I’ve been spending a lot of time searching the web and reading books on book marketing lately. Yes, I know it’s a little premature to be thinking about that, but when I decide to go down the self-publishing track I want to have some basic ideas of what sort of marketing plan I’m going to have.
I mean, when I go to publish a book I want to create a marketing plan in advance to give my book the best chance it can have.
I wrote a post last year about some marketing ideas I had, you can read that here. And since then I always add new strategies to my list when I come across them.
I was trying to find some articles about how Amanda Hocking went about marketing her book and really she did nothing except get book bloggers to review it. I learned this from a post on her blog “An epic tale of how it all happened“. Reading it I did wish she had put more detail into how she prepared her book. She simply says I wrote it, edited and then it was up on kindle all of a sudden. I just wished she’d added a little more detail.
I think, should I ever become a famous or at least a somewhat accomplished author, I will describe in detail how I went about getting my books from ideas to published (you may hold me to that one day readers).
I do believe that the reason Amanda Hocking did so well was because:
1. She is a good writer. I’m not saying she’s the best, but she is good.
2. She writes a lot. She wrote most of her books in about 2-3 weeks. Most writers take years and are far less motivated. I should know.
3. She had a lot of books under her belt. I’ve only written three novels, Amanda has heaps, heaps more. Having so many novels means you can keep bringing them out. Books sell books more than most marketing attempts. People liked her first book so they bought the others in the series which made her lots of money. Knowing her for one series makes readers willing to take a chance on her other books. Books sell books.
If you’ve got these three things and a truck load of motivation to put time in to perfecting your novel then I don’t see why you can’t succeed as an author as well.
Of course Amanda Hocking’s success is outside of the norm. Her rise to fame and money isn’t a traditional story for most writers. She was also very lucky. Talented for sure, but also lucky.
