Okay, This Time I Really Mean It

Publishing my novel has been an interesting social experiment. Would a somewhat offbeat story find readers? What happens if a lousy book cover is replaced with a beautiful, shiny, expensive one? Does SEO really work? What price point will convince someone to buy a book? 

So many questions; so many experiments. I feel like Marie Curie. And much like Marie's discovery, my book, too, is radioactive.

March 1 will be Running From Herself's one-year anniversary, but I'm not waiting---I'm officially done. Done with marketing, done with pleading, most certainly done with paying.

I actually let my advertising efforts go dormant for a while. Nothing was happening, and I didn't have the money to spend anyway. But then I got to thinking, well, you're not trying hard enough...or long enough...or trying the right way. So, I gave it another go. Having exhausted what I thought was every marketing avenue, I then saw a Reddit conversation about boosting a Facebook post, and realized that was something I hadn't tried. Eureka! Relatively simple to do, and not completely outside my budget. It was a revelation to find that unlike the Facebook ad I'd done in the past, this time I could actually target my ideal readers through something called "targeting" (weird how that worked out). This will surely work, I exclaimed. Great cover, great price; what more would anyone need?

Apparently, one needs more. I've sold two copies---two. To be fair, I have gotten 1,353 Kindle Unlimited pages read, so it's not a total loss, just mostly.

My husband built a room in the back of our garage over twenty years ago. He's a recording artist (which I also used to be, until I retired from songwriting), and our little housing setup didn't have a dedicated space available for his work. Now, it's finally time to dismantle it. There are a lot of emotions tied up in the action of, in essence, giving up on a thing that once meant so much. It reminds me of when I finally made the decision to sell my dad's jukebox, which I inherited. It was part of my childhood, and parting with it was like parting with my dad again. But practicality demanded my action. We needed the money, foremost, and again, the space issue is a bitch. The asshole who finally took it off my hands actually tried to bargain for it. I should have said, "Geez, is this all my dad is worth to you?"

Well, I haven't "owned" Running From Herself anywhere near as long, but it's still sad to let it go. It, too, means a lot to me. This novel was my zenith. I had to write ten other books before I finally penned my masterpiece. I was so proud of it! I am so proud of it. Shoot, I had no illusions of it becoming a bestseller, but I hoped at least a few people would read it. Instead of earning $15.00 in a month, how about $15.00 a week? That's not exactly asking for the world. And if it wasn't for KU, I'd be making $0.00 a month. 

There is, I'm now convinced, some secret formula that every other author has, that I don't. I'm probably going to stop following Reddit's self-publishing sub, because I can't take it anymore. The secret certainly doesn't lie in the quality of the writing, so maybe it's fairy dust, and the fairy lost my address.

I was banking on one final chance to sell a few copies. (The boosted post was only an impulse move.) The magazine edition I was slotted for hasn't come to pass. Today is January 30, and my article was scheduled for the January issue. There is no January issue. Maybe she went out of business? That would just be my stupid luck. I do want my fifty dollars back, though, dammit. It's bad enough that I'm throwing away money on Facebook.

I asked Google for the signs that I should give up on trying to market my book:

"The bottom line: If you have spent substantial time and money, and the market is not responding, stop and move on to the next book."  

Cool. Except there is no "next book". This is it.

This really is it.

This time I really mean it.