The promotion game

I'm an author.  If you're reading this, you probably already know that.  That basically just means I like to write and have other people read my stuff.  Kind of like what I'm doing now, except that I sell the other stuff.  Or rather someone else sells the other stuff and I get a cut of the sales.  Sort of.  Well...rather than go into boring accounting practices, I'll get back to what I originally wanted to write about:

Writing, it seems, is the easy part!  For someone who is "self published" even the publishing part isn't that hard.  I just set up the files and upload them.  Then when the proof looks good, I click on a button that says "approve proof." Then, comes the hard part.  I'm finding out that in order to sell your books, people have to know about them.  That's only the first step.  And how do you let people know about the book you have written?  Yes, promotion of course!  It sounds so easy!  But how do you promote a book?  Uh...well...I tried...no, that really didn't work very well...uh.  I'm learning, though.  Even though it's difficult for me, as I'm pretty anti-social, I'm making a few contacts now.  Reviewing a few other people's books in exchange for them reviewing mine.  This only works sometimes, as I reviewed one person's book, but they didn't bother to actually review mine.  (I wonder if I can go back and pull my review off amazon?)  Anyway, my books are now seemingly getting a bit of attention. 

Here's the funny part:  One of the books, I don't really promote.  I don't really do anything, and it only has a couple reviews.  What's funny is that is the book that's starting to sell!  I don't bother with it, send it to people, promote it really, or do anything!  And no, I won't tell you which one it is!  (If you know me at all, you probably already know which one it is!)  In a way, that aggravates me!  I'm working so hard with these other books, and the book I leave alone just goes along doing it's own thing!  It's starting to seem like a kid who went off to school and is now doing better than my other two kids!  I want the other two kids to do well, too!  But the one just seems smarter than the other two!  Phooey, how frustrating!

Here's another really funny thing:  Somehow I'm linked up to this "self promotion" posting thing.  Usually when someone posts on there about their new self published book, I get an email and can see the post.  I do this so if maybe sometime I see some lonely writer who I think needs at least one book sale to help them feel wanted, I can buy the book.  One guy is always posting, gloating about how he's selling thousands of books, and how well he's doing!  His book is apparently fabulous and everyone loves it!  He's the toast of the town now!  I never did use the link and look at his book...until the other day.  I come to find out this "kid" isn't doing as well as he keeps saying.  I look at the reviews of his book, and the few he had said the book was full of gramatical errors, spelling errors, and is mostly just him going on and on about how anyone who disagrees with his opinions is "stupid!"  What the hell, that's a book?  I won't name the book, or author, to save the moron some embarrassment.  But now whenever I see one of his posts going on and on about how good his book is, and how well it's selling, I know he's pretty much bull of bologna! 

One of my books was given three stars by someone, but that's the lowest I've gotten so far.  I guess the books I write aren't too bad.  I'll keep promoting, and see where I can get my books to show up.  I already have them in a library, so who knows?  Maybe a few bookstores someday?  You can already get my books through Barnes & Noble, I guess.  They just aren't on the shelves yet.  But I'm working on that!