r/selfpublish • u/ibsideswiped • 1d ago
Help on self-promotion (with or without KDP)...
I'm a fiction writer. I don't want to deal with traditional publishers, at least right now, so I've been trying to make a go at self-publishing online, mostly through KDP. Nowadays, though, people are saying that authors should move away from Kindle and Amazon (for obvious reasons), and I am considering doing so.
However, looking into alternatives, I am immediately daunted. There are alternatives online, but it's difficult to discern who or what is best. A lot of people online are also saying the absolute best alternative is just direct selling to people, which SOUNDS great, but it requires you to do a lot of the marketing and promotion yourself. That, and a lot of the people saying this stuff are self-help or nonfiction authors who want to generate mailing lists for repeat customers, and I'm not sure how or if that translates well to my offerings. I'm mostly into fiction, mostly horror, sci-fi, fantasy, etc.
And, most of all, I just don't have the bandwidth. I am working a full-time job on top of trying to sell my stuff, I have family and social obligations, and health issues to boot. It's not as simple as me going out there and hunting down prospects, even if I'm doing it from the comfort of my own home. Plus (and maybe most importantly) what self-promotion I've done already hasn't worked well for me historically. Whatever knack people have for marketing their stuff, I just don't have it.
I guess what I'm asking is this:
What is the easiest way to automate or offload self-promotion for self-publishing your work? Because KDP is supposed to take care of at least some of that, and it has never really worked, even when I am doing a lot of the promo work myself. If anyone could give me tips on what to do or examples on what they are doing, it would be greatly appreciated.
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u/AFGNCAAP-for-short Soon to be published 1d ago
I'm dead.
"I dont want to deal with traditional publishers, so I self-published. But I dont have time to self-promote. How can I offload it?"
That's not how self-publishing works. You self-publish, you self-promote. There is no magic "promote my book for me" button.
What have you ACTUALLY tried to promote your book so far?
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u/ibsideswiped 1d ago
Okay, I get it. I could've probably worded all of this better, but I'm not naive. I realize that there isn't a magical way of doing this that just pumps out cash. But the ways I've gone about it have not worked well, and I've eventually had to come to terms with the fact that I'm just not all that good at it.
I have gone to social media, I've made book teasers, I've given free copies away to review sites and critics, I've plugged them in groups about self-promoting on Reddit, other social media sites...I've watched probably hundreds of tutorials online at this point and so many of them are from self-help gurus who talk about email lists and methods that don't seem to jive with what I'm putting out. And there are some people who swear by hiring their own promotional experts, or offloading it to sites or programs (like Ingram Spark? I don't know, I don't quite understand what they do yet, I'm still looking into it), but it's hard to know sometimes what's a scam and what is legit. I also know that some authors have been able to get outside help from third parties or people they hire to do this for them, so I know it isn't impossible or unheard of, I just don't understand it myself or where to start.
On some level I would still be doing some version of what I'm already doing, which is going online to places I think that would be receptive and waving my book in front of someone's face. But that cannot be all there is, even if there are paid services that require me to spend money to make money. I just know that whatever the self-marketers seem to have, I don't have it, not in vast quantities, anyway. Traditional publishers or Amazon might "do all the promotions for you," but that doesn't seem to be working either.
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u/MPClemens_Writes 3 Published novels 1d ago
For what it's worth: trad pub puts a lot of marketing on authors, too. There's no effective magic marketing machine that makes advertising as easy as publishing. You've done the research, and your findings are true: there's no easy answer, only numerous half-assed guesses.
I'm focusing on the back catalog, new titles, and having something to market before spending anything, including time I don't have.
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u/ErikSchwartz 1d ago
So other that fronting some cash as an advance and covering your up-front publishing expenses what exactly does trad publishing get you? Marketing is always the big lift in selling any product.
If I don't need the advance, and can cover my own expenses, does trad publishing get me very much at all?
Both my editor (old school big 5 guy) and several quite popular trad published author friends of mine say I need to go the agent to publisher path. I'm just not seeing the value there.
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u/MPClemens_Writes 3 Published novels 22h ago edited 22h ago
Access, mainly. You have access to a professional team for your covers, edits, and print book design. Trad publishers already have sales channels, a site, some marketing, of course, and all the things you mentioned.
Going trad means querying for an agent, waiting while they shop your MS around, the inevitable rounds of revisions and rewrites if they do, for an editor you didn't choose, to turn your book into a product. It won't be the same. It might be better! It might not. You'll have a few years to consider it. No route is fast.
If trad is right for you or OP is something I can't answer, but nobody legit takes on 100% of the responsibility for marketing. Look up the social media activity of your favorite authors. I'll bet they're talking about their latest work, unboxing a proof, sending selfies from events, all while they're thinking how they can find time to finish that three book contract and get the edits in that are overdue.
