Share Your Successes!

triceretops

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Thanks, Stone.

Chris, there are many ways to measure success and it sounds like you are experiencing it. I wish you even more!


Thanks. I'm popping in and out of the top 100 list, with a rank that is remaining consistently good (low), which has never happened before. I still do a lot of promoting on various formums, FB and Twitter. My genre is a very hard sell, so I have to appeal to as large an audience as possible.

Tri
 

Elena Andrews

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I have to brag,
Big Lake Lynching is currently #19 in Amazon's Mystery, Thriller & Suspense, Police Procedurals and #854 in the Kindle store.

Big Lake, the first book in the series is #2 in Amazon's Mystery, Thriller & Suspense, Police Procedurals. It is currently #67 in the Kindle store, and has been in the Top 100 for 72 days now.


Thank you for helping make my books successful.

That's amazing. Great job!
 

triceretops

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Okay, we went freebie on the digital prequel short that ties into the book just two hours ago and the downloads went absolutely nuts. Jesus, I didn't know they had top 100 Kindle ranks for downloads. I have no idea how that works.

I also had a real neat interview from Ink Drop break yesterday, so all of it is tying into the link back to original novel. We're coming at it from all sides--left hooks, right crosses and uppercuts.

The book is staying under 150,000 (with dips down to the 20,000 numbers) on a regular basis, but it doesn't mean I can sit back and drink fruit-laced liquor and put my feet up. I'm still periodically announcing on FB and Twitter, trying to stagger my times of the day and night. The trick is, everytime you drop your title somewhere, be creative about it and change it up so it doesn't look like a repetitive used car commercial.

I'm also running a segment on FB called "Guerrilla Warfare for Writers" which is nothing more than a paragraph of tips on how to best the publishing industry by using some smart, insider tactics. That breaks up the solid stream of adverts.

Tri
 

Nick Russell

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Tri, how do I find your Guerrilla Warfare series on Facebook?
 

triceretops

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Nick, I'm just popping in the Warfare comments in everyday FB posts, hoping that some people are catching them. I now realize that I should segment them somehow and perhaps add them to my author page, so the whole thing is available? Damn, I didn't think of that. These comments were written back in 2005, and learned from my 25+years of publishing, both in large commercial and small press.

Any ideas or suggestions would be appreciated on how to showcase them. It's ridiculous of me to depend upon my Freewebs "blog" to show them, since my visitor rate there is only five a day.

However, I have started a brand new blog and maybe that's where they should go?

Tri
 

Nick Russell

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The new blog might indeed be the place for them.
 

Dani

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As I told my husband, after a year of writing and editing, "Don't be impatient, I'll probably only sell 5-10 books the first month, but I'll get better. Give me a year to get my name out there."

On Feb 1st I uploaded my novel in a very niche of niches (gay mystery/suspense). As of now my book shot up yesterday to number one of all gay and lesbian fiction on amazon.com (it's number 2 now I think) and it has over 45 reviews and 86 ratings on Goodreads. Most are great reviews. Really beautifully written and long reviews. Even one of the two star reviewers has written a long review on what worked or didn't for him. So it's awesome and amazing and surreal. I had to sit back today and stare at my screen, because it's a little overwhelming to think about, but, there you have it.

I don't believe this is a testament to self-publishing as much as it is to self-publishing the best product I possibly could. I had an editor, I had 4 beta readers (five, if you include my husband), I read the book at least 30 times myself. Yes, even after that there were still mistakes (oh wow two embarrassing ones - Jeffery instead of Jeffrey - thank goodness he was only in one scene lol - and marquis instead of marquee (i know better, I don't know how it was missed)). A few typos I missed. I think when I edited (edition 4 now) I found all of 6 mistakes in my 123k novel. None of them I could attribute to my editor or beta readers - wow were they fantastic. I made the changes after they sent it back with their recs and I had deleted one word too many or added an extra word when I fixed a sentence structure.

