For many self publishers the battle with obscurity will begin as soon as the ‘publish‘ button is pressed and we realise that readers aren’t going to automatically flock to our books. Through unsolicited reader reviews and emails from people about your books, you can quickly establish that, yes, your book isn’t crap and there are people out there who are loving it. This can help stop the huge disappointment that is likely to ensue when book sales are slow. If you’re getting one and two star ratings, then perhaps your works needs some fine tuning. But, if you’re getting positive reviews from the few readers that you do have, then it’s a shove in the right direction to keep persevering.
Obscurity is a very hard problem to cure, and visit any self publishing forum you’ll to see hundreds of threads about how to get more sales. Reviews will encourage new readers to buy, but how do you get these reviews in the first place? Getting into the Top 100 is likely to get you seen by more people, but how do you get enough sales to reach these desired spots? Around 1,000 Amazon sales and you’re entering the realms of catching the eye of an algorithm or two so that you’ll appear in some of the spotlight lists. After launching your book and noting sales dribbling in, you may wonder whether you’ll ever make that 1,000.
It seems as if the most positive think that you can do is to write. Write more books, add to existing series, put out titles that people will want to read. However, this takes time, and you can be raising your online profile whilst you write. A Goodreads marketing campaign or a LibraryThing giveaway may help readers find your work and spread the word. Joining sites such as Shelfari, Goodreads and LibraryThing will also help, especially if you participate in discussions. A new site that I’ve come across is Authors Den, and with the owners claiming to have a million visitors a month, then surely creating a profile here is a good idea. Making a profile is easy and you can add books, WITH sales links. It may not give you a thousand sales, but in my eyes, anything to get both your name and book titles seen my more people is a bonus.
Geoff Wakeling 
I signed up with Author’s Den a long time ago and haven’t done a thing with it. Now that I actually have something to publicize, it might be a good idea. Thanks for the reminder. I keep trying different sites, giving each one enough time to see if it’s worthwhile. Most of the time, the amount of participation that’s required takes too much out of me and gives very little back. To date (after more than a year) blogging still works best for me.
I didn’t know it existed until a few days ago.
I agree that many sites require a lot of participation if you want to not be seen as spamming but as joining the community. There’s only so many communities that I have time to join..and a lot of the time it’s take me away from writing. I expect you’re probably the same.
I do agree that blogging consistently seems to get the best results 🙂
One reason that I didn’t anything more than sign up was that it’s such a huge site, and unless you have more than one or two books, I’m not sure it’s worth it. It’s one of those dilemmas — if the site is small, you’re not going to get any exposure. If it’s large, you can get lost in the crowd. If you do try it out, I hope you’ll report back
I will definitely report back. I’ve created a profile and added book links and so far have had 41 hits. Whether this will translate into any additional sales remains to be seen, so I’ll update in time.
Thanks, Geoff. The site looks promising. I’ll give it a go and check it out. My 3-day free promo (my LAST 3 days) resulted in almost 500 additional downloads of my book, making almost 900 FREE. Contrast that with 28 total actual sales since April 17 (on great reviews) and I’m just doing a soft-shoe 2-step and whistling a happy tune. It’s a hard road we travel . . .
Hey Matt,
No problems. I took me all of 30 mins to make a profile and add books links. Whether I’m active there or not, having another profile which readers see may well help.
Well done on the downloads! That’s great, lets hope they translate into more reviews and additional purchased copies. You’ve had 28 sales? Well, that’s more than me my friend, that’s more than me. Still, let’s both whistle this happy tune and travel this road… I’d LIKE to make my fortunes, but I don’t NEED to 🙂
I’m trying to decide whether to put my next book into the Select program. There are so many pros and cons these days, since Amazon changed their algorithm. But I guess giving it a try is part of getting yourself out there in any way that’s reasonable. I hope your free downloads translate into more sales.
mrj6
Your 6/23 comment about 3 day promo + hits on Authors Den-
Where did you input ?
Cost ?
Any on-line sales result ?
Hi Henry,
I think the promo that M.R is referring to is his three day run as part of the KDP Select process. This is free, but it comes with the three month exclusivity requirement.
As for Authors Den – I haven’t noticed a rise in sales. It’s easy to make a profile and add your book links though. Just followed the edit profile buttons to input all your information.
Geoff