I caught this blog post on the web, entitled, “Readers Don’t Owe Authors Sh*t.” *sigh*

To paraphrase: the writer criticized indie authors. Not all of us, just those who believe their readers owe them a tweet of support, review, or positive word of mouth for their books.

I don’t believe my readers owe me anything. I’m wondering: if we don’t solicit reviews, tweets, or positive word-of-mouth, how do indie authors survive?

It’s a fact that if you’re not a mainstream author, you have an uphill battle with a rock tied to your back. It’s awfully narrow minded to call it a “dream job,” as she said. I worked every bit as hard when I was an author full time as I do in the classroom now. 

But she’s right. Readers don’t owe authors anything, including positive word of mouth.

I will say, however, that if you’d like your favorite indie author to continue writing books, it would be a good idea to help him/her along the way. 

What does this indie author owe you? I pledge to give you the best, most entertaining product I possibly can. Plus, if I ask you for a review, I’ll do it nicely. 

I’ve read Pyromarketing and so many other books on becoming a successful marketer of my work. 

Here’s the honest truth: if you’re like me, you just don’t have time to do it all well. 

You’re either a.) an indie author, like me, or b.) a self-published author. Even if you have the best contracted work on the planet, you’re going to spend at least $500 putting your book together. What’s your marketing budget after that? 

Guerrilla marketing means using sweat equity over cash. If your time is valuable, it’s pretty much the same thing. You can’t afford a PR person worth his/her salt for under a few hundred dollars a month (unless they’re a friend or an intern). So, what do you do?

Have you considered a Kirkus Review? It’s an avenue I’m looking into.

Kirkus has been around for a long time (since 1933). For $425, you get a 250-300 word review. Sounds like a rip-off? Provided you use it (you have the option not to), the review goes across the board — Barnes and Noble, Amazon, Ingram, Baker and Taylor, etc. Instant publicity, which is as good as gold in the industry.

Would you do it?  

Truth. 

I’m an indie writer and publisher. We get publicity how we can. But many of us have no clue what we’re doing. We keep doing it, hoping that one day it will start working. 

A group of writers I used to belong to lost me as a member for this reason. Here are some of the things they were doing.

1. Non-stop sales pitching. My friend Starr Hall calls it “sales b*tching.” Not, “interact with me,” but, “give me your .99 cents to $3.99 so I can make a sale.” It was like the internet book-selling version of a one-night stand.   
2. Non-stop promotion of things nobody cares about. “I’m a guest on so-and-so’s blog today.” Okay, but why should someone read it if you’re just talking about yourself and your book? The content’s not engaging. 
3. One-way conversations. You don’t want to be the guy at the party talking about yourself all of the time. Focusing on the sale tells the buyer one thing — once their money stops, so does your interest in them.  

If you have a group of readers who is loyal to you, try this:Instead of pitching them all of the time, focus on involving them as much as possible in the process. Give your readers an ARC to review for you and use their quote inside of you book. Throw a contest. Cut them a deal on your next book and make them feel special. Watch magic happen. Hope this helps!

I’ve talked about virtual blog tours here and here. I’m a little less enthusiastic about them than I used to be. Experience is the best teacher. 

I used a blog tour for my second book, The Revelation Gate. After reading my synopsis, almost 20 people signed up for my tour. Signing up for my tour = I send them a paperback copy of the book and they, in turn, post a synopsis, my bio, an excerpt from the book, and their review of it.

Out of 20 books, three people read and reviewed it. I’m no math expert, but that’s a 15% success rate. Or, for the glass-half-empty people, an 85% failure rate. A friend of mine said he sent of 60 copies of his book and got 15 reviews. That’s a 25% success/75% failure. 

Think of one thing where such a large rate of failure is acceptable. (My wife said baseball, but a .250 average is still pretty bad) 

What’s worse, even if somebody buys your book off of the blog tour (not your own website), how do you track that sale back to the person who made it?  

So, what do you do? You could try what I did for The Anarchists. I came up with a guerilla marketing campaign/contest involving t-shirts I had made (you can see them here), a “Name a Character” contest, and a one-week virtual blog tour using only e-books. 

You could do what Darcie Chan did: get a Kirkus Review ($425 and up), did some advertising, and sold her book for 99 cents. This isn’t a magic formula, but the approach is unique. Kirkus will review your book — if you like it, they will release it to libraries, schools, book catalogs, etc. You’re officially on the map. If you hate the review, you can kill it.

That’s a considerable amount of money on a tight marketing budget. Count the cost versus going the virtual book tour route. It might be for you. 

At the very least, I’d supplement the blog tour with a bigger picture approach. Make an affiliate program through Amazon or Smashwords and if readers of the guest blog on the particular site click through, it can be tracked AND the site owner gets a small percentage of your sale. 

My friend Kemya Scott says push your brand and your book as an extension of your brand, so people won’t limit their buying experience to just that book. Of course, I’m paraphrasing. 

What works for you? Use the comment section below to share the love! Hope this helps. . .