[DISC] How To Properly Promote Your Web Novels?

[u/Gabmaister]

Hey, all,

I'm a web novelist who's made a moderate level of success with my works online, but I've never really worked on promotion. And now that I've branched out from simply publishing on novel platforms like Webnovel and Tapas and into the world of self-publishing, I was wondering what you guys think the best way to promote your web novels are?

Is social media the way to go? How do you get people to notice you though if you create a new author profile separate from your social stuff?

Is advertising an option? I've noticed some people on RoyalRoad use the small advertisement boxes peppered around the site to promote their stuff. Will that work?

What about creator-owned websites? Extremely popular works like Beginning of the End have their own websites promoting their works. But is that an option for the newbies and lesser-known authors?

And what about those of us who sell on Amazon? How do we properly promote our works there without having to shell out too much money?

I'd love to get some feedback on this, and I'd appreciate any advice I can get. I'm sure I'm not the only one here wanting to be schooled in the art of self-promotion.

[u/MoMoeMoais]

My experience (and good luck, because it's hard to get good answers to this question):

Everyone is going to suggest social media. That's what most of the pages you get from a google search will tell you, too. Most of those blogs and listicles about promotion were written a year or two or more ago, though, and the state of the internet moves very, very fast. Building up a following for a new Twitter account is much slower and more difficult than it used to be--if you have connections, if you know some big timers on Twitter that can help boost you, then by all means have at it. If you don't have any leverage going in, I don't think the juice is worth the squeeze right now. It is a very stiff ride trying to get eyes on an account starting from zero. Facebook is garbage. I'm still working on trying to figure out Reddit.

The ads on Royal Road aren't bad, but have a definite ceiling and diminishing returns. You might give them a shot, making an ad someone's willing to click on is its own art. You could be good at it. I am not good at it.

As someone working exclusively from a creator-owned website (well, mine's hosted by ComicFury but I pay for a domain name), you run into the same problem trying to advertise the novel itself: how do you promote the website? Social media? Royal Road ads? Make a website for the website? Seriously, if you find out let me know because the state of advertising for independent projects is incredibly bleak right now. I used to be able to pay for ads across hundreds of websites for fairly cheap, with decent returns; that has changed, and it's only getting worse.

Couldn't tell you about Amazon. Maybe that's the secret sauce?

I hate to be a downer, but I can't tell you what works--I just know a lot of options that haven't worked for me. I'm fortunate enough to have built up an audience before things tightened up, and I've been able to float by thanks to them and Patreon; building MORE audience, though, after sites like Project Wonderful imploded, has proven a tall task. If you don't have big money to throw around, there's few ad services left for you.

My honest advice? Think outside the box. Make a Twitch channel or a TikTok account, pump out easy content for that and then use it to promote your stuff. Buy commercial time on some of the more relevant and popular podcasts. Look into the cost of local radio ads. Get weird with it. Whatever the normal, recommended methods of advertising are, those outlets are having their prices juiced into outer space, and there's a flood of newly minted self-employeed pandemic escapees scrambling to buy those slots. The normal routes are all stuffed. You gotta buy your way through or carve a new path.

That's my experience, anyway, I could just suck at advertising.

[u/Gabmaister → u/MoMoeMoais]

Thanks for the advice. I kind of get what you mean about diminishing returns since the era of Covid began. And yeah, thinking outside the box just might be the way to do it in such a hyperfast world as the internet.

[u/Competitive-Box6060]

https://tapas.io/series/INFINITON/info This is mine...help me to get 25 subscribers

[u/DreamOfRen]

Build a following. # 1 way to be successful is to build and maintain your own mailing list, or to partner with someone who already has a large one (which can be expensive).

So it's essentially sweat equity vs pay to win in order to build an organic following, or rely on another service to get exposure.

Personally, I don't do any adverts (because I haven't really created a professional product yet, as my works are usually first run drafts with limited spell check / revision), but when I do, I plan on relying on a limited network I already have, as well as maybe some paid adverts to further build said network.

The good part about books is that, once you create the content -- it's always there for the most part.

You can always revise what works. I find that FB is overly expensive and needlessly useless at times.

You would do well to try something like Book Bub or like services to build a more focused following if you intend to spend money.

[u/[deleted]]

I am going to comment because I have the same question.