the first ship has sailed.

[robertbevan]

weekly update.

it's been two weeks now, and i'm still sitting on seven sales. on smashwords, i had a spike in page views and sample downloads a few days ago... no idea why. unfortunately it didn't amount to any sales. bummer.

also, i'm sinking deeper and deeper into amazon's rankings toilet. #415,694

but no worries. i've got (what i think is) a great idea for part of my website, something that will keep people coming back to it and telling their friends about it (i hope), but i'll keep that to myself until i get the thing up and running. i'm doing final exams this week and next, then i'm on summer vacation. i should be able to get some stuff done.

[oshun55]

Best of luck Robert!

[robertbevan]

thanks, oshun. right back atcha.

[Rob Lopez]

Good luck on the website.

[Wesley Kang]

Best of luck Robert! It's a marathon, not a sprint.

Or somesuch.

[robertbevan]

one more unit sold on amazon.uk!

that's 8 sales now. two away from my first milestone.

[Rob Lopez]

Originally Posted by robertbevan

one more unit sold on amazon.uk!

That'll be me.

I downloaded a sample of your book and after laughing through several pages of it, decided to buy. I used to games-master rpgs and the setup took me right back. I think I've played with the guys you portray.

I'm about halfway through but it's late so I need to stop now. Will let you know what I think when I'm done.

[robertbevan]

Originally Posted by Rob Lopez

That'll be me.

hey wow, thanks!

I downloaded a sample of your book and after laughing through several pages of it, decided to buy. I used to games-master rpgs and the setup took me right back. I think I've played with the guys you portray.

that's fantastic to hear, because that's pretty much exactly what i was going for. my target demographic is former (or maybe still current) gamers who have since grown up, but are still man-boys at heart.

I'm about halfway through but it's late so I need to stop now. Will let you know what I think when I'm done.

please do. and thanks again!

[Kriven]

Your demographic sounds like me! Let's take a look.

[robertbevan]

weekly update.

book's been out three weeks now. still stalled at 8 sales between amazon and smashwords, but i've been getting a few hits on smashwords every day. this morning i notice the first free sample download i've had in more than a week.

but here's some good news... i got my first review on amazon. it was a hell of a good one as well. after a bit of digging, i discovered it was from a fellow AWer, but not one that i've had a whole lot of interaction with. anyway... it was a review that i didn't ask for from someone i don't know, and who had no stake in my success. so i'm going to try to ride high on that until i get a couple more sales.

i'm right near the 500,000 rank on amazon. should probably be crossing that line today.

it's exam week here at work, so i've made absolutely no progress on book two. vacation starts tomorrow, though, and i'm hoping it will be a productive one.

[Rob Lopez]

Originally Posted by robertbevan

but here's some good news... i got my first review on amazon. it was a hell of a good one as well. after a bit of digging, i discovered it was from a fellow AWer, but not one that i've had a whole lot of interaction with. anyway... it was a review that i didn't ask for from someone i don't know, and who had no stake in my success. so i'm going to try to ride high on that until i get a couple more sales.

Straight up there at five stars! Congratulations Bob. Here's hoping it spurs some sales.

[robertbevan]

thanks rob. no more sales just yet, but another bit of good news. i just got my premium status on smashwords. if i understand things correctly, that should make my book available at some other places.

[Wesley Kang]

Congrats Robert! That was one heck of a nice review. And congrats also on your premium status!

[robertbevan]

well... it's tuesday, so i guess i owe you all a weekly report.

not much to report though. still stalled out at 8 sales. i'm about to hit the 600,000 mark on the amazon rankings.

i'm about four pages into a short story i'm writing to promote my novel, and i posted the beginning of it on syw, and it's been looked on pretty favorably so far. it's getting across the things i want it to get across.

but i'm kind of dragging my ass these days. i'm on summer vacation, which means more time at home with the wife and kids, which means i'm not getting a whole lot of writing done. i've got to head to the office tomorrow to make some corrections on some students' grades, so there's a chance i might get to sneak in a bit of writing while i'm there.

i am happy to be able to look at smashwords and see that three or four people are at least clicking on my book every day.

[merrihiatt]

It can be a slow process, this building a readership. Hang in there.

