I was lucky as a young writer. At the time social media wasn't a huge thing, we found friends/colleagues/support on forums that were focused on the topic of interest. I found Forward Motion for Writers ( https://fmwriters.com/fm/ is their current form). Through that forum I met amazing authors (mostly traditionally published because this was back before indie was as possible). I participated in critique circles (as well as running my own) for many years on there. I don't go on there any more but as far as I can tell it still looks like a good resource.
I simply would not be the quality of writer that I am today OR published if it hadn't been for so many amazing people in that community supporting me and telling me to keep going. I had a DEVASTATING event where I lost 18 years of my writing and still they encouraged me to keep going forward and write bigger and better things (and it took a while but I have followed that advice). So for young, aspiring, or new writers this kind of support is invaluable and I do my best to pay it forward as I can.
I have spent this entire year researching marketing and marketing tools from the best book marketing people I could find on the internet. If you search there is an incredible amount of resources on this topic. Who doesn't want their books to sell and be successful? The thought of writing for a living is a dream for many of us (and a dream that often comes with unrealistic expectations we put on ourselves).
What I have learned: CONNECTIONS ARE KEY. It is not what you published, how good it is, what genre...it almost entirely boils down to who you know and if other people will promote your book. You can scream from the rooftops about your book all you want but it's proven that someone else who read it and recommended it carries FAR more weight for buyers than anything you can personally say. Most book sales are made by word of mouth recommendations from people who have read them. That's why book reviews are so important to authors.
Recently I've seen a lot of hate for the Writers Lift type posts on Twitter. Usually the argument is something such as:
"I want readers as followers not other writers."
Why I don't think this argument is wise:
I am an avid reader as well as a writer. This means I have friends who are also avid readers/writers. This means I also have just reader friends. It also means I am connected to those communities. If I see your book and I don't want it personally I WILL remember to recommend it to my friends who might. If I read your book and love it I will promote it for you as a book recommendation. By saying you don't want writers as follows you just want readers you are making a critical flaw in assuming that those writers don't have connections that will benefit you. And honestly, if you're the kind of person that just shoves other people down instead of lifting them up, I likely won't give you my business no matter how great your book is. And readers talk. They don't just recommend good books, they will also tell their friends who to avoid.
"They're my competition. Why would I promote them?"
Google estimates there are 130 BILLION books in the world. Your book is a raindrop in a vast ocean. Other writers aren't your competition. They're the ones that know how to reach your audience. Readers are interesting in the fact that they have very specific tastes and they all vary. So they often will seek out authors that write things similar to authors they've read and liked. All the book marketing gurus I've listened to over the last year encourage you to at least seek out writers of the same genre and see where their audience hangs out, what sort of content they post for readers, and make connections as colleagues. In my opinion: This isn't us vs them, this is all writers need to be throwing each others life preservers in this vast ocean so we get noticed and don't drown.
"If I trade a sale for a sale to support other writers I'm not making any money."
This is true. If you buy a book that is the same price as the one you sold, you did not make money. Take a moment to consider how many authors are in the same exact boat. "I won't buy your book because you won't buy mine." That's the wrong way to approach things. Every one of us is struggling right now. You aren't the only starving author in this world.
However, I have bought books personally I wanted as a reader to support other authors. Then I have reviewed/promoted them. In turn, some of them (not all, not even most, but some) have returned the favor. The problem is when you start expecting it or buying books and reviewing in 'trade' for someone else doing it. Maybe they can't afford to. Maybe they're struggling more than you are. You don't know. If you knew how many authors are scraping by, not able to pay their bills, not able to buy food, don't have good living conditions...it's more common than you think. But you're thinking about it all wrong if you have this attitude. Other writers are usually readers. If not, they know readers. If you make that positive connection that gives you access to every one of their connections.
Alternatively, you can annoy your fellow authors, and in turn everyone in their circle including readers that may have been interested in your book. It works both ways. It's a little naïve to think readers only talk to each other about good books. MOST reading communities I am in will recommend good reads but they will also share books and authors they avoid.
It's true that you can't sell your book if no one knows it exists. It's also known to be a bad marketing strategy to ONLY promote your own book constantly and not offer any other related content. And you don't have to buy every book that you share (unless you WANT to read/review it). Even a share can help people reach someone who does want it. The point of a writer's lift from a marketing standpoint is not to get everyone who posts in the thread to buy your book. You're right, that's not going to work. We're all authors there to push our work. The point of a writer's lift is so that they will share your book with their audience of readers who MIGHT buy your book. Every time another author retweets your post you are reaching their audience, which might be just other authors but is probably also full of readers. The wider your reach, the more possibility for a sale.
I heard one marketing creative say that for every 100 business cards he gives out he gets maybe one sale. Most authors are looking at this the wrong way. Not every follower is going to buy your book. Expecting them to is a little unrealistic. Out of 1000 you might get one that buys your book. It might be even less than that. I have over 18,000 followers as of this post and I have only sold a little over 600 books in 3 years. That's definitely not every follower of mine buying one of my books. In fact that's an extremely low percentage. However, I am grateful for every sale I've made. How many would I have made if I didn't market widely? Most independent authors only sell to friends/family because they can't get the word out about their books. EVERY follower you get, every person you follow, has a unique set of followers. Some might be the same as yours, but there will be some that aren't, new people you are reaching by reaching out further in your network.
Building a platform can take 5 years of work or more. This isn't a quick fix, and social media can be very finicky as well as cliquey on who they support. Just because the book world rallies around one author and they get lucky and successful doesn't mean people will do it for everyone. Again it's about who you know and most often these people have made friends with their community and their community wants to support them. Networking and making connections are the MOST important parts of marketing books. It's the biggest thing the gurus will tell you to do. Because the weight of someone else praising you will ALWAYS be more convincing than tooting your own horn.
I can tell you that my own books are awesome and give you a list of reasons why or even qualifications that could make me a great writer. But that won't ever be as good as some random person that reads it, leaves a 5 star review, and promotes it/gifts it to all their friends.
Marketing gurus will tell you to limit advertising to ONE day on your social media and fill the other days with other related content, because no one likes advertising 100% of the time, any more than that and you are damaging your sales.
But for me, personally, I know how hard other writers struggle. And I've read their work. I ONLY read indie authors now, I don't buy traditional published work anymore except for a very grave few 'known' authors that I know I will enjoy (and even then I've stopped on most, because their new books disappointed me). There are SO MANY talented writers in the community that deserve to be doing so much better than they are and are despairing, lost and alone, in the corner...wondering what's wrong with them or if they're a terrible writer. How many geniuses of creativity has the world lost to this? I, for one, will champion those people and lift them up just so not one more of us that I know of that I can help falls through the cracks. There's nothing wrong with them. Nothing wrong with their writing. They just haven't found their audience. FINDING your audience is the key, and the hardest thing to do.
If we don't support the awesome ones that are fading away we'll be left with mediocre regurgitated stories in the mainstream and we will lose even more readers to the vast majority of other forms of media. We need to be promoting greatness when we see it, even if it's not our own, for the good of everyone in the community. Especially in the indie author community which has the stigma for having low quality work. To overcome that we all need to be showing everyone that there are amazing works of genius until we drown out the stigma that all indie authors are worthless.
I WANT the connections to other writers. And their readers through them. Whether they read my genre or not they might know someone who does.
Not to mention that many of these fellow authors are just beautiful people I am grateful and humbled to know. I wouldn't have made good friends with similar interests if I pushed away other writers as competition. Writing is a difficult career, we need all the help and support we can get.