# Writing a flop!



## Ralph Rotten (Feb 2, 2020)

As writers we are always quick to talk about our successes, but rarely mention the failures.
So I thought I'd pen a thread on that very topic: The many ways that a book can flop!
Having just had a book flop like a fish, I figgered I had plenty of material to work with.
(The image above is the result of a #3 failure.)



So a book can end up being a flop for a variety of reasons. here are a few:

*1) You wrote a shitty book*. For most new writers, this is the first issue to overcome; writing well. Most of the time when I see books fail for this issue, it's because the writer was not ready to publish. Many of you have heard my adage "The first 200,000 words are just practice..." and this is where that comes into play. It takes experience to master writing. Never rush to publish!
*Symptoms *of a shitty book are; bad reviews. The few people who bought that turd will let you know if it stunk up the room.

*2) Your cover or blurb were bad.* This is a very common issue. Writing the blurb is harder than writing the damned book! Also, most people do not have the skills to make their own cover. I see some bad-hat every day on twitter from people who decided to save a few bux and made their own [awful] cover. People DO judge a book by the cover.
*Symptoms *of a bad blurb/cover: Few sales besides friends & family. The reason is that buyers never got past that awful cover.

*3) No one is interested in that topic.* It is possible to do everything right and still fail in publishing. My recent book, Ming the Merciless is a fine example of this. The content was good, the cover used professional artwork, blurb was tight, and I even paid $$$ for advertising....but in the end no one had any interest in reading about the Ming. I shoulda known after seeing how badly the movie had bombed back in the 80s. 
*Symptoms*: Good reviews, but very few due to low sales.

*4) No one heard about your book.* This is something that happens often in the current market. There are about 70,000 books published on Amazon every month, which means that their existing pool of books is in the millions. If you just throw your book up on Amazon, without any advertising, or social media...it will sink faster than the Titanic. Nowadays, you have to really market a book hard BEFORE release day, or it will be swallowed up in an ocean of books.
*Symptoms*: Lack of activity around your book on Amazon will lead to poor genre standing, and the numbers will only get worse.





*5) All of the above.* It is possible to commit all of the aforementioned sins in a single body of work. Not surprisingly, it happens frequently. Too often people think self-publishing is the easy way. They think you can just throw up a half-baked book on Amazon, and movie producers will be lining up to buy it. The truth is, you should only consider Indie-publishing if you have the full spread of skills for the job. 
*Symptoms*: Low sales, few reviews, and the ones you get are scathing. In some cases your book may even be featured on uglybookcovers.com. If you used the default artwork in the Amazon cover builder, then you will find yourself in this category.


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## Bayview (Feb 2, 2020)

I think this is a useful post - thanks for sharing it!

I'd add a bit of shading to reason 4), I think, by saying _the right people_ didn't hear about your book. As you note, there are a couple thousand new books put out every day, which makes it really easy for a book to get lost in the flood. But there are also a hell of a lot of readers out there. It's not necessary, or even advantageous, for all of these readers to hear about your book - it's only important that the _right_ readers hear about it. The target market.

People resist genre classifications and want to write what their muse demands, and this is great if writing is the main goal, but if _selling_ is the main goal, it's a problem. Genre classifications make it possibly to connect the book with the right readers for that book. There may be two thousand new books a day, but there are only, maybe, a hundred new books in a specific genre. If your book fits easily into that genre, you're swimming in a much smaller pool and it's much easier to reach your intended market.

So I'd add another element to your list, I think, for books that are, by their very nature, hard to market (b/c they don't fit into a tidy genre) and/or for books that are marketed to readers who are never going to read the book regardless.


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## Darren White (Feb 3, 2020)

What do you think, Ralph, went wrong with this book in particular? I'm curious.


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## RHPeat (Feb 3, 2020)

When thinking self publishing — spend less on layout and print and more on moving the sales of the book. There is also the question about the first book. Does the writer need to listen to reviews to improve his chances at sales. Is the writer workshopping his work? 

