In 2010, I held an event to promote my self-published novel, Fortress Beverly Hills. This event was near my home and there was a very nice turnout. About twenty people came, and I sold and signed thirteen of my books. It was an uplifting event and gave me a great deal of hope that I was launching into what could be a very successful small-scale promotional tour in my local area.
Unfortunately, this hope was short-lived. The next two times I held events locally, only two people showed up to each one and I ended up giving books away at the second. It seems that my local market, after around thirty sales (including those out of the trunk of my car on a one off basis) has been tapped out. This also applies to reviews and passing-it-along. So far, I’ve had three reviews of the book completed by friends and family and posted to the online sites and as far as I can tell, less than five people have forwarded or shared links to my work through Facebook, Twitter and other sources. I don’t want to speak ill of this group, I really appreciate them and what they’ve done for me so far. But it’s now clear to me that the group of people who are close to me that I can trust to help me promote this book and my writing in general is, at this point in time, too small for me to reach even my very modest goals.
So, it’s with a sense of very limited expectations that I announce to mostly this very same group that Fortress Beverly Hills is now available on Kindle through Amazon.com. I continue to hope that this book will one day be a success and will reach my ultimate big goal of seeing it translated onto the big screen.
I'm pretty sure now that reaching that goal will take one of two paths: 1. A long, difficult many-year-long slog where I slowly, perhaps painfully build a following for my writing online or 2. Some brave soul with connections will "discover" me and/or my book and will help me get there. Obviously this second path would be far more preferable, and I mentally cross my fingers every time I go online that that someone is out there reading. But knowing how life has been so far, the first is far more likely and unfortunately it may lead to a lifelong struggle in obscurity that ultimately leaves that big goal unmet. But it could provide some modest success that I can learn to live with. So slog away, Kyle!
P.S. Of course, the possibility could be (and strongly possible at that) that I'm not good enough at this to "make it" yet. It could be that Fortress Beverly Hills is nowhere near the best work I'm capable of. It could be that through Best Dad Evar and whatever I write next I'm taking the steps I need to take to actually get to a place where my writing is worth noticing.
So if you want to get in on the bottom floor of the building that is Kyle's writing career, think about spending the three bucks to get Fortress Beverly Hills on Kindle
6 comments:
Good luck with your book - but be prepared for that long struggle!
I will do that Kyle. I will also give you my honest feedback when I have finished. I would expect no less from you.
I started a thread on the GBE page for book authors to list links to where the rest of us can buy their books. Please add your link to that thread! :O)
One of the problems I run into with the long struggle is that short attention span I alluded to in the Best Dad series.
And thanks Word Nerd. It helps to have others who understand the necessity to market.
Hi Kyle!!
I'd love to read your book. I write book reviews on my very unknown website...and I've been trying to read all the authors in my FB group The Writers' Post and review them. If you like...I can do the same for you and publish to my blog...then I tweet out everything daily...so it will hopefully get some sort of exposure for you over the long term. Let me know!! Cheers, Jenn
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