My blog has not been getting many views lately which is giving me some concern in coming up with a marketing strategy for my finished novel. I have added a little teaser announcement to my Welcome Page, but if no one is visiting my blog, it is not going to be seen. Because of this, I spent most of yesterday afternoon (four to five hours) working on additional artwork and materials to share on social media in order to try and attract viewers to my book, but unfortunately, I had nothing useable by the end of my endeavors.

My family doesn’t understand my frustrations or my supposed “perfectionism” over trying to produce certain images over others to put toward my advertising posts. The book is meant for YA to NA readers, and it includes many things which can be found in other fantasy novels. But I want to showcase what sets it apart from those novels. Between the dozens of options available for self-publishing and the absolute bombardment of information we get when using social media, advertising strategies need to be able to catch people’s attention and draw in their curiosity.

Many of the suggested images that my family offered as alternatives to the ones I worked on yesterday will not help me at the moment, because the ideas behind them are drawn from long-established and popular fandoms. Logos, icons, and symbols work in advertising for established series because they target existing fans. Nearly everyone who is exposed to western pop culture can identify the series associated with numerous stylized images even if they aren’t a fan of the series itself, whether you’re talking Marvel, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Supernatural, Stranger Things, Jurassic Park/World, Pirates of the Caribbean, or any number of a dozen others. But what you need to keep in mind is that the icons of these series did not become recognizable until after they became popular. Again, those icons are used to draw in existing fans of established series.

I hope that eventually I might be able to use icons and logos to advertise my latest novels to an existing readership, but since I am just starting out, I need to give my potential audience more information in order to draw their attention. I need to showcase the things which set my stories apart from others in the genre and celebrate the things which will fulfill what my target audience desires in a novel. Knowing these things and being able to easily create the images/ads which will demonstrate them is not the same thing. Hopefully I’ll have better luck later today in putting together artwork which will work for my marketing needs.

Hezzie