How to market contemporary fiction/humor?

I'm clueless myself, but I'd love to hear some tips on marketing humor.

Not easy, it seems to be somewhat niche, although it isn't!

Yes, difficult to market humour/humor as tastes differ so much 

I suppose if you're looking for something to make you laugh then you'll stick with what you know. I just wondered if anyone knew of any sites tailored for contemp/humour books? I suppose thats like asking for a site dealing only in shark based horror!

I'm in the humor category (horror comedy), and yes it's difficult.  Took me well over a year to gain any momentum whatsoever.

I'd say a big driver is proving to people that you have at least a shot of being funny.  I tweet a lot, have posted samples, have written short stories with the characters, have a FB page run by one of the characters, etc etc. I'd like to think at least some of it is at least smirk-worthy.

Humor is hard because I think of all genres it's possibly the most subjective and most likely to fall flat on its face. Unscary horror can still be a good adventure read. Unromantic romance can still be quirky and/or titallating. Unfunny comedy is usually just plain old painful to read.

Good points Rick! Do you tailor your tweets to people/groups you know are interested in your genre? I think having a facebook page hosted by one of your characters is pretty interesting. I'm just bout to move into the horror genre (shorts) and that a really interesting idea, particularly if the thread of the books/characters are the same.

davidhaynes said:

Good points Rick! Do you tailor your tweets to people/groups you know are interested in your genre? I think having a facebook page hosted by one of your characters is pretty interesting.

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Not really on the tweets. Mostly just me and whatever pops into my head at the moment.

The FB page is a lot of fun. It's not a huge page (about 350 followers), but it's a very interactive group. It's entirely done from the character's POV and is mostly those bits and pieces of his life that happen outside of the books.

Rick Gualtieri said:

I'm in the humor category (horror comedy), and yes it's difficult. Took me well over a year to gain any momentum whatsoever.

I'd say a big driver is proving to people that you have at least a shot of being funny. I tweet a lot, have posted samples, have written short stories with the characters, have a FB page run by one of the characters, etc etc. I'd like to think at least some of it is at least smirk-worthy.

Humor is hard because I think of all genres it's possibly the most subjective and most likely to fall flat on its face. Unscary horror can still be a good adventure read. Unromantic romance can still be quirky and/or titallating. Unfunny comedy is usually just plain old painful to read.

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But Can You Drink The Water? took off in the UK in early 2011 (it is British humour) and was selling 3 000 copies a month and has over 50 reviews. It got as high as #20 on the best seller list and was #1 in three categories for over three weeks. It was also on the movers and shakers list on Twitter. But then Amazon changed something (algorithms?) and sales have dropped off to single figures. I don't know how one starts to re-build sales

I think that sounds a really interesting idea Rick. I can see from your books (and reviews) you've got some fans. Well done on your success!