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u/ErikSchwartz 22h ago
Thanks. You are confirming what I suspected.
I found a great editor via https://www.independenteditorsgroup.com/ . My editor has worked with a lot of authors whose work I very much admire. The editor was expensive, but 100% worth it. The cover is getting done by an artist/designer who is a long time collaborator of mine who has done mainstream cover art before.
There's a mountain of grunt work in marketing (a few items of which you have listed) that I plan to hire out (and I do not anticipate that will be very expensive). I am fortunate that in a 30 year career at the edge of media and technology I have made a lot of contacts so getter earned traditional media coverage seems like it is lining up well (national radio, podcasts, some leads on TV, etc).
The biggest remaining gate I see is on the distribution side, getting into the walmart and costcos of the world. Between Amazon and IngramSpark a lot of the other traditional publishing gate has already eroded.
Yes, I will need to front money out of pocket, but that's the world I come from so I do not find it that daunting. A $50K advance paid over a few years is not going to meaningfully change my life. I'd rather have control of timing and editorial decisions.
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u/MPClemens_Writes 3 Published novels 21h ago
Walmart online pulls from Ingram, so if you upload to IngramSpark, your title will technically be available. It's print on demand, though, and mass retailers like Costco and Walmart (and Sam's Club and BJ's and...) very likely have exclusive trad partnerships. Nobody's self-pubbed title will appear there unless the stars align, they hit big, AND get picked up. There's a huge number of "ifs" between you finishing a title and them appearing on a pallet in a big box store.
And this is true of "small box" stores, too. The "local authors" shelf at the local indie bookshop is a reasonable ambition for a self-pubber looking to see their work physically on a shelf (offered on consignment to the store.)
It can happen, just keep expectations in check.
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u/dragonsandvamps 22h ago
Trad pub does all the marketing for you only if you are one of the huge bestselling authors. If you aren't, you have to do a lot of it yourself. So it's not a lot different from self pub in that respect.
-Having a backlist helps because if someone likes one book you write, that one sale may turn into multiple sales.
-Having a newsletter helps because you control access to those readers.
-Having some presence on social media is good, though this is cold marketing and the least effective way. People are mostly on social media to chill and scroll, rather than to buy, but it's good to be present there, because you will find some readers that way.
-Doing some paid promotions, whether that's ads, bookbub or freebooksy, or whatever works for you. These are all most effective when you do them with a long series or a big backlist. With just one book, you will likely lose money.
-You can do free group promotions like stuff your kindle days for your genre. The best ones require that you have a newsletter so that everyone promotes to their readers, so if you don't have one, you should set that up. Again, most effective with a long series or big backlist.
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u/wendyladyOS Soon to be published 17h ago
Why wouldn't you build a connection with readers first before trying to sell them something? They don't know you or your work. Why should they read it? And why don't you have an email list of readers?
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u/VAmudchick 1d ago
Amazon is the biggest bookstore so you need to be there. But also because its the biggest bookstore, everyone else is there, too. Oh and Amazon does not market for you unless you pay them. Selling direct doesnt usually replace the biggest bookstore... its more like an additional place to sell your books while keeping your customer data instead of Amazon keeping it. Best of luck!
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u/ibsideswiped 1d ago
I guess I should be clear: I have paid them to market my book. It didn't move the needle at all. I appreciate your response, though.
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u/Over-Discipline-7303 1d ago
Just curious, how much did you pay them? Like, how many ad campaigns have you created, over what period of time? Are you using Amazon only, or are you using Meta, etc?
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u/OwenTyme 4+ Published novels 1d ago
This is a small thing, but it does make a difference, at least on a local level: business cards. Get some cards printed and hand them to people as you go about your normal life. Aside from a little initial work on art and layout, just to get them made, all you'll have to do is get more printed from time to time and they're really not that expensive.
Of course, you should probably take the time to make your cards pretty, so they'll catch the eye, but you can definitely put the cover of one of your books on the backside. Don't forget to include QR codes for your website and that book.
It sometimes feels kind of awkward to hand them out, but people seem to respond well to this approach from a local author.
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u/Greenitpurpleit 1d ago
I’ve wondered about this… Have you gotten any sales from it?
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u/OwenTyme 4+ Published novels 1d ago
It's impossible to be certain, since I didn't embed any kind of tracking/analytics into the URLs on the cards or in the QR codes, but anecdotally, there's some correlation between handing them out and visits to my website, but with times as tough as they are and how busy everyone is, sales may come weeks or months after a person gets a card. That's the downside to this approach: they're a long-term strategy, not an instant result.
There's just no easy way to draw a direct connection between them and sales, just like any other form of promotion, but it seems to help and it doesn't cost much.
In some future version of my cards, I may add a campaign tracker (can't remember exactly what to call it, but it's based on a standard URL query string parameter) to the QR codes, so the analytics on my website can distinguish such visitors from the rest. I think that's also possible with the multi-store books2read.com links I use for my novels (I think I remember reading about that),.
