Scott Price writes in the spirituality and self-help genre and is the author of Power to Awaken: Totality.  His incremental approach to marketing is more focused on direct interaction with readers, and he shares his thoughts on that here.

1. Tell me briefly about your book – what is it about and what motivated you to write it?

I was motivated to create Power To Awaken: Totality to find a special place beyond the current mold of “pop-spirituality” and the simplicity of the message of being presented.  This book provides a retreat for the reader to find their own stillness, self-reflection and silence which leads them to their own experience based on who they are and what they believe to be true.  I just found in my reading that there is a lot of telling from a position of authority when “spirituality” cannot be told, it just is everything seen and unseen and it has to be known on a person by person basis.  Thus this book gives some topics for contemplation and then quickly exposes the importance of going beyond the mind and into a space of trust and deep listening to connect with higher powers.

2. How have your sales been?

This project has just been released.  Sales of the best quality PDF version of the book through my site have been the highest.

3. Have you been published by a traditional publisher?  Why or why not?

I am submitting to a couple hand-selected publishers in this specific genre and will see how it goes.  The best thing I can do here is let the quality and uniqueness of the content speak for itself.

4. How have you liked self-publishing so far?

I liked the ability to do it myself on my own timeline and retain domain over creativity.  I found that the re-formatting of this type of book where each page is an artistic tile was extremely laborious!

I do think that something is going to break soon with the sheer uncontrolled volume of self-published books.  This is where respected and quality blogs and genre specific sites and catalogs will continue to gain importance.

I self-published through Smashwords and was very pleased with the entire process and clarity of direction and instruction from them. I also contacted Dog Ear which is a self-publishing company.  It took them over 2 weeks to respond to me and I spoke to 2 different people who had no idea of what was going on.  I felt like they were a web front just trying to take money from publishers by auto formatting it for them.

5. What sort of marketing techniques have you used to sell your books, and which ones have been most successful?

Making direct connections with people.  I mean while many novels are trendy and popular, books like mine are directly sought out for people who feel hectic and want some relief or want a friend finding deeper meaning to life.

6. What’s the most important thing you’ve learned about self-publishing that you didn’t know when you started out?

That just putting it up there on the web won’t sell itself.

7. If you could do one thing differently in publishing your books, what would it be?

Not sure as this process really just was what it was.  I imagine I’ll come across many details when I publish my next book on self-mastery for athletes.

8. Independent authors face the obvious challenge of marketing their books without the resources of traditional publishers.  What advice do you have for an indie author just starting out?

I think there is a balance between not giving up and also letting a project go.  Try new things marketing wise and don’t be attached to the results in terms of your projects or your own self worth.  I have adopted a bite by bite philosophy of getting this book out there to readers and I’m not pushing or spending money to do so.  I believe that people give up promoting before they have even made an imprint on the web for readers to find them.

9. If you could market your brand – not just one particular book, but your overall brand of writing – in one sentence, what would it be?

Awaken, explore and allow your true potential to shine.

10. How can readers learn more about your books?

I didn’t write this book for my readers to learn about my books, I wrote it so they could learn about themselves.  The book is full of permission to accept yourself and love yourself as you are and this frees up energy and room to actually grow and improve.  When we don’t accept ourselves and see the world as lacking then we want to change and are more unable to do so.  Free yourself up from the illusion of a single-pointed perspective and the universe supports you in all ways.

A sample of Power To Awaken: Totality can be seen at my site.