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A good book. The next best? Another good book.
Over three decades, I’ve watched a lot of gimmicks and ‘secrets’.
But there is no secret. The one ingredient I’ve seen in successful authors that they all share is they work really hard. They’re professionals.
Yes, there are authors who’ve utilized Facebook or Tik-Tok or Instagram or other modes to assist their career. But the bottom line is that there still needs to be a book behind those efforts.
Can something random go viral. Sure. How? Well, if they could figure that out, everything would go viral. No one knows. Is luck a factor? Absolutely. But luck tends to slide toward those who put in the work.
The only marketing tools that are somewhat effective are placement and targeted ads. Placement is a tool publishers use. It’s putting the book in a place where people will see it, whether that’s physically or electronically.
For individual authors this really isn’t an option except in terms of a targeted ad via Goodreads or AMS. Where you run an ad targeted toward similar books and authors.
I’m not saying do nothing. But the focus of energies always has to be on the writing. The true barrier for a new writer is the second book. Then the third. And so on. Every author I’ve…
