I think that the majority of struggles with which the less known trad and self-published authors come from the fact that even if readers aren't significantly restrained by lack of time or monetary means to fully immerse in their beloved hobby, the fact is that most people, or least me, are much more conscious about the real nature of they read, that about that of what they eat or drink for example.
You can half-ass your lunch and eat a bunch of chocolate covered pancakes, or a burger or two, you can drink whiskey if your friend haven't bought wine for the night, but have you ever shrugged off the possibility of reading anything not your alley as easily? I know I haven't.
So when it comes to books I prefer to base my decisions on word to mouth, trusted review sites( which means sites I trust, not necessarily the most popular ones - you have to take your taste into consideration after all) and in rarer cases - a genuine marketing effort bringing the book into my attention in a pleasant way. And in very few cases - I might go and buy a book from a forum fellow who I happen to like and want to support, but that's me being friendly, not me being fooled.
And fooling is exactly what most no-marketing-budget-I-am-an-author-now guys and gals happen to do in forums and social media groups as a whole. We all know cheap marketing, we all know a half-asses cover, or blurb or the weight of 3 lonely 5-star reviews.
And while I am willing to ignore the lack of glamour and flashiness in the presentation of a book, half-assed marketing is a sure way of losing my attention. Because there is a part of me well-aware of the many important fact, with probably the three most important ones being:
1. Readers are smarter demographic that your average Joe. I work in marketing - I know. There are certain crowds, demographics, certain interests, hobbies, and so on honing your "don't-bullshit-me" radar. Reading is one of those and there's nothing to be done. You cannot half-ass things when you are selling to smart folk.
2. If you have to brag for yourself, you probably know that no one else will. If you have 50 posts and 15 of them have a mention of your books - that's too much. If a thread has 50 posts and other people have mentioned your books 15 times - you have my attention.
2. Marketing is hard. And if you suck at it - expensive. But it's not rocket science. And if you've spent 100 hours writing your book baby and another 100 changing its diapers before it got published, then good for you. But writing 50 posts in a forum to mention your book 15 times would take you what - 10 hours? To reach 5 people? 50 people? Well, you could've spend those 10 hours getting an extra job, earning 20-50-100$ depending on your location and expertise. 20$ would buy you 2 000 - 40 000 reached people in websites like Facebook.
If you'd rather spam a forum every 3rd post and complain of lacking marketing funds while trying to spin every distant remark into a hallway to your book, then that's just sad and wasteful. If you are doing it as a way of complimenting your sound track-record of deliberate and successful marketing, evident by people leaving positive reviews for your book, or talking about it, or by the sheer quality of your preview pages, then that's another thing.
But lacking a marketing budget is not a valid excuse 90% of the time. There are really people with limited options to do things and earn money, but the same way most homeless guys are homeless because it suits their habits, the same way most authors are without a marketing budget and spamming forums because they've chosen this course above the ones with working extra hours and earning themselves one.
It sounds cynical, but the truth is most people could do more to be in less desperate circumstance, especially with things like writing careers and marketing budgets and reaching to more people via less annoying practices.
I don't condemn anyone - there are plenty of people in this forum who happen to be considerate enough in their self promos. When you make your peers happy for having a book out there - you are doing it right. You make them feel pride for your success, since they feel like you are one of them. Everything outside of this small utopia is just annoying fruitless behavior, wasting everyone's capacity of spending a more quality time in a forum or a place.