[robertbevan]

it's tuesday again.

not a whole lot to report this week. no more sales to report, but i have gotten a surprising amount of work done this week for being on vacation and having taken the family to an island on the weekend.

i've been critiquing other people's work on this site as well as some others, and people have appreciated that. and i think it's generated some traffic for me.

more importantly, i'm about 2,300 words into my promotional short story, which doesn't sound like a lot, but you really don't know how little i'm normally able to do on my vacations. the thing is, it's first draft stuff, and it'll need a bit of cleaning up before i actually publish it, but it's not bad for first draft stuff. i've written much much worse. i've put it up for critique on our own syw forum ( http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=248736 ) as well as a couple of other fantasy writers' forums, and i've gotten a lot of positive feedback from it.

and my book's smashwords site has been getting about five or six hits a day on average this past week, as opposed to the two or three hits it was getting before. so that's something.

still waiting for my book to hit the e-shelves of barnes&noble and all those others, but i only went premium about two weeks ago. i might still have a while yet to wait on that.

all in all, i'm feeling pretty good about things right now.

[TheHungryFreelancer]

Congrats!

[WilliamEsmont]

Waiting for those first sales can be like watching grass grow. If it's any consolation, here are the numbers for my first year, broken out by quarter:

Q110 - 2 * book one (a standalone) uploaded to Kindle in early January
Q210 - 12
Q310 - 27
Q410 - 168 * book two (1st of a series) uploaded to Kindle in late October

Things got a LOT better in 2011. Keep writing.

[robertbevan]

hey williamesmont.

i'm not sure why you edited that, but i actually saw it before the edit, and those were impressive numbers. i didn't respond then because i was in the middle of watching tv with the missus.

but anyway... thanks for writing. that was inspirational, and what i blindly optimistically believe i'm on my way to.

thanks!

[WilliamEsmont]

Originally Posted by robertbevan

hey williamesmont.

i'm not sure why you edited that, but i actually saw it before the edit, and those were impressive numbers. i didn't respond then because i was in the middle of watching tv with the missus.

but anyway... thanks for writing. that was inspirational, and what i blindly optimistically believe i'm on my way to.

thanks!

Glad to help Doing it all yourself is not for the faint of heart. It takes a good story, a lot of patience, and often, a good helping of luck.

re: the edit - I realized my original post had the potential to drawn the discussion away from the original intent of the thread and I didn't want to do that.

[robertbevan]

one more sale, and one more five-star review on amazon! woo-hoo!

i've jumped from the mid 600k's up to the 80k's in my ranking. it's good to be back in the five digit club.

[JCGAuthor]

Hey Robert,

Gratz on the opening salvoes in self-publishing. I will soon make the plunge as well, with two titles.

I'm going to break the rule, as well, and also offer unsolicited advice, because you strike me as a down-to-Earth guy that wouldn't mind a tip. One thing you can do, if you're interested in seeing how people are finding your work, is try some shortened / tracked links. I use budurl.com; for $8 a month I can track any number of links and I get a daily report of hits to my site, fb fan page, etc from those shortened, tracked links that I have embedded all over the place (though not here yet).

There are free utilities, too -- like bit.ly and others -- if you don't want the expense, but I haven't seen any with an interface or capabilities quite as clean as budurl.

It's a useful tool to find out what portion of your internet activity and posting is actually bringing people to you.

Good luck on your continued success.

[robertbevan]

hey jcg. thanks for the gratz.

no, i don't mind getting a tip at all. i'll admit i'm very curious to know how people are discovering my book. well... of the 9 people who bought it so far, i think i can account for at least six or seven of them. only the one that left the second amazon review is a complete mystery to me. the first reviewer was someone from here at AW, but i have no idea who the second reviewer was. hoping for some more of those.

but i'm not curious enough to shell out eight bucks a month. i'll run bit.ly by some of my more tech savvy friends. thanks!


p.s. your facebook author page cover photo looks pretty badass.

[JCGAuthor]

Thanks, man! Yeah, hope the free advice helps.

I went to a very good headshot photographer. I'm kind of front-loading all the items like that before my books go live. The old saying about first impressions definitely applies.

Thanks for liking the fan page, too -- I'll return the favor. Take care.

[robertbevan]

Originally Posted by robertbevan

p.s. your facebook author page cover photo looks pretty badass.

Originally Posted by JCGAuthor

Thanks, man!

I went to a very good headshot photographer.

hahahahahahahaahahhaha!

i was talking about the picture with the buildings and lasers and spaceships. but yes, your profile picture looks very nice too.