If that's the cover to writer's book; it stinks. I could design some better in twenty minutes. Imagery would help sell a book. At least to question what is in the book if it is suductive enough to cause a reader to pick it up to browse through it. Color contrast with simple title that incorporates the image on the cover in someway make someone open a book. Also with poetry in the book needs an order to the poems; it is vital to for the book to form a kind of layout that moves in a direction in some way through the complete book. A lot of thought needs to be gone into to form with a conscious construction of some kind. What is the progression in the book? This is vital to any publisher. The progression could be done through the order of each poem moving into the next poem; or the progression might be by chapters headings that build one group of poem again another group in the book to form literary progression on some sort of overall topic. 

Just my thoughts. 

Give it some thought before ever sending it to a publisher. Really have the context of the book well thought out. So that when the unknown reader gets the manuscript they actually say OH WOW. This person spent some time putting it all together beyond even writing the manuscript. That's the kind of concept they want to see when they start to read a manuscript. And this holds true for self publishing as well. They will actually want to work with you more if you have the book's context already worked out for them to see, including index and other formal pages. Where poems were published. personal history in a cover letter, etc. 

a poet friend
RH Peat


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## luckyscars (Feb 3, 2020)

Ralph Rotten said:


>



I'm curious about your costs, Ralph. It looks like you are factoring in the costs of book fairs to the cost of this one book, but is the dollar amount not based on the entire fee? If so, doesn't a book fair allow you to showcase all of your books? If not, if this is the cost of a single book or calculated through division, the costs of book fairs (which I know nothing about) seem extremely high -- are they worth it?

Overall, I found your advice very useful and it kind of supports my feelings about publishing. I feel like it's a good argument for pursuing traditional publication in the event that option is feasible and/or the writer (me) lacks the sales and marketing knowledge. $732.79 is a lot of money to risk  I certainly would not feel comfortable about being that much in the hole before a sale.

A couple other questions for ya:

- Is spending $150 on a cover a good idea? Given the strength of ebooks where covers are -- I would assume -- less important than in a book store, and the fact you can get cheaper, serviceable (though perhaps less strong) covers for far less than that (not the free ones, but - say - commissioning a freelancer to put together a simple yet non-shitty cover for maybe $50) $150 seems like a lot of avoidable cost. Similarly, with the custom font, I can see why nobody wants their cover in Comic Sans, but is a custom font for $30 as opposed to merely a more tasteful font, downloadable for a buck or two, a good investment?

- Ads... I have personally never bought a book because of a banner ad, though I have looked at a couple. In any case, I feel like $100 for an Amazon ad is a lot. I'm not saying it's a bad investment, and you'll forgive me if this is ignorant on the workings of Bezos, but isn't there an option to simply have a book marked as 'promoted', bringing it to the top of the listings for awhile, rather than an actual ad? I don't buy books based on banner ads but I do buy books based on how easy they are to find and if a fee guarantees top-placement in a listing that would definitely help. Not sure if maybe that was included in the $100...?


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## Olly Buckle (Feb 3, 2020)

Title? Ming was the loser, and a pretty much nothing character as I remember. I might have gone for something like 'Enemy of Flash'


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## bdcharles (Feb 3, 2020)

I may self-publish this year as I'm becoming aware / slowly accepting that I am probably not the ideal client for an agent. But anyway, I always thought I would try some guerrilla marketing tactics - cryptic stickers on lampposts near bookshops, sneaky inserts into magazines, a simple pencil or biro drawing for a cover that I can do myself, some tie in / SM campaign leading to a mysterious website that hints at more info (before dumping the potential reader into an amazon page or whatnot). What are your thoughts on that? It just seems to me that all the millions of self-pub book ads are incredibly generic, so doing it differently excites me.

The only thing that I find a little offputting is all the social media side of things. Churning out identikit clickbait and engagement fodder just depresses me, not least because there are so many high-profile accounts there it's hard to compete, imo.


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## Bayview (Feb 3, 2020)

Biro said:


> I suppose before you start.  You should ask yourself....If I wanted to buy a book.  Would I go to Facebook, Twitter or a place that sells books?
> 
> Your answer may be there.



I see your point, but I'm not sure it's in keeping with general advertising theory. There are ads everywhere (including in our homes when we're watching TV, on the internet, etc.), not just in the places we go to buy specific products. I guess the idea is to MAKE people want to buy a book (or whatever other product).


