You Know Nothing...

I have been watching a lot of Game of Thrones over the past couple of month. In fact, I am now caught up having watched all five seasons available on DVD. So, when a couple of friends and I were chatting on Twitter yesterday, that line, “You know nothing, Jon Snow,” came to mind with regard to a possible title for one of the fellow author’s new books. He said no, but the other author suggested it would make a great title for a self-help book. I totally agreed – catchy and short – a perfect title.

Being an indie author, I thought, ‘what better subject then the marketing of indie books?’ However, also, like most indie authors, I work an eight to five job and do my writing and marketing during the early morning hours before work, lunchtime, evenings, weekends…you get the picture. I squeeze it in. So there will be no forthcoming book from me on marketing, but as you know, if you have been in the indie community, there are tons of books already written on the subject.


There are books that are honest and tell you that they don’t know the secret to becoming a ‘Bestselling’ indie author, but they will tell you how they did it. There are also the ones that tell you their strategy will put you in the ‘Top 100’ on Amazon and have you selling thousands-of-dollars-worth of books in just one month. If I had bothered to do the math, at .68 to $1.50 per book, I would have quickly realized that was not possible, but hey, I have never been good with numbers. I am far better with words. Nothing lost…the author sold a copy of their book to a newbie indie author as predicted. So their marketing strategy worked.

In addition to books, there are blog posts on the subject every day, and authors talking about it on social media endlessly, assuming ‘You know nothing.’

So, let me add my voice to the masses. These types of books and blogs love stats, so let’s look at some from “Author Earnings” publication of February 2016:

As of mid-January 2016, Amazon’s US e-book sales were running at a rate of 1,064,000 paid downloads a day.

155,000 of these paid daily downloads — or 14% of them — took the form of Kindle Unlimited “full-KENPC” pages-read equivalents for self-published indie authors, while the remaining 909,000 were regular retail e-book purchases. The full breakdown:

Amazon’s daily e-book unit sales (January 2016):

TOTAL   1,064,000

Indie Self-Published e-book KU full-read equivalents - 155,000
Indie Self-Published regular retail e-book sales - 293,000
Small/Medium Publisher e-book sales - 204,000
Amazon-Publishing Imprint e-book sales - 115,000
Big Five Publisher e-book sales - 244,000
Uncategorized Single-Author Publisher e-book sales - 53,000

So, there you have it…Indie authors do sell, but what is the secret to the marketing? What do you need to know?

I must admit, when I indie published my first book in May of 2013 ‘I knew nothing.’ Here it is three years later and I still search for the elusive magic bullet.

The advice given by all is multi-layered and often the same:

1. Write a good book
2. Make sure it is as error free as possible
3. Have a great ‘eye-catching’ cover made professionally
4. Write an incredible ‘suck-you-in blurb’ for the prospective reader
5. Price your book as though you are proud of it, but not overly proud (maybe give a ‘1st week sale’ price for the kickoff)
6. Offer your book in e-book, paperback and audio form (you never know what format a reader might like)
7. Do a cool ‘cover reveal’ on social media
8. Set up a ‘pre-sale’ and blog-post tour to launch the book
9. Offer on multiple platforms to reach the full extent of your reading, international audience
10. Acquire loads of 4-5 star reviews (put a notice in the back of your book politely begging for these gems)
11. Get on Social Media and pitch your book, but not overly aggressively
      a. Blog, Twitter, Facebook, Google+, SoundCloud, YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram, Tumblr, Flickr,           Periscope, Blab and on and on and on (Don’t forget Goodreads, iAuthor, Wattpad, and any    other suggested site you want to buy into)
12. However, even in light of the above #11, push to your site exclusively
13. Have folks interview you and do guest blog-posts to promote your book
14. Create an online presence – a ‘Hook’ for interviewers to talk to you about in addition to your books
15. Buy advertising, if you can afford it, but be careful who you choose
16. Make personal appearances, book signings, readings etc.
17. In your spare time, create a logo and set-up an online shop for autographed copies of your books and collateral character merchandise
18. Consider launching a ‘Kickstarter” campaign
19. Write more books
20. Do it all again, and again, and again

I am sure I missed something, but you get the idea. You go through hours, months, years of work and you sell a handful of books. I consider myself lucky. I consistently sell. I just don’t sell enough to quit my day job. And, I have done all of the above nineteen items and more, except for the Kickstarter program, which I would seriously consider if I had the time.

Writing twenty books in four genre, I have actually executed the list multiple times. For instance, I have four blogs, and actually post my book drafts a chapter at a time on my 'Story' blog for first time readers, then clear them off, clean them up, and publish them based on suggestions my early readers have made. I have this blog for 'Afterthoughts,' Farloft, my dragon, has a blog, and the Star Trader, 3su has a blog. I have three Facebook sites, one for the general public, an author site, and Farloft, insisted on having his own recently. Remember what I said about #14 above? He is my hook, or at least a big part of it.

So, what is the secret? Where do so many of us go wrong?

We don’t! And that’s the truth. That is where ‘You Know Nothing.’ I have come to the conclusion that success is based on quality, persistence and numbers. The trick is in all those pesky numbers that I can’t seem to wrap my head around.

Unless you have a book on a run-away topic, you are extremely lucky to be noticed, or you are in just that magical ‘right-place-right-time,’ it isn’t going to happen for you until you put in the product work, the time, and get the numbers up.

Folks following you on all social media sites you participate in is an essential part of marketing indie books. Folks talking about you and passing on your message by word of mouth is the second piece to the puzzle you need to know beyond the product work.

The third part is persistence. I have met authors over the three years I have been dredging away that have thrown up their hands and said, ‘Screw it! I am getting off this treadmill.” They closed up shop on Twitter. They let their Facebook and Google+ accounts go dormant. They said they were going to just write for fun.

I write for fun, but I want to be read. I want to share. I long to hear the reviews. I guess it is the exhibitionist in me, so I persist, persevere, and continue to spend the long hours. I just wish I had started sooner.

Like any small business you need to spend five to seven years building a clientele, a reader base that will chat about your books and you. Nothing helps an indie author more than word-of-mouth. We live and beg for lip-service.

But I digress. Back to the point, if there ever was one. You have to sharpen your pencil, as the accountants say, and put in the time like anyone else starting a new business, because as much as you would like to think the sales will magically appear, ‘You Know Nothing.’ But, hopefully, after reading this, ‘You Know Something.’

Kit Harington as Jon Snow from Game of Thrones