I'm finding it difficult to understand why the majority of replies to the OP's question seem to come back to marketing. We have two very successful self-publishers on this forum who have made it clear that marketing isn't necessary.
Both @Held for Ransom and @ChickenHawk have clearly explained the "secret" behind their success:
As far as I can see, here's the "easy button" everybody keeps looking for:
1. Research the market and find a genre full of hungry buyers.
2. Write the very best book you can write.
3. Create a professional looking cover.
4. Create a compelling blurb and "look inside" to entice readers into buying.
5. Rinse and repeat.
Simple? Yes. Easy? Hell No!
If it were easy, there would be no need for this thread and every book that we all write would shoot to the top of Amazon's bestseller list.
Let's not forget that @ChickenHawk ran into some of the same problems that the OP is having when she first started her fastlane journey. CH began by writing children's books (three or four of them if I remember correctly) that didn't sell as well as she had hoped they would. But, as far as I know (@ChickenHawk please correct me if I am wrong), she didn't sit around and try to figure out an "effective marketing startegy" to help increase her sales. Instead, she had a large enough catalog of work to realize that the children's genre wasn't profitable enough to waste any more of her time in.
So, she did some more research and switched genres and pen names. It worked.
Then she wrote another book and became a respected Fastlane Legend.
Anyway, I write all of this to say that I believe @karmazon has a large enough catalog of books to realize that something obviously isn't working - and I don't think it has anything to do with marketing (or a lack thereof). There could be any number of problems (or a combination of problems): Maybe your writing books in the wrong genre, maybe you need to change the titles, maybe your blurbs aren't effective enough to make people want to buy, perhaps your writing style needs improvement, maybe your characters are flat and one dimensional. I don't think your covers are the problem (I personally like your covers). Who knows? But there has to be some reason that people are not buying your books.
I don't know how much market research you originally did, but maybe you just need to do a little more in order to figure out what the successful authors in your chosen genre are doing right.
Find out what buyers want and give it to them.
If you had the cure for cancer, how much "marketing" would you have to do?
Both @Held for Ransom and @ChickenHawk have clearly explained the "secret" behind their success:
As far as I can see, here's the "easy button" everybody keeps looking for:
1. Research the market and find a genre full of hungry buyers.
2. Write the very best book you can write.
3. Create a professional looking cover.
4. Create a compelling blurb and "look inside" to entice readers into buying.
5. Rinse and repeat.
Simple? Yes. Easy? Hell No!
If it were easy, there would be no need for this thread and every book that we all write would shoot to the top of Amazon's bestseller list.
Let's not forget that @ChickenHawk ran into some of the same problems that the OP is having when she first started her fastlane journey. CH began by writing children's books (three or four of them if I remember correctly) that didn't sell as well as she had hoped they would. But, as far as I know (@ChickenHawk please correct me if I am wrong), she didn't sit around and try to figure out an "effective marketing startegy" to help increase her sales. Instead, she had a large enough catalog of work to realize that the children's genre wasn't profitable enough to waste any more of her time in.
So, she did some more research and switched genres and pen names. It worked.
Then she wrote another book and became a respected Fastlane Legend.
Anyway, I write all of this to say that I believe @karmazon has a large enough catalog of books to realize that something obviously isn't working - and I don't think it has anything to do with marketing (or a lack thereof). There could be any number of problems (or a combination of problems): Maybe your writing books in the wrong genre, maybe you need to change the titles, maybe your blurbs aren't effective enough to make people want to buy, perhaps your writing style needs improvement, maybe your characters are flat and one dimensional. I don't think your covers are the problem (I personally like your covers). Who knows? But there has to be some reason that people are not buying your books.
I don't know how much market research you originally did, but maybe you just need to do a little more in order to figure out what the successful authors in your chosen genre are doing right.
Find out what buyers want and give it to them.
If you had the cure for cancer, how much "marketing" would you have to do?
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