I’m told the best way to market on the Internet is to just be a person. Join groups online. Build your network and your email list. Tell people about your book and your sales will grow organically. But oh goodness, is it easier said than done. For one, these “groups” are FILLED with other authors and artists trying to do the same thing and my word, folks, is it awkward. I appreciate the hustle, but we’re talking line after line of “buy my book,” “buy my book,” “you like books? you should buy my book.”
It’s discouraging.
Discouraging because who wants to engage with that? That’s no way to build community. Does that really build readership? Does that work? I can’t imagine it does. That’s not the kind of thing that draws me. Unless you have one heck of a hook, you’re more likely to draw me in by being a person. Being a friend. Even then, don’t be a friend and then try to sell me something. Then it feels like the whole friendship was just a lead-up to a hustle. A long con.
Had that experience on Instagram recently. Someone reached out to me to talk about Dungeons and Dragons. We went back and forth for a while and then they started talking about if I was interested in the art commissions they do. Here I thought we were just talking.
No one likes to feel like a sucker.
So where does that leave us? This is a marketing newsletter, sure. I made it to help sell my books when they come out. But I also want to organically build community. That’s more important to me than building wealth. Communication, especially in these dark days of isolation, is more important than commerce.
Anyway, please buy my minicomics.
Ha ha.
Seriously, though. When I see Facebook groups for fantasy fans filled with nothing but ads for books, I yearn for the old days of message boards where people would argue fan theories or post RP threads or heck, even argue politics round and round in circles and engage in flame wars about abortion. When did we become a nation of hustlers?
I respect the hustle. I really do. I understand that we’re all desperate, broke, and in need of that sweet, sweet plastic crack.
Mmmm…resin…
Where was I?
Right. The fall of civilization.
Did you know the US President might be consolidating power in the Executive branch and there’ll be nothing the courts or Congress can do about it? I heard it on Facebook, so it’s probably true. Maybe.
Fun!
Make all the art you can, as much as you can, for as long as you can, kids. Because the days are dark and getting darker.
But hey. I don’t want to end on a sour note. So, if you’ll indulge for a little while, I’m going to get spiritual. Because I am one of those people who is both religious and spiritual.
At the end of the day, it really is all in God’s hands. I firmly believe this. I cannot control the results of my marketing any more than I can control the President or Congress. All I can do is all I can do and leave the results up to God. There is a peace in knowing that the world is not my personal responsibility.
Of course, we should take action when we see injustice.
As artists, we have a profound responsibility to leave the world a more joyful, better place than when we found it.
But salvation is found in God alone. The past belongs to memory. Ours is a gift we call the present. The future belongs to the Lord. He will save.
Ok, that’s my little sermon for the day. Go forth and frolic, my lovelies.
Well said, William