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## Olly Buckle (Feb 3, 2020)

bdcharles said:


> I may self-publish this year as I'm becoming aware / slowly accepting that I am probably not the ideal client for an agent. But anyway, I always thought I would try some guerrilla marketing tactics - cryptic stickers on lampposts near bookshops, sneaky inserts into magazines, a simple pencil or biro drawing for a cover that I can do myself, some tie in / SM campaign leading to a mysterious website that hints at more info (before dumping the potential reader into an amazon page or whatnot). What are your thoughts on that? It just seems to me that all the millions of self-pub book ads are incredibly generic, so doing it differently excites me.
> 
> The only thing that I find a little offputting is all the social media side of things. Churning out identikit clickbait and engagement fodder just depresses me, not least because there are so many high-profile accounts there it's hard to compete, imo.



It sounds like fun, but the number of people you will touch will be tiny if you are doing it those things personally. You need a mate who is into video to record you doing it as a little 'local author' documentary, then you give that to local TV for cheap 'filler' content and get a much bigger audience. Failing that you write it up and give it to the local papers.


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## luckyscars (Feb 3, 2020)

bdcharles said:


> The only thing that I find a little offputting is all the social media side of things. Churning out identikit clickbait and engagement fodder just depresses me, not least because there are so many high-profile accounts there it's hard to compete, imo.



I empathize with this perspective greatly. I think if I was going to seriously go down the SP route I would probably look at trying to get the marketing outsourced somehow. Expensive, possibly prohibitively so, but the idea of spending time on promoting rather than writing isn't my thing. Most SP authors I have met, at least ones that actually make sales and didn't already have some sort of name recognition from traditional publishing credits, seem to actually enjoy the hustle, seem to see it as part of the writer's experience rather than a necessary evil. I suspect it's a personality thing. We're talking about people who would, in another life, have been great salespeople.




Biro said:


> I suppose before you start.  You should ask yourself....If I wanted to buy a book.  Would I go to Facebook, Twitter or a place that sells books?
> 
> Your answer may be there.



If I recall correctly, I think somebody knowledgeable (possibly Ralph) had a thread on here awhile back about Facebook, Twitter, etc. and basically it is kind of a loser.  Might be wrong. I'm sure it's very un-cheap to advertise on those platforms.

My feelings (not necessarily backed by data, though I can't be troubled to look right now) on a lot of these social media platforms is that they've kind of jumped the shark anyway as far as outlets for marketing. Might be a demographic thing, but certainly fewer and fewer people I know are using Facebook, purely because it has become such a shady swamp for advertising and clickbait and general abuse of information. Point being, I can see a book -- _any book _-- really not benefiting from promotion via those platforms. On the other hand, a well-placed ad on a science fiction forum for a science-fiction book could well be a winner, I suspect, and that's not necessarily a place that people go to buy books either, right?


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## bdcharles (Feb 4, 2020)

luckyscars said:


> My feelings (not necessarily backed by data, though I can't be troubled to look right now) on a lot of these social media platforms is that they've kind of jumped the shark anyway as far as outlets for marketing. Might be a demographic thing, but certainly fewer and fewer people I know are using Facebook, purely because it has become such a shady swamp for advertising and clickbait and general abuse of information. Point being, I can see a book -- _any book _-- really not benefiting from promotion via those platforms. On the other hand, a well-placed ad on a science fiction forum for a science-fiction book could well be a winner, I suspect, and that's not necessarily a place that people go to buy books either, right?



Yeah, I dunno. The most recent indie-published book I bought was on the back of a tweet that linked to Amazon, all by the author. Admittedly I was in the market for an indie book and had already scoped out the one I bought, but the nudge was definitely there. To me, my concern - and tying in to what Olly says above - is that because so much of the standard Twitter (to take my most-used social media platform) sales pitches are so generic, I would get bored with that idea and try something crazy and new. For eg., I once considered setting up a Twitter account as my MC or my antagonist. But who would know? Who would even give a shit? And then, in the process I would worry that I would miss the fundamental nature of how to market via SM and burn loads of time in missing that mark, so get nowhere. It's entirely my MO. But that's me, not knowing what I'm doing.

