Promotion. How far is too far?

I’ve been blown away to have already received six 5* reviews on Amazon.co.uk for the new Prosper Snow novel, Killers. A couple of said reviews have even said they think it’s better than the first book, The Kult!

Now I know I’ve been blogging and posting about the book’s release, but it still surprises me how many people in certain places, such as on the Amazon forums actively dislike authors promoting their work (Amazon.com even went so far as relegate such posts to a single area titled ‘Meet our authors' forum). I find all this animosity unusual for people who supposedly like reading. I read a comment on a post recently where the person said that they would never buy a book from an author that promoted their work, because if the work was good, then it would speak for itself and people would buy it. I thought WTF. The problem with this theory is that people first have to hear about the book, and one of the best ways to get the word out is to promote. It’s the old catch 22 scenario really. I personally have no problem with people promoting their books. Hell, I know how hard it is to find readers, so anything that helps in this respect is good. I wouldn’t have heard about half the books I purchase if I hadn’t read posts by the authors themselves.

So what do other people think? Can you promote too much? Does it turn potential readers away? 

Promotion

Promotion, or more importantly self-promotion is a very sticky subject. Everywhere that people can post about their books, they do. I don’t have a problem with this. Hell, I do it myself in certain places, so can hardly complain. In their (and my) defence, if people are annoyed by the posts made, they can simply choose to ignore them. I’m not sure how much good posting on message boards does anyway to be honest, because most of the people promoting/reading on these sites are other authors, and other authors are notorious for not actually buying books. I on the other hand buy too many!

But what else is a struggling author supposed to do to promote their work? It’s easy for certain people to say ‘if it’s any good people will find it and buy it.’ To my mind that just doesn’t happen, because ‘how’ do people still find the book? They still need to hear about it. That’s why I appreciate anyone who takes time to review my work, whether they like it or not. I also appreciate anyone who posts anything about my work in messages or on forums etc. It all helps a tremendous amount.

There are lots of other things people can do to help authors too. Click on the ‘tags’ on Amazon which will help get the book higher in the searches for those words. If there’s a Facebook ‘like’ link on a review or on an Amazon page for a book, click on it to share it with your friends. If you post a review because you’ve enjoyed a book, cross post to different book seller sites, such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble etc. If you have friends that read, tell them if you’ve read something great. Believe me, everything, no matter how small, helps.

So are there any other ways to help promote books? How do you help? Do you hate all the self promotion? I would love to hear your views.

The Philosopher's Stone

A few more bruises have been added to my collection, but my son and I received our Taekwondo blue belts on Monday.

For those who have been following news about The Kult film, the director Kip Shelton has been posting a journal about the progress, which makes for eye-opening reading. You can read it here, and then click the other links that continue the journey: http://gharialproductions.com/the-kult-directors-journal/

And for anyone in the Nantwich area of Cheshire, the Nantwich Bookshop now has copies of my books with my spidery scrawl inside, so you can check out the book that the film’s based on.

Now as a small press author, promotion and the selling of books is one of the hardest things. I’m competing against thousands of other authors. To give an idea of how vast the market is, I recently read that in 1975 there were 3,000 publishers in the United States. Today that number has grown to 200,000 publishers made up of large, medium, small, as well as print on demand companies. Together, they put out 560,000 books a year of which approximately 295,000 are self-published. So as you can see, competition is fierce. But what’s the best way to reach your target audience?

Of course having books in shops helps, but that’s not always possible with small press books as the shops won’t stock them, preferring to stick with the major publishers with whom they have a tried and tested relationship.

Now I’ve tried most things that I can think of to promote my work, from adverts to message boards, and I’ve had numerous good reviews, but I just haven’t hit upon what I call ‘quantity x’. Now ‘quantity x’ is a magic formula, a metaphorical philosopher’s stone that occurs when there’s an increased awareness in an authors work, and everything seems to fall into place. Like the alchemists of old, I’m still searching for it, but if anyone can give me some clues …