Marketing Yourself is Hard

I am not a social butterfly kind of person. I have a small circle of peeps that I interact with (mostly family) and I'm cool with that. However, I think that limits my capabilities at marketing myself... which stinks.

Many writers are introverts. Possibly because we express ourselves better on 'paper.' I do a better job of explaining myself in the written word than I do speaking off the cuff. In fact, I've been known to put my foot in my mouth more times than I care to remember. Introvert does not mean silent. At least, not in my case.

Combining limited social skills with introversion results in a horrible marketer. I feel self-conscious talking about my books, promoting myself with guest blog posting, or mentioning the fact I'm an author. I carry around business cards with my book cover and a blurb on the back, but keep forgetting to hand them out or feel goofy doing so. I need to figure out how to get over this!

I think my book, "The Ninth Curse," is just as good as many books out there for sale. Although I was published with a reputable smaller publisher (thank you, Samhain, for taking a chance on me), my sales were pretty anemic. I didn't expect big things, but I was hoping for slightly better sales once my book made it onto Amazon and was available as an e-book.

Honestly, I believe the biggest problem I had was very few reviews. I've had an acquaintance or two who bought my book tell me they enjoyed it, but they did not take the time to review it. Frustrating to say the least. You really need a LOT of reviews in order for someone to believe that a new author has the chops to write a good book.

The other thing I have heard is that the best thing you can do is to write another book. Recently, I uploaded a new book to Amazon. Self-published as an experiment. Blood Moon is in the same genre as The Ninth Curse, paranormal, but is directed at a teen audience. Without the backing of a publisher, I am definitely floating in a huge sea of self-published books. I am not sure if this really helped me at all.

On the one hand, I enjoy sharing my writing with anyone willing to take a chance on it. On the other hand, I get frustrated that I haven't done a better job of getting the word out there about my books. I suppose I should just get back to the writing, since I'm better at that part. Either I need to ditch my loathing of promoting my work, or I need to stop complaining about it.

For all those readers out there my plea is that you write a review if you love a book. That's the only way an unknown author even stands a chance to sell her books. So, please, take the time to write a review today. The author will be grateful for it.