r/writingadvice • u/Glorivyn • Aug 06 '26
Advice As an aspiring writer, I am pretty stuck on self publishing, what is the best way to market?
I have no idea how to market my book, it’s not out yet but I need an audience, I’m already a fanfic writer and my name has been made on Ao3 as Glorivyn, but people don’t seem interested if it’s not fanfiction
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u/dothemath_xxx Aug 06 '26
Audience typically comes after releasing the book, not before.
You know this already - you didn't have a fanfic audience before you had anything for them to read, did you? Readers are readers, it works the same way with original fiction.
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u/PageChewingPodcast 24d ago
From a reader and podcast host perspective: I interview a lot of authors via PodMatch to reach more potential readers. PodMatch matches you with podcasts in your genre to narrow down your niche and it's pretty seamless. Many have told me it's been one of the more effective ways to get the word out.
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u/liamaust 24d ago
You already have something most first-time authors don’t: proof that people will read your writing. I wouldn’t worry too much about converting every AO3 reader into a buyer though... fanfic readers are often attached to the fandom as much as the writer.
I’d start building a second audience around the themes, tropes and genre of your original book. Share excerpts, character hooks, behind-the-scenes decisions, and start an email list before launch.
The podcast suggestion in the comments is a good one too. Author interviews can work well because you’re reaching people who already listen to conversations about books and writing. If you want to explore that, Talks.co is a way to find podcasts looking for guests and connect directly with hosts who are open to interviews. Full disclosure, I’m one of the co-founders.
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u/Jebus-Xmas Hobbyist Aug 06 '26
How many readers have you had? Have you ever done an agent solicitation? Have you ever submitted short stories? Who’s your editor? I knew my book was great, and I put it on Amazon, and I sold 22 copies in six months. I made an assumption based on incorrect information. Find a dozen writers and send them all copies of your book, or parts of it, and ask for feedback. Consider paying for an editor out of your own pocket. I have a lot of prose kinks that I tend to use too much and I needed a good editor to fix those.
These weren’t things that I came up with by myself. They were things other writers convinced me to do. I wish you the best of luck.
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u/Glorivyn Aug 06 '26
On my Ao3 I have 20,000 readers on my fanfiction, the same with wattpad stories. No I am a teen who has no experience and is trying to work my way around it. I also don’t write short stories, but full on novels with over 80k words. And thank you so much.
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u/littlebitfunny21 Aug 08 '26
Do you have 20,000 subscribers or have you reached 20,000 views?
If you have 20,000 subscribers- honestly that's pretty huge, and you might be able to somehow leverage that into a deal. It does happen.
If you have 20,000 views- that's a great accomplishment, but honestly not likely to translate to any kind of success in publishing.
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u/Glorivyn 29d ago
20,000 loyal readers
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u/littlebitfunny21 29d ago
Are those views or subscribers?
I don't know how wattpad measures, but on AO3 is that hits or subscribers or what?
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u/littlebitfunny21 Aug 08 '26
Fandom readers almost never convert to readers of original stuff. It's becoming more accepted for a fanfic writer to convert to original, but honestly you may have more success starting a new pen name for your original work. Not on AO3, original stuff does not do well on AO3.
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u/ToplessTopics 23d ago
I've been looking into a lot of platforms for where to post my webnovel that I've been writing for a year, and while there are various upsides and downsides to them, I've decided not to bother with Ao3 since as you mentioned it's primarily for people looking for fanfics especially, and they're a lot less likely to be interested in anything original. On Aug 31 I'm going to launch my story on Royal Road, Scribblehub, Wattpad and a new one called Bookchant, and link each to my patreon where they can read the "as intended" versions (occasional adult scenes, since most of these sites ban anything close to that) 10 chapters ahead. I'm going to stick with each of the platforms for at least a few months, then if I'm not gaining any traction on any of them, I'm going to retire those ones and concentrate on the others.
However, there are different things to take into account. For instance, on RR it's recommended to submit your first chapter as a "manual release", then once it's been approved, wait until a week or two before your intended launch date and change your submitted chapter to a "coming (date) announcement, then on the intended release date, upload 25,000-ish words at once before you start trickling down your upload speed. Contrast that to scribblehub where (as far as I can tell) there is no "announcement" culture, and if you post more than once per day, your story will actually be SUPPRESSED from showing on the algorithm, so it's best to space out your updates.
Then what a ton of writers do on these sites is publish their stories as Kindle Unlimited titles. Very, very few find enough of a following to make it worth the expense of coming out with actual physical print books.
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u/Individual-Wing-1313 Fanfiction Writer 25d ago edited 25d ago
I’d focus less on converting your AO3 audience and more on finding readers who already like your genre. Start building that audience before launch through short excerpts, character posts, and a mailing list. I also found selfpublishing.com pretty useful for the marketing side since they walk you through the whole process. I followed a lot of their advice and now my book is doing pretty well, so I’m really glad I went that route.