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How to find your audience?

Or readers, in this case.

I'm curious about how do you find your readers. Especially if you're doing it online.

I paint and write short stories based on those paintings that become the covers. The stories usually have a dark undertone and a darker twist in the end.
I'm working on my website to post it online for free. I do have plans to use Patreon and such, but first I'd need to find the readers to market it to.

Any tips about finding your readers?


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skip.knox

toujours gai, archie
Moderator
You're doing one step right now: be part of relevant communities. Participate and contribute; folks will respond.

Do good work. Finding that initial reader is tough, but more valuable is the reader who likes your work well enough to tell a friend.

Beyond that there are any number of advertising paths, which I neither recommend nor advise against.

There is also the matter of retaining readers once you have them. That's mostly about offering added value beyond the book itself.

There are a ton of resources about any of the above. If any of them tell you they have a shortcut or a quick or easy method, scratch them off your list and move on to the next one.
 
You're doing one step right now: be part of relevant communities. Participate and contribute; folks will respond.

Do good work. Finding that initial reader is tough, but more valuable is the reader who likes your work well enough to tell a friend.

Beyond that there are any number of advertising paths, which I neither recommend nor advise against.

There is also the matter of retaining readers once you have them. That's mostly about offering added value beyond the book itself.

There are a ton of resources about any of the above. If any of them tell you they have a shortcut or a quick or easy method, scratch them off your list and move on to the next one.
Yes, thank you. I myself don't believe in short cuts, and I agree with all the points you stated above. Thanks again!

Giving more value is what I am trying to figurr out as well. Because I am also an artist, I am thinking ways to incorporate art and writing in more than one ways for additional value.

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skip.knox

toujours gai, archie
Moderator
I'm definitely not an artist, but I do know the value of adding visuals to text. It is perhaps a little easier in my scenario because I have a created world in which I write all my stories. So I don't have to come up with utterly new visual concepts for each story. I have Altearth, which is (amazingly) an alternate version of Earth. So I hunt up old photographs, work them a bit in an editor, then incorporate them into my website with the conceit that they are actually pictures of Altearth. I do not try to use images in my actual stories. That, along with heaven, exceeds my grasp.
 
I'm definitely not an artist, but I do know the value of adding visuals to text. It is perhaps a little easier in my scenario because I have a created world in which I write all my stories. So I don't have to come up with utterly new visual concepts for each story. I have Altearth, which is (amazingly) an alternate version of Earth. So I hunt up old photographs, work them a bit in an editor, then incorporate them into my website with the conceit that they are actually pictures of Altearth. I do not try to use images in my actual stories. That, along with heaven, exceeds my grasp.
I am also trying to incorporate art for marketing. Like, other than the usual cover art, which is actually the only artwork per story, I have thought of a way to make them all related.
It is kinda difficult because these are short stories and even though they are also in a same universe, technically, it is not visually clear at this point.
So what I am planning to use is a visual representation of me as the artist/writer to "talk" about them. I hope this will help.

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Arranah

Troubadour
So you are an artist as well as an author. I am as well. For the redo of my first book, which the publisher gutted, I painted my own artwork. My current avatar is of me painting that cover. This time around I published it through Smashwords. I'm still trying to figure out how to find my audience. This particular book is nonfiction, a true story about the murders my brother committed and how that impacted me and my family. I'd like for it to be required reading for the psych, soc, social work and criminal justice departments at universities, so I'm systematically contacting them. It's slow and tedious. A friend wrote a review for Goodreads and for Smashwords. She also covered it in her blog. There are a number of others places she plans to post the reviews. I'm not a social media person. But I did open a Facebook page to start the process. Then the site locked me out. No matter what I do, I can't get it to allow me to do anything. FB takes very poor care of their subscribers. I guess Zuckerberg wants to keep all the money for himself, rather than pay to have people help subscribers with problems. I will soon be trying other forums with book sections, but not Twitter. Chatting on and on to people who could care less, just so they can help me, is not my style. I have a bunch of books that I plan to self-publish, now that my second agent has died. Since old people read, and the books I write are light fantasy, I'm going to try forums where the subscribers are old people.
 
