I just bought your book based on the post above. Maybe it’s marketing? Your book is also aimed a small niche(I’m on your target market!), maybe that’s it?
Marketing requires a huge budget in the VC age since you're competing with ever increasing ad prices. I have spent a lot of money on advertising regardless.
One thing that has been a major sticking point for me however, ist hat distribution has been a huge issue. I wouldn't say my target market is that small. Most of the Middle East and Asia is quite ripe for my book but amazon doest operate it's self-publishing arm out there and the alternatives have not been that enticing.
And yet the free source of marketing (your twitter account) doesn't have a link to the book.
Neither does your HN bio.
Your website is broken (expired SSL certificate).
As far as I can tell you don't have a single page that tries to sell the book. A link to amazon is a bare minimum.
https://writeusefulbooks.com/ is an example of a master class of marketing a book. It describes what the book is about and why one should buy it. It established the author as successful writer and therefore authority on the subject.
He also wrote an article good enough to hit HN and be a driver to the website. That required 0 budget.
Maybe your failure at marketing are a result of you being bad at it, not a universal truth that you can only be successful with "huge budget".
Strongly agree with this: >not a universal truth that you can only be successful with "huge budget".
That quickly becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The true GOATS of advertising and marketing, like for example Dave Trott, beat the point that you should play games you can win into your head over and over.
If one can't compete buying a ton of ads, don't try. But making a book that's useful to a small group of people, by making a clear promise, specifying who it is and isn't for, and then aggressively iterate with beta-readers until you start to get word of mouth, changes the equation more from needing lots of money to putting in a lot of the right kind of effort.
This is a mental trap that is super easy to fall into. The author of the article is writing a marketing guide. Marketing encompasses the entire product and go to market design, of which advertising is just a tiny part. Notice in his table of contents that advertising is only mentioned in one chapter very late in the book.