely to buy promos from them, either.

The unfortunate fact regarding Googling for assistance is that the search results are limited. It seems that no matter how I phrase my question, I get the same results; ones I've already looked at and generally discarded. That's why rabbit holes are good. I realize by going down these holes, I'm unlikely to hit gold, but even a tiny nugget might lead to something bigger.

And I've got plenty of time to mine.