So I’m back in that author funk again (excuse the moments of self pity). I’ve created several novels in the last five years, and as my own harshest critical, a number of them aren’t half-bad, and are at least equal to many on the market, but sales and reads have pretty much dried up. Without the backing of a major publisher (and frankly even with one these days), marketing is exhausting, and also highly ineffective. I could try a few paid for or targeted campaigns, which tend to have a short-lived spike, if you’re lucky, but without a champion with influence, or reviews, it is an uphill struggle.
I do tweet, though not so much recently, and tried the YouTube channel approach, but neither have a big influence of garnering audiences, and even a lot of chatter and coverage rarely translates into sales. I know I’m my own worst enemy in that I don’t write to a genre, or even with consistent markets, but all indications are that even if I did, without tropes and repeating, I wouldn’t be likely to pick up a big audience. It can be enjoyable (and cathartic) to write blogs, and my previous one (on Liverpool history) got decent numbers though I had no product to pitch, but it does make me question my writing future.
I could continue on my current trajectory, though diminishing returns may mean I end up with more author copies than sales, but aside from the pleasure of writing, its hard to keep motivation when there isn’t an audience. There is also a downside to being relatively prolific, in that it can put people off, and even if I found a marketable book, having a significant backlist can put people off. So the tree routes I see are to continue as is, to find the magic bullet of marketing fast (I could just sell that knowledge as its gold dust), or create a new author persona, and start afresh with a genre of more marketable book. But while plenty of big name authors publish with pseudonyms, they have the machinery of a following (and the trust of publishers), and crucially, a presence, The blog, backlist, Twitter and Youtube mean that Kit Derrick is known, and using a new name means starting all that over as well, which is a massive job.
This is a little rambly, as I’m not sure which direction to go, and I may end up in a combination of all three, unless of course, you happen to own a publishing and marketing house, and want to take me on (without emailing to say ‘your book [no name] is great, give us money and we’ll set up a useless chatbot for you’)?
Stay safe
Kit xx