Marketing your book (s) in the era of joblessness, limited resources and other situations that kill book sales?

The dilemma in the past eleven months has create a living expense situation with many authors just as it has with everyone else.

Authors are facing the puzzle in how to get their books to readers on a shoestring or no marketing budget.

How to market your book in the era of joblessness, limited resources and other situations that kill book sales.

How do you meet the criteria and demands required to sell books in the midst of a social structure meltdown?

Most authors still want to entertain the public but it’s getting hard to do.

This is the question asked and the topic dissected and discussed tonight [last night] in the virtual author group I belongs to. Some were voicing grave concern that they can no one afford the regular avenues of book promoting due to many personal issues. No money.

They can no longer afford the free book promotions. Some were saying they no longer have the resources to pay promotional firms to market their books. They no longer have the resources to pay for professional covers to be designed. They no longer have the resource to pay for editing services. Citing that the production of a book can run as high as $2,000 if they do everything they are allegedly supposed to do.

So, I’ve heard it cost a lot to get a book public ready.

I must agree with tonight’s hostess when she instructed authors to look for people whose services are within your budget, or price range or learn to do all these things yourself. And as far as promoting free books use promotional firms who offer free services. Although, these are becoming harder to find but a few still exist.

People who have never been broke, probably do not know the feeling nor understand the concept of having to spend your money on survival rather than on producing a book.

We were discussing Bookbud. [I’ve never used it, therefore I couldn’t comment.] Some say they are extremely picky but if they were eventually accepted you you will do very well. They said BookBud is very good ‘if’ accepted, but it is quite expensive, and that romantic books do best. If rejected, you must wait a month to submit again, but it’s worth it because they are a subscriber list of over15 million people.

They said the downside to BookBud you may have to submit your book several times before getting accepted. I guess I will never use it. I’m not very good of constantly begging someone to do something for me. Especially, if I’m paying you.

I remember during my college days, there was this supposedly trendy place everyone was dying to get into. Celebrities and their entourage floated passed you while you stood outside. It was the hip place to be seen. It stayed packed. I let my friends talked me into going with them one night. My friends said you had to stand in line, wait, and hope the place doesn’t fill up before you reached the front of the line. [I already didn’t like the sound of this] If it was filled before you reached the front of the line, the attendants would come out and tell people who had been waiting since before sunset that they were filled.

Well, I stayed about twenty minutes before catching the passing bus heading toward a hangout near campus. Two of our friends stayed, but came back to the dorm around 1:00 A.M. saying they wished they had followed the three of us who said “Bump this–I’m outta here” and left. They didn’t get in despite waiting from 6:00-12:00 and that’s murder on your feet and legs if you are wearing stiletto heels.

I am the kind of person I must know right then and right there what someone is going to do. It’s either a yes or a no. My mother used to call it impatience. LOL! Four weeks….who knows where I will be or what I will be working on in four weeks?

Anyway, we looked up alternatives to Bookbub and came across this from www.selfpublishingreview.com

https://www.selfpublishingreview.com/2016/06/35-alternatives-to-bookbub/

Ideas

I still say the cheapest and quickest way for exposure is other authors forwarding each other’s work. Recommending each other’s works.