I was talking to my good friend and colleague, Keith Robinson, about his successes and failures marketing his horror novel “Skeleton Wreck,” and asked him for a guest post explaining what he’d done to achieve this. Here’s his post on the subject.

The Story Is Not Enough

When I published my horror novel “Skeleton Wreck,” I knew that simply having a thrilling and engaging story wasn’t going to be enough in today’s crowded marketplace. With something like 6,000 books published daily on Amazon, I needed to have some clear ideas about marketing, as this endeavour was not going to simply be a release-it-and-forget-about-it-selling ploy that just sold copies on its own. We wish, but therein lies the challenge when you write a book and publish it.

The fun doesn’t stop there. Your book needs to find its audience, and you need to lead it like a horse to water, and as the saying goes, although you can lead a horse to water, it doesn’t mean it will actually drink it. There couldn’t be a better analogy for selling books, especially those by an unknown author. So what do you do? Well, word of mouth is one of the best sales tools, and I knew that if I could get people to read this book, they would see that it wasn’t just some run-of-the-mill macabre offering; it actually was the real deal. So where would I start?

Ads First

Before I get to the word-of-mouth part, I, of course, used paid advertising to get the ball rolling (I also continue to use it- and you should too).

Drawing inspiration from successful indie authors, I developed a multi-pronged approach combining Facebook advertising and Amazon ads, both of which had their good and bad points. I won’t beat around the bush. There is no formula for success, and every book and ad campaign will have different results, no matter what you do. All you can do is just do it and try to get your book into an algorithm on Amazon, where it continues selling itself, which seems to be no easy feat. The competition on Amazon is very fierce, and you really need to test different types of ad campaigns to see which works the best for you.

You really could write a whole book about book ad campaigns, so I won’t go into too much detail. I’ll just say that Amazon’s ad system is quite difficult to figure out, and there seems to be no rhythm or reason for sales or success. You just have to keep testing it and trying again. Facebook gives you more control, and you can advertise videos and all sorts. The best thing about Facebook is that you can control your target audience, from everything like age and interests to country and area. I had some success with targeting people who like horror books and horror writers. Also, targeting broad areas in the UK and the US brought some success.

Reviews

The most successful aspect, I think, so far has been getting my book reviewed. You have to look for genre-specific reviewers, but if you reach out to them, some will answer, and if they like your book, they will shout out about it over social media. I was lucky enough to have someone who was thrilled by my book and documented her read over two days, saying that she couldn’t put it down and was looking forward to the climax. This kind of exposure is amazing if you can get it; the reviewer will have a built-in audience of followers, and they trust the reviewer’s judgment. I noticed a spike in sales the instant the book got mentioned, and it also gave me plenty to shout about on my social media as well. I’ve been working on getting more reviews and also asking people to place reviews on websites such as Goodreads.com and Amazon.

It’s a Process

It is a slow build, and the key is to build your own audience and readership for your book. With recommendations, reviews, and star ratings, customers will see if your book is good or not. Customers have never heard of you, and they have hard-earned money and don’t just shell it out for any book unless they have a good reason to want to read it. You have to give them a reason to want to read it, starting with a good story, then a good cover, then a good blurb, then high star ratings, good reviews, and word of mouth. Build your audience one reader at a time. Get them to follow you on social media, get them interested in your work and your ideas. It takes time and hard work, but you have to do it. You can schedule and attend book signings, network, everything to reach more people and to spread the word.

And the journey never ends, you have to keep pushing the word out. It’s been almost a year now since I published “Skeleton Wreck,” and I’m still putting out adverts, posting on social media, and contacting book reviewers. Without the push of a huge publishing corporation, you have to go the grassroots way, but you will see results. Sales do come in; your book will sell, just don’t give up. People will discover what a great work of art your book is, so keep writing!

About “Skeleton Wreck”

On the quiet country roads, he takes his revenge…

People are disappearing. Late-night drivers on the dark roads outside of Riverwood are vanishing, leaving behind nothing but smouldering wrecks and eerie silence.

The authorities are stumped, chalking it all up to reckless street racers tearing through the quiet countryside, but the families of the missing are starting to suspect something far darker is at play. Whispers have spread about a ghostly figure – one that haunts the shadows of the trees lining the roads and who lurks in the forgotten, rusting graveyard of old cars way out of town.

Who is this ominous, mechanical spectre, whose shadow slips between the twisted wrecks? Is he the cause of the disappearances, or something much worse? No one knows, but one moonlit night, a group of Riverwood’s youngsters come face-to-face with the chilling secret that lurks in the shadows and realize they might never escape its grip.

Keith Robinson

Keith R Robinson is a writer and film director who has worked in the horror genre for many years. He is the owner of Other Dimension Films and has written and directed four feature films, “The Unwelcome”, ”Pounce”, “Sniper Corpse,” and “Slaughter of the Damned.” Skeleton Wreck is his first novel. He lives in Kent, England.