Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Week One, aka WTF Am I Supposed To DO?!

Okay, I have officially concluded my first week as self-published author.

Let's just say it's... different than living in my traditionally published persona.

For one thing, it's a struggle to get anyone to Follow me on Twitter. I'm basically a nobody, which is both cool and terrifying. I would normally think twice about using "WTF" in my header, even though it's an authentic representation of who I am. That's because my "other" self would be thinking about all my sweet teen readers, their moms, and whether or not I was going to piss someone off.

So it's kind of cool to be able to speak my mind.

Also, I spent a few days not really knowing WHAT I was supposed to do to get the word out, especially given my desire to keep this name separate from my other one. I don't really know how to be a self-published author, and I'm learning as I go.

On the other hand, I've sold exactly five books. Yes, five. Not exactly a stellar showing, and this is with a regular presence on the Kindleboards (including the tag exchange) and a semi-assertive attempt at reaching out on Twitter. Although, now that I put it that way, that's not exactly aggressive marketing.
;)

In my defense, I'm under ridiculous deadline pressure to fulfill my traditional publishing contract and prepare a new book for submission, so it's a huge juggling act. 

I spent last week reaching out to a few bloggers known to review self-published YA and have a few people who have expressed interest in reviewing either Phoebe... Fabulous! or The Good Deed Diaries. Maybe that will help!

I also decided to give Facebook Ads a try. I've used them in the past for my other work but have never been able to determine if they really make a difference. This is kind of cool, because I have access to my numbers in real time. So far I've spent about $30 to have my two ads shown to (I'm paying for impressions instead of clicks) approximately 120,000 people in the demographic I chose.

Sales over that three-day time period; 1.

So... yeah. Not a winning proposition so far, but I'm going to let it play out for the next week or so and see if there's a measurable difference. I'll let you know what I find out!

2 comments:

  1. Aloha!

    Just wanted to let ya know that I understand exactly what you're going through. Best I can say is hang in there and keep promoting your work through forums. For example, I've just signed up to a bunch of horror movie forums. My plan is to write a bunch of review posts and hope that people see my linked-signature, lol.

    But yeah, I just started, and the whole thing is a wtf situation. Take care!

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  2. Thanks, Raymund! That's a great idea. I'll check out your site now, too.

    Thanks for stopping by my loooonely blog!

    Julia

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