Hi, Arranah.

I'd like to share my experience promoting through Facebook and Twitter if it's of any interest.

I paid to promote my Kindle book (The Gift of the Quoxxel) on a FB page by the same name. After two years, I had over sixteen thousand followers. Is that good? The number of followers did not reflect in sales. Why was that? And why were the majority of my followers in Pakistan, India, Egypt, and other countries in the Middle East? I have nothing against a fan base in other countries, however, these "fans" seemed to have no interest in purchasing the book. As I was posting mostly illustrations of the story on the FB page, I could only assume that followers were responding favorably to the illustrations alone as they certainly weren't reading the story.

After two years of promoting my book on Facebook, I decided that wasn't the appropriate way to promote my book.

Recently I began promoting my book on Twitter and my first impression is I'm dealing with a completely different audience. People on Twitter mostly congregate around like interests. My tweets are going out to other writers, publishers, book promo people, and visual artists. In other words, an audience who has more appreciation for creative efforts from like-minded people.
From my experience, I'll continue to focus on promo through Twitter.

What's also helped me is searching for appropriate reviewers on The Book Blogger List, Goodreads, The Indie Review, Twitter, and the Kindle Book Review. It's a laborious process, yes, but worth it when you connect with the reviewer that's "just right for you."

Hope there was some info here of some use. We're all collecting data along the way but the value and application of the data will vary from person to person. In the end, you have to make your own assessments.

Good luck.

Richard
 

Arranah

Troubadour
Thanks, Richard. I went in to Facebook today and tried to sign in. Usually when I do this, I can't sign in, but I can see part of my page. This time it told me my FB page has been disabled. What the.....? I have no idea how that happened either. How much did you pay for someone to make a FB page, and who did it? The friend I mentioned about has an editing business. She gave the book a five star review.
 
As I mentioned in my previous comment, which was a while ago, I am doing an experiment with the promotion.

Since my last comment I have figured out and started working on the promotional experiment. And I just wrote a post about in a forum.

Here is a rundown:
So I am trying to focus on my passion project---where I paint covers and write short stories based on those cover paintings.
The stories usually fall under psychological and paranormal horror.

But because I feel weird to share same image again and again, (because I feel like that doesn't add to the value), to promote this, I have created my online persona, who actually writes and paints the stories. Because that's me. And I have an adopted child, Aulaad, who is a monster, like literally.

I will be sharing my personal life, my adventures with the daughter in this promotional series. And I think this will spice up the promotion a bit.

I have just started this so I cannot quite say if it works or not, but I am hopeful. This is extra work, though, but I think it would fit with my business model, which is to use Patreon and crowd funding to publish a collection of my stories and selling art prints and all.

Hope this might give you some idea to go creative.

PS: Another forum deleted my photos, I am not sure why. Anyway, not adding photos, but if anyone wants to see those promotional ads, they can be found here: fb.com/grimoeuvre

I paint and write stories at: TheGrimBook.com
 
I've recommended a book in another forum which I found to be very helpful --


How I Sold 1 Million eBooks in 5 Months! by John Locke

(I bought this as a Kindle book. Currently I see it offered only as a printed edition.)

The title is hyperbole, of course, but the author does offer some very good tips on finding and keeping a fan base. It's that group of people to whom you want to promote your work as you develop it.

One of his suggestions is using social media to find your audience. He has primarily used Twitter and his weblog to accomplish this.

I am involved in projects similar to yours -- writing and illustration. I also have found Twitter & my website to be the most useful tools. I also explored possibilities with Facebook for a couple years but, although I got many followers, didn't see that contributing to sale or promotional results. Of course, you need to find the promotional venue that's right for you.

By the way, this posting was in no way intended to be an advertisement for Locke's book. There a number of these sort of books available which you'll easily find with search on Amazon. I'm passing on information of this particular book as it was helpful to me.

