The mystery of marketing

Over the last few years, I’ve read numerous times that the only way for writers to sell is to promote, promote, promote their own work.

I’ve thought about this a lot, and decided to post some of those thoughts here because I wanted my own readers to know why I don’t bombard them with Amazon ads, barrage them with incessant Facebook and Twitter messages, send out postcards (although I will hand you a business card if I happen to meet you face-to-face), or do any of the number of other takes-time-away-from-writing activities that are all too often recommended – and often, it seems, required for writers to do.

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In the middle of all the how-do-I-sell-my-book? brou-ha-ha, I’m starting to see more and more writers go back to the core of all book-marketing concepts:

“Write the best book you can, get it out there, and then write the next one.”

Yes, we absolutely want people to buy our book(s). But once we’ve hooked them, what next? They’ll spend a little of their precious time in the world we’ve created and – if we’ve done our job as writers – go looking for more. And if we, as writers, have been faithfully following the advice to spend our time on promotion – instead of writing – our want-to-be-loyal readers will come up empty-handed, call us a choice (and hopefully, creative) name or two, and move on to the next writer with a world they can immerse themselves in.

I don’t do a lot of promotion for my work – instead, I’m working on building up a collection of stories for my soon-to-be-amazing-fan following to find and drool over (I’m up to four titles in my Hit Lady for Hire series now, one long and three short, with another novel in progress).

In my opinion – and the opinion of more and more writers:

The best publicity for your book is your next book.

(Which is why I’m now going to get off the internet and get back to writing!)