As COVID-19 Passes, What Residual Impact Does It Have On This Self-Published Author

Greetings all,

As I type this, I’ve received one of my two Moderna vaccinations. We’re all excited to see the hope of a world returned to normal. We’re even seeing conventions spinning up, which led to this particular post.

Before COVID, we were poised to try a year filled with twelve conventions. We managed to do a few before COVID came on strong, but things shut down pretty quickly.

Once lockdown happened, I was forced (in a good way) to work on my marketing game. So I focused on AMS, trying to generate more sales. As you can see from my Marketing Journal series, I am selling more books. The problem is I’m spending way more than I make. Now I’m working that problem, trying to weed out useless keywords that only cost money, but that money spent takes away from money I can save for editing, cover art, chapter art and, in this case, conventions.

I don’t want to simply cut off all my AMS campaigns and save the money our family budgets for Weech because these campaigns are indeed getting me more sales. I feel the right thing to do is to keep working on those campaigns to make them profitable. Then they pay for themselves and help contribute to those other funds. However, that’s going to take time.

The wife and I have a few thoughts. Because some of the tables we purchased for 2020 were pushed down the line (meaning we still have the tables), we might actually be at a few shows this year. We’re just not honestly sure which (if any). We don’t really plan on doing any shows unless the tables are already arranged.

But we have hope for 2022. I’d love to be back in full swing (meaning 12 shows) that year, but that all depends on the budget and how long it takes me to figure out marketing.

COVID forced me to work on marketing, and I am (in a way) more successful because of it. COVID also effectively destroyed my efforts to improve my point of sales (books sold at tables). I might try some bookstores or libraries if I can pull those off. My hope is that we can get back to conventions in 2022, but we’ll have to wait and see.

Even though I’ve been at this for six years, I’m still learning more and more every year. I have a few other plans brewing in my head, but they all cost precious time, so I’m very careful deciding what to pursue and what to leave alone for now.

I’m curious to see what other authors out there are doing. If you have a system that works, please fill me in. Maybe you have a blog that really helped others (or yourself). Please, share the link. For now, I just wanted to pull back the curtain a bit and show you just one of the impacts COVID had on my life as an author entrepreneur. My hope is it will give those considering this path things to think about (and solve before they are problems). Another goal is to share ideas and see maybe where others have been able to succeed.

Regardless, I always appreciate the support you show me through following this blog and commenting.

Thanks for reading,

Matt