You’re a writer, you know how it goes. You published the book, and it just sits there, doing nothing except get annoying because…well, because nobody’s reading it.
So, if you’re like me, you make the most of your marketing might to move many readers over to take a look. But, if you’re like me, you don’t have much marketing might, because you subscribe to the Gorilla Marketing precept of doing nothing in hopes of big returns.
To that end, I once had this theory I called Castanets – you cast a million website posts, knowing that they’ll get read by somebody, and some small percentage of those somebodies will follow a breadcrumb trail over to Smashwords and read you book (Did you see how I did that? Led you right over to my book, didn’t I? Dang. That’s just clever.). Castanets – cast the nets, get it? It’s okay. Nobody else did, either.
I now subscribe to the Georgia Theory that says “that dog don’t hunt.”
To that end I hacked away two nets, killing two of my salesepeople for poor performance. Boom. Away with my Droppington Place WordPress site. Boom. Away with my PhineasCaswell site. If you are looking for them, good luck. Actually, if you are looking for them, let me buy you a cigar, for you are surely the only person on the planet doing so!
Consolidating. Reining in. Pulling up stakes. Something like that.
Instead, I’ve got a new basket into which I’ve put all my eggs: Skippity Whistles. Oh, it’s small now, but, you watch. One of these days it’ll be bigger than, well, bigger than those sites I dumped!
The message for you, my writer friend, is that you should focus on writing your books, and leave casting nets to fishermen.
John D Reinhart 