Tips from published authors for finding your first 100 readers

You've published you novel but where are the readers? Find them with these tips from successful published authors.

They say writing a novel can be one of the hardest achievements one can accomplish. Anyone can call themselves a writer by starting to write a book, but far fewer actually finish.

So you've written you book and are ready to self-publish. Maybe you've already sent it off to Amazon KDP and are waiting for the bucks to roll in. Sooner or later, if you're like most, you are going to be hit with a massive wake up call; finding readers is harder than expected.

Most of us are writers not marketing experts but luckily for us, a lot of other writers were also in your same position. In this article we are going to look at the advice of various published (and self-published) authors for finding your first 100 readers.

Tiffany Hawk

Tiffany Hawk is a renown writing coach, novelist and editor who helps authors turn their writing dreams into careers.

She recommends starting with Beta Readers as the initial way to find your first readers. Beta Readers are people who read your novel before you are ready to publish. You provide your novel to a list of readers who are willing to give feedback and suggestions to help form the best novel possible before publication.

Beta Readers are great because they'll point out grammar mistakes, story logic problems and can save you from the embarrassment of sending a half-baked book out into the world (or to an editor). Since beta readers are typically free, you're also saving money from paying an editor to find these things.

"For fiction, they might let you know whether or not the dialogue is believable, the characters are cliched, and if the story stays interesting or slows down in certain parts."

If you've collected the right beta readers they are probably more invested in your novel than even your own family and friends. Once your novel is ready for publication you can easily request these same readers to publicly share your novel as well as leave public reviews on websites like Pen Pinery, GoodReads and Amazon.

Here you're able to turn beta readers into helpful reviewers as well as a small team of people wanting to see your novel succeed. There's very little downside to taking your novel through a beta reader program.

If you're interested in how to find beta readers and best practices I suggest Tiffany's blog post on the topic: https://www.tiffanyhawk.com/blog/beta-readers-where-to-find-them

Derek Murphy

Derek Murphy is a self-published author with over a dozen novels and thousands of reviews.

His secret to finding new readers is in two focuses; a blog and social network community building.

His website that promotes his fictional work receives about 500 visitors a day. That's nearly 200,000 visitors a year in potential readers. By building a blog - giving advice about writing, what he reads and posts about his genre - he is able to organically build an audience of readers who stumble upon his novels with compounding interest. With each blog post he writes he increases the chance a new reader will find his books.

The problem with starting a blog is also finding visitors to your site. But blogging (as well as writing novels) is akin to running a marathon, starting a blog has a cumulative effect that feels slow but over time you'll build credibility, organic growth and the momentum will skyrocket.

In addition to writing a blog, you can also leverage email sign ups from people who visit your website which are great for promoting new book releases and updates. People who sign up to your emailing list are people who like your work already which means are more likely to purchase your books.

Once you have a blog, you can also join or start an online community about your novel, genre or general writing. Online communities on Facebook or Reddit are good starting points but Facebook is probably easier to promote on than Reddit.

"Built a ton of friendships in my genre (YA fantasy/scifi) by creating a genre-based FB group for authors; I never cash in on that but it’s been great for motivation and peace of mind: a lot of my friends are much more successful than I am but I’ll catch up eventually."

When you are hanging out with writers and readers that love the genre you write in you have direct access to potential people who love your exact novels.

It is suggested for every one self-promotion post provide ten non-promotional posts back into the community. This can be in the form of blog posts you've written on writing advice, notes you've put together on the genre or even just being part of community discussion.

No one wants to read a book from someone who is a spammer but by being an active member in the community you become a trust individual and a champion of the genre. Your books will naturally be part of this communities interest over time.

Derek Murphy has some more advice on the topic and with great authority as he has achieved 100k book sales in the few years he has been releasing books. Find the full post here: https://www.creativindie.com/writing-advice-they-banned-from-reddit-ama/

Hugh Howey

Huge Howey hasn't only found a massive audience with his write he has also turned his novel, SILO, into an Apple TV series.

The brilliance of the internet is founded in its open knowledge source from all walks of life. When a best-selling novelist hands out advice to aspiring authors and then their own novels become TV shows one would be wise to read more about it.

Hugh Howey suggests not worrying about your first 100 readers after finishing writing your first novel. Instead he suggests get to writing the next book and keep doing this until you've accumulated a large backlog of novels.

"My father at the time wondered why I wasn’t spending all of my time promoting that first book. I told him I had my entire life to promote my works. I only had now to write. I stuck to that principle for years, writing and publishing several novels or short stories a year."

There is a saying in the KDP/Amazon world that you best marketing move is releasing a new novel.

Howey suggests that a writer is much better off with their 10th work gaining viral interest than their first.

Why? Because you can only sell one book if you only have one book. But if you have dozens of books a single reader can turn into a customer of multiple purchases.

"when your backlist matches the growth of your first breakout, you’ll do very well for yourself."

A common trick seasoned writers use when releasing a novel series is to include the first chapter of the next book at the end of the previous book. For example, book one includes the first chapter of book two. Book Two includes the first chapter of book three.

This keeps readers interested in the series by giving them a sneak peak. It also lets the reader know they are not left with a dead series that never finishes. Also, it gives them a call to action to buy the next book.

Howey has more advice to aspiring authors and this is only a surface level of the entire post. For more information check out the full post here: https://hughhowey.com/my-advice-to-aspiring-authors/

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We at Pen Pinery love reading about the origin stories of how authors got their writing career started and how they found their first readers. We suggest that you find your favorite author find out how they did it themselves.

If you're still interested in how to find more readers may we suggest joining Pen Pinery by cataloging your novels on your own customizable author profile. We give you tools to organically find new readers in an instant by using our social platform. Give it a try today!