Trying Not to Throw Money at Everything While Book Marketing
A guest post from author Amanda Nicholson
This week on the All About Digital Marketing blog I am delighted to be learning even more about book marketing from indie author Amanda Nicholson from Manchester. In this insightful interview Amanda talks about what she writes, and also some of the creative ways that she has marketed her books.
Hello, could you introduce yourself?
Hi, I’m Amanda Nicholson. I began writing and publishing books in 2014, then stumbled into copywriting in 2019, but I’ve always seen myself as an author first, with copywriting (sometimes) paying the bills. Other than writing I enjoy podcasts (both hosting and listening), listening to country music, reading and spending time with my niece and nephew.
What do you write?
My first novel, While I Was Gone, was a women’s fiction book. Despite being a big fan of horror and enjoying writing and reading the genre, I thought women’s fiction was what I should be writing, and I had an idea for a story based on a theory that my mum had. She thought that some children who are abducted are actually sold to wealthy people who can’t have children of their own. So, I wondered what would happen if my character (Kayla) was abducted as a child, then reunited with her biological parents after 15 years of believing that the people who raised her were her real parents. Even though this wasn’t my preferred genre, I felt connected to the main character and her family who all had their own struggles and adjustments to make when Kayla returned home.
I ended up writing a sequel and the first book was originally self-published, then taken on by a small publisher. My first experience of having a publisher take on my novel wasn’t the best one. So, I eventually self-published it again under the name Aleesha Black and retitled it Lost and Found. This was because my publisher didn’t pay me and the other authors royalties, then when I tried to warn others, he stalked me on Amazon and Goodreads leaving bad reviews and I couldn’t get either site to remove them.
I went on to write and publish a trilogy of fantasy novellas about witches that later became one novel called Hope and Magic, wrote a novella and full-length novel about zombies, a YA fantasy trilogy, paranormal crime, and a feminist crime novel, as well as a few dozen shorter books and poetry collections. The first of my YA fantasy novels was taken on by another small publisher. Again, it didn’t work out and I self-published it under my maiden name of Amanda Steel.
How do you promote yourself and your books?
How I marketed these changed over time. At first, I was completely clueless and only shared information about my books on social media. Occasionally I read some of my book at a few spoken word nights or to friends. However, my experiences with the small publishers, as well as seeing what other authors did, learning wherever I could, and good old trial and error helped me improve how I marketed my books.
Was there a way to try to market your books that particularly worked to improve your sales?
I found that using Draft2Digital for distribution, which is an online platform that authors can use to self-publish their books in eBook and paperback gave readers more options than if I limited myself on Amazon.
Getting bookmarks printed is also helpful, and something that I would recommend to other authors. I put them on chairs at spoken word nights, with the host’s permission of course. I also hand them out in person if someone seems interested but doesn’t want to buy a copy right there and then. I’ve left some in public places like libraries and in an art gallery. One sneakier thing I’ve do is when I donate similar books to the free book stand at my local supermarket, I sneak one of my bookmarks inside. If the reader likes that book, they may also enjoy mine.
Was there something you tried that didn’t work for you?
There are so many ways to market books, and if I’m not careful, I could spend thousands without knowing whether I will get that money back. So, I try to keep costs down. I nearly always get my cover printed on a t-shirt because it’s a good conversation starter and a reminder to others that I have a book out. I might feel like I’m constantly talking about it, but people have other things going on in their lives and my book won’t be their biggest priority.
I read somewhere that people need to see (or hear about) your book around 8 times before they think about buying it, so it makes sense to do that in as many different ways as possible. However, it’s not like the book-selling version of the Candy Man. Simply saying your book title a set number of times will not make readers magically appear and buy the book.
Another cost-effective way I market my books is with an online launch. This makes it easier for people to attend, and I live-stream from Zoom onto my chosen social media platform then share the video everywhere afterwards. There are no travel costs for me or my attendees, and I can link to the book online if they want to buy it. This reduces the cost of ordering enough copies but possibly not selling them all. I’ve seen people buy 100 copies of their own book, then only sell 10, and had this happen to me on a smaller scale before. It’s a quick way to lose money and gain expensive doorstoppers. Unless you have a large following and are almost sure that many of them will buy your book, I wouldn’t recommend buying more than 10 copies at a time, then purchasing more if and when these sell out.
I don’t have an in-person launch because that costs money for books that aren’t guaranteed to sell, and I don’t have a large enough following to fill a venue. Instead, I read extracts at the spoken word night I co-run. Many of the regulars there know my dark sense of humour and have either bought my book or shown an interest in it. I will branch out to several others while promoting my book. Finding the right audience is important. For example, my latest novel, Death to All Men is a feminist crime fiction book about women who kill bad men. So, I’ll have a better reaction from a mostly female audience than I will from a mostly male audience. So, I recently went to a feminist spoken word night to read an extract. This doesn’t mean I’ll sell books directly from this, but it’s one more way to make people aware of my book and might lead to a sale later when they come across it again.
I found that paid ads mostly didn’t work for me. Maybe I didn’t spend enough, but I was already paying a lot more per click, than I would if those clicks turned to sales, and most never did. I say they mostly didn’t work because I flunked it with my first attempt and made a profit of around £250. After that, Amazon, Facebook, Bookbub, Twitter and The Fussy Librarian all lost me more money than they made. They also didn’t bring in enough sales for further books in the series or other standalone books to justify how much money I had spent. I still do some of these to get the book out there, but try not to spend too much as I know I won’t get it back.
Instead, I prefer to look for opportunities online. For example, by searching #journorequest on X (formerly Twitter), I’ve had several interviews/features written about me and my book, and have been quoted on various topics, which isn’t a direct advertisement for my book, but gets my name out there. This includes an article that Books By Women published on how I get my ideas, and an interview with an interview with 5 Things To Do Today.
What is the hardest part of being an author for you?
The hardest part of being an author, for me, can be knowing that other books that are similar to mine are doing so much better, but just not having the same reach or opportunities as those authors. It can be incredibly frustrating, but I can only be me and I can only do my best. I love writing and will always do it in some form or another, but eventually, I will stop writing novels and switch to shorter fiction or non-fiction.
Do you have a current writing project? What is it?
I’m currently working on two Substack pages, one teaching other authors everything I’ve learned over the last 11 years and another talking about autism. I don’t claim to be an expert in either of these, but I think it’s important to share experiences. I see it as a jigsaw puzzle where I have some of the pieces and can help to make the puzzle a little more complete, but I can’t fully complete it for you.
In my fiction writing, I have a romance novella out in time for Christmas 2025, written under a pen name. I’m also re-editing Ghost of Me which is about a woman trying to solve her own murder. It originally came out during lockdown, and I didn’t get to market it as much in person as I wanted to. And I’m writing a novel called Killing Tommy while plotting another that features a side character from this book.
Where can readers discover more about you and your work?
My brain is chaotic and I’m always doing something, or lots of somethings. Some of the best places to find me are on Facebook or Substack: nowriteway or iamnotcalm, or you can listen to my podcast on Spotify.
Thank you Amanda for sharing your Book Marketing tips with All About Digital Marketing. If you are an author, or a marketer, business or have a marketing-related skill that could help others, get in touch via louisaguiseauthor@gmail.com or comment below.