I was about to start this post with “Sadly, these days, it’s not enough for an author to write an awesome book to become successful, you have to be an awesome self promoter as well,” but then I realised that self promotion and writing have always gone hand in hand.

One of the reasons Charles Dickens became so famous was his flair for self promotion. He would go on tours and do stage readings, both here and in America, his novels would be serialised in newspapers and magazines, and he was all about the author branding in everything that he did (ever heard the term ‘Dickensian’ before?)

None of this is surprising since Charles Dickens was very much the original self-published author.

I’m not a big fan of the self promotion side of things, it does not come naturally to me, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s there, and it needs to be dealt with. Luckily, I have a variety of skills, an array of half remembered techniques that I can draw upon to make things that will (hopefully) get people’s attention.

Here are just a few of the things I’ve done, along with a few others I have in the works. Maybe they will inspire you to a few ideas of your own.

The Basics

An author needs their own website, and they need to be on social media.

Now, before everyone gets up in arms about that statement, let me explain. You don’t need a massive social media following to be a successful author. You don’t need any kind of social media presence at all in fact. BUT, if you’re going to promote yourself you damn sure need a platform on which to put all that self promotion, and in general social media is the place to do it.

I have a website (this one), Twitter, and Instagram, the three of which I use on a regular basis. I also have a Facebook account, but its sole purpose is to funnel people to my other accounts. I don’t use Facebook, and I’m not about to start now, but it’s where people go to find people, so you need to have some kind of presence there.

Concentrate on the sites you will actually use, and then do them well. Engage, interact, make friends and gather followers. Be genuine and honest, and don’t make it all about you. It’s called “social” media after all.

The only people who can afford to ignore social media are the already rich and famous, and that’s because their marketing departments do it all for them. They may not be into social media, but you can be damn sure their brand manager is.

Except, of course, most of them are on social media. Do you think Neil Gaiman tweets because he needs the sales? No. But he does it anyway, because he likes to share, and he enjoys engaging with the fans. He just happens to take the time to promote his work while he’s there too, no doubt leading to more book sales along the way.

Be Different

A tweet saying “Buy my Book!” with a link will get you zero sales, pretty much. Why should I buy your book? What’s in it for me? What is it even about?

I made some promotional images when my book came out, with a few different quotes that I thought would appeal to different readers in different ways. Whenever I promote my book I try and use one of them to give people a taste of what they might find inside, and to get them hooked, if possible, on wanting to read more.

These were originally a teaser campaign, but I repurposed them as general promotional items.

Anything you can do to make yourself stand out, to differentiate yourself from everybody else, can only work in your favour.

People Will Always Take Two Minutes To Watch A Video

There’s a reason Tik Tok is doing so well. People will watch and share a short video much more readily than they will a piece of text. The same goes from images. They’ll share a picture (like the ones above) before they’ll share just the words by themselves. It’s annoying, but that’s the way it is.

Due to the pandemic, the launch of my debut novel had to be a lot more virtual than I would have like. Thankfully, I had a few video editing skills that I could fall back on to at least make something memorable to mark the occasion.

I made those two videos for the Asylum (Sanctuary) Steampunk Festival, who very graciously agreed to allow my book launch to be part of their festival. I used my little pocket-sized digital camera that also records video, I recorded the audio on my phone using the headset mic I got free with my Playstation 4, and I edited it on a free piece of software called OpenShot, with images and audio I got from royalty free websites and and the Youtube audio library (since that was where it would be hosted).

You don’t have to spend a lot of money to make a decent video, you just have to know what you want, then come up with a way to get it. The more you do it the better you’ll become. Just practise and see what happens. You can always change it again if it doesn’t look how you want it to.

My launch video took three days to shoot because the fireworks looked pathetic. I had to reshoot a bunch of stuff around me setting them off, then insert all the library footage, then record extra audio to fill in the gaps I had in the footage I had shot. NB: My top tip for making good video is have good audio! Seriously, people will watch a blank screen if the audio is good (radio plays), but if they can’t hear what people are saying they’ll tune out fairly quickly and go watch something else. Good audio is like spell checking your novel, no one will notice if you get it right, but if you mess it up they’ll lose interest faster than you can say, “How many l’s are there in parallellolellolellogram?”

Also, your videos don’t have to be one shot, single use, promotional items either. I’ve posted these on my own Youtube channel as a sort of video archive. Maybe they’ll catch someone’s attention, and maybe they won’t. Who knows. It cost me nothing to put them up there, so why not find out.

Think Outside The Box

You’re swiping through Tik Tok, and it’s all talking head after talking head after talking head. Then someone appears on screen in a full skull make-up and you pause, wondering what’s going on? At that point the make-up has done its job.

Anything you can do to make yourself stand out from the crowd is a good thing. Anything you can do to build on your brand, and pull in more potential readers, also good.

At the time of writing this post I’m working on a few things that aren’t novels, but will hopefully expand the world of Dexter & Sinister beyond the page to a wider audience.

I’m looking into doing a video version of Dexter vs. Mr Nibbles, as a precursor to possibly doing the whole book as a series of ten minute videos on Youtube (something which my friend Matt has started doing to great effect). I also might turn the audio into an audio book, but that’s something I have yet to delve into seriously.

I’ve started work as well on a board game, the details of which I can’t go into yet. It’d be steampunk themed, and set (as much possible) in the world of Hammersmyth, expanding its “universe” a little and hopefully drawing in fans who might not have tried the books otherwise.

Like I said before, anything you can do to make your creation larger and more inviting, the better.

Do What you Gotta Do

Really, there are no rules about all this. You should do whatever you can to get eyeballs on your work. I’ve been featured on people’s blogs, done giveaways, been a guest speaker on podcasts and online events. I tweet, I put up photos, and I write blog posts like this, all to make connections with people.

And I do my newsletter, which to me is the most valuable tool of all. Not only does it all me to connect with people, giving them an insight into my personal life, but it also makes me do more writing, because if I don’t write, I don’t have anything to write about at the end of the month (which for an author would be a pretty poor show, let me tell you).

Do what you gotta do. Get out there. Get seen. Make connections, make friends, make progress in your work. And don’t worry about whether you are where you think you “need” to be. All such goals are an illusion. So long as you have more in the artistic bank tomorrow than you had yesterday, then you’re doing alright as far as I’m concerned.