Marketing and Why I Am Not Doing Any

The argument that self-publishing is an ‘open gate’, that the guarantee of quality a ‘proper’ publisher (or, more importantly, the editor) offers the reader is not there for self-published works, has been well-made many times and I won’t rehearse it here.

As I have said, I don’t think my book is ‘bad’ – not as good as it could be - but it is not bad, and I wouldn’t be ashamed to have my name on it as it is (it doesn’t have my name – instead some absurdist pseudonym that I blame entirely on those who failed to answer my call).

But more importantly for the self-publisher, there is no marketing department, no advice on hand, no one telling you how to get your books to the reader, giving them a chance to buy.

I will say it again, for the self-publisher happy with the quality of their work, this is the greatest loss that self-publishing incurs. There are a quarter of a million works of fiction published on e-book format on Amazon.com, non-fiction is double that (Amazon.co.uk figures are harder to come by). Regardless of quality, getting the work noticed is the biggest challenge a self-publisher faces.

And here I explain why I am simply not going to do any marketing whatsoever, at least not for a while.

The First:

On looking at the Kindle ‘community’ website, I noticed a thread entitled ‘Marketing’. I thought I’d have a look. There weren’t many responses, but two things I noticed: the first was a link to a 2009 blog by Mr Konrath, self-publishing’s own (self) success story. It was interesting, though he was only reporting sales in the low hundreds then.

The second thing was that two of the participants came to an agreement on the thread to write glowing reviews of each others work. And mightily pleased they seemed to be with themselves and their ‘wheeze’: mutually beneficial co-operation in action.

Except of course that to post a review of a work, a false review, is a lie, intended only to dupe the reader, or at least the potential reader.

We would all be quite appalled if advertisers were allowed to get away with ‘bigging up’ the claims of their products. In Britain, as I imagine in most countries, false advertising is illegal and one tempted to lie to the public could find themselves fined or worse. Yet it happens on a daily basis on the pages of Amazon and I don’t see anyway of stopping it, at least not completely.

But legal or not, duping readers is morally wrong (odd thing to say for someone who believes in no absolutes and as such would consider themselves to be, philosophically at least, an ‘amoralist’) and I want no part of it.

So that is the first reason; the second follows as surely as day follows night:

E-Publishing is not self-publishing. But given the size of e-publishers, many of their authors are expected to self-market. Tweet, they are told, blog, do everything you can to get your name out there, stand out above the crowd. And so they do, and I have nothing but respect for them.

But perhaps it was the way I was bought up, but for me, self-promotion is an anathema.

Even this blog, well, were it not for the anonymity of the internet, I would have saved you the few moments it has taken to read this far.

But I have seen the self-publicists – and in our world that is usually understood as a derogatory term, or has been until now, but it shouldn’t be and here I don’t mean it in that way – I have seen how they have to work, have to promote, encourage and cajole. And, as much as I admire them, I want no part of that either.

So, no ‘duping the reader’ and no self-publicising, so why do it at all?

Well, if this is the way things will go – and I hope it is not –  i.e. if agents are on the way out, publishers going down the sink, then I had better learn what happens if one simply refuses, if one doesn’t ask one’s friends and acquaintances, back-scratchers, even blog-readers to write reviews; no asking anyone to shout one’s name from the rafters, help propel one’s book up the charts.

So that is why no marketing: simply to see what happens. And that is what I shall be telling you here. 0 sales and counting….

And please, tell me what you think.