Indie Author Marketing Advice
A rising tide lifts all boats but let’s face it: most indie authors will do absolutely nothing for their fellows and be annoyed when they do nothing in return. This is because publishing has established the idea we’re in a competition rather than the idea that a reader who reads one book in a genre they like will read another.
Stupid, huh?
As the author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and Space Academy Dropouts, I’ve had a miniscule of success marketing my books over the past ten years. Here’s my observations on what to do in order to market your book on various social media platforms. Take it with a barrel of salt but there might be some worthwhile advice here.
1. Facebook: Generally, unless a group is specifically dedicated to your subject matter then you will be ignored completely. Facebook also throttles all links that aren't in the comments. It's generally valuable to promote or be promoted on sites with over 10K members but I wouldn't say much elsewise. Also, you need permission to post for a lot of these. Most groups HATE authors advertising their stuff too. Follow the rules, kids.
2. X: Basically, as useless as spam, no matter what hashtag. You will also be deluged with marketing people who are all scammers/bots/bot scammers. I've made some sales on various threads but not many. You're more likely to get attention for being seen in another more famous author talking about something they're doing. Worth it to announce sales and new releases.
3. Bluesky: This is a lot better but there's more people about politics than there are book community but they're very good at banning scammers and the book community is real. I have about 10K followers here after just a few months and actual fandom. Good for sharing promotions and sales if nothing else.
4. Instagram: Announce your books here and tag #Bookstagram but don't expect anything. Absolutely DO NOT accept any offers from reviewers. They will drain you like vampires for nothing. Worthless.
5. Reddit: This is going to annoy people who ignore it like the plague but reddit is by far the best place for free promotion. R/Fantasy, R/Scifi, R/Lovecraft (or whatever genre you do) and so on can have 3000 to 15K views per post. Simply put, they blow everything else away aside from a Bookbub. Announce a sale here and you're guaranteed massive exposure. A lot of these groups have specific rules about advertising and following them is always worthwhile. However, I've probably gotten most of my benefits from R/Fantasy as posting my reviews allows me to post twice yearly one of my sales or giveaways that have gotten up to a 150K views.
5. Paid Giveaways and Sales: Bookbub can be gotten if you can do it but we know it's expensive. Less effective but still worthwhile is Bookbarbarian for sci/fi and fantasy. Five day Sales work well with advertising like a Craps table on multiple sites on different days but only one day will be worth it and probably still lose you money unless it's Bookbub.
Here's the thing, giveaways are VASTLY more effective than book sales but you might think that defeats the purpose if your goal is to make money. Yes and no. To make an effective giveaway, you need to giveaway the first book and have other books available on Kindle Unlimited available to purchase afterward. Like a drug dealer, the first hit is free. Expect maybe a 1:100 review return as well, which can add up if you have 5000 giveaways. There’s also plenty of people who show up because of the giveaway and then get the book on KU. If you’re not on KU? Well, it won’t work as a money return but might still get people to check out the sequel but significantly less.
Does any of this help you?
Eh, only you can say.
