Poor Promo Choices

When you first start self-publishing, all you want is to see your books sell. At least that was the case for me. I mean, I’d put all this effort into writing something and I’d put it out into the world and now I wanted people to actually buy it and, hopefully, enjoy it or find value in it.

So any promo I could get, I took. (At least, successful ones. I wasn’t trying to throw money down the drain.) Pay $5 for a BKnights free promo and see four hundred people download my book? Yes, please. Get a Bookbub on my fantasy novel. Hells yeah.

But here’s the thing. Not every promo, even a successful one, is a good choice.

I applied for my first Bookbub when my fantasy trilogy was incomplete. I had two books out but not the third when I was accepted for that first one. And I was thrilled to get it. Yay, new fans.

But at the same time, I was kicking myself for my impatience. Because, and I’m pretty sure I’ve said this before, I think I’m a good enough writer that a decent percentage of people will read and enjoy my books and go on to buy the next one if it’s available. But I’m not such an amazing writer that they’ll wait around breathlessly for my next one. I don’t have the issues GRRM or Patrick Rothfuss have. I don’t post or tweet and have someone reply, “Stop posting and write.”

So if I promo a book before a series is complete, chances are there’s a certain percentage of readers who will read the books that are available, like them, but then go on with their lives and never think about me or my books again. Which means that, for me, the longer I can wait to promo, the better. Don’t promo book one when it comes out, promo the series when it’s done.

That’s easier said than done, of course. Because I always want to hope I’m that “oh my god, I love you” author and you can’t tell if you are until you get sales. And money is nice. I tend to run profitable promos, so each promo, even the ill-advised ones, means income.

Another mistake I make with promo (which I made today which is what prompted this post) is that I promote books to an audience I’m not going to be able to satisfy long-term. I have a book in the top 50 in the free store today because of a promo. But it’s a title I have no intention of following up on and all of the other titles under that name aren’t going to appeal to those readers.

If they want more of that they’re not going to get it from me.

So why did I do it? Why waste that time and energy? Why catch and release?

Money. Probably. It’s a KU title so a free run can often pay for itself with page reads. And I think I can use AMS to sustain the momentum the free run will give it. But there’s nowhere for those readers to go. Not with me. They’ll read it and move on and that’ll be it.

And if they do love it? If I do get, “oh my god, write more” emails? That’s gonna be a problem. Because I have no intention of writing more of that right now. Or ever.

Which means that promo, even if profitable, was a mistake. To pursue fans you can’t satisfy. To promo for short-term gain when it does nothing for long-term stability. Wasted effort.

(And, really, writing that title was all part of the same sort of mistake. It felt good to see those sales when I originally released it, but there was no long-term strategy involved. I was just throwing things at the wall to see what would stick.)

Ideally, everything you do as a writer works together. You write titles that feed into one another. Same world, same genre, same whatever it is so that readers who find you want everything you’ve written. (This is much more the case with fiction than non-fiction, by the way. At least the type of non-fiction I write.)

So you write works that lead to one another. And then you promo those titles to build your author brand so that the release-promo-release-promo cycle all moves together and with each promo and each release you see a bigger impact than the one before until it becomes like a rock rolling downhill and all you have to do is release, release, release with just enough promo to let people know something new is out.

That should be the goal. That’s how you do good promo.

(But you know me. I’ll keep up with this poor promo approach, because I’m strange that way. Don’t be me, kids.)

Author: M.L. Humphrey

M.L. Humphrey is a former securities regulator, registered stockbroker (although only briefly), and consultant on regulatory and risk-related matters for large financial institutions with expertise in the areas of anti-money laundering regulation, mutual funds, and credit rating agencies. Since 2013 M.L. has also been a published author under a variety of pen names and across a variety of subjects and genres. You can contact M.L. at mlhumphreywriter [at] gmail.com. View all posts by M.L. Humphrey