Anyway, long story short (too late), I'm doing my happy dance over there *points*. No, you can't watch. Yes, I look ridiculous. No, I don't care. :snoopy:
 

triceretops

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Congrats on your success, Dani. It sounds to me like you concentrated on having a quality product, worth every penny of it. That puts you head and shoulders above much of the self-pubbed material that is on (glutting) the Amazon field. I believe everyone in this thread have special, quality books that have been rigorously edited and vetted, else their sales and reviews wouldn't as high as they are.

Tri
 

merrihiatt

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Congratulations, Dani! It's always a joy to see hard work pay off.

Tri, I didn't see your earlier post, so a bit of a belated congratulations to you, too!
 

triceretops

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Thank you, dear M. You're still kicking major A.

One thing I noticed about sudden positive rank spikes, I've gotten my third request for an interview about the book, and just finished the last one a few minutes ago. I don't know if I can attribute better rank and sales to escalating interview/review interest, but something is obviously working here for the better. I wish they would bottle some type of road map or formula for this kind of thing.

My publisher just told me that the short is starting to sell, but hell, I can't see it reflected in the sales rank. It. Does. Not. Compute. But what do I know?

Tri
 

Dani

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Thanks Tri and Merri! =D It's awesome and exciting, but not because of the rank or the money. No, it's exciting for me because it means I'll be able to do this full-time. I can write FULL TIME \o/

Thank you, dear M. You're still kicking major A.

One thing I noticed about sudden positive rank spikes, I've gotten my third request for an interview about the book, and just finished the last one a few minutes ago. I don't know if I can attribute better rank and sales to escalating interview/review interest, but something is obviously working here for the better. I wish they would bottle some type of road map or formula for this kind of thing.

My publisher just told me that the short is starting to sell, but hell, I can't see it reflected in the sales rank. It. Does. Not. Compute. But what do I know?

Tri

Oh, that's so awesome, Tri! Now you have to practice your interview techniques and dodging questions properly!
 

merrihiatt

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I wish they would bottle some type of road map or formula for this kind of thing.
You and me both! Way to go on the interviews, too. I think when things start to roll, it's like that old saying, "When it rains, it pours." In a good way, of course.

No, it's exciting for me because it means I'll be able to do this full-time. I can write FULL TIME \o/
Now THAT is exciting!!!
 

Nick Russell

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Be aware that one or two good months do not mean everlasting success. Things fluctuate, for whatever reason.

In December and January, Big Lake sold over 32,000 copies per month. This month has really slowed down, to just over 10,000 so far. That's still a lot of books, but it is also still a big drop. If I were to base my income (and lifestyle) on this two months, I'd be in real trouble right now.
 

MysteryRiter

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Hey Nick, why don't you start a thread briefly detailing how you became so successful on kindle. What have you used to spread the word? What's worked the best? Etc.
Is that too much to ask? I'd really appreciate it.
 

triceretops

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I think one thing I learned from Nick and the others, is to have a solid, reader-catching blog in place. It serves as a great foundation and social network. Have something to offer, do it regularly, and respond/interact with your reader base. I should have had this in place years ago.

If you have/had a free website like I've had for the past five or so years, stragglers will come in and wipe their shoes off and exit quickly.

If you have a dynamic, active blog that appeals to a niche or great number of people, they'll come in and take their shoes off and stay awhile.

Tri-red-shifting
 
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Nick Russell

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Hey Nick, why don't you start a thread briefly detailing how you became so successful on kindle. What have you used to spread the word? What's worked the best? Etc.
Is that too much to ask? I'd really appreciate it.

I'll try to put something together in the next day or two. Right now I'm just finishing up the new issue of the Gypsy Journal.

As of now, Big Lake has sold over 81,700 copies in less than eight months. If I had to give credit just one thing, I would have to say it was my large blog following that helped get the ball rolling in the first place.