Failure in Book Marketing Isn't Your Fault

Almost four millions new books are published every year. Wondering why you can't get traction? Well, there ya go. A psychological tic we self-published authors share is that we personalize rejection when, in fact, it's not personal at all. (Not that this knowledge helps.)

Just a quick stroll through book-centric social media (i.e., Instagram and TikTok) reveals the vast number of authors who (like us) are screaming, "Buy my book!" Even a prolific reader could never buy and read all those books.

The two guaranteed ways to sell books today are:

1. Be a trade-published author with an enormous following

2. Write in a surefire genre

I'm guessing if you're reading this, you're not a trade-published author with an enormous following, which only leaves you with Option #2. 

I'll forego what literary agents are looking for, because they don't know what the hell they're doing. They're too insulated and too susceptible to peer pressure. That's why self-publishing was born. But I digress.

According to this article, romance is by far the biggest selling genre for self-publishers, followed by fantasy and science fiction. The writer also notes that there is a large cozy mystery and paranormal romance niche. 

My point isn't to rag on a particular genre, but to assure you (and me) that lack of sales isn't necessarily our fault. Standard estimates are that about 1% of self-published authors sell more than 1,000 copies of their book. Bear in mind that this is an average, meaning, well, you know what it means. I, for example, have sold exactly 14 copies of my latest novel. In 2023 approximately three million books were self-published, which amounts to 30,000 lucky souls who can be called "successful". That's not very many. 

When you drill it down, for every 100 books being pushed on social media on a typical day, one book is sold. Enjoy playing the lottery? You know what they say; you can't win if you don't play.

So, how do you successfully market a book on social media?

1. ?

2. Just keep posting and trying to beat the odds.

That being said, my time on social media is winding down. It's an avenue I needed to explore, and I've done that. I was quite diligent about it, too, but the only people I seemed to attract are other marketers...and perverts. Abandoning a technique that's not working is nothing to be ashamed of. It frees us up to focus on other strategies. Social media should never be an author's main marketing source anyway, but more of an extra sprinkle. Frankly, I zeroed in on it because I ran out of advertising money. 

I've found that Instagram is quite cliquey, and I hate cliques. I stumbled across a few "engagement boost" posts in the last couple of days (something I wasn't familiar with), but I went along ~ liked and followed as many accounts as the post allowed ~ and I got one follow-back. You know, I didn't want to follow these people, either, but I did. I'm not the ideal social media consumer. It's like attending a party because you feel obligated, but no one talks to you, so you huddle in the corner, sipping your punch.

My niche is the written word, so obviously I need to lean into that, whether writing more posts for my website or penning the occasional guest article. If you hate marketing as much as I do, you have to find something that feels right; not force yourself to do something that makes you uncomfortable.

Except "right" and "effective" never seem to intertwine.

Still, I can comfort myself knowing that I, too, have found my clique ~ the 99-percenters.