Marketing: Stuck In The Mud!

Well, anyone who has been reading my blog knows I have put a memoir story, Key West...Erotic Awakenings in Paradise, up for sale on the internet to start learning how to market books and to hopefully help others learn as well. I established a Payloadz account and a PayPal account and finally got the pay button on my site. I have the book listed on my website, http://johnraustin.yolasite.com/ under the "store" tab; I have it listed in a store provided on the Payloadz website and I have listed it on ebay and Craigs List.

I first listed my short story about three weeks ago (5/13/09) and have made no sales to date.

I am trying to market my book the best I can without making any out-of-pocket expenditures (on the cheap, in other words!). This is the only marketing I have done to date:

1- Posted info on the book in my blog.

2- Posted on twitter.

3- Mentioned the book on Facebook.

4- Sent out book info to a small email list of friends.

Why I think I'm not selling to date:

1- My blog does not have a big following yet...Poor marketing skills. Haven't spent any moolah to advertise my blog.

2- I have 449 followers on Twitter...not the massive audience probably needed. PLUS I don't think true social media bugs like ANY advertising...Regardless of what the marketeers tell you! Same goes for Facebook.

3- I really thought some of my friends would be interested...but, not yet. I did send some free parts out to them before BUT not the whole story with pictures. They would really enjoy if they coughed up the $3.00...I was hoping for a little word of mouth here if they liked the story...

4- I have'nt figured out how to acquire a good targeted list! Especially without paying for it.

ANY marketing suggestions would be warmly welcomed! I want this to be a learning/participating project if I can get response. If you don't want to (or can't) leave comments email me at gator1965@comcast.net ...

Some more experienced (I think) marketeers and authors have suggested giving this story away to build a platform of followers for future works...This will be discussed more in the next post...Stay tuned!