How to market?

[sliu]

I'm a self-publishing writer of language guides (mostly guided Chinese readers).

Amazon has it's own search feature which are fine, but how else do you market?

 

[RepresentingCaution]

How else do you market?

Carefully

Choose a strategy that makes you stand out and run with it.

 

[Agentt]

The most common is to use friends and families.


Listen, you have to be shameless if you are self publishing. Absolutely shameless.


Ask your parents to buy the book. Tell them to ask their friends and other relatives to buy the book.

Tell your friends to buy the book.

Tell your teachers to buy the book.

Post it on every social media.

I am not talking about every social media you are on.

I mean, every social media.

Make a twitter or facevooj account and tell the world you wrote a book, tell them how much love you put in it and how much time it took to write it.

Then tell them the plot and summary and then the title of the book.


You need to be of mindset of grabbing innocent bystanders and telling them that you are an author. I want you to drive across streets; picking up anyone who looks free enough and brainwash him by telling him about your book.



Oh, and you can write a blog about it

 

[Deleted member 84247]

I

The most common is to use friends and families.


Listen, you have to be shameless if you are self publishing. Absolutely shameless.


Ask your parents to buy the book. Tell them to ask their friends and other relatives to buy the book.

Tell your friends to buy the book.

Tell your teachers to buy the book.

Post it on every social media.

I am not talking about every social media you are on.

I mean, every social media.

Make a twitter or facevooj account and tell the world you wrote a book, tell them how much love you put in it and how much time it took to write it.

Then tell them the plot and summary and then the title of the book.


You need to be of mindset of grabbing innocent bystanders and telling them that you are an author. I want you to drive across streets; picking up anyone who looks free enough and brainwash him by telling him about your book.



Oh, and you can write a blog about it

I should do this.

 

[Sebas_Guzman]

Refrain from telling friends and family unless they're actually interested. It's not worth it, you put them in a bad position, and you screw up the amazon algorithm. I believe Amazon also advises against this.

Here's what you can do from best to less effective:
Have a good cover and blurb. Learn what makes a good cover and blurb for your genre. Nothing else will work without a good cover and blurb.
Pay for advertising on amazon and facebook. Make sure you research so that you know what works and how to use these platforms.
Find facebook groups that have allowed self promotion. The facebook groups should be for your genre.
Market on your own accounts.
Go to conventions and sell physical copies there.

 

[Deleted member 54065]

I'm a self-publishing writer of language guides (mostly guided Chinese readers).

Amazon has it's own search feature which are fine, but how else do you market?

Your best bet is to market your work on SocMed, as it will target those accounts that actually need it.

Though, of course, you'll have to pay.

If you don't want to shell out money, then you can advertise on SocMed groups.

 

[J_Chemist]

I don't.

 

[sliu]

I did my best but I have only sold two paid copies after over a week of launching... I even paid for booksprout, etc...

I did post all of FB too.

I also spent hours and hours on the keywords.

I think my cover is good... maybe not?

 

[KiraMinoru]

I did my best but I have only sold two paid copies after over a week of launching... I even paid for booksprout, etc...

I did post all of FB too.

I also spent hours and hours on the keywords.

I think my cover is good... maybe not?View attachment 15232

Your first mistake is failing to find your targeted demographic audience with the way you’re advertising. Advertising works a lot better for big authors, but for no-name authors without a pre-established reader base, you’re destined to fail and very likely will lose both money and time advertising rather than making any money.

You first need to ask yourself the question, who is actually searching for a Chinese dictionary with swear words? Once you find the answer to that question and know where to find them to advertise it to, that’s when you’ll make some actual sales.

Your price point on paperback and hard copies are also pretty pricy but maybe that’s just me. I don’t know jack shit about physical copies and have never really cared for them much. But $3.99 for an eBook version with just 131 pages is also a bit pricy. It’d work for someone who already has a reader/fanbase, but typically not for someone just starting out. I’m not trying to be harsh, but this sort of thing is one I’d expect seeing for $0.99 that people would consider throwing a dollar away on for a small chance at getting a bit of amusement out of it.

As for keyword research, how did you actually do your research? You need to select targeted keywords that typically already show up as search suggestions but also have lower competition. Less than 1000 or 100 search results for keywords where you could potentially land on the first page or two of search results would be ideal. But that is already a hard as hell task to achieve.

Another thing about picking keywords, if you choose irrelevant shit and it gets searched for but your story gets passed over and not clicked on, it’s going to get bumped down in the algorithm. So mindless ineffective advertising in the wrong places can actually hurt you more than it helps sometimes in the algorithm.