Today this banner is up on KindleBoards.

I always knew that I didn’t enjoy self-promotion.  I’ve always enjoyed writing, and now that I know I can release things on my own terms, it’s given me increased motivation to write, but I can’t seem to find the energy self-promote myself very much.  I don’t really think this blog so much counts as self-promotion, not most of it.  I’m detailing some sales and moaning about the weather in Winnipeg and blabbing about how I don’t like self-promotion.  But now something else is becoming clear to me.  I suck at self-promotion.

2 sales today for “The Adventures of Whatley Tupper,” and I guess I can attribute those to the Kindleboards ad, although that’s hardly certain.  I’ve read others at KindleBoards got 5-6 sales.  But, even if I got 10 sales… then, I would have still lost money and spent a lot of time making a banner.  The more I try this self-promotion thing, the more that I realize that I’m not very good at it, and I should just focus on the writing.  I can definitely appreciate the appeal of being backed by a publisher–they deal with the promotion, they pay people to do the things that I suck at.  The only self-promotion tool that never lets me down is the Kindle Nation Daily sponsorship.  It costs twice as much as the banner ads, and has far more impact.

Do I think the $40 price tag for the banner ad is too high?  No.  People are purchasing the banner ads months in advance now (I have another one scheduled on the 30th of April for The Redemption of Mr. Sturlubok), so it must be a fair price.  I just don’t think I’ll bother with them for a while.  When it gets closer to the release of The Redemption of Mr. Sturlubok, I’ll promote through offering advance copies and submitting for reviews.

The best thing I can do it write, and hopefully write something good that other people will like.  The only way to build a fan base is to write something fans want to read.  I just have to keep writing.  Which is good, because that’s what I enjoy doing.

Another update: I received an email from KindleBoards a day after my banner ad ran with some numbers regarding my daily advertisement. My banner ad had 47 clicks, which was roughly half of what people this week have been given. So, it’s pretty obvious that my banner ad wasn’t visually enticing. Lesson to be learned here: don’t use Microsoft Paint! I’ll get someone else to do my next one…