Where am I going today with my opinion?
Marketing, and more importantly – self-marketing.
I’ll explain ‘The Wallpaper Effect’ later in this short post, but before we get there I’d like to address what is probably one of the biggest headaches for indie writers.
An indie writer spends months, or perhaps a year or more working on a book. My average is between eight months and a year for a novel, and longer for a book of twelve short stories.
Having taken every care to get the book ready for the world, the writer is then hit with a variety of issues.
– Where to publish?
– What price to sell the work?
– Where to advertise?
– How often to advertise?
– Produce it in paperback?
That is a short list, but I think long enough to make my point, so let’s move on.
There are those who believe (as I once did), that we should get the book written, publish it, and then plug it at every opportunity, on every available social network, and as often as possible.
I am not an expert, but trust me – that is not the way to go.
Why not?
There my dear reader is where I believe ‘The Wallpaper Effect’ presents itself.
The book is seen so often that it effectively becomes a ‘regular’ sight, so rather than attracting attention – it is ignored. Think of it as negative marketing.
Where did I come up with this theory?
I will use two previous careers to demonstrate my point.
We’ll look at ‘blending in’ versus ‘standing out’.
1 – In my military career, I had to ‘conceal’ my large radio truck in woodland by ensuring I broke up the square edges and straight lines with camouflage. I made it blend in, so it wasn’t seen. If I was on foot, I’d camouflage myself so that I blended in – unseen.
It was desirable to have The Wallpaper Effect.
2 – I now work a couple of days a week as a sales assistant, but before stepping down – for twenty years I was a retail manager, and for five of those years I worked as a ‘support’ manager.
My role encompassed many aspects of the trade, but one challenging area was pointing out to store managers why an in-store display or window display didn’t produce sales. Sometimes it was just badly done – but in many cases it was the ‘wallpaper effect’.
The display had been the same for so long that it became invisible. It had once caught the eye, but sadly no longer.
It was not desirable to have The Wallpaper Effect.
I’d suggest changes were made – and the product caught the eye once again – and sold.
Changes don’t have to be drastic, but we’ll cover that in Part 2 with regards to self-marketing for indie writers.
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In Part 2 of this post, which will be with you in a couple of days, I’ll write about my most recent (and successful) strategy. I will also mention a couple of ideas I’ve incorporated into that strategy.
How do I judge ‘success’?
During the past month I’ve had five days when I had no sales. I’m not big on statistics but I thought I’d throw in that small one. Okay, so I suppose that’s no big deal, but it gives my morale a boost.
For now, in summary I would suggest to the daily, blanket coverage, campaigner – ease off a bit, relax – and get onto your next title. Yes, still go for blanket coverage, but only once a week.
If you want to see what type of hornet’s nest can be stirred up when dealing with this topic, please check out fellow author and blogger Andy Updegrove‘s article.
Thank you for reading, and I’ll see you again on Wednesday or Thursday.
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P.S. How subtle is that graphic at the top! 😀
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