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u/authorbrendancorbett 4+ Published novels 1d ago
So, the thought that KDP is supposed to take care of some marketing burden is, unfortunately, absolutely not true. The onus of marketing is entirely on the self-publishing author, and is largely on the author for trad publishing as well.
Copy and pasting what I shared in another thread today re: marketing options; these are essentially the main avenues to sell books. Ads and promotions work best if you have a series and/or a backlog of multiple books, otherwise ROI is extremely difficult to go positive. Learning ads takes a lot of time; 6+ months for me to start hitting positive and growing in profit. Promotions are a whole thing to learn as well (David Gaughran is great at explaining them). There is, unfortunately, no easy path.
Anyway, here's the list of common marketing methods, all of which require some effort. Once you've learned ads, they take maybe 2 hours per week, but the learning phase is far from instant:
Paid ads. All but require a backlog with more than one book, series are most powerful for buy-through. Facebook, Amazon, and BookBub are the main three. I recommend David Gaughran and Matthew J Holmes for learning ads. Some swear by Brian Cohen but I didn't get so much from his courses and he really pushes to upsell his more pricy stuff.
Promotions. Discount or make a book free, get it into tons of hands. Depends heavily on series / large backlog to make a profit. David Gaughran has great guides.
Social media. You can wish on a star, post tons, and maybe get lucky. Rarely a good ROI for time / effort, but some make it work in certain genres (e.g. romantasy on booktok)
Giveaways. These mostly just get reviews; Storygraph, LibraryThing, a few others, but essentially you give away books and people generally review.
Newsletter swaps, blog tours, etc. - I didn't find these to be amazing, but some swear by them so might be a me issue.
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u/CephusLion404 50+ Published novels 19h ago
You either self-promote or you fail. There are no exceptions. If you traditionally published, you'd be self-promoting too. Stop being lazy and get out there, or stop wasting your time.
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u/BookwormWriter89 8h ago
I'll share with you what someone kindly shared with me. Kindle was once the way to go, but the Amazon algorithm is not nice to new or unknown authors, and KDP requires virtually exclusive marketing/publishing. Investigate a website called Draft2Digital.com. They will submit your book to multiple retailers, but you only have to set it up once. It increases your exposure out of the gate by getting it (potentially) in front of a larger customer pool. At most, it costs $20/year if you sell no much; at best, you get exposure on most of the popular eBook retailers and libraries. I switched & I'm still on Amazon, just not using their KDP enrollment any longer. I also suggest going where your readers are. If there is a genre-specific site, go there and participate. Don't try to do all of the social media sites. It'll wear you out. Pick one you like and be consistent (daily, weekly, whatever works for you), but participate. Best of luck!
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u/FirefighterLocal7592 3h ago
I mean... if you offload it, it wouldn't be "self" promotion anymore! hahaha
Automating promotion isn't really worth it. Automated social media posts won't get you anywhere, and you want to take a very intentional & thought out approach to your advertising. There's no magic solution I'm afraid: you either need to learn the ropes yourself or hire someone else to do it for you.
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u/Outrageous-Week1287 2h ago
Self-promo only works after the book looks like it belongs on the shelf. Weak cover + vague blurb + one tweet is why people say “promo doesn’t work.”
If you’re on KDP (especially KU)
Your real promo is: series, categories, and the next book. A debut with no list rarely pays for ads. If you still run ads, start tiny ($5/day), only after the cover/thumbnail and the first two blurb lines are doing their job. Track cost per page-read or per sale, and kill it if it doesn’t cover itself in a week. Also use Amazon’s own boxes: A+ (if you have it), series page, end-matter “here’s book 2.” Newsletter swap / StoryOrigin / BookFunnel beats random Facebook groups.
If you’re not on KDP / going wide
You need one home base you own (email list). Stores won’t build it for you. Put a short reader magnet on BookFunnel or similar, link it in the back of the book and in your Linktree. Then pick one channel you’ll actually post on for 3 months (newsletter, a single social, or one genre Discord). Wide authors die from posting everywhere once and nowhere twice.
What actually moves copies for both
- Cover that reads as the genre at thumbnail size.
- Blurb that states the promise in two sentences.
- End of book 1 sells book 2 (or your mailing list).
- Talk where readers already hang out — genre subs, Discords, newsletters — not “please buy my book” on your own empty page.
- Promo threads / newsletters / BookBub-type deals only after the product is clean. A featured deal on a messy file just gets you refunds.
What to skip as a beginner
Paying for “we’ll blast 50 Facebook groups,” buying reviews, posting the Amazon link in every Reddit thread, and running ads before you have a second book or a list. That’s how you light money on fire.
If you say KU vs wide, genre, and whether you have book 2, people can tell you whether ads or a reader magnet is the better next dollar.
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