Being an independent author has taught me many things.

I've learned about editing, formatting, metadata, ISBNs, retailer dashboards, advertising, mailing lists, audiobooks, social media and the peculiar emotional experience of watching an Amazon ranking move three places while pretending not to care.

But lately I've discovered something else.

There may now be more people specialising in selling books than there are people writing them.

I realised this after receiving an email from a Listopia Specialist.

Yes.

A Listopia Specialist.

I stared at the title for a moment and wondered whether I had somehow wandered into a particularly niche branch of medicine.

Apparently not.

Spend enough time as an author with a publicly available email address and an entire professional ecosystem begins introducing itself.

There are book marketing specialists. Book promotion specialists. Author branding specialists. Book trailer specialists. Goodreads specialists. Amazon optimisation specialists. Visibility specialists. Metadata specialists. Reader engagement specialists. Social media specialists. Launch specialists.

LinkedIn can occasionally resemble a convention at which everybody is wearing a badge reading SPECIALIST, although nobody appears to have agreed on what they're specialising in.

And I should make something clear before the cannons begin firing.

There are very good publishing professionals.

Editors possess skills authors genuinely need. Cover designers understand visual communication. Publicists with established media relationships can create opportunities an author cannot manufacture alone. Advertising professionals who understand platforms, audiences and measurable conversion can be enormously valuable.

Expertise is real.

The problem isn't the word specialist.

The problem is when the title becomes the evidence.

The unsolicited diagnosis 

Many of the emails I receive follow a remarkably similar pattern.

First comes the compliment.

My novel has been “carefully reviewed.”

Its “unique premise” has been noticed.

My “compelling narrative” apparently possesses tremendous untapped potential.

This is flattering, particularly when the person delivering the compliment has occasionally managed to get the title of the book right.

Then comes the diagnosis.

My visibility isn't optimised.

My Goodreads presence is underperforming.

My Amazon metadata could be stronger.

My trailer strategy is apparently suffering from an alarming shortage of trailers.

My reader engagement has unexplored potential.

Fortunately—and what extraordinary luck—the person who discovered this problem happens to sell precisely the service required to fix it.

It is the publishing equivalent of somebody knocking on your door and saying:

“Good afternoon. I've noticed you have a serious gutter problem. Fortunately, I am a Gutter Visibility Specialist.”

Authors are unusually attractive customers 

There is a reason this industry exists.

Authors want their books to be read.

And most independent authors operate with incomplete information.

We can see sales. We can see rankings. We can see advertising clicks. We can see reviews arrive and disappear into silence. But we cannot always see why one reader bought a book while another scrolled past it.

That uncertainty creates fertile ground for certainty merchants.

Your book isn't selling because your trailer isn't cinematic enough.

Your book isn't selling because you're not on enough Goodreads lists.

Your book isn't selling because your metadata isn't optimised.

Your book isn't selling because you need greater social proof.

Perhaps.

But here's the awkward question:

Can you demonstrate that?

Not with impressions.

Not with followers.

Not with a beautifully designed report containing seventeen pie charts.

Can you show a plausible path from the money I give you to readers discovering and buying my books?

Because that's the bit that matters.

I have become increasingly fond of boring numbers 

The longer I publish, the less impressed I am by impressive terminology.

I like boring things now.

Click-through rates.

Cost per click.

Landing-page visits.

Downloads.

Sales.

Read-through.

Newsletter growth.

Reviews from people who actually read the book.

If I spend money on advertising and readers click, I can measure that.

If I make the first book in a series free and readers subsequently move into later books, I can observe that behaviour over time.

It isn't glamorous.

Nobody gets to call themselves a Narrative Ecosystem Conversion Architect.

But at least I'm learning something.

And sometimes the lesson is that an experiment didn't work.

That's useful too.

Before hiring a specialist, ask an unspecialised question 

I have developed a very simple filter for unsolicited book-marketing offers:

What exactly will you do, how will we measure whether it worked, and what happens if it doesn't?

A genuine professional should be able to answer that without smoke appearing from the machine.

What are the deliverables?

What does it cost?

What evidence supports the strategy?

Which results are actually attributable to the work?

Can I speak to authors who have used the service?

Are those authors still using it?

And perhaps most importantly:

Did you actually read my book before telling me what is wrong with its marketing?

That last question has become rather useful.

The uncomfortable truth 

There is no single lever that makes strangers buy books.

A strong cover helps.

A good description helps.

Reviews help.

Advertising can help.

A mailing list helps.

Price matters.

Genre matters.

Timing matters.

A growing catalogue matters.

And—rather inconveniently—the book itself matters.

Even after all of that, sometimes a campaign works.

Sometimes it doesn't.

Sometimes an older book unexpectedly wakes up two years after publication and starts introducing new readers to everything that followed it.

Publishing is messy like that.

Which may explain why I'm becoming increasingly suspicious whenever somebody offers me certainty.

Specialists welcome 

So this isn't a declaration of war on book marketers.

If you genuinely know something I don't, wonderful.

Teach me.

If you have evidence, show me.

If you've developed a service that creates measurable value for authors, charge appropriately for it and be proud of your expertise.

But if your entire proposition consists of an impressive title, a Gmail address and an unsolicited message explaining that my books suffer from a problem only you can solve...

I'm afraid you may encounter another specialist.

Me.

I am an increasingly experienced Delete Button Specialist.

My consultations are remarkably brief.

And currently, they're free.

Iwan Ross is the author of The Haunted Highlands Series and the founder of BlurbCraft Studio.