The Plan:
Last year, I had the idea to promote one of my published stories each month this year while offering the eBook on sale for 99 cents. I'd create pretty and cute graphics with some of the best quotes from my stories to post on Instagram and Facebook. I'd even planned to create a couple of reels, too.
(I love it when authors I follow do this. There's been many cases when I've added a book to my TBR list or bought it because I continued to see their posts and enjoy the teasers they shared. My hope was to generate the same outcome.)
The Plan Ruined:
Well, my plan immediately unraveled when my publisher said that they no longer mark eBooks on sale for 99 cents UNLESS the author is doing a big advertising push and paying for advertisement during the sale.
Look, I'm single. I live alone. I'm on a budget. I cannot afford to pay for advertising.
Hearing that was such a HUGE disappointment.
I'd already created a lot of graphics for my stories, so I thought I'd still go ahead with my plan, minus the sale.
The Outcome (so far):
In January, I started with 30 Seconds, my romantic-suspense novella. The first few days, the engagement was decent. Then it dropped.
Lesson Learned: DO NOT do a month-long spotlight. LOL! I had too many quotes that I liked that I'd wanted to share, but that was my mistake. I should've parred it down to two weeks of content, four days per week.
February, I moved on to 30 Seconds Before, the prequel to 30 Seconds that can be read as a standalone. I thought the engagement would be decent, again, like how it started out with 30 Seconds, but it was well below par.
March through September I spotlighted a story a month for the Disaster Crimes series. And that was just...brutal. *sigh*
Lesson Learned: Promoting an older published and completed series is HARD, especially if you're promoting each book separately. I honestly have no clue how to promote my series now.
Instagram's Sucky Algorithms:
Now, I know this problem is not just with me, and it's how Instagram's horrible algorithms bury our content and never show us posts from accounts we follow. Ever.
My posts now get a handful of likes. (Don't get me wrong. I am grateful for all of my followers, although I'd prefer it if IG let them SEE my posts, and I am grateful for the likes I do get.)
Sometimes, though, I get just two or three likes no matter what I try.
And I've tried it all: more hashtags, less hashtags, different hashtags, same hashtags, trying to hit high engagement days/times, Canva graphics, photographs, censoring words that romance authors use a lot so that I don't get put on some naughty list, but nothing makes a difference.
Instagram just hates me.
It is incredibly discouraging, and I know I'm not alone in this.
Some Content for Fun:
Because my posts weren't seen by many, I thought I'd share a few of my favorites for 30 Seconds and 30 Seconds Before in this post. They are hyperlinked if you'd like to visit the post on IG.
30 SECONDS:
30 SECONDS BEFORE:
Shared Exclusively in my IG Stories.
Shared Exclusively in my IG Stories.
