 Hello everybody, E here. Welcome back to From the Desk. We haven't done one of these in a while. Today we're going to be talking about marketing, something that I know very little about. What I use for my marketing is just like a grassroots kind of thing. I just get out there and talk to people. Luckily enough, I am a member of several different book communities, whether it be booktube, Goodreads, book likes at one point in time, which I don't even know if that thing still exists, the website. But I'm a reader and I love to read and I love to talk about books. What I don't do, I try not to talk too much about my own books and if people come across me, they come across me. Now a more active approach that has worked in the past is getting your books with book bloggers, getting your books with booktubers, Instagram, Bookstagram people. Even just a really pretty picture of your book on someone's Instagram account can move books. It just all depends on who you get your books to. Another thing is, I want you to keep in mind, you don't want to be using people. You don't want to start friendships just because they can help you out. That's a jerk move. You don't need to be spamming people. This is probably going to turn into more what not to do than what to do. That's what it's turning into. Let me reverse tracks here. Buy ads. Amazon and Goodreads don't really do much as far as sales are concerned. I have found more success with places like Bookbub. Bookbub, you put your book on sale. You pay for an ad and hopefully you make the money back. Just because you pay for an ad does not mean that it is a good service. Just because it's a paid service doesn't mean it's good. Just because something is free does not mean it's bad. I made a lot of headway early on in my career by doing, I think it was eReader news today. I would put things on sale for 99 cents and then I would let them know. That was during the free and 99 cent book boom. That was about 2012. It was going on before even that but I'm talking like 2012, 2013. Right now free giveaways, like putting your book free on Amazon does not help anymore. I've heard nothing but bad stuff from the old timers who used to, I say old timers. It was only like five years ago, who used to do it, who used to see massive returns. You'll give away a buttload of books. Don't get me wrong, it just won't turn into sales because nowadays they just hoard free books. They download them, they sit on their Kindle tablet or whatever and unless they've already heard of you, they're probably not going to check it out. I know I have over 1800 eBooks on my Kindle account because of that alone and I'll never read. I probably will never read any of them because I've gone completely back to physical books. I got 1800 books just sitting on a Kindle that I'm never going to do anything with. At least they're not taking up space, I guess. Anyways, my approach to marketing has always been get to know the people who like the kind of stuff that you read. Don't make false friendships. Don't use people and don't spam people. If you're going to go and you're going to check, always, always, if you're going to hit up a blogger or someone on booktube or whatever, always make sure you check their, not really terms of service, but their review request guidelines. Always check to see if they're taking reviews. Always make sure you learn these people's names, all that stuff. There's even some BS going on right now in the book community about, some jerk said something about, you know, book bloggers don't sell books no matter how big they are and the little ones even less so. The whole purpose of that isn't really to sell the book but to build your brand and get your name out there. That's what blog tours are for. I wouldn't suggest paying for a blog tour because you're not going to make the money back off that. You might in the long run, but unless you're already popular, you're not really going to get the visibility that you have. And there's plenty of people out there doing it for the love of it. So find those people, see if they're willing to help you out. And of course, if you want to put in the money into a blog tour, there's no reason why you shouldn't. Just try things out. That's what I've been doing. Now, when I say don't pay for a blog tour, it never worked for me, ever. Not once. In fact, most of the blog tours I've done have been taken down the one that was paid for by my publisher. None of those reviews are even up anymore. So I don't know what's up with that, but those reviews are all gone. I checked some things before I did this video. But marketing, if you really want to get yourself out there and you are personable and you have a good personality, then definitely try Twitter and Instagram and those kind of places. Make a booktube channel. I don't even push my books here, really. But my revenue has increased significantly just by getting my name out there with booktube. I started this for fun, but it paid off in the end. So share your passions with people, and usually people will come around and be like, hey, I'll check it out. And if you're any good, they'll follow you. That is all I have for marketing. I'm sorry, I didn't go into more detail, but that's what I do. If marketing makes you cringe, just kills your soul, then find a publisher. I mean, that's really about as simple as I can get. Find somebody who will do all that marketing for you and then you just can retweet or share the stuff that they get. But not all of us need to be in front of a camera or on social media. Not all of us need to do that. I mean, look at Donna Tartt, how big she is and she's a recluse. Same with Tom's pension. Anyways, so I think that's everything. If you have any questions I might be able to answer regarding marketing with my little little bit of experience, then please leave them down there in the doobly-doo. But until next time, I have been E, you've been U. This has been another From the Desk. I'll talk to you guys later. Bye-bye.