Today is my oldest son's 18 birthday, and what am I thinking about? Of course...marketing.

Ok, it's not all bad. I did wish him a happy birthday at midnight last night, and this morning. And likely will again tonight. When he gets home from work.

But, amongst all of this, I'm thinking about marketing.

And the Catch 22 of marketing.

These days the publishing landscape is such that, in order for your books to sell, you have to have them in front of reader's eyes. Well, ok, that hasn't changed from the days of old. If the reader doesn't know your book is there, they won't buy it. That's simple common sense. Or logic, which ever label you prefer.

So, how do we get our books in front of readers?

That's where the Catch 22 comes in.

In order to get mass exposure, you need to be on some best seller list. Well, you can't make it on a best seller list unless you have....exposure. However, once you catch the wave and hit the best seller list, the monster should feed itself for a good while. As long as you have a quality product, that is.

So, don't even think about the best seller list until your cover, blurb, and most of all, story, are right.

Anyway, this Catch 22 issue.

To hit the best seller list, you need mass exposure. But, in order to get that kind of mass exposure, you need to be on the best seller list. So how do all of those books get onto that best seller list? Well, lots of ways, actually. How can you get yours on there, is the question. 

The answer is...any way that you can.

Seriously.

Whether you have to run a paid ad in some publication that guarantees thousands of eyes are on it, or you get lucky enough to run a free add in some publication, or you have to bribe 3,000 of your most willing neighbors to download a copy of your book in Kindle format, you do what ever you have to do, to get those downloads going.

Tell friends and family they can throw away the ecopy after they pick it up. You don't care what they do with it, as long as they download it. The key is to get it downloading, so it raises in the ranks and hits the best seller list, so other people that may actually want to read it will SEE it and download it themselves. Remember, just because YOU know it's a work of art, no one else knows that until they read it. And they can't read it till they see it. And they won't see it unless it's visible.

So...what back door method can you come up with to hit your best seller list?