This is a post for those who write/paint/create/grow but have yet to seriously try to sell their work. It's about those who didn't grab the ring the first time they sold something. Congratulations to those who did but your experience is different.
This world is all centered around marketing. I am not sure if it's ever been different; but if you grow more than you need to eat, you crochet/quilt/sew and have given away all you can but more sits there, if you are an excellent carpenter, you sing a song, write songs, draw, paint, etc. etc., in every case, if you have more than you want to keep, you have to find a way to get that work seen, to market. When you do that, the world changes. As long as you can give away your product, no problem. But if you want real money, an exchange of labor for it, you are dealing with something different than creating. You are selling.
I see it in everything and right now especially in politics. Who cares if a politician does good work. Can he sell himself? I turned onto the top 20 country western music videos the other day and was shocked to watch many before I finally found a name I recognized. New music, new artists and what happened to the others? Less successful? Now new? It surprised me as I used to keep up on who was successful in that world. Watching that, I was clueless.
In a lot of ways, marketing is a dog eat dog world with a lot to consider regarding your own product. Maybe I am just in a 'mood' or maybe it's the stars in some kind of alignment, but I am disillusioned with it again as I have been off and on. Probably a lot of that is readying this new book, in a different sort of genre although still a romance, and feeling like-- if I put it out-- who will see it?
Oh I got the others seen but mostly by giving away over 10,000 copies. I am not sure of the exact number for the ten books because to figure it out would probably be depressing. The end result though was some sales but few in comparison to the thousands sent out. And what good did those thousands do for marketing the rest? As far as I can tell-- miniscule. You can't keep giving them away as eventually the ones who take free books have them. So somewhere down the line, you are back to not having them seen.
Now I don't blame this all on marketing where it comes to my books. I understood going into this that I wasn't the standard romance writer because I am not the standard romance reader. But the end result of all this thinking is making me doubt whether I should submit the new one to the same process. I know I won't be giving it away at all. I've tried that and it just isn't worth it in my case. I don't doubt it might work for other types of stories, but it didn't for mine.
So I am more or less saying, to anybody who reads here and wants to sell, don't necessarily look at my experience as being yours. You might have the product that does hit the reading public and explodes with readers. You won't know until you try, but do be realistic-- marketing is a big part of it whether you publish yourself or you have a publisher doing it. How to market is the question that has to follow a book you successfully wrote (or any other product you feel proud of creating).
So I am still thinking about whether to put it out, whether its title is right for it, whether I should redo the cover yet again. Until I feel confident of that, I am going to hold off and think about it. I am going to stop and smell the roses... well actually cannot do that as we are currently into marketing grass-fed beef and lambs. Ack!