It's a lot of trail and error finding out exactly works for you. Keep drawing & writing, post it, and people will find out about you.

Good luck.
 
Do you have a FB-using friend or acquaintance that can assist you getting started on FB?

When I first started using FB, I did not find it particularly user friendly. In fact, it's taken me a few years to decipher what I consider rather poorly-designed prompts. If you have someone computer savvy you associate with, that would be your easiest way to become familiar with how FB works.

If your current FB page has gone "blooey" for one reason or another, don't fret it. Sometimes it's easier just to create a new one. (FB isn't listening, are they? I'm sure they would be against me suggesting that.)

For example, if "Alice Smith" has a FB page that malfunctions, she could sign up and create a new FB page under a slightly different version of her name such as "Alice B. Smith," "Alice Beatrice Smith," "Paintings by Alice," "Artwork by Alice," etc, etc.

Another venue is Twitter. There are many artists and writers posting there. Social media, in fact, is probably a visual artists' best friend (in my opinion). Images present themselves quick and clearly so your work has immediate impact on the viewer. Writers don't have quite the advantage visual artists have on social media. The mind has to translate words and the impact from reading is not as immediate as that of a visual image.

And, for what it's worth -- I found FB adequate in sharing images with friends and relatives, however, using it to promote sales of my work was generally useless. I found Twitter & my website more effective in promoting writing and illustration. Mostly, it's trial and error to find out which promotion venue serves you best.

Good luck. Post more questions when you have some.
 
(FB isn't listening, are they? I'm sure they would be against me suggesting that.)


FB's always listening! ;)

But I agree with what you said, social media is a boon if you use it correctly.

I'd also like to add that because Facebook is always listening, they are the best when in comes to target ads, they have almost all the data of their customers, as a result Facebook ads are very effective. And surprisingly, not costly, yet.

Twitter has always been better for sales, I guess because Twitter users are mostly all adults.
But IDK if this is the case anymore.

I paint and write stories at: TheGrimBook.com
 
FB's always listening! ;)


I'd also like to add that because Facebook is always listening, they are the best when in comes to target ads, they have almost all the data of their customers, as a result Facebook ads are very effective. And surprisingly, not costly, yet.

This may be the experience you've had with FB but it doesn't exactly match the experience I've had with them.

Here's an example of policy that has me doubting just how much they're listening.

FB Rule -- Not more than 20% of an ad can be covered by text.

I've argued with them that is not such a black and white matter. For example, one might have a very nice logo or nicely designed typography consisting of one or two words yet covers more than 20% of display ad.

This is not the same visual impact of small text covering more than 20% of the display ad.

This is "engineer thinking." Aesthetics can't be reduced to such a simple formula.

I realize that the FB staff would be overwhelmed if a panel of staff visual artists had to evaluate every ad individually. It was probably a labor-reducing measure creating the "20% coverage rule." On the other hand, why should a collective of techno-geek-o-crats (who are not trained in visual arts) determine what is or is not visually appealing? They aren't qualified for the task.

Maybe "FB is always listening" but how often are techno-engineer types understanding input from artists. I don't see it happening that often. Maybe the experience of others has been different.

Also, I would like to mention that, for me, FB ads were NOT effective for my purposes. The ads have generated many "followers" of my book's FB page but no discernible effect on book sales.

For what it's worth, that's my input on this matter.
 
Yes, about that, I recently got my ad rejected because it had speech bubbles covering, apparently, more than 20% of the image with text.
So that is an issue.

But then yes, I was talking about a painter's POV. I usually don't have much text in the images.

I am yet to promote images with text, cover artworks of my short stories, and there's a lot of text in them, percentage wise. I can see it is going to be tough.
But I painted most text, IDK if that would make any difference. =/

I paint and write stories at: TheGrimBook.com
 
Visual artists have an advantage in getting around the FB "20% coverage" rule -- let your image do your talking.

