How NOT to sell a million books

There are many books, blogs, articles, Youtube videos out there telling you how to sell a million books.  They are written by people who have achieved this goal or would have you believe they have achieved the goal.  Well done to them.  They are a success story.  But I am also a success story.  I have succeeded in NOT selling a million books.  And this is how I did it.
Blog

They tell you it is very important to have a blog to build your author platform and your footprint on the web.  It is relatively easy to set up a blog and it's free which is always good.  To get your blog noticed you have to find your niche.  As a very random person with a very random mind specialising in random thoughts and making random connections, my niche is total randomness.  However, this does not seem to be a popular niche for other bloggers and people who read blogs.  Unfortunately that is who I am and I write about things I see and what interests me.  Yes, I am the target audience apparently, or other random people like me who appear to be few and far between.  They also say always put an image on your blog.  I hope you like the image I included of autumn in Chernobyl.  It has nothing to do with the content of this post but that's the way I work, isn't it?
Guest Bloggers
They tell you to have guest bloggers post on your blog to extend your reach.  It's part of the whole networking thing.  I have done this for a couple of years and all it has succeeded in doing is making my blog even more random.
Virtual Book Tours
They tell you this is a great way to market your books.  I have tried this and forked over my hard-earned $30 to pay for other bloggers to advertise my books and host my guest posts on their blogs.  Finding the time to come up with content for my own blog is a mission and trying to come up with content for others' blogs is just putting unnecessary pressure on yourself.  Especially if time is at a premium.  To be fair this did help me sell a handful of books.  But a handful is not quite a million is it?
Commenting on others blogs
They say (and this is all theory) that when you comment on others' blogs they come back to comment on yours.  Bullshit.  Everybody is pressed for time.  Blog-hopping is very time-consuming and aren't we supposed to be spending some time actually writing our books?  When I first started doing my marketing I made an effort to comment on other blogs but don't think this generated any book sales.
Commenting on forums
They say become active on forums and you'll see sales spark.  The only spark is the sales burning up to ash.  On most forums authors frequent, all they are interested in is marketing their own book.  They don't give a flying monkey about your book.  And frankly, I find it difficult to feign an interest in Vampires and Fairies.  I am all about reality which it appears is what most people are trying to escape.  Forum commenting also takes up valuable time which I can ill afford and if you have internet hassles it becomes a lesson in frustration.
Social Networking
Ooo this is the biggie.  Join Facebook, Twitter, Shelfari, Goodreads, Google+, Linkedin etc.  Those that made a million tell you that this was how they did it.  People retweeted status updates about their books and that was how the word of mouth thing spread.  Seriously, have you seen how many authors spam their books on these social networking sites?  Do people really read those status updates?  I am not convinced.  They tell you that through social networking you engage with your readers.  Most people struggle to find the time to engage with all their friends on these sites.
Free book giveaways
They say that this is how you make your name known.  I have not found this particularly successful.  In fact, I was selling roughly 100 copies a day of my book Not Telling.  It even reached the top 500 on Amazon's best seller list.  Then I read some of those How I sold a million ebooks books and got greedy.  I took my books off Smashwords and went exclusive on Kindle Select.  I offered my books for free as part of their free promotion.  Thousands downloaded my free books.  And then my sales dried up.  It was as if my target audience all got a free copy of my books so that they didn't need to buy it anymore.
Pricing your books
When I first started out my books were priced at $2.99 so that I could get the 70% royalty.  After I gave books away for free and my sales started dropping, I lowered the price to $1.50.  This meant that I only got the 35% royalty.  They say if you keep the price low (even 99c has been bandied about) then you get the volume of sales and this makes up for the lower royalty.  I don't find you sell any more books at a lower price.  People will buy your book if it intrigues them regardless of whether it is $1.50 or $2.99.  The trick is just to find people who read the types of books you write.  I can't say that I have been particularly successful in this.
Know your target audience
They say that this is really important.  Some authors write specifically for their target audience.  They are the ones who sell a million books.  I tend to write what I like to read.  Books on the dark side, reality fiction and how people get through terrible situations.  I read books like Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn.  Susan Lewis, Jodi Picoult etc.  I enjoy writing my books and reading what I have written.  There is a target audience out there somewhere, people who like to read the same books I do but I have not been able to connect with them.  Maybe because I don't have a degree in marketing.  But probably because I haven't made enough of an effort.
Reviews
This is another biggie.  They say if you want to sell a million books you need to have a lot of reviews.  John Locke has admitted to buying reviews initially.  I don't have the money or the inclination to buy reviews.  My reviews are all genuine reviews from people who read my book.  Personally, I review every book I read.  The problem with reviews is not everybody who reads your book is your target audience.  If it's not Vampires and Fairies they might not like your dark reality fiction.  And then if your books are written in South African English because you are South African, then some readers don't get that you might spell words differently (color vs colour) and you might say things in a different way, and their review will be all about saying how poorly proofread your book was because of bad spelling and grammar.  Seriously.
Website
They say that you need your own website.  I have one http://cindyvine.com.  You need to update it regulary and put on new content.  Time....time....time.  But this has not helped me to sell a million books.
Write more books
They say that when you finish one book you need to start on another.  They say you have to be an expert at juggling your full-time job, writing and marketing and probably caring for your family at the same time.  When I write I struggle to find the time to market.  Then again, distractions are my bug bear in life.  I used to be quite disciplined in my writing then I discovered Candy Crush.  There is something relaxing in mindlessly killing candy.  These days I can only start my writing process after I have lost all 5 of my lives.  Then when that is finished I might watch some past episodes of Silent Witness on my laptop.  To NOT sell a million books you have to find a distraction.  Maybe if I stopped all distractions and wrote a million books, then if I sold only one copy a year of each book I'd make a million dollars.  Definitely something to think about.
Cindy Vine has somehow managed to sell 45 000 books in two and a half years through no fault of her own.  She currently lives and works in Kiev in the Ukraine and is the author of The Case of Billy B, Not Telling, Defective and CU@8.  If you think you might be her target audience, you are welcome to join her Facebook Page or befriend her on Twitter.

