She was terribly disappointed. In fact, it was clear she felt betrayed by the thousands in her social networks.

I understand her frustration.

Like so many other authors, she has heard lots about the importance of social media in book promotion. There’s a reasonable expectation that a chunk of those connections will buy your book, right?

Unfortunately, it’s an expectation that isn’t necessarily based on reality. And that’s why it’s important to manage your expectations.

Manage your expectations about social media

There are a couple of reasons why any author, but especially this author, might have unrealistic expectations about what’s possible with social media.

To begin with, social media algorithms are such that most of your followers don’t even see what you share about your book. This is especially true with Twitter. Blink once and your feed has all new tweets.

And if most of your connections come through your Facebook business page (which is not your profile), fuhgeddaboudit. The only way most will see anything there is if you pay to “boost” a post so it gets fed to more newsfeeds.

Just ask famous authors

In addition, the size of your social network isn’t an accurate predictor of your book’s success, as The New York Times points out in “Millions of Followers? For Book Sales, ‘It’s Unreliable.’ ”

For example, popular musician Billie Eilish has 97 million Instagram followers and 6 million Twitter followers, but only sold 64,000 copies of her book in the first six months.

But here’s there’s another even more important reason why the disappointed author’s social media followers didn’t buy her book: They weren’t interested in it.

Who’s in your networks?

Pretty simple, isn’t it?

This author’s social network is built around an impressive nonfiction body of work that has no connection to her novel. That’s why it’s unrealistic to expect that those she’s connected to for one type of writing will automatically be interested in anything she writes in a totally different arena.

It’s a reminder that you need to know your book’s target audience. They might not be your colleagues on LinkedIn or your high school classmates on Facebook.

Friends and family might disappoint, too

I also hear regularly from many authors who are crushed because too few of their friends and family are buying their books.

I feel their pain, believe me. Don’t get me started on how my siblings were too busy to watch me talk about my first book on national TV.

Some push their relatives to review their books on Amazon, then are annoyed when they don’t.

Your relatives are doing you a favor when they don’t review your book. Family reviews violate Amazon’s review policy because relatives can’t be objective.

(Look at it this way: It’s one less opportunity for you to be disappointed.)

Try to be fair

If you’re honest with yourself, you’ll realize there’s a good chance your friends and family aren’t interested in what you’re writing about.

And, quite frankly, it’s unfair of you to expect them to spend their hard-earned dollars on something they won’t read.

You might think they should do it out of loyalty, or maybe curiosity, but I disagree. Judging by the number of authors who complain about close connections who don’t buy their books, I’m a bit of a lone voice here.

Continue to tell your friends, family, and social media connections about your books. It’s a smart thing to do, and it’s not a waste of time.

But don’t hold it against them when they don’t buy. They know what they enjoy reading, and it might not be what you write. It’s not personal — it’s life.

Manage your expectations about the marketplace

You also want to manage your expectations on a more macro level — the publishing universe.

Unless your book is on a very niche topic, it faces a lot of competition.

That means that yours has to be better. You also have to work to make sure the people you wrote it for know about it.

No overnight successes

Even with a great book and an exceptional marketing effort, most of us aren’t going to hit The New York Times best-seller list. Bona fide best sellers (as opposed to short-term Amazon category best sellers) are usually traditionally published books by authors with large, well-established audiences.

You’ll also be less stressed if you don’t see your book’s launch as the be-all and end-all.

Sure, do your best to introduce your book to your ideal readers as soon as it’s published, but don’t stop there. If you understand that this is a long process that only starts with a launch, your book sales are more likely to meet your expectations.

And please, try not to be angry or disappointed with people who aren’t as interested in your book as you’d like. Writing, producing, and marketing a book is hard enough. Protect yourself by avoiding that extra, toxic layer of resentment.

Focus instead on reaching your ideal readers. It’s the best use of your time.

Much of this is article is about understanding your book’s audience. Who do you think is most likely to buy your book?