A strong visual is definitely worth more than a thousand words. Choose/create a strong image, tuck a line of minimal text along the image's edge, and if you've already accomplished more than a long-winded text could do in the same space.

Wordsmiths -- your challenge is greater with that rule to get your message across -- unless you team up with a good visual artist who can provide you with a powerful graphic. They're out there and you can find them if you look.
 

Froboy69

Dreamer
I've always thought of looking for places like this site or whenever I go to conventions; it's easy to socialize and spark the interest of those who are like you.
 
I'm going to preface my comments with the following: I haven't figured it all out either.

I can say that the odds are against us. People have a limited amount of time to read books, and most readers don't branch out, preferring instead to stick to writers and series they're familiar with. And why should they, when a fan of Star Trek, for example, already has enough books in that universe coming out regularly to keep them busy indefinitely? Add to this the fact that indie books tend to be very hit or miss. Many of them just aren't very good. The ones that are good sometimes still make a number of rookie mistakes. They're often lacking professional editing, they indulge in every overused trope, or simply don't have someone reading their material to make sure it's clear and coherent. And then there's the fact that a lot of indie authors give away their ebooks for exposure, which makes your for-pay book look less attractive.

Yes, in my experience, the odds are against us. I'm published and well known in the RPG industry, yet I still have to fight for every sale I make.

So, what are the things I've found that work? It's a mindset. If you simply put your book out there on Amazon, link to it on Facebook, and expect people to buy, you're probably in for disappointment. Aside from the books I've sold through publishers, nearly every one was the result of some sort of relationship I've been able to build with the reader. Yes, some of them are Facebook friends, but it wasn't a matter of friending them and them agreeing to buy, it was a long process of getting to know them through the site, and them eventually deciding to buy the book. I've actually found that printing your book through Createspace and offering them for sale to people you know actually works, and is more profitable than selling ebooks. For every single printed copy I sell, I earn what I would have made from five ebooks. It's all about personal relationships, and selling to people you meet in every day life.

I work at a place that employs thousands of people. I meet new people all the time. Frankly, the majority of them aren't readers, but a percentage of them are, and it's not that difficult to sniff that out after you've met them. In most cases, these are easy sales for me because all I have to do is mention that I've written a book and they want to know more. I drop a couple statements about it and then let their curiosity do the rest. And it doesn't just apply to the workplace. My next attempt at widening my reader base is going to be to find places where I can set up a table to sell my books--places like scifi conventions, flea markets, etc.

Once you've made the sale, then you hope they read the book. If they do, you need to provide them with a way to link back to you. You want to be able to communicate with you so you can tell them when your next book drops. A website usually helps in the regard, as does a Facebook page. I've seen a lot of authors use email and mailchimp to great effect.

The bottom line is you need to fight for every sale, and once you have it, you need to remind them you exist from time to time.

And as I said, I haven't figured it all out. I'd like to be much more successful with my novels than I currently am, but I do make sales, and every one is a victory.

Also of note: I've been told Facebook advertising rarely pans out in terms of advertising dollars invested, but it does help bring potential customers to you, and give you a way to communicate with them. I've been told by successful indie authors that Amazon advertising does tend to pan out better, but you need to be prepared to dump some serious cash into your advertising campaign for it to do so. Reviews are also helpful, if you can find the reviewers, and convince them to review your book. I'm convinced that reviews on your book's Amazon page helps, but not convinced that readers actually visit these reviewers with any regularity when searching for good books to read.
 

SeverinR

Vala
I think a FB page for your work is simple base for all other activities.
That one point that is easy to find and people can see what you are doing, where to find information.

I don't know about FB ads. It's constantly encouraging me to buy an add for the single's group I inherited.

I have a personal FB page and a Pen name FB page. Severin Rheiner Facebook hasn't done much lately, but I have it for when I do have something to post.
Personally, I can find stuff on FB a lot more often then with a search engine looking for a small webpage.

Just a thought.

Thanks for this thread, I found my old website for the SCA. The days when I lived my research. lol
Life and times of Severin Rheinfelser
 
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