How Do You Get People to Discover an Unknown Author?

An Author's Insight with William B. Taylor

Alex: You've written three books, built the Bloodlines series, and sold thousands of copies. But here's a question almost every independent author eventually faces: How do you get people to discover a book they've never heard of?

William: For indie authors, writing the book, creating a great cover and developing a hook or quick book summary is only the start of the process. The real hard part comes next: getting people to actually read your book.

Amazon and Kindle are still go-to platforms for many indie authors because they make the publishing process relatively fast and easy, and they're used by readers around the world looking for their next book.

That's also a double-edged sword. There are millions of books available, and making your story discoverable can be very challenging.

There are some things you can do to improve your chances.

Start With the Book Itself

Alex: Before we get into promotion, what should an author concentrate on first?

William: Make the story the best one possible.

That sounds obvious, but it's probably the most important advice I can give.

Create a professional, eye-catching book cover that isn't overly detailed. You don't want the title and your name to get lost in the design. There are lots of talented designers available online, and many are surprisingly affordable.

One thing I wouldn't recommend is relying on an automated "create a book cover" tool. In my experience, it's often very apparent that an author has used a basic template, and the result can scream "amateur."

We've all been told, "Don't judge a book by its cover!"

Unfortunately, that's exactly what people do.

First impressions matter, and your cover needs to make a potential reader curious enough to discover more.

Have Someone Else Proofread It

Alex: What about the actual manuscript?

William: Have someone else proofread it.

An author really can't proofread their own story effectively. Your mind knows what you intended to write and has an annoying habit of correcting errors as you read them without telling you.

You don't necessarily need to pay a professional proofreader. The cost per word can add up quickly. Try to find someone with a reasonable understanding of the language who is willing to read the manuscript carefully.

Then, after you've made the corrections—and you will make corrections—read the book out loud.

It sounds silly, but reading your work aloud can help you catch grammatical problems and sentences or phrases that simply don't sound right.

There is an important distinction when it comes to dialogue. Characters don't always speak perfect English, and that's okay when the language is being used intentionally to establish a regional accent, slang, personality or other character trait.

That doesn't work nearly as well in descriptive prose.

There are thousands of "word police" out there just waiting for an author to make a mistake, and they'll happily point it out in a review.

All authors make mistakes—even bestselling authors—and most are very forgivable. But if you can limit those mistakes, do it.

Know Your Genre

Alex: Once the book itself is ready, what's next?

William: Know your genre, and select it carefully.

If you think your story could fit into more than one genre, compare it with well-known authors whose books are considered part of those genres. If you're still unsure, AI can also be useful as a sounding board to help you determine where your story fits best.

When I first published Bloodlines: Cove Point Manor, I thought I knew exactly what it was: a ghost story about a haunted house.

It was that.

But it was also so much more.

Today, Cove Point Manor is categorized under Mystery, Thriller & Suspense—Mystery-Historical, Mystery, Thriller & Suspense—General, and Literature & Fiction—Horror—Collections & Anthologies.

Some of those categories may make perfect sense to a reader. Others might make them scratch their head.

That's part of the challenge.

You want to choose categories that accurately represent your book, but you also want to understand the amount of competition you're facing. If a category has thousands upon thousands of competing books, it can be extremely difficult for a new author to become visible.

This becomes a bit of a try-and-see project.

Experiment with appropriate subcategories and see what happens. You may need to make adjustments before you find the combination that gives your book the best opportunity to be discovered.

The goal is to get your book onto a bestseller list within an appropriate genre—and, ideally, keep it there through actual sales.

The Amazon Bestseller List

Alex: How important is that bestseller ranking?

William: I think it's critical.

Not only can a genre bestseller ranking increase the visibility of your book, it can also give an indie author a tremendous boost in confidence.

Keeping your book on that list is another story altogether.

I've had Bloodlines rank higher than well-known authors a few times, and I'll admit that it's pretty satisfying to take a screenshot and put it on social media.

It makes a great post.

Paid sales are obviously useful for generating rankings, but promotional opportunities can also help get your book in front of readers. Free Kindle promotions, for example, can generate a lot of downloads and potentially introduce your book to readers who might never have taken a chance on it otherwise.

If you're enrolled in Kindle Select, there can also be income associated with pages read.

And then there are reviews.

Good, bad or indifferent, reviews can help give prospective readers more information about your book and can contribute to its credibility.

Of course...

Hope for the good reviews. 😊

Tell People You Wrote a Book

Alex: How did you promote Cove Point Manor when you first published it?

William: The first thing I did was tell everyone I knew.

That takes courage for some people because writers are often introverts, and introverts aren't necessarily comfortable with self-promotion.

Unfortunately, if you don't have a six-figure budget to hire your own marketing team, you're going to have to do some of it yourself.

