Do I Need to Dance and Pretend I’m 17 to Sell My Writing? Have We Reached Rock Bottom?

Letter to a yet-to-be self published bestselling author

photo credit: Maíra Metelo

Dear Writer,

Here you are with your book finished. You look out the window on the bus on your way home after a day at your boring job. A job that feels like a grey cloud blocking the sun on a winter afternoon. You hold on to your 9-5 solely because you need to make some money to pay the rent and keep yourself alive. Your heart aches at the thought of having children, or worse, if you have them, how can you give them the life they deserve? You know you love writing. It’s where everything flows. Not writing feels like a sacrifice. Out of the window, staring at the little apartment lights all over the city, you wish that if only you could sell one copy—just one copy— to one person who lives in each of these apartments, you’ll be able to earn enough money to do what you’re meant to do in this life: write.

photo credit: Maíra Metelo

Do I need to dance and pretend I’m 17 to sell my writing? Have we reached rock bottom?

You know you can make it. You know you write better than many of the TikTok sensations — Do I need to dance and pretend I’m 17 to sell my writing? Have we reached rock bottom? You may think. You know that all you need is a break, if only you could be known as a reputable writer, if you could only win an award. A bestselling tag. A proof that your work is worth reading by millions.

You’re stuck in traffic. You look on your phone. You go to Amazon to see some of the rubbish that gets sold and are shining their bad writing on the top 10. Top 100 would have been enough for you at this stage. At least I could go to the newspaper or put on my website that I’m a bestseller. You’re right, dear Writer. You truly are.

Right now, there are people who studied less than you, read less than you, write less and worse than you and are making the big bucks and getting some awards all over the world. That can be you. I could do it and I didn’t sell 1000 books yet. I have a badge of #1 bestseller in Australia and #13 in Brazil. Yes, if I did it, you can too. Disclaimer: it takes time but not every day.

Do you need more money or more credibility and visibility?

The first thing you need is to ask yourself, “Do you need more money or more credibility and visibility?” If you say that credibility is more important now, then go ahead and sell your book on Amazon, and let’s work on the pre-sales. The pre-sales period is key. It truly is. Trust me on this one. You’ll likely need to spend a few hours understanding all the parameters of a pre-sale, including that if you print via KDP, you can only do a pre-sale with the e-book, not the physical copies. As you could have guessed, we all have those friends who will say “I don’t read e-books, I will wait for the paper copy.” —useless friend as they would be spending less than what they spend to buy a coffee just to help you out. Try not to hold a grudge. They don’t know. Which leads me to my other advice —and yes, it is for free—, you’ll need to educate your friends, family and colleagues about the importance of buying your book in the very tight three-hour window of a particular date of your pre-sale.

Hi! Remember me? Can you believe I’m writing a novel?!

I made a list of e-v-e-r-y-o-n-e I know. Literally. From work colleagues I haven’t seen in ten years to high school friends. I went on Facebook and wrote a post that I was so excited to be writing my first novel and asked if people believed it that it would actually happen! I’ve left it for a few days there. Then, I message each and everyone who replied or liked the post. To those who didn’t make any smoke signal, I messaged them directly connecting with something we had in common. For instance, to my friends who studied Drama with me, I said “Hi! Remember me? Can you believe I’m writing a novel?! I want you to be in the movie!! Hahaha”. Every single person replied, congratulating me, and we chatted for a bit, catching up with life topics. When the pre-sales launched, I let them know. Of course, the bulk of people who bought my book were close friends and family, but I sold some to those weaker connections, too.

Once the three-hour window finishes, you relax.

I called everyone I had a phone number. Each and every one of them. Individually. One to two weeks in advance of the pre-sales date. I spoke to them, asking how they were, to tell them the book was going into pre-sales and I was nervous—all true, never lie to them. I explained how the pre-sales worked, that I would put the price as low as Amazon would allow me, and the book had to be bought in a three-hour interval that I gave to them. They all agreed to do so. When the date and time arrived, all I did was send an exciting message with a shortened link to the Amazon book page of the region they live in. Once the three-hour window finishes, you relax. That’s easier said than done for those with the mildest anxiety. I had to check every so often and it drove me a tiny bit insane. Sure enough, when the 24 hours came along, my book was #1. I did a screenshot and a screen recording showing I was ahead of great literary names. I sent another bazillion of messages to everyone. I checked all Amazon regions and sure enough, because my crew lives in Brazil and Australia, these were the places I had more meaningful connections and therefore, where I got the dreamt badges. I should have kept screenshotting—is that a word? — all my ranking over the next couple of months. I was in the top 10 in Australia for a while, then in the 100 for even longer. My novel is, as of the day I write you this, number 99 in Fiction>Romance>Single Women.

Today, I clearly see the main mistake I made with influencers.

