I spent much of my early career in publishing, working with authors and publishers to market their books. It didn’t take long to experience the number one complaint of all authors working with all publishers: The marketing department didn’t do enough. And even when we did a good job, once the book launched and the initial marketing plan completed, the author and book were abandoned to sail across the choppy seas on their own, to keep the nautical metaphor going.
Authors always needed a marketing platform to gain interest from publishers; it is just a different type of platform today. Authors who pastored large churches, had a significant media ministry (TV and/or radio), a national speaking ministry, a newspaper column, a large nonprofit with a mailing list, and other pre-Internet elements were deemed sufficient platforms.
Other than fiction, which is more about the writing, I can’t recall a time when someone just wrote a book and rose to prominence and bestseller status without some version of a platform being in place to give them credibility. Publisher marketing activities and expense overcame some lack of a platform now and then, but it was difficult and expensive.
So, imagine my surprise, when I observe so many people pursuing self-publishing, spending next to nothing on marketing and platforms, and being disappointed with the outcome.
The way to overcome the lack of a platform is to spend money. Between Amazon ads, social-media advertising, electronic media kits for pitching interviews, and hiring a professional marketing person to assist, a good launch of a self-published book should have a budget of $5,000-$10,000 for the first year. If sales warrant, spending that amount each year to support it with personal appearances and a host of other activities would be recommended in the long term.
Traditional publishers don’t usually spend that amount since they employ publicists and marketing staff. Figuring in the cost of an employee, a self-published author would need to spend the above amount to replicate what they do.
Launching a book with no platform and no marketing support is unwise. The time you spent writing a book is effectively wasted as sales will likely be disappointing (less than ten copies).
Yes, marketing is an imprecise profession with a good amount of trial and error involved. You can spend money in short bursts on Amazon, testing various approaches to see which one works best. But most other marketing is based on “best practices” that can be somewhat subjective, pursuing efforts that make sense fundamentally but still might not have the desired results. How many books were sold because of a podcast appearance? No idea.
Many authors hire publicists and marketing assistants to keep sales momentum going. Of course, this makes more sense if an author has multiple books selling moderately well to allocate a percentage of royalties earned to ongoing promotion.
There’s no guarantee the marketing will work; but for sure, without it, self-publishing is likely a rather significant waste of time.
Publishing is financially risky, no matter what path is taken. If you self-publish, you are taking on that risk altogether; and you can benefit more financially.
Don’t skip any of the processes to publish successfully, like marketing.
Knowing that makes the time-intensive platform development process seem more of a priority, but that’s your business.
Don’t know if it was worth it, now,
the time I spent trying to write.
I knew the Why but not the How,
and never really saw the light
of platform and marketing skills,
of the grand promotion game.
Ignorance is bliss, but kills,
and Regret becomes the hopeful’s name
for all the glories once pursued
that faded into graying mist,
a muse whose work was to delude
but whom I could not resist,
and with these years and chances spent
left a heart, once flinty, rent.
Poignant and brilliant, Andrew. That’s exactly where I am, but you said it oh, so well!
And this is why I binge Authormedia!
Seriously though, this is my biggest weakness in my overall building author career. I’m fine tuning the craft– I’m just figuring out the platform side XP. And of course I had to go and make it infinitely harder for myself by refusing to do social media… when my main audience is TEENS.
I don’t have a bad platform by any means, I’m doing okay with the website traffic, just… struggling to get the email list conversion that I want LOL
Like anything else, we have to find what works for us. I’m published both traditionally and indie. I sell most of my books at vendor events and, when I’m on faculty, at writers conferences.
I’ve been hearing a lot about ads. Facebook ads are supposed to be better than they used to. And Amazon ads have always been pretty good. I’ve done ads in Clean Fiction Magazine and Story Monsters Ink, but I think this year, I’ll look into FB and Amazon ads.
I’m an author and have many books on Amazon and the rest. I’m yet to get the rewards from these platforms. Kindly show me the way forward.
Oh, man. Where are the people with the easy answers? Information like this makes it so hard to stay the course of blaming the big, bad, agents and publishers for being unreasonable. Ugh!
Dan, thank you for this article. I’m going to read it to my class when I teach at Blue Ridge next week. I’m thinking about self-publishing a series of books, this was much needed information. I’m starting to save money now for marketing.
You wrote: “The way to overcome the lack of a platform is to spend money….a good launch of a self-published book should have a budget of $5,000-$10,000 for the first year. ”
While you are probably correct, there are exceptions. I have never used an agent, and I never spent a dime promoting any of my 60 non-fiction books, which have sold more than 8 million copies and been pirated on thousands of web sites. My photographs played a major role in many of my books. A major factor behind this success is that I also wrote more than 1,500 newspaper and magazine articles and columns (for which I was paid). Thus, readers who were intrigued by my science and electronics writing bought my books to learn more. Also, I have had excellent relationships with the many editors with whom I have worked over the years.
Want to know more? See “Maverick Scientist,” my second memoir. It’s published by Make and available on Amazon,