As I understand it, as it is, I think I will approach known accounts and book reviewers and get in with them and say "can you review my book and write something nice about it" and so forth (or pitch whatever crazy idea to them). That seems to be in line with, for instance, radio. A lot of informal-sounding "conversations" on the radio are adverts, as are shelf-placings and "staff picks"-type stuff in bookshops. You pay to have a fifteen minute chat about your product, or to have it left Casually Leaning At That Quirky Angle Against A Sack Of Coffee Beans[SUP]TM[/SUP] in the store, and away it goes. I'd just have to find someone hungry for material, or at a reasonable cost, or for whom I can do some tit-for-tat.


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## Ralph Rotten (Feb 4, 2020)

Bayview said:


> I'd add a bit of shading to reason 4), I think, by saying _the right people_ didn't hear about your book. As you note, there are a couple thousand new books put out every day, which makes it really easy for a book to get lost in the flood. But there are also a hell of a lot of readers out there. It's not necessary, or even advantageous, for all of these readers to hear about your book - it's only important that the _right_ readers hear about it. The target market.
> 
> People resist genre classifications and want to write what their muse demands, and this is great if writing is the main goal, but if _selling_ is the main goal, it's a problem. Genre classifications make it possibly to connect the book with the right readers for that book. There may be two thousand new books a day, but there are only, maybe, a hundred new books in a specific genre. If your book fits easily into that genre, you're swimming in a much smaller pool and it's much easier to reach your intended market.
> 
> So I'd add another element to your list, I think, for books that are, by their very nature, hard to market (b/c they don't fit into a tidy genre) and/or for books that are marketed to readers who are never going to read the book regardless.



Very true. Some genres are harder to market than others. With Calizona I was able to market directly to survivalists and preppers because they have numerous forums and clubs.
But other genres are not always so easy to crack (or even figure out where your readers are so you can market to them.)


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## Ralph Rotten (Feb 4, 2020)

luckyscars said:


> I'm curious about your costs, Ralph. It looks like you are factoring in the costs of book fairs to the cost of this one book, but is the dollar amount not based on the entire fee? If so, doesn't a book fair allow you to showcase all of your books? If not, if this is the cost of a single book or calculated through division, the costs of book fairs (which I know nothing about) seem extremely high -- are they worth it?
> 
> Overall, I found your advice very useful and it kind of supports my feelings about publishing. I feel like it's a good argument for pursuing traditional publication in the event that option is feasible and/or the writer (me) lacks the sales and marketing knowledge. $732.79 is a lot of money to risk  I certainly would not feel comfortable about being that much in the hole before a sale.
> 
> ...




True that the book fair costs really should be split up since I was marketing multiple books at each (and sold very few copies of Ming.) The image is from my expenses spreadsheet I use for taxes, so it reflects all costs per anum.

As for the $150 cover. This was actually a really, really good price for professional artwork. Although there are many really talented artists who do commissions...they are not cheap. At least not the good ones.
I have used cheaper artists, and the result was...underwhelming.
Most artists will charge +$300 for something like this.
SigmaDog would quote you much higher for an image like this.






With ads, you can set a daily limit, and a campaign limit, then let it run on its own. You can choose to be *promoted content*, as well as ads that appear on the wake-page of a kindle.
I have never seen much return from Amazon ads tho.


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## Ralph Rotten (Feb 4, 2020)

PS: The title font cost $30.


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## Ralph Rotten (Feb 4, 2020)

As near as I can tell, this book failed due to reason #3; *It was just not a story anybody wanted to read*.
My marketing data showed that I successfully drove a lot of people to the page...but they did not buy.
Reviews were positive (except one troll who I believe came from another forum) so I can likely rule out #1.

So failures like this make me stop and consider the books I am currently working on.
As much as I would like to write them all...I have to be realistic.
Writing a book is a lotta work...a ton of work, in fact. 
So often I sideline a project simply because I do not see it being a market success.

What's the point of getting up at 0400 every day to write a book when I know it'll flop like a fish?
I have shit-canned some great stories for this reason.