(Editor’s note: This article was first published in January 2014. It has been updated and expanded.)

“My book’s been out for three weeks, but I haven’t sold nearly as many as I thought I would by now! What’s wrong?”

I hear this repeatedly from authors — in person, via email, online.

Somehow, many authors have been brainwashed into thinking that if they don’t sell thousands of books in the first few weeks of publication, that all is lost.

It’s hopeless.

They’ll never sell another book again.

Discouraged and disappointed, they stop doing anything to support, market, or promote their books.

They just give up.

What many instructors don’t understand about books

I don’t think anyone is teaching this, though. It’s more likely that authors are seeing that online course instructors are completely focused on how to launch a book, ignoring what comes later.

This could be because many popular book marketing training programs were created by people who are internet marketers. They treat books like online products, which tend to sell the best only when they’re new. It’s that whole “scarcity” concept — “The cart is closing now!”

With many digital products such as book marketing courses, you can only buy the product for a limited time.

That’s hardly the case with books. I wonder if many course creators miss that point.

But just because internet marketers don’t try to sell their online training programs and other digital products once they’re not “new” anymore doesn’t mean you should take that approach with your books.

The long tail

In general, books don’t become wildly popular overnight. For book sales, there’s what’s often referred to as a “long tail.” A lot of products sell slowly, in small quantities, for a long time (hence, a “long tail”).

In contrast, a relatively small number of books are immediate best-sellers.

Those that do skyrocket to the top quickly are nearly always from traditional publishers that are supporting the titles with significant marketing budgets. And with the exception of a few debut authors, the best-sellers are often written by established writers.

Penguin’s campaign for Celeste Ng’s second book, Little Fires Everywhere, is an excellent example. Marketing started months before publication date and included a major ad campaign.

Why would you expect the same results without those resources? The average author simply doesn’t receive this level of publisher support. Because of that, it’s clearly unrealistic to expect sales that match those of household-name authors in the first few weeks of publication.

Amazon category best-seller status is deceptive

Oh, sure, you can orchestrate an Amazon category best-seller campaign (that’s an affiliate link for a free e-book that tells you how to do it). But you know that hitting number one in a category isn’t the same thing as being a true best-seller. You can sell fewer than 10 books in one day and become a category best-seller for a short time.

The only real reason for working toward category best-seller status is bragging rights.

Authors aren’t complaining to me about not reaching that goal, though. They’re complaining that they haven’t sold hundreds or thousands of books as soon as their books are introduced.

It rarely works that way. Instead, many books become true best-sellers over time because of good word-of-mouth.

Why book marketing requires patience

In order for people to talk about your book, they have to read it. Most of us don’t read a book as soon as we buy it — your book gets added to a stack of others waiting to be read, or sits on an e-reader. (Right now, I’m reading a book I purchased a year ago!)

Readers will get to to your book eventually. When they do, they’ll tell others about it if they love it. It takes time for them to discover, buy, read, and recommend your book.

If you’ve got a huge publisher behind you who distributes hundreds of advance review copies in an effort to build buzz before, during, and after your book launch, you’re very lucky.

But if you’re the average author, whether you’ve used a traditional, hybrid, or self-publishing model, you need to be in it for the long haul — or tail.

Success doesn’t happen overnight. You need to be patient.

Adjust your expectations, then keep marketing long after the launch.

Ride that long tail to publishing success.

What have you been doing to promote your book beyond that launch window?

Tip of the Month

I like to share a “Tip of the Month,” a free resource or tool for authors, on the last Wednesday of the month.

This month it’s Awesome Gang, “where awesome book readers meet awesome writers.”

This site, run by an author, offers a number of opportunities for book exposure. They range from getting listed on the site to author interviews (you interview yourself) and social media mentions.

There’s no charge for any of this. For a mere $10, though, you can get your book featured on Awesome Gang’s home page and be guaranteed a spot in its social media promotion.

Learn more at AwesomeGang.com.