Despite My Own Advice...

 

I'm always going to be honest on this blog. Selling an indie novel is virtually impossible. And it's rarely about quality. It's true that I've previewed a lot of truly bad indie novels, but with more than 10,000 books published every day (yes, really), I'm certain there are a lot of good ones out there. Good ones that no one buys.

I know the reasons for that, and I've detailed them in my many posts. Still, maybe we're writers because we revel in the impossible, and thus, we believe we have the ability or good fortune to beat the odds. 

I know and you know that once we try everything and none of it works, that nothing is ever going to work; yet we cling to the delusion that we just haven't found the magic potion yet.

While I was awaiting my professional book cover to be delivered, I decided that I was going to try the last avenue I hadn't explored, Amazon ads. In full disclosure, I tried them exactly one time, but it was a half-hearted attempt with one of my novellas. I set up my campaign with the absolute lowest per-day expenditure allowed, and I believe I ran it for less than a week. (P.S. I never even got one click.) 

But now I have my "career novel" that I know is good, so I pledged to do it again, only the right way this time.

Have I done it? Nope. I still want to do it, yet I don't want to do it. I don't want to do it because I know this is the last straw and the last straw is not going to work. I dread its inevitable failure, because I'll then have to give up on this book. Its fate will truly be out of my hands, if it ever was in my hands. 

Well, some of it was in my hands, maybe. I didn't want to spend money on a good book cover, due to the fact that (a) I couldn't afford to; and (b) none of my other books have been successful, so why would this one be? I wanted it to be successful; I dreamed of it being successful, but I didn't have the money to bet on a dream.

Running From Herself was published on March 1, and I wasted that new release buzz by having a crappy cover. In fact, I wasted almost five months, during which I might have sold some copies. (might have, but I'll never know)

The new cover has been online for a little less than a week, and my sales report is still flatlining. Maybe I should run another FreeBooksy ad to give it a kick in the ass. A bunch of downloads, free or not, increases a book's sales rank, which could potentially raise its visibility on Amazon. But I doubt that would help, either.

It is sort of cute that failed authors like me grasp onto any sliver of encouragement. When I changed my book cover image on Pen Pinery, I suddenly got a few more ARC requests; then when PP liked my cover so much that they featured it in their Facebook group, I got a few more requests, which ultimately led to my book "trending" on the site. I know that means very little, but since I never get any positive reinforcement at all, it excited me for a couple of hours.

Too, I was excited for a bit when I scored a great editorial review. That was the first time anyone but me declared that my novel was good. That review didn't move the needle, though.

I'm in a unique position from other authors, because if (when?) their books fail, they can always tell themselves they'll get it with the next one. I'm not going to have a "next one". At my age, I don't even know that I have the year that it would take to write another novel. Plus, I don't want to do it. I have no good ideas, and my one fan's suggestion that I write a sequel is not workable. I briefly thought about writing a companion novel, per se, featuring the Paula Barnes character, but the story would involve tons of historical research that I no longer have the stomach for.

No, my bet, my "dream" all rested on this novel.

We authors hate feeling helpless. Most of us work really hard to land readers. I'm a bit more realistic than younger writers, but I'm obviously not immune to some sparkly new idea that someone on Reddit tried, with fantastic results. As preposterous as that idea sounds.

At one point I read something about online book fairs. Well, here's something new, I thought. Wonder how that works? Oops, wait-- $99.00? Um, no.

I forced myself to slog through David Gaughran's one-hour video on Facebook ads. Gaughran is a marketing guru, so I followed his instructions to the letter when I set up an ad. It didn't work, but not to be deterred, I tried a different ad. That didn't work, either. I slogged through his BookBub tutorial, and I bet you can guess the denouement. But this guy is the best! He knows! It must be me. I'm the problem. But you know, in hindsight, David (nice guy) is blowing smoke up our asses. He's very earnest in his presentations, and he has a self-deprecating sense of humor; those two things are what lures authors in. It's not that I don't believe that he believes in his stuff. But his stuff doesn't work. That's not his fault--nothing works.

And that's the story.

Actually, this post fits nicely with all my advice posts. I'm someone who loves examples, and what better example than me? I keep trying things and I keep getting shot down. I'm an indie author's reverse role model!

I do worry sometimes that I'm being too discouraging. Look, I don't want to smash your dreams to bits. I don't. You might need to read between the defeatist lines to understand that my intent is to steer you away from blowing your savings on a bunch of things that won't work. To deter you from making the same stupid mistakes I made. 

At some point I will create that Amazon ad, and I'll report back. Who knows? It could surprise me with its glorious success.

It could happen.