I watched a YouTube video that described how a book that was struggling to sell a few hundred copies suddenly caught fire and ended up selling 1.5 million copies. Well, the secret was that they gave away 150,000 copies of the book for free. And then enough of those readers loved it that they got their friends excited enough to buy it.
Now I’ll have to say, on the face of it, this sounds insane. I’m not even sure how you would go about giving away 150,000 copies of a book. I guess you’d set the price to zero on Amazon and then e-mail 150,000 people to let them know they can have the book free that week or something. But where do you even get an e-mail list with 150,000 science fiction fans? But then again, I have read a lot in the last few weeks about how even traditionally published books mostly only sell a few hundred copies altogether. That can’t be considered success, can it?
This has really got me thinking about how limited my little world of friends and family is in the larger scheme of things. Even on the web I only communicate with a few hundred or maybe a few thousand people at most. I guess these proverbial “influencers” may have a reach that extends into the hundreds of thousands and possibly a few million people but I’m not sure how much this translates into marketability. Of course, I don’t discount the youth market and how suggestible teenagers are. But that’s not a market that I’m currently interested in.
But it was fun thinking about my book reaching millions of people. Hordes of adoring fans lining up on the highways leading to Dunwich all with the single fixed idea of having me sign their personal copy of “The Sniper” so that it would become an heirloom that they could pass down to their children and their children’s children unto the eighth generation.
It kinda gets you, … right there.
Well, anyway, I definitely have a lot to think about in anticipation of actually publishing this magnum opus. I still think I’ll look at traditional publishing first because that is the traditional thing. And I am a traditional guy. But it’s tempting to think of trying to break out into the big bold beautiful world out there and get as much feedback from the readers out there as I possibly can. After all P.T. Barnum was successful because he knew how to catch the public’s attention. Possibly a lurid cover that has little to do with the plot of the book may be part of how you attract the great unwashed. Then again, covers cost money and maybe I’m better off spending that on a huge e-mail list of science fiction fans.
So, as you can tell I’m staring out into the abyss and finding it abysmal. When I was a young fan of science fiction, I assumed that finding readers was not a problem. I thought getting published was the trick. Times change, priorities shift and we have to change with them.