Month: July 2013

That’s a complicated question. I don’t have much real data to give you I’m afraid. Here’s what I do know.

For an indie artist social media seems a no-brainer. It’s an almost free form of advertisement. The problem I have is I despise most social media. Facebook seems to be designed to make you hate your friends. Twitter is totally repugnant to me. I think it’s a real testament to controlled thought when you take the internet, the broadest and most versatile platform for communication ever devised, and force you to use 140 characters or less. It’s truly is Newspeak. I have a twitter account, and the only way I interact with it is that some of my tumblr posts get retweeted there. That’s it. Yet even at that level I pick up 2-3 shit followers a week. All of them writers trying to sell me their books or self-publishing leaches trying to sell me their services. It’s truly pathetic.

So I use tumblr simply because I like tumblr. Its interface seems to help people portray the best aspects of themselves. I would use tumblr even if I didn’t market books. In fact, I did for a long time. I think that’s key to any type of social marketing. People can smell a salesman and the stench is loathsome. I talk about my books here because I really believe in them AND I truly believe that my followers would enjoy reading them.

That’s another key. Don’t market to other artists. Writers have a terrible habit of marketing to other writers. While most writers, if they’re any good at it, do read a lot, it’s still not your audience. Tumblr does a great job of helping you find people you jive with on an artistic level.

I do fear that using tumblr for too much marketing will alienate people. It’s a balancing act. I sincerely want my followers to tell me to back-off if they fell I’m spamming them with book ads. Let me know before you unfollow.

I do believe in tumblr. I do believe that I have picked up a few hardcore fans that I would not have found otherwise. And every single one of them is precious.

Now the big question, does that lead to sales? I’m not afraid to say that I’m totally disheartened by my current lack of sales. It’s an epic undertaking to try and rise above the noise being produced in our media right now. And I have this tumblr blog and two podcasts. This has translated to sales that are in no way making me anything remotely close to a living. To put it bluntly, I could buy a couple of pizzas with the money I’ve made so far.

What does that say? I don’t know. Publishing has its own quirks and I’ve been told by several people that no one will even begin to notice you until you have a few books out. While My Babylon is a serial, in all seriousness, it’s only one book. So I have that and a couple of short stories. I’m working on more, but it never seems fast enough to me.

The whole process is infuriatingly slow. I keep seeing this looming shadow, the fact I will have to get another day job, and I don’t know if anyone will hire me. I no longer have the ability to keep my mouth shut. I despise the whole corporate system so much is literally makes me sick to my stomach even thinking about working for one. I was fired from my last job for outright refusing to throw people out of their homes for lack of payment. I won’t do shit like that. And that looks bad on a resume.

But I digress. There is the possibility that I suck. But I have yet to sink to that level. I have read and re-read My Babylon, and I am still convinced it is a good story. Time will tell.

Good luck to you. And to anyone else reading this SUPPORT INDIE ARTISTS. Leave reviews, tell your friends, reblog their posts. Take the time to tell the artists themselves that you appreciate them, because it’s a terrible risk they take and most have huge doubts about their ability all the time.