: Re: Is it advisable to begin marketing a book before it is published? I watched a presentation called Your First 10k Readers. It explains a marketing course that will build an audience for your

@Eichhorn147

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I'll take a stab at this. I am a semi-well-known author who got his start on reddit by submitting short horror stories to /r/nosleep. My work is hugely popular on YouTube and is narrated by dozens of horror narrators with views in the hundred-thousands. Two of my works have been optioned for film.

I published my first book in 2014 and tried every single gimmick I could find. I watched all the SEO dweebs go on and on about marketing your product and garnering a following. I even did the KDP tricks where you give your book away free long enough for it to rank up on Amazon's bestseller list, then move it over into the paid column so it debuts on the front page at #1 .

The only thing that ever worked for me was producing high-quality writing content and regularly releasing it. New, high-quality content is absolutely imperative to surviving as an author. I made a Facebook page, a website, and an option for readers to sign up on my email list. When I publish my books I send an email blast to the list. I put tremendous effort into my books and take my time with them; I release short stories for free between major publications.

The responses I've gotten from agents/publishing houses are all positive. They love it when you already have a following because it means they spend less time and money marketing your work for you. They don't appear to care whether you've released some of your book content already. (There's one caveat to this I'll mention at the end).

But releasing pieces of your book before the work is published does not appear, in my experience, to have any positive effect on book sales after the fact. Nor does it appear to increase my fanbase. Fans tend to want completed works that leave them satisfied, and they are very easily miffed by anything resembling a sales gimmick. The whole "tantalize them with a sample and make them buy the rest" approach does not work at all, unless you are Martin or Rowling and you have a ravenous fanbase.

Instead I suggest cranking out a few good-quality short stories that take place within the universe of your book, whose plots intersect in some meaningful way with said book. Target a specific audience (there are forums online for sci-fi, fantasy, horror, mystery readers, etc) and give them free stuff.

If your work is good and if you are able to produce new content at a reasonable pace, your fanbase will grow itself. And if you have a fanbase, you can build your agent queries on it; that's your strongest sales point. Keep one thing in mind, though: some publishing houses are more territorial than others about your book content (their property) being hosted on various forums. This is why I recommend short, intersecting stories instead.

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