Matthew Hanover and his books came to my attention (if I recall correctly) when I saw his book Not Famous in one of the book promo e-mails I receive. I liked the cover and blurb and wrote a mini-essay for my author site about what I liked so much about the book description. Of course, I followed the author when I sent my essay around social media.
Mr. Hanover is now hyping his second novel, Not Dressed, and the tweet captured my attention in the way that authors hope will happen when we click “send.” After looking over his author platform (including his , his , and his ) more closely, I asked him if he would be kind enough to answer some questions about how he does promo. If you’re like me, you need all the help you can get!
Can you set the stage for us a little? You’ve clearly been writing for some time and seem familiar with the indie/self-publishing ecosystem. You have beta readers, you buy book promo, and so on. How long have you been writing and who/what are some of the resources that have helped you understand the fundamentals of publishing and promo?
Well, Not Famous took me seven years to complete the first draft, so I guess I’ve been doing this for about 8+ years!
To be honest, I feel like I’ve been flying blind when it comes to marketing… I’m always trying to figure out what works and to work within my budget—which is very small. I think what book marketing comes down to just getting as many eyes as possible on your book. It takes a lot of eyes to get a sale, so you really have to work hard at it. I’ve probably spent more on marketing than I’ve actually made back from it. I’m not saying that to be discouraging to other indie authors, I’m just saying that it’s hard work and you can’t sell a lot of books by just telling your friends and family and the occasional tweet. If you thought writing a novel was hard, marketing is many, many times harder, and you can do a lot with little success or you can do a little with a lot of success. Finding your sweet spot is the goal, and good luck trying to find it. Just know that success means different things to different people. Some indie authors can live off their royalties and think authors like me are failures. Some authors look at me and see a success. Whether you sell a million books, a thousand, or twenty, the most important thing is that you created something that you’re proud of.
Words are more important to me than images, but I know that the latter are also crucial. Your ad images are among the more professional and compelling ones I’ve seen. Do you create them yourself? Write the copy and hire an artist?
I buy stock images/photos/vectors when I can, and manipulate them to the best of my ability to meet my needs. It’s hard to say what will work, so I try different things, play up different angles of the novels to target different readers. Not Dressed is a bit edgier than Not Famous, so the promotional graphics I use have been edgier, too.
So, to answer your question, I do it all myself, with the help of stock images. It takes a lot of time, but I believe that over time they will help me get sales.
Not Famous has a highly respectable number of Amazon reviews. You also have quite admirable engagement on Instagram and Goodreads. HOW DO YOU DO THIS WITHOUT QUITTING YOUR FULL-TIME JOB?
I wish I knew! Seriously, though, I had my social media accounts up and running long before my first novel came out, knowing that I had to start building relationships on social media in advance. I think that helped some, but publishing Not Famous definitely helped me build connections with other authors and readers. I think it’s easier to build up engagement when you have a body of work. I’ve been told it’s easier to sell one book when you have two, so I think the same theory applies to building up your network. Having a book gives people reason to engage you.
I should add that engagement doesn’t necessarily translate into sales. I’m guessing most of my engagement comes from other authors who are engaging to increase their presence rather than because they’re a potential reader. I’m not saying authors don’t support each other, but we’re all on social media primarily for the same reason: to sell our books. I’ve bought books I’ve learned of on social media, but most of my activity is self-promotion, as is everyone else’s.
I’ve managed to keep my day job thus far by budgeting my time well, I suppose. I think the key to finding time to promote comes down to your belief in your work. If you love your novel and want to see it succeed, you’ll make the time to create promotional stuff for it. Whether it’s at night watching TV, on weekends when you should be cleaning the house, or in the middle of the night when you can’t sleep.
While authors buy a lot of books, one of the problems I worry about is that I’m primarily interacting with writers instead of readers. How do you escape the bubble?
I’ve noticed this, too. I’ve tried to build up my followers by following people who follow similar authors, and I’ve noticed most of them are also authors. I suspect many of them are out there to promote themselves rather than to buy books from other authors. I get that, and that’s okay. But, it’s a huge problem if you’re trying to find potential readers. It’s hard to break through the noise.
Escaping that bubble is no easy task. Personally, I think, as an author, there’s nothing wrong with engaging with other authors and developing relationships with them. You can get great ideas from them and even, if appropriate, cross promote. But, more important is that when a reader engages you, you must respond. Developing relationships with readers is crucial, in my opinion, and it’s an indescribable feeling when a reader tells you how much they responded to your work.
Which book promotion sites do you find to be most valuable for the lad-lit/chick-lit/romantic comedies that you write?
I’ve tried several, and only one has really worked well for me, and that’s BookBub. I wish there were more I could point to that have been effective, but most places I’ve discovered are doing the same thing all authors are doing, pushing books into the vast noise of social media, competing with millions of others. BookBub’s paid promotion moved lots of ebooks for me. I suppose their secret is that they’re highly selective of the books they allow to participate. It’s not easy to be approved by them, but if you do, it’s worth the money.
If you’re like me, you imagine that your ideal reader is “anyone who wants to buy a book.” Unfortunately, this idea is not practical. Who are you trying to reach and what are a couple ways you angle your publicity to appeal to these readers?
From a genre standpoint, my target is technically male readers. That said, I’ve observed that a substantial, if not a majority of my readers are women. It’s almost universally acknowledged that women read more than men, so I try to simultaneously market to men and women, and both have enjoyed Not Famous, and the same goes for those that have gotten early access to Not Dressed.
As I’ve mentioned before, much of my promotional graphics for Not Dressed have been edgier than those for Not Famous. Because a key plot point of Not Dressed is the main character Jake takes issue with his girlfriend modeling nude, I’ve created graphics featuring a nude model, which I suspect will mostly catch the interest of male readers.
Another main character, Kaylee, is a Trekkie and sci-fi geek, and so I’ve also done quite a bit of promotion to target that audience as well.
I’ve also been using apps to do some short video promos, which I’ve found tends to increase impressions and engagement.
Even though I suspect women read my novel more, most of the readers who’ve reached out to me are men, so I really do take that as a sign that I’ve written something that speaks to both.
Another interesting point I think I should bring up is that I honestly believe that my marketing for Not Dressed has improved my sales for Not Famous. Once Not Dressed is finally on sale I’m hoping that my marketing will be even more effective for the new novel.
Many thanks to Matthew Hanover for helping us with promo! I really did enjoy Not Famous, and I think you will like the book as well. Do you have any thoughts about marketing that you would like to share? What worked for you? (Or didn’t work?) Leave a comment below!
