The Frightening World of Self-Publishing

 

My effort to explore (and hopefully discover) a route toward successful distribution for "I Really Like Hurting You" (and future horror endeavors) continues with limited success, but I haven't yet hit my stride.

On the positive side,  the book is now available anywhere you can get ebooks (including Amazon, Apple, Barnes and Noble, and many others). I've also made it available on Google Play and decided to try their auto-narration feature (essentially, AI-generated voice) - it doesn't replace the performance of a human narrator, but it does allow for my book to be accessible to more people. Having said that, I have had zero traction on Google Play [no sales for either the ebook or audiobook). This is the first time I've used this marketplace.

For the second time, I used Written Word Media's Bargain Booksy promotion for Horror. This time, the results were not satisfactory, though I kept the book at its regular $2.99 price point (the first time around, I placed it at $.99).  I'll probably give another platform the third time around, if only to reach a different audience.

I only have two ratings on Amazon, and no reviews. I've made a series of appeals on social media, to no avail. This is particularly frustrating, as I know I can't begin to build traction without reviews). For the record, I'm quite open to sending out review ePubs.

I need to rethink my NFT strategy, as I'm not really seeing any meaningful results there as yet. I need to determine a more unique approach for that market. The book, along with its free offshoot short story, Shelf, is currently available at Readl.co. 

In somewhat of a departure from the norm, I have an additional short story,  Daniel Shephard's Genius Solution—more in the preteen humor category—available currently on Smashwords for $.99. that's primarily as experiment (but with no response thus far).

All told, I've sold less than 100 copies so far, but I tend to believe that there's an audience for everything, if you can find a way to connect. This is a ground-up effort, so it's going to take some work!

I'm open to ideas!