Author Spotlight: Marissa Carmel

Marissa Carmel has been writing since a young age and although it has always been for personal enjoyment, she finally decided to breakout and share her imagination with the world. She hopes that her universe is as fun and intriguing to her readers as it is to her. Marissa Carmel is originally from NJ but moved to Maryland several years ago, she enjoys reading, writing, and catching up on her DVR library. She is currently working on the sequel to iFeel, Gravitational Pull, which she hopes to release sometime in 2012.

You plan, God laughs.  This is the story of my life.

There are ideals and expectations I assume everyone has; whom you will marry, what your career will be like, where you will raise your kids. And yes, I had all those ideologies in my head, except were more like, have a career, don't get married and absolutely no kids.  Boy was I wrong. Today I am married with two kids, and living in a state I only passed through on occasion. And my career? Well let’s just say, I have more than one, and I never saw that coming.  Who needs more than one career? Apparently me. To make a long story short, I started my first career as a logistician, yawn, I won’t bore you with the details. The second career came shortly after.

I've always loved to write. Always. My imagination constantly runs away with itself, and I am without doubt following it. My best subject was creative writing. So when I would write, it was primarily for me (or a good grade). As time went on though, I found myself imagining more and more and wanting to create, but my life was so busy, and what would it get me anyway? Until one day my mother- in- law dropped a bomb that would change my life. She was talking to one of my husband’s cousins who were complaining about getting her college degree (she was already married with 4 kids. Yikes. I’d be complaining too.) And my MIL, the wise woman that she is simply said, honey, and time is going to go by anyway, so you might as well do it. Well, it felt like the sky fell on me. The advice wasn’t even directed at me, but it resonated. I started writing that night. And never stopped.

My husband once asked where my creativity comes from, and in return I asked him if he ever heard voices in his head.  His reply, I needed to see a shrink. I told him a keyboard and a curser is the best therapy. I have always loved the supernatural, thanks in part to my mom; Charmed was one of our favorite shows to watch together and still is.  So when I started writing, it only felt natural that it took on a paranormal feel. But I didn't want to write about vampires or werewolves or really anything that had been done. I'm like that; I always tend to steer towards the opposite of popular and then proceed to make fun of it. So I started researching, and brainstorming, and concocting my mix of love, humor and emotion. Liv was already an entity in my head, festering. I'd often imagine a dark haired girl with amethyst eyes, suffering and alone. When I finally established who she really was, and what kind of supernatural elements she would possess, (an Empath-someone who can feel the emotions of others- with active abilities) I asked myself, what would it be like for someone like that to carry the world's emotions?

Torrential I thought. What would it be like for her to fall in love? Even worse than torrential.  The story evolved rather quickly after that, but I didn't rush it.  It took me a little over a year to write, over two years to edit. I learned a lot about my writing style during that time, developed my voice and really tried to give it a life-like feel.

So here I am almost four years later, a husband, 2 kids, and a home in what feels like a foreign country; a daytime career and a nighttime career, all jumbling together, fighting for a piece of my time. Go hard or go home, my husband and I always joke, if we have a story, it needs a theme and that is it.  I wouldn't change it though, not for anything. Life is nothing, if not a venture - (I have no idea who said that).  Marissa Carmel

iFeel Blurb

Lust. Anger. Hate. Desire. Love. Happiness. Joy. iFeel.

Liv Christianni is isolated, alone, tortured and withdrawn, saddled with the torrential downpour of the world’s emotions. Accepting of her providence Liv has lost all hope, until one day fate steps in and spins the course of her life like a spiraling top. Hunted by a Spirit Stalker, Liv is forced to gain control of herself and her surroundings, threatened by the touch of her immortal love; she must find a way to survive both physically and emotionally as her reality is shaken up like dice on a Craps table. Can she find the courage to accept her true self? Can she love unconditionally cognizant of the condemning consequences? Can she rise from the ashes to become the person she was always meant to be?
Funny, witty, real, and poignant, iFeel rips into your soul, and sets your emotions on fire.
If you are a fan of Charmed or Supernatural, The Vampire Diaries or The Secret Circle this series is for you!

Review

I Feel great, on fire, changed, content about this book. This book is indeed a different kind of writing. I enjoyed the story very much. Extreme beings combust with contact. One that hides from all public life simply to keep from feeling every emotion from everyone around her. Destined to spend her life in lock up inside her own apartment. The other one an angel sent to protect all that is good and to keep evil from harming this "feeler". Seraphs and empaths ignite and paint the town in flames in this story. Characters that will open your heart can make you laugh, show anger in large amounts and also open your eyes on things we take for granted. Good read for sure. Loved the flow and design of details.
Great for all YA, Angels & Demons, and Fantasy fans alike. Will recommend to all. KUDOS AUTHOR Marissa Carmel. Happy Reading
from Tammy @ GREATMINDSTHINKALOUD

You can contact Marissa on:

MarissaCarmel@aol.com

Twitter- @MarissaCarmel

Facebook- Marissa Carmel

Goodreads.com

www.Marissacarmel.moonfruit.com  

Purchase Links-
Amazon.com- http://www.amazon.com/iFeel-ebook/dp/B008AM5KBY/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1340055387&sr=8-2&keywords=iFeel

http://www.greatmindsindependentpublishing.com/