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## luckyscars (Feb 4, 2020)

Ralph Rotten said:


> What's the point of getting up at 0400 every day to write a book when I know it'll flop like a fish?
> I have shit-canned some great stories for this reason.



I guess the tough part of that is...how do you know?

Hindsight is 20/20, but I do think you were a little hobbled pursuing something as niche as Ming the Merciless. I’m not sure of your target readership, but there does seem an inherent problem in writing a novel about a lesser known (at least in 2020) character from a comic strip. Sure, some comic fans would like it, but a lot of those comic fans don’t read or buy many novels — that’s why they are comic fans. It’s like trying to sell art to the chronically colorblind. I have run into this problem on a smaller scale. Writing short horror fiction and finding that the overwhelming majority of the market seems to be teenagers and young men, who tend not to be as interested in stories written from the point of view of say, an elderly woman or involving more complex emotional themes. What they tend to prefer is the imaginative, the transgressive, the aggressive, the apocalyptic and the bizarre. It is hard to sell ski equipment to desert dwellers.

But of course the danger is remaining in the safe space. Who really knows what sells? Of course there are risks, but there are rewards, too. Where do you draw the line? What methodology do you use to figure it out? Data? Research? A hunch?


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## Ma'am (Feb 4, 2020)

First, I wouldn't single out a self-published author and post their work as an example of what not to do. Perhaps that could be deleted?

Also, while I agree mostly, I'd also say it all depends. 

For one thing, some types of nonfiction, like the book cover posted in the original post, are a whole different animal from fiction. For a simple informational guide, the author may have actually made a good decision. The effort and expense for an upgraded book cover and marketing aren't always a good bet. 

For example, say someone was looking for info. on how to repair a toaster. The book cover would likely make no difference, plus there wouldn't likely be widespread appeal for such a book, so quick and cheap may well be the best bet there for the author.

I've written some short nonfiction guides that are more like articles than books. Someone casually scanning them might think they were flops too, but they would be wrong. 

A short focused guide can often be done quickly and will sell to people who want that specific info. Over several years time, after being put up on Amazon and not bothered with again, that "flop" could actually be a great return per hour or per page, especially if the author limits the costs and time put into it.

As far as your book, Ralph, well we all learn by trying different things. Maybe you could just think of it as paying for a SP marketing class. I bet you know a lot more about it now, so it _was _educational, right?


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## Ralph Rotten (Feb 10, 2020)

luckyscars said:


> I guess the tough part of that is...how do you know?
> 
> But of course the danger is remaining in the safe space. Who really knows what sells? Of course there are risks, but there are rewards, too. Where do you draw the line? What methodology do you use to figure it out? Data? Research? A hunch?



Very true. Some of the books I have sidelined were because they simply lacked any thrill. Sure, they were well-written...but boring. They were safe books.
Other books I have sidelined were because I just could not find a way to blurb their plot (and make it sound good.) 
I dropped one project because in blurb form, it sounded very derivative (even though it was nothing like the other story.)

Safe books are boring. They die a 3-star death.


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## Ralph Rotten (Feb 10, 2020)

Ma'am said:


> As far as your book, Ralph, well we all learn by trying different things. Maybe you could just think of it as paying for a SP marketing class. I bet you know a lot more about it now, so it _was _educational, right?



Yep. It included a lot of homework.
I had assumed that Ming would sell in the anti-hero category, and that genre was popular at the time when I wrote Ming (Deadpool was killing it at the box offices).
But Ming is from the wrong generation. Ming is from my mom's era.

One problem with the Ming cover was that Pinterest classified it as a comic book, so many of the hits the ad campaign sent to Amazon were actually comic-book enthusiasts.
They were not looking for a novella, they were looking for comic books...and clicked out of the site without buying.


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## Ralph Rotten (Feb 10, 2020)

One way I could tell this was simply not the story that anyone wanted to read was in how well it did on Ku-KOLL (the unlimited program).
There are a lotta bad books in Kindle KOLL, so if your story is even half decent, it will get read a fair amount. _KU-KOLL readers are starved for good books_.
But the Ming page count was abysmal. 




So the marketing was doing its job and getting them to the amazon BUY-page...but the cover, blurb, or topic made them not want to buy.
Or read it for free.

