: Re: Is it true that the need for marketing/promoting one's books is a "myth"? For indie fiction authors, is it true that if one simply writes and publishes regularly, one will begin to see sales

@Frith254

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Interestingly, I found this response to the article in question:

This is a rather bizarre article. It makes an assertion and then uses
as its sole example a case that blatantly contradicts the very
assertion! Did it never occur to the writer of the article that the
rigorous advertisement that that author, Erin, had initially done for
her book may have played a very important role in allowing the book’s
sales to take off once the price was reduced? What if she had never
promoted it at all and had simply put it online without any ads? Would
she have seen any sales even if she had placed it online at a low
price? Based on my experience, I very much doubt that she would have.
It is very telling that neither the author of this article nor the
Dean Wesley Smith fellow that she quotes could produce a single
example of someone who has actually become successful self-publishing
without any marketing or promotion whatsoever. They cannot provide a
single case study to support their assertions. And if neither of them
is able to find any such examples, why don’t they simply demonstrate
it themselves? Especially, why doesn’t Dean Wesley Smith (who likes to boast how prolifically he churns out books)
create a fake name and then proceed to publish a series of
independent novels on Amazon under that fake name without doing any
promotion whatsoever? And then let’s see if the books sell. Isn’t it
interesting that Dean Wesley Smith has never done such an experiment
even if it’s just to show that what he claims is true?
Also, it is astonishing that many people, including the author of this
article, fail to notice that this handwaving quote by Dean Wesley
Smith is a blatant self-contradiction:
“Keep writing and learning and writing and learning and writing and
learning.
There will be enough time down the road for promotion of the right
book.”
Think about what that quote is saying. It is basically saying that
once your writing is good enough, then you will be at the point where
you can start promoting. But isn’t the point of his message and this
article that promotion is not necessary and all you have to do is just
write and publish? Why is he now suddenly saying that you will
“promote the right book”? If the book is already “right”, i.e. good
quality, then why on earth do you need to promote it?? Can’t it just
sell itself? Isn’t that precisely what he is supposed to be claiming?
Besides, who the hell is talking about “learning”? Why does there have
to be an assumption that the writer is a novice? What if we are
talking about a good writer who just wants to make money off his or
her skill? What if one already has “right books”? Isn’t that the real
issue? Why do you have to assume it is a poor writer?
You can see how confusing and self-contradictory this non-sequitur of
an article is.

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