My phone does this thing where it recommends articles based on what I've read. Over the past two weeks I have been getting (what seems like a lot) of articles about making money self publishing. Sure, that's something I'm interested in. I've wanted to be a writer since I could hold a pencil, so I would love if my work would take off. I actually took a marketing class last semester and planned to use some of the things that I learned there to help me sell books. I needed to take the marketing class because of my major, so selling books wasn't the only reason that I decided to take the class. Anyway, I read two of those articles during my break at work, and they basically said that you will not make any money self publishing. This wasn't a new revelation for me. I know it's very hard to break out in this overcrowded market. It doesn't help that I write Urban Fantasy about werewolves, zombies, and fortune tellers and that doesn't seem to be selling as well now. New adult and erotica seem to be what's selling now. The article went on to say contradict itself. The writer went on to say that you can make money self publishing, if you're willing to sell your expertise on self publishing/writing. I thought about my early days on twitter, back when I was really trying to promote myself as an author. I ended up making friends with other authors, some of which never spoke to me. Every single one of those authors had a blog where they wrote about their struggles and successes as an author. Some of the authors even had books about marketing. These authors probably spent more of their time on marketing than they did on writing. This has never bothered me, but I used to wonder why authors spent so much time on this. I know now that they were probably making more money from promoting their marketing/writing advice than they were making from their books. There's a bigger market of people who want to sell their own books.
Once I publish The Fortune Teller's Gift, I plan to use what I have learned in marketing class to sell it. It is likely that I will blog about how that class helped me sell books.
