: Re: Is it true that good novels will automatically sell themselves on Amazon (and so on) and there is no need for one to waste time promoting? This is what Dean Wesley Smith teaches in his articles

@Gonzalez219

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It worked for me.
It definitely seemed to work for my book, which was a textbook, not a novel. So, here's my experience. I wrote a textbook and decided to self-publish it about 4 years ago (sidenote: I did have experience at the time working in professional publishing, so I guess you could say I knew the ropes).

My book filled a gap in a niche, but popular field. I sunk most of my time and money (about .5k) into the book itself - paying for peer reviews from well-regarded professionals in the field; professional editing; opinions from as many friends who'd read it; endless up-revs and improvements; and I really splurged on graphic design for the cover and interior, so the end result looked polished and very professional.

So what happened? I put it on Amazon, simply using their in-built classifications. Apart from that, I made a website, purchasing an off-the-shelf theme. I researched the keywords well and managed to get a good domain which matched the book's title fairly well, and wrote some initial content - none of which I've touched for the last 4 years. I also made sure it was correctly catalogued in the global library system. Apart from that I put virtually no effort into the marketing.

As soon as I put it on Amazon, I noticed it had an initial 'bump' in popularity when I was searching for the keywords I thought people would use to search for it. However, after a dozen or so sales, no one had yet reviewed it, and to my disappointment it started to plummet down the rankings, destined, I thought, for oblivion. Oh well, I thought, what had I really expected? Instant bestseller status?

I didn't think much more of it till I received my first bunch of reviews - and they were good ones; one 5-star review after another. Amazon definitely took note, because when I next checked those keyword searches, my book had soared up again, and ever since then (and a fairly consistent 4.5 star rating) it's been in the top 3 books for that field ever since, and this has reflected in the sales.

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