Amazon also allows authors to purchase author copies at a reduced price. Take advantage of that. Order enough copies that you can give some away to people you know who actually like the genre you've written.

Then ask them for feedback.

And I mean real feedback.

Don't just give copies to your parents, aunts, uncles or friends who are going to tell you, "It's the greatest book I've ever read!" because they don't want to hurt your feelings.

That's nice for your ego, but it isn't necessarily useful.

You want people who will tell you what they honestly think.

Feedback can boost your confidence, but more importantly, it can help you identify things that could be improved.

Your first edition doesn't necessarily have to be your last edition.

Use that to your advantage.

You can also offer copies to people who don't know you through your author website, social media and other channels.

And that's something I'll talk about in a future Author's Insight.

Stay tuned.

What About Social Media?

Alex: Social media seems like an obvious answer. Did it work for you?

William: Sort of.

When I first published Bloodlines, I made posts on Facebook and later Twitter—now X—and hoped for the best.

There was sometimes a slight uptick in sales, but it didn't last.

And if you repeatedly post about your book, eventually your friends and family start thinking:

"Oh God, he's talking about his book AGAIN!"

There's another side to social media that authors should consider.

I attracted some wonderful fans, but I also encountered people who could be confrontational and some who were downright scary.

Scarier than the ghost in my story.

If you're going to promote a book online, I strongly recommend thinking carefully about your privacy. Consider creating a separate author identity or account—even if you use your real name as your author name—so that your public author presence isn't unnecessarily connected to every aspect of your private life.

You don't want someone you barely know following you around the internet.

Or worse, in person.

Is Paid Advertising Worth It?

Alex: What about paid promotions?

William: This is where my experience has been disappointing.

In my experience, paid promotions have not provided a good return on investment.

If I spent $250 on paid advertising, I might see an uptick in book sales, but the royalties didn't come close to covering what I had spent.

When I first published, paid promotions were being offered by companies such as Amazon and Facebook. Some advertising is pay-per-click, where you're charged every time somebody clicks on your advertisement. The problem is that a click doesn't necessarily mean the person is actually looking for a book—or that they're going to buy yours.

Other programs charge a flat rate based on impressions.

An impression is essentially an opportunity for someone to see your advertisement. On social media, for example, every time your advertisement appears in someone's feed, that's an impression.

You can burn through a decent-sized budget very quickly.

Nine years later, I still see offer after offer telling me that their company—or their "secret weapon"—can make my book a bestseller in no time.

All it takes is money.

I haven't tried those companies, and I won't.

Because if selling a book—or any other product—were really that easy, we'd all be on the bestseller lists, and Hollywood agents would be pounding on our doors offering millions to turn our stories into movies.

That's simply not realistic.

I'm not going to part with my hard-earned money just to make somebody else rich.

Like everything worthwhile in life, keeping your book in front of the right people takes time, effort and a lot of luck.

You'll probably try dozens of different approaches.

When you find something that works, keep doing it.

Until it stops working.

Then find something new.

Think Beyond One Format

Alex: So if you were starting over today, what would you do differently?

William: First, I'd make the book available in as many formats as make sense—ebook, paperback, hardcover, and possibly audiobook.

I'd also make sure I had an author website.

Your website should tell people who you are, what motivated you to write, and give them reasons to become interested in your books. Try different hooks and approaches to see what gets people's attention.

This isn't something you do once and forget about.

Your online presence needs to evolve as trends change.

Building that presence is important because it can help people discover you and your books through search engines and newer forms of AI-driven search and answer systems.

I'd also research all the available ways to get the book into the marketplace.

Don't automatically rely on only one print-on-demand provider. Different services have different distribution arrangements, and some can provide access to libraries and retail bookstores that others may not.

Experiment.

Mix things up.

You can create short advertisements, including AI-assisted cartoon-style videos, that can grab people's attention.

You can create a YouTube channel.

You can build an Instagram presence.

You can use other social platforms that make sense for your audience.

Join author forums and communities and talk with other writers. Find out what they've tried and what they've learned.

The biggest piece of advice I can give is this:

Keep trying new and innovative ways to keep your book fresh and reach your target audience.

But make sure you know who that audience is.

The One Thing I'd Tell a New Author

Alex: After nine years of publishing and promoting Bloodlines, if you could go back to the day before you published Cove Point Manor, what is the one thing you'd tell yourself?

William: Make the story that is the book the best one possible.

Even if it takes longer.

Don't rush the writing.

Don't rush the editing.

Don't rush the cover design.

And don't publish for any reason other than the book is ready.

Everything else comes afterward.

Because you can spend all the money you want trying to get somebody to discover your book.

But when they finally do...

Make sure you've given them a story worth discovering.