Time to write something new.


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## Foxee (Feb 10, 2020)

Ralph Rotten said:


> Time to write something new.


One could say that's always the case, though, no matter the success of the previous venture.


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## Chris Stevenson (Feb 17, 2020)

Ralph. We are in a current glut of books, the likes of which we've never experienced in the industry before. This is no down cycle.  Millions of books are pouring into Amazon, what? Something like 500,000 a year in indies alone? Even when You have all of your ducks in a row, and the people, readers and reviewers tell you so, sales can be static or even non-existent. You can throw ad money at it, but you'd better be sitting on KU, .99 cents or flat free. I lost $400 dollars trying to advertise a $2.99 book. I was ignorant of the consequences and not studying my competition.  

How do I know we are glutted to the max? Okay, my fess up: I sent out 1,800 book review pitch requests that were all personalized/customized, after having read the bios and guidelines of each and every reviewer. I stress, I did this manually for each and everyone. I was told I had one of the most effective and considerate pitch letters ever seen. I targeted my genre like a sniper, with little to no exceptions. I sent emails and forms. I included the book cover in the email. I did not send any free books cold. I only asked if they were interested. This was a YA Portal fantasy/thriller, a pretty popular and commercial genre. This book even took first place in a YA contest for 2019--a nice one with a little badge, but admittedly, no huge blockbuster award. 

The results, after working 9--5 for six straight months = 165 requests for the book out of those 1,800 pitch letters. (Take in mind, nearly all of them are/were back-logged for weeks if not months) I knew that. 

As of today, I've had 36 solid reviews appear on Amazon (both foreign and domestic). I pulled about 19 interviews and seven guest spots. Of course, I'll have some lagging reviews trickle in, which I expect.

Now that's a LOT of ink for a new release, as far as I'm concerned. The pen name is knew, granted, but she is EVERYWHERE in all the groups and display sites. I've got 860 Twitter followers and 4, 975 FB friends, and God knows how many others between about 20 writing groups and display sites. 

My point: It's murder out there. Worse than I've ever seen it. Oh, and I have a paid promo manager and agent ta boot. 

Ralph, it's probably not your book at all. I feel that the tipping point of saturation has been reached, and I've been hawk-eyeing this industry and writing about it for 31 years.

I consider my quest for reviews an absolute failure. If I could afford NetGalley I'd do it. But right now, I'm hand-picking small promo sites with the lowest prices and best exposure, with an ultimate price drop to near nothing. I cannot think of any other thing to do to boost sales. I had the big holiday give-away contests to0--signed paperbacks, dream catchers, Amazon gift cards and jewelry. I would have given up a pint of blood if they'd asked for it.  

So Ralph, do not despair and take it personally. As writers today, we are going to have to find brand new inroads into promotion and marketing---things that are wild, outside the box and have never been done before. I keep hearing rumors that Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr and other visual social sites will be taking over very soon and gaining ground. They are the new "IT" place to put your book. I don't know about that.


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## Ralph Rotten (Feb 18, 2020)

Biro said:


> I think self publishing is a pure waste of time.  I liken it to trying to sell a carrot in the middle of a vegetable market.  Lots of buyers, lots of sellers and you have but one carrot.  It may be the best carrot but the buyers are too busy looking at all the other veg.





Ming was published via Indies United Publishing House.


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## Foxee (Feb 18, 2020)

Ralph, I appreciate this thread, just wanted to say.


> As writers today, we are going to have to find brand new inroads into promotion and marketing---things that are wild, outside the box and have never been done before.


Yeah, there may be a book glut but I think that is part of a communications glut. Every person is having to sift through tons of messaging from every angle, all day every day unless they just ignore all of it for a while (which is what books are good for anyway). It's not that this idea of 'noise' is new but I think the cacophony has reached new levels and is disseminated further and further with more and more avenues to carry it through everyday life.

If we don't have a thread for creative marketing ideas for books maybe we need one. Might be an interesting discussion to have.


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## Ma'am (Feb 18, 2020)

I'd first give it a long, cold second look and reconsider if it's publishable- interesting and well written. Unfortunately, most self-published work is not. Better yet, get some trusted people to give you their honest opinion on it.

