The puppy was sad today. He didn’t get any turkey bones (duh!) or leftovers. And I haven’t had time to play tug or fetch! Oh, the horrors. But he’s still pretty darned cute, so I had to share.
Instead, I spent my free time writing the next book (or one of them, at any rate) and researching marketing. You see, I’ve finally hit the point where I realize that I just can’t do it all. I mean, that’s a great thing, and I have all my fans to thank for it – which is the point of this holiday – but I’m a little sad, too.
So, I started looking at how to grow my fan base. Word of mouth is one of the best methods. My fans have been great to me in this respect. So many of you have shared a book or series with your friends/family, and those readers have become new fans. But, discoverability is the bane of every author’s life. Trying to find people who are looking for their next favorite book? Well, I assure you, there’s a rather big haystack around the needles we call ebooks.
Now, with the planned release of most of my books in paperback? Well, I’m getting down to crunch time. I’m going to have to market this, and that doesn’t mean slapping crap together and calling it good. I have way too much pride in my novels for that. I also respect my readers. And yet, I’m still no marketing expert. I’m an author!
So, come to find out, there’s all these amazing services to help morons like me deal with those tricky things like numbers. I looked into a few ad management programs. The one that seems to have me the most interested is Adespresso. It makes this gobbledy gook into something almost fathomable. And finding nothing but good reviews? (like this one on boostlikes.com) doesn’t hurt at all.
And then, I stumbled upon more things I didn’t know. (Again, on boostlikes.com but this time about managing page assets.) You know, when I started this whole independent author thing, I assumed I was going to spend a lot of time writing. Now? I spend a lot of time acting like a business professional. It’s a little overwhelming at times, but then I remember that pretty much every bit of knowledge I ever wanted exists on Google. So, all I have to do is learn a little more – and find the right tools for the job.
And if I do, hopefully, I can get back to releasing books almost as fast as my fans can read them. That’s the goal, at any rate.
And so, I’m hoping to grow my readership while reducing my workload. And more books coming out soon will mean more fans. Tenacity is so very close, and I have a lovely addendum to the Wolf of Oberhame series that I think you all will love. But anyway, I think I’ve been responsible enough for one American Holiday. Now, I just need to convince Revan that he should get his lazy butt off the bed and come help me with all this turkey.
It’s a holiday, after all. I get to spoil my puppy, right?