When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Grow a Mustache

I’ve been a bit down about indie publishing of late. After enjoying a little success, holding the number-one spot in Amazon’s comedy category for almost a week, sales have since plummeted. I’ve also been getting my first really bad reviews. In order to jumpstart sales again, I’ve been trying every marketing strategy I could lay my greedy eyes on, but with little success. Am I about to give up? Am I resigned to talking about publishing like a bitter wannabe piano player with stubby fingers talks about his disastrous first piano recital? Hell no. It’s time to get tough.

“Honey, can you open the pickle jar?”

I’m not going to be overnight success. It’s not written in the stars, or at least it’s not written in my books, which are tailored to a certain readers’ taste. I might not be successful at all, but I’m not going to let that kind of negative thinking stop me from trying my damn hardest. I figure it’s going to take time, if it’s going to happen. The last couple days I’ve been putting together a plan to earn a decent living as a writer. In the absence of a comedy mother lode to mine this week for my blog, I’m going to share that plan with you.

A prize-winning horse reluctantly sharing a carrot with its owner

1. Perma-Free Book Downloaded by the Masses

Permanently free books make some indie authors angry. They whine and moan about free art and the future of publishing and other authors undercutting them, ad nauseam. I think that as long authors don’t make every book in their series free, it’s cool. Besides, you didn’t pay to read these words. Readers are rightfully hesitant about trying out new authors, and I think giving a little taste for free to whet their appetite is a sound strategy for overcoming that hesitancy. Besides, if it works for crack dealers—at least in old wives’ tales—then it could work for me. As long as the writing is up to scratch, which for me means as funny as balls and as exciting as a cocktail party hosted by Bill Cosby.

This publishing industry elimination facility is cleverly disguised as a “library”

A free book to a browser is a no-brainer, but will they fly off digital shelves all by themselves? Absolutely not. But I’m pretty well schooled in giving away books already. When I ran my free Kindle book promotion, I managed to giveaway a shade under ten thousand books by running a Freebooksy ad, which is basically paying an exorbitant amount of money to some guys who’ll beg the members of their huge mailing list to download your book. If that fails, I’ll pay even more to get a BookBub ad and hope I get accepted. If I don’t, I’ll Andy Dufresne their asses until they submit. And hey presto, new readers.

Despite repeatedly walking through this sewer pipe, this indie author’s requests for acceptance from BookBub was never granted

2. Build My Own Mailing List

How will I gain the loyalty of those readers, apart from by writing kickass books? By getting them to sign up for my mailing list. I have a few readers on there now, as a result of selling a fair few books, but in order to encourage readers to sign up, I’m offering a discount on new releases the first week they’re published. This way, readers will be more inclined to hand over their already spammed-the-shit-out-of email addresses to me, and I’ll be able to encourage readers to buy my new book during that first week, which will hopefully trick Amazon’s algorithm into thinking I write decent book-type books and expose my books to masses of unsuspecting new readers. Most of these will hate my books and leave bad reviews, but some will like my shit and hopefully…

3. Get Likes for My Facebook Page

Okay, so the whole ellipsis-leading-onto-the-next-section thing didn’t exactly work there. But you know what I meant. Not everyone signs up for mailing lists, but I’m struggling to think of anyone I know who doesn’t use Facebook. Apart from my dad. And my grandparents. And probably my doctor, now that I think about it. But whatever. Another way I’m going to encourage loyalty from my readers is by directing them to my Facebook page. I have a little message in the front and back matter of my books, thanking readers for reading, which I’m genuine about, and which directs readers who like my shit to also like my Facebook page. This has been working okay. I’ll give myself a C-minus for effort. In order to encourage it further, I’ve put in an “About the Author” section in the back matter of my books. I was a little hesitant to do so, because I’d feel more narcissistic than Prince after a line or three of cocaine, but I figure that if I can get readers interested in me after they’ve discovered they like the shit I write, then I can get more people to want to form a quirky-algorithm-dictated digital-age bond with me. I’m also going to start writing more jokes on Twitter. I figure I’ll publish the setup on my Twitter feed, and then have an ellipsis leading to a link for the entirety of the joke, which will be on my Facebook page. This way, more people will land on my page, and hopefully more people will like it, and more people will read my announcements for freshly released books, feeding into my sales-all-in-one-week strategy mentioned above.

In a vain attempt to make people laugh, these two people each lost approximately two pounds of sweat

But all this is pointless, if I don’t…

4. Write More Freakin’ Books

It made sense that time. I’m getting the hang of this. I currently have three books in my comedy mystery series published. The fourth one is with my editor, and the fifth I’m writing the first draft of. As an indie author, I can’t get away with publishing once a year. I figure I need to write four or five novels a year to stay relevant. Last year I managed four, minus the edits of the fourth one from my editor. After I’m finished with the fifth, I’ll probably start writing a new series to keep things fresh. I’m thinking maybe a series about a hostage negotiator who has a harder time negotiating his family life than talking down crazed criminals. Sounds like an idea for a bad ‘90s sitcom, but whatever.

Will he jump or won’t he?

And last, and definitely least, I’m going to…

5. Regrow My Mustache

I shaved off my lip weasel before Christmas. I haven’t been the same writer since. It seems that when left unclipped, my upper-lip hair follicles are the source of whatever mystical shit inspires me to write semi-decent mystery thrillers with a shit-ton of borderline misogynistic jokes. My days of trimming are over, and the days of me blow drying and hair spraying my mustache hairs into a macho style have just begun…again.

You ladies out there will have to rely on Groucho glasses to harness this awesome power.

Thanks for reading. If you like what you read here, check me out on my Facebook page and like it.

My rage-inducing perma-free book can be checked out here. If you like that one, I’ll then expect you to pay for subsequent instalments, like a drug dealer who lives exclusively in our moms’ nightmares.