Book Giveaways
Book Give away Headache
I've been trying for a year now to promote my book Valkyries on the Rise. I run advertisements on Amazon that produce no sales. I put my book on Etsy and run advertisements but I don't get any sales there either.
I self published on Amazon and Ingram Spark hoping to cover the market. My partner spoke to a local bookstore owner and he was able to get a couple of my books in store, that I think one person bought. He also got my book into a local newsagency. They sold a couple.
I've tried creating Tik Toks as well as Instagram and Facebook posts but nothing seems to work. Unfortunately, my book is a post-apocalytpic dystopian fantasy fiction novel released in a time when romantasy is at its peak. My book is definately not a love story.
Anyway, it's been a year since the release and I figured that romantasy might have died down a bit. I turned to Goodreads and saw there was an option to do a giveaway. I thought, great! That's an awesome idea. Dystopian readers would get a free book and if they liked it, I might get a few reviews to help me get the ball rolling finally.
I pressed the link and read the instructions. When it spoke about payment, I was a little confused at first, but then figured they probably need to make some money and that's how they do it. For a simple book giveaway, it's over $100. As an indie author with no money in the budget, I can't afford to run a giveaway. I can't afford to give away a few books... I find that sentence really strange.
I'm not knocking the option. It's a great way to get promotion and I'm sure lots of authors opt in, but I literally don't have enough money to giveaway one of my books. It's kinda sad.
I only have like 200 followers on Tik Tok and even less on Facebook and Instagram so a giveaway isn't going to work on those sites either. I'm stuck in the little to no view range.
The purpose of my little rant here is to ask the Universe, how are there any successful indie authors, and what is their secret?