Then, if it seems to need work, do it. Or, if it seems beyond that, maybe just take it down, put it in a drawer somewhere for possible later re-working, and move on. 

If it passes that second look, then I'd just leave it up there and focus on writing more books rather than spending money on marketing that may well not get you any return. If you find a cheap or easy idea, that's different, but I'd put most of the effort into writing over marketing. 

One thing I've found to really make a difference is reviews. The books with a decent number of Amazon reviews get a second look over those that don't have any.

This is assuming you want to keep writing when you may not get much money for it, of course. I mainly do it for the love so low sales wouldn't make me want to quit but, as we know, some differ on that.

Each new, decently done book serves as free marketing for the others. You get more publishing "real estate" with more titles and more people come to know your work. 

What can happen is a big backwave of sales of all your books. One book gets picked up by a decent publishers or your name slowly builds, then whoosh! 

I don't bother much with marketing because in my experience, the return on the money and time spent is just too iffy. Thinking of how you buy books and following that is a good start IMO. For ex., I've never bought a book based on reading the author's blog (even if I enjoyed the blog) or from a Twitter ad. I assume I'm pretty much like everyone else in my book buying habits, so I don't bother with those methods myself, etc.

Good luck.


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## Chris Stevenson (Feb 18, 2020)

Foxee said:


> Ralph, I appreciate this thread, just wanted to say.
> 
> Yeah, there may be a book glut but I think that is part of a communications glut. Every person is having to sift through tons of messaging from every angle, all day every day unless they just ignore all of it for a while (which is what books are good for anyway). It's not that this idea of 'noise' is new but I think the cacophony has reached new levels and is disseminated further and further with more and more avenues to carry it through everyday life.
> 
> If we don't have a thread for creative marketing ideas for books maybe we need one. Might be an interesting discussion to have.



I agree that we need to break some new ground on promotion and marketing as it applies to right now. I've been experimenting with some ideas and so far they have shown some tiny, but measurable improvement--engagements, clicks and conversions. But you have to be very careful and not unwittingly violate TOcs.


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## Ralph Rotten (Feb 18, 2020)

Marketing is something that is in a constant of flux, due entirely to our expanding digital world. I have been finding that many of the techniques I used with success a decade ago are no longer quite as effective.

But in the case of Ming, I think I did a good job on the marketing. I took the full 90 days, sent out press releases, ran ads in multiple platforms (including on a few thousand Kindles), saturated social media, and used my publishing cooperative to spread the word. But in the end, I wrote a book no one was interested in reading.
Ming is _soooo_ 1939.


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## Olly Buckle (Feb 19, 2020)

Every time I see the title to this thread I wonder if you have seen The Producers. 'Spring time for Ming time'.


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## Ralph Rotten (Feb 27, 2020)

Maybe I should write a vampire story...no one is writing those...right?


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## Ralph Rotten (Mar 12, 2020)

Biro said:


> Flash Gordon did well in 1980.  But then even though the 1930's were well before I was born.  Even I knew who Flash Gordon was and some of the others when I was growing up and knew about the film when it came out in 1980.
> 
> Today I watched a mid 40's man and his girlfriend of same age not having a clue who Maureen O'Hara was.  She only died a few years ago and they both knew who John Wayne was.  But not who the woman who starred with him.
> 
> So perhaps the age range of people who may have any clue who Ming was.  Is very limited?









Mmmmmm. Maureen Ohara.


So I took a month off, slept in till 6 every day, and have reconsidered my current projects.
Then I started on something new.
It's crass, it's flashy, and in the vein of Rick Sanchez.
Then the next day I decided I didn't like what I wrote so I wrote it again.
Then the next day I wrote it again.
Maybe one more day...?


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## Ralph Rotten (Apr 25, 2020)

So I rewrote that intro 6 times and I still don't like it. The narrator isn't outrageous enough...he's still tame.
I need this guy to be the antithesis of Buckaroo Bonzai.

I will let this story ferment in my mind a bit longer. I have not been writing these last few weeks. Need to recharge. My 5-year plan turned into a decade. Taking some vacation time. I'll write when I'm ready.
And when I'm ready, I will have a better story to tell.


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