[Saul Tanpepper]

This is just this week. (Paraphrasing other threads here)

1. Select has run its course.
2. Twitter and Facebook are time sinks (as is all social media, presumably)
3. Paid advertising is a waste of money (Except Bookbub, but only if you're one of the few and anointed in advance)
4. Book review sites don't drive sales (So don't bother soliciting reviews)
5. POI and ENT are too clogged with submissions to care about your free book (see above)

So, for the author who is just starting out, there's no reliable way to market their book, no matter how hard they work. Every marketing option is followed up with a credible "don't bother" from someone on this board.

What am I missing?

I don't take any of these "ideas" as evidence that indie publishing is on the down slope. The market is in flux and so are the dynamics. If anything, indie is starting to mature.

 

[Saul Tanpepper]

We've just witnessed a movement passing through its infancy. By maturation, let me use the analogy of the Gold Rush:

In those days, there were no rules, no conventions, no standards. Gold was everywhere; you could pluck it off the ground. But that quickly passed. Mining as a business matured. Most of the prospectors went home (or met worse fates). Some day, we may fondly refer to the indies who led the self-publishing charge as the Oh-Niners. They got rich by the sweat of their brow and the luck of their timing. Those of us who came after are left resifting through the well-trodden ground to find our gold. And there's still much of it to be found. We just have to dig deeper.

[and that concludes my analogy ]