Getting people to notice

I’m a self-published, or indie, author. I’d love to be published by one of the big book publishers, I’d love to see my books on the shelf in a bookstore. Hell, I’d love to make millions from my books and retire from my full-time job to do nothing but write! I’ll keep plugging away at my writing and keep trying to get a literary agent, but I’ll keep working on my self-publishing platform, too.

The hardest thing for me with regards to self-publishing is self-promotion. I am, by nature, not an outgoing person. I hate to beat people about the head with my personal news or information, so getting out there and promoting my books is difficult. In addition most of my Facebook followers are my friends, so I hate to do repeat posts about my books, because I don’t want to spam my friends. I do tweets, but Twitter is so big that getting noticed without being a celebrity is nigh-impossible.

A marketing budget would help, wouldn’t it? I could buy ads on popular sites and hire a marketing team…but I’m perpetually broke. The best I can afford right now is small promotional ads on Amazon, Facebook, and Twitter. And when I have done these small ads, I never get any sales from them.

I think – no, I believe – that my writing is good. It’s not professionally edited – I can’t afford that – but it’s not a slapped-together POS either. I work hard on my books. Sometimes I feel that maybe it’s not my marketing or my advertising that’s to blame for no interest in my writing, but my writing itself. Perhaps I’m not a good enough writer to get noticed.

But come on – if ‘Fifty Shades of Gray’ could get published then surely I stand a chance.