I'm Breaking Up With You

After seven months of banging my head against the wall, I'm slowly winding down my marketing activities. It's a relief, actually. While a tiny part of me is still holding out hope that Running From Herself will somehow catch on, the larger part of my brain knows that's not true.

Good God, I can't keep promoting it forever! Five years from now, will I still be making little Instagram posts about it? 

I've learned a lot about marketing in these past seven months; unfortunately, all that knowledge is useless, since I'm not writing anymore. But at least by ceasing most of these idiotic strategies, I'll have tons more free time to do...something.

What have I stopped doing?

Social Media

You know by now that I dislike social media, and I only got into it to try to promote my novel. What I got from immersing myself in it was a boatload of DM's from people trying to sell me things like book reviews and book trailers and character art (?), as well as just smarmy guys looking to "engage". The last time I logged onto Instagram, I tried to sift through all my new followers and to follow back those who appeared to be normal people, but it was a Herculean task that I decided wasn't worth my time. What do I care anyway? If those regular people buy my book, sure, they're worth a follow. Otherwise, what's in it for me? I don't need any virtual friends. If you wanna be my friend, pay me $2.99 for my novel.

Slowing my activity on these sites works wonders. The last time I was on my author X account, I had no new solicitations. And TikTok? Well, I gave up on that long ago. I tried posting a couple of times and my little video clips got zero views, and I didn't even want to be there in the first place. As for Facebook, my author account has never gotten any engagement. It's a desert. Posting there is like screaming into the wind.

I may still pay social media an occasional visit, but for the most part, I'm done.

Paid Ads

I recently booked both an Amazon and a Facebook ad, and they were a waste of dollars. And these are the two best options! I spent far more on the ads than I snagged in sales. Far more. During these ads' timeframes I sold a total of seven copies. (I haven't even bothered to find out which ad performed best, since "best" is relative.) And this was after I knocked my book's price down by two dollars. 

The smaller promo sites I used in the past keep sending me nagging emails, wanting me to book another promo, but if The Big Two haven't worked, why would these little guys that have a much smaller reach? 

I would unsubscribe from these emails, but occasionally some of them offer links to interesting articles--interesting in a generic way, but not helpful as far as marketing. Still, I like to read, so...

Anyway, as far as paid ads go, I can't afford to lose any more money.

Book Contests

This topic always makes me chuckle. I long ago discarded book contests as a viable option for, well, anything, but at the time I got involved with them, I thought maybe getting some kind of acknowledgement could increase my sales.

Whenever I receive an email from one of them announcing their winners, I take a quick peek to affirm my suspicions, and yes, these contests all love literary fiction (snobs). Nobody else does, but I think maybe those authors only write books for professional critics and contest judges to read. 

I'm not going to claim that my novel had one chance in hell of winning or placing or even getting a cookie from contest judges, regardless of whether a competition had 46 different genres to choose from. It's a nice little story, as nice little stories go, but certainly nothing earth-shattering. Which is why I don't know what possessed me to enter any of them in the first place. Nevertheless, that's all done now.

And speaking of that, one of those articles I read a while back mentioned a site called Book Award Pro that provides an author with opportunities (based on their book) for things like writing contests and book reviews. I chose the free plan, which is severely limited. It'll send an email with the names of contests to enter, but no link, so one has to Google it. And really, the contests are ones that are discoverable without employing a "service". Plus, its review opportunities all require payment--and is that even kosher? I didn't think it was. So, one more loser move on my part, but at least it was free.

Thus, overall, I'm discarding virtually every form of marketing. Admittedly, I haven't tried dialing random phone numbers and unleashing my best telemarketing spiel, but I hate telephones, so that presents a problem. 

Then there's this:

I don't like being on my feet too long, though.

I'm reminded of those 60's sitcoms, where a traveling salesman in a suit and bow tie would show up at someone's door, peddling some weird doo-dad, and the housewife would stare at it, befuddled. (Why did she open the door to a stranger, by the way?) "It's a twenty-first century potato peeler!" he'd exclaim.

My novel is a weird doo-dad, except no one's staring at it. Given a choice, they'd pick the potato peeler.

Ahh well, the advertising game is a bitch, right? It's high time I resign from it.