The other thing I did was to hire influencers. Some were happy to read and review my book in exchange for a free digital copy, while others charged me. Today, I see so clearly the main mistake I made with influencers: I hired book reviewers. Can I be bold and suggest a different strategy? If I were you —and I will do this for my next book—, I would be thinking of your audience that is most-likely-to-read-your-book and think what type of content they could they be watching and consuming. I say this because bookish influencers' followers already have a too-high to-be-read list for us to try to slide in. The competition is high. As an example, readers of women’s fiction are likely to like nice and sophisticated clothing, perhaps they are a bit bohemian, most likely they are all about yoga and self-development. Get influencers in those areas, including healthy food. If you write a psychological thriller, getting a therapist to speak about your character to her audience may be a lot more powerful than a book reviewer and their 200K followers who have 30K books to read already. Some insight: influencers may take a long time to respond, negotiate, read and post. Make sure you have plenty of time and notify them of the pre-sales period, which I suggest is about 3-5 weeks. I was in agony by making it 6 weeks, and 2 is far too short.

I cannot stress this enough. Categories matter.

The next very important thing to do as part of your pre-sales is to publish your book in the right category. Really. Truly, this is super important. Let’s face it, dear Writer, with all the categories and subcategories they have on Amazon, do you really need to put your book under “just” Romance competing with TikTok Dame Colleen Hoover? No. I don’t think so. Try to see another category that is less competitive and is true to your book. Maybe it’s Regional Romance if the story is set in a rural area or the character is highly influenced by her upbringing in a remote rural region. I cannot stress this enough. Categories matter. Watch some YouTube videos on this if you need to. I did.

You need 30 reviews in the first 90 days of your launch

You know what the hardest thing was for me besides understanding all of this? To get people to write reviews after the launch. There’s a little rule of thumb going around the book marketers of the world, saying that you need 30 reviews in the first 90 days of your launch. I never thought it would be so hard to have 30 reviews, having sold more than 400 books on the launch. I am still puzzled by this one.

Oh!Oh!Oh! I totally forgot to say that never, never, never, in any circumstance, notify people that there will be an in-person launch. Simply never. If your goal is to become #1 on Amazon, you need to truly concentrate those sales in the pre-sales. Having an in-person launch is great, if you can have one, please do. Try not to spend too much, if any, money on it. Tri-dimensional bookstores love to host them for free. Invest some time chatting to the bookseller or store manager and see how you can make it memorable. Libraries also love to have you, and some will let you sell your book on the spot while others only online.

Let’s open our own doors. Together.

Dear writer, I know your pain. Particularly you, the self-published one. You are forced to be so many things, from writer to publicist and web designer. You may long for those days of the rise of Margaret Atwood, Paulo Coelho, and other great names when publishing houses invested in launching their authors. I dreamt about this too. I truly don’t think this dynamic exists anymore and, to be honest, being able to self-publish means we don’t need to wait ten years for someone to open the door for us. Let’s open our own doors. Together.

Many women are coming to me to say my book must turn into a movie.

Being a #1 bestseller did not make me rich, nor it made me super famous —maybe I should have danced like a 17-year-old? — to land a book deal. However, it opened doors for me like crazy. I’ve been interviewed in literary magazines, I’ve been in three podcasts in less than two months, and many women are coming to me to say my book must turn into a movie. Women I don’t know. Women who are not friends of friends or family or even colleagues. I need to write my second book which I was hoping to have finished by now, but I’m only 1/3 into it. I know, I don’t feel I’m going to pull it off again. My goal is changing though. I want to be a NYT best-seller now, so I need an agent and so on. So it will take longer, but here we are. Writing every day, connecting with real people every week on our writing platforms and we keep going.

I leave you with the saying, “persistence is key.”

Malcolm Gladwell said he only became a bestseller after touring for two years with his book in every possible fair, club, store, or speaking opportunity that would say yes to him. Dan Brown said he only sold his first three books when he launched Da Vinci’s Code. In fact, he said that he almost didn’t write Da Vinci’s Code because of the effort to write another commercially failed book.

We’re all a little light in everyone else’s commute home.

Sending persistence and my knowledge to make you shine,

Yours sincerely,

Maíra Metelo

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🙏🏻🙏🏻Many thanks to Online Writing Club tribe member Maíra Metelo, author of Only If You Don’t Know Me & creator of The Architecture of Women on Substack, for this inspiring and insightful letter 🙏🏻🙏🏻 that’s gonna lift many readers up.

photo credit: Maíra Metelo

She’s an “an acclaimed designer turned novel writer, Maíra's debut novel has captivated readers worldwide, reaching number #1 in Australia and climbing to #13 in Brazil. With her deep understanding of creative expression and storytelling, Maíra is thrilled to share her insights through her publication The Architecture of Women on Substack and through her workshops about design, creativity, and imagination with children, teens, and adults.”

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