So much for the pool. Maybe later I guess. Instead, I’ve been tossing around ideas and concepts with regards to indie authors and book marketing.
I have seen a whole lot of hurdles, not just for me but for other indie authors, with regards to even getting your book in front of other people. I do recognize that this is coming from a narrow perspective and I’ve probably just not yet found the right groups or people to give me a better perspective, so this is potentially a bit skewed.
I’ve seen a lot of talk about supporting other indie authors. As I’ve mentioned before, this tends to be a bit cliquish. Authors tend to support other authors in their own genres or those they are friends with. If you don’t fit into one of those two areas, you don’t get that support (and I don’t entirely disagree with this). You also see a lot of groups dedicated to supporting all indie authors without regards to genre, but they seem to only have indie author followings.
Another side of this lovely book marketing coin is the readers, which seem to be left out of the equation. Not all authors read all genres. Some authors may not even be readers (this kind of breaks my brain but it is a truth). So why are all of these groups and support systems targeting only other indie authors? Why are they not attempting to connect those authors with readers or book bloggers who have an interest in the genres for the books they are trying to promote? Those are the ones that genuinely have the ability to get a book noticed.
If you were to look at this from just about any other business marketing standpoint, this system wouldn’t make sense. You wouldn’t cultivate support and a following for say video games among other video game manufacturers, because they aren’t going to be the ones buying your games. You would want to connect with the gamers.
That isn’t to say an indie author should not support another author, just that it kind of feels a little like barking up the wrong tree. Like that whole support system is unbalanced and energy is too heavily focused in the wrong area.
The idea that there should be some way to somehow create a group of both readers/book bloggers and indie authors and pair them together based on genre interests is something I’d absolutely love to pursue. The problem with that, for me at least, is one of the same roadblocks I have with marketing my own book. That is the lack of connections to get it all off the ground. That and I am struggling to find bloggers that are willing to even look at indie books and authors.
I’d love to find out if it is even possible or if others, from either the indie author side or the book blogger side, would even be interested in a set up like this, if they felt like it would be of use to them. If you have thoughts or suggestions, please chime in!
TJ Fox: Sharing the Experience 
I find the organisation of books into genres helpful as a reader.. not that I stick to any genre but it gives me a general idea of what to expect. But as an author of non genre fiction I find it frustrating. Like the previous commenter, I fall between the cracks. But I do review indie authors if their work is good quality in my view.
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Falling into a broad genre makes it even harder to get found and get in front of the right type of reader for your book.
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It sure does. But I find you gotta write what you gotta write 🙂
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I’m not an indie author if that definition means self published but my book came out from a small house so I’m not part of the Big 5 publicity machine.
My two cents: Twitter is crucial. Connect and interact with other authors.
I’m in a debut group where we share, cheer, and support each other.
If you want to advertise, Goodreads is better than Amazon – I haven’t done it but someone in my debut group did the research.
Identify your goals – sales? reviews? Something else? They can be achieved in different ways.
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Twitter works if you are a social being. I am not. It definitely has it’s uses and I’m working on it, but… I dislike what I’ve seen of a lot of the twitter culture. I’m actually doing leaps and bounds better connecting with other photographers than I am authors. Again part of that cliquish/genre based groupings.
You cannot do any ads on Amazon unless you are exclusive with them. Goodreads, from what I’ve seen is insanely expensive to run even the most basic ad campaign. I haven’t ruled much out yet, but I’m extremely leery at this point.
I was just tossing around the idea and thoughts for authors and bloggers to attempt to work together and have been really surprised that this isn’t something I’ve run across (does not mean it doesn’t exist, just that I haven’t seen it).
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I’m not sure. Picture books are a very different category – like genres only more so! I am very social and am often disappointed with the engagement/lack of engagement on Twitter. It’s hard to make it work.
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I can see how it may be a bit easier in the children’s book or picture book genre. It has been forever since I’ve even looked at what’s out there for kids these days, but I don’t remember there being a lot of different types like you see in fiction. The genre thing seems to be something of a roadblock for me because apparently there aren’t a ton of indie authors writing in mine and even then I sort of fall between the cracks. It has been… interesting.
I have had a conversation with someone who runs a large blogger group and they are already looking into branching out into the indie area, so I’m not the only one that is thinking along these lines.
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What genre would your book fall into?
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Well… that depends on the platform as some will only allow me to choose fiction. But the others that allow a deeper granularity, I fall into women’s fiction and/or family/domestic life while at the same time NOT qualifying as a romance, which is where the cracks come in, and way more so with indie than you’d see with traditional publications.
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