Marketing is NOT for the Exhausted.

While preparing my debut Historical Fiction novel for release on Amazon [ADD LINK] in March 2026, I did extensive research on book marketing. I had no experience with online marketing or marketing of any kind, for that matter. My starting point was that I knew there were several ways to market a book and social media was one of them. In December 2025 and January 2026, I posted videos and blogs multiple times a week to create some buzz around the book.

My last blog post about AGAINST THE ODDS OF TRADITION was on January 21^st. By mid-January, I had convinced myself that I needed to focus on paid ads in addition to social media. After running a couple of paid ads in December and January, I continued in February, March, and April. I kept my budget low, thinking I would learn my lessons and run more ads using those lessons. Lo and behold, the paid ads did not generate the sales I thought they would.

They generated tons of impressions and drove a lot of traffic to the book’s page, but Amazon’s reports told a clear story. The book was not flying off the virtual shelf. It was doing well but not well enough given the money I thought I was spending on ads and the time I had spent on social media and blog posts. I knew the problem was not the book. Meena’s story is one worth telling and I have enough feedback to know I have written it well enough to keep the reader engaged.

I also consoled myself with the fact that it had not even been two months since the book’s publication. It needed time to get discovered. The problem was, and continues to be, me. By the time the book was released on March 1^st, I had not posted anything of substance in over a month. The next set of ads did not start running until March 8^th. The book was not marketed at all for the first full week after publication. I also did a poor job of monitoring progress. Why?

Because I was exhausted. From the two-year journey down the whirlpool of writing and editing. By the time I finished the cover and completed every task required to prepare the book for publication, I had withdrawn too much from my pool of energy and was trying to swim in a few inches of water. I needed to sit up and reassess the situation. Get more water in my pool. That was how I learned my first and biggest lesson in Marketing. It is not for the exhausted.

The creative juices did not flow when I was mentally tired. In fact, they barely trickled. The right message for the right audience could not be developed over the days and weeks after hitting Submit for publication. I had to step away from Meena and AGAINST THE ODDS OF TRADITION to appreciate what the story is truly saying and to whom. Not quite ready to return with a bang, I have been refilling my pool of energy and working on my Marketing strategy.

I spent May and June making some adjustments. First, I converted the original video ad script for July into a poster advertisement with a targeted message. Second, I am running this poster ad on a single channel to prioritize quality over quantity and track progress more closely. Third, I am working on updates to the Amazon book page and categories for higher discoverability. I am no expert, just shooting tiny darts at a very large board. While creating more darts. In the dark.