Time to Level up

A recent sale has gotten me thinking about marketing. The sale is still on until May 24th, an Amazon-exclusive sale where Rydan is $0.99 USD ($1.39 CND) so check it out at a.co/d/bVe6Abp  and share that link with anyone who loves Fantasy! 

Back on track: in addition to prepping for the sale, I’ve been reading David Gaughan’s newsletters about prioritizing marketing strategies and, well, it has made me rethink what I was thinking! I’ll first link David’s website because he is a wealth of information for self-published authors! davidgaughran.com/ I love his newsletters!

Now I’m not going to go through the five ranks he does and share all that; that’s his expertise! And I also don’t think his opinions and ideas work for all people, all genres, or all budgets, but I will say he is very inclusive and has layers to his advice. I feel like almost anyone can learn something from him!

No, I’m more looking at what’s working for me, or maybe not working, and where I want to go from here.

I have had the pleasure of writing and having books published for five years. I have nine books out. I love writing and I actually enjoy editing (weird, I know), but, like many authors, the marketing and sharing of my work is hard! 

My favourite thing (and the thing I put the biggest emphasis on) is my website. It’s why I still blog; despite not having huge numbers, blogging does bring people by. It’s also easy to personalize to me! So I love my website! But unless someone is looking FOR ME (which is the point of having a website; I have to findable for people!! Otherwise, how can they tell if I’m real?), the website doesn’t jump to the top. If you search “fantasy author” you won’t find my website on page 1 by any stretch. If you search “D. Lambert, author” absolutely. But it’s not easy to get “drop by” people!

My social media presence is a bit more organically reaching people. It’s mostly Facebook because it’s what I found most intuitive, but even when sharing to pages and groups, I don’t get a lot of engagement. I am dabbling more in Instagram as time goes on, and once I get videos reasonably running, I’ll probably expand into TicToc. But I don’t find audiences there, I’ve realized. I mostly talk to other writers, which is fun for its own reasons, but it’s not marketing.

So it’s high time I up my game. I have outgrown my little pond. Time to level up. 

I’ll be following some of what David has discussed, although not all of it for sure. I’m realizing a lot depends on where you are in your journey. I suspect my next blog will be about the scams we face as I venture into new lands because that’s already happening! But it’ll be interesting to see what else I can do! 

Meantime, take advantage of the sale! Or, if you like newsletters, sign up for mine and get two free ebooks; an anthology and my first YA novel, Dragon’s Voice! Either way, watch this space as I delve into new adventures. 

Some group promotions below. I'll be cutting these back, maybe running my own or something as I try to provide better quality, less quantity! Let me know what you think of that too!

---