"ABS" ~ Always Be Selling?

There's an interesting phenomenon I've noticed among authors on X. Whatever the topic, they manage to work their book into it, with the corresponding cover image and link, of course.

One of my biggest marketing downfalls is that I can't bring myself to do that. "That'll look so obvious," I think. Well, yea, of course it's obvious, but other authors don't let that stop them.

I'm so bad at this. 

For years on X I never even mentioned I was an author. No hint of it in my bio, not a single reference to it in all the posts I replied to. (I rarely create my own posts. I'm a responder.)

It was only in the last year that I added a Beacons link, not that anyone's ever clicked it. I just now removed the Substack category from it, because that account is dead. One more failed experiment.

Authors never used to show up in my X timeline. Now it's almost exclusively authors. There's a site called Spotlight on Indie that popped up there:

 

They had me at "without an agenda", so I joined and added my novel. Now when one of its posts shows up, I reply, expressing my appreciation. Innocent enough, but I find myself wishing the website owner would reciprocate by reviewing my book. Then I feel guilty for wishing that.

I do hard sells very poorly. Blink and you'd miss 'em.

Another female author posted that she's writing a book with a non-woke main character who loves her family, makes mistakes, isn't a girl boss, all the things I like. I replied with kudos and mentioned that my MC is the same. I was simply delighted to find a like-minded author. But later I thought, will people think I'm trying to hijack her post? I didn't include the Amazon link or even the novel's title, because that would be crass. Even the marketing I don't do makes me feel guilty. (By the way, she liked my post, but obviously wasn't interested in having a conversation. Would have been nice, but okay.)

It's also occurred to me that I never talk about my book, except...well, here. So, if anyone ever asked me about it, I would be tongue-tied, because I have no practice doing it. Thank goodness no one is going to ask. 🙄

It got me to thinking, is the problem with my book's blurb that I'm just too self-effacing? Apologetic, almost? Based on my recent Meta ad results, when a potential buyer clicks on my link, they click right out. My ad received plenty of clicks, but no sales. The blurb either bores them or...that's it; it bores them.

Luckily, I guess, X doesn't present many opportunities for me to pathetically push my book. Most of the writers I come across, for whatever reason, write science fiction. No clever way to work a women's fiction novel into the conversation. 

At this point, I can never foresee myself becoming sales person of the year. I just don't have it in me. It does kind of take the pressure off, though. I can go back to enjoying X for what it is, a giant time waster.