Maybe No One Wants It

The time has come in which it's time to be philosophical, i.e., realistic about my novel. I now realize a few things:

• I've put far too much energy into it.
• No matter what I do, the novel isn't going to sell.

When I was in my novella-writing groove, I didn't worry much about the last one selling, at least not at first. I was super pumped that I'd discovered a writing form that I was good at, that came relatively easily, that didn't require a whole year's investment to complete. I suppose if I thought about it at all, I figured a few people would discover my mini-novels and get ninety-nine cents worth of enjoyment out of reading them.

But after a while I began to feel inadequate. No one was discovering them ~ maybe one or two people occasionally ~ the luck of the draw, I guess ~ and I was frustrated. I'm as good a writer as all those folks on Reddit, and they have readers. So, for my last couple of novellas, I searched out ARC readers and found a few via Goodreads and BookSprout. I tried Voracious Readers Only and netted almost a thousand downloads, but zero reviews. I also did a couple of Library Thing giveaways. In all, the most reviews I ended up with was about six (per book), and Inn Dreams fared the worst. To say those reviews were lukewarm is an insult to tepid water. 

I also used a few of the cheaper promo sites, which was pretty much a bust. The most I spent was on a BookBub ad, and that was the least successful of all of them.

While I was frustrated, it wasn't a huge deal, big picture, because, well...they're novellas. Not exactly "throwaways", but also not serious like a novel is. 

To date (which in my case means in total, because I won't be writing again) I've penned four novels. The first two were not good, the third was better. I didn't enjoy writing them. The third one I sort of enjoyed, but I knew I hadn't mastered the craft, and while it had a good premise, I didn't execute it well. It was really those seven novellas that taught me how to do it right.

Which leads me to Running From Herself. It's good, and no one can take that away from me. And I loved writing it. In fact, I had a blast. The story could have gone on longer, but 115,000 words seemed like the right cutoff. I almost wish now that I'd kept going, because fun was the only good thing that came out of the process.

Despite knowing that my previous marketing tactics were hopeless, I clung to the hope that if I could just get people's eyes on it, it would take off. No, I didn't seek out ARC readers. People will say, well, there you go. You blew it. Honestly (and I'm being brutally honest), my decision was right. There's a fable that finds its way into advice articles all the time that says, if people are given the opportunity to read an ARC, they feel obligated to write a good review. Au contraire! What they really feel is that they have carte blanche to rip it to shreds, like they're strict schoolmarms and you're the math dunce they're saddled with.  

But aside from foregoing ARC readers, I did most of the same things I'd done with the two novellas I tried to market. I bought some inexpensive promos, I bought a BookBub ad, I tried to get accepted by BookSirens, to no avail (again). Then I went way further. I did everything short of hiring a cover designer, which I couldn't afford to do, and short of hiring a publicist (again, because...)

The marketing guy I follow, Thomas Umstattd, who I trust because his intentions are pure, was nice enough to send me a comprehensive email response, telling me what I was doing wrong and what I should be doing instead. His big takeaway is that I need to identify my target audience. How does one do that, exactly? No clue, except mine is probably made up of women. That doesn't exactly narrow it down.

Umstattd uses the example of a self-help author who writes about some physiological issue. He said, find a chronic pain forum and hang out there. Sure, that might work out okay for a really narrow topic, but am I supposed to find a non-existent forum for aspiring singers? If one actually existed, I doubt its users would appreciate a novel talking about what a horrible experience it is being signed to a record label. 

I'm usually pretty good at homing in on answers instinctively, but with this I'm completely lost. I obviously don't know the market; I'm clearly out of touch. I wouldn't refer to this story as "wholesome", per se. It's not Little House on the Prairie, but it's nowhere near smutty. I almost thought it might appeal to readers of Christian literature, except my main character has a smattering of sex partners (three! the horror!) and a few of the supporting characters use the F word a lot. Plus, well, there's that whole thing about it not being a religious book at all. There's actually an entire genre of "clean romance", except my novel's not a romance and "clean" ~ well, I don't know how that's defined, but I'm pretty sure my book doesn't fit the strict criteria.

So, I guess I only know what my book is not.  

Bottom line, I don't have a target audience. It doesn't exist. 

No one wants it.