Share Your Successes!

Awesome, Nick!

And congrats Tri on the success and incredibly encouraging rankings. I'm gonna have to hit y'all up for some tips!

Best of luck to everyone!

Here is the review I just posted on Amazon for Beverly Dale's "War Clouds in the East," the most recent in her Black Knights of the Hudson series:

I just finished the last in the Black Knights series to date, and all I can say to the author is, Hurry up and write another! Beverly Gray does not disappoint in this latest installment of the Black Knights series, which sees the shift from the days of the horse soldier to new technology that will change the face of warfare forever. As always in this saga, there is action, suspense, romance, and plenty of fine storytelling. Well done, Ms Gray!

Hi Nick, I appreciate you taking the time to post a separate review for each book. Yes, yes, I'm working hard but my silly full-time job keeps getting in the way. Still shooting for late August, early September for Book VI. At least, for now, I don't have to feel guilty for distracting you. Take care and thank you so very much for your support.

Don't you just hate it when life gets in the way like that?

It can be a tad annoying, yes, especially when one is in the midst of a critical scene and has to pack in to get to bed in order to get up to go to work in order to be somewhat alert to deal with the client...ugh, run on sentence. Sorry gang.

So the answer is to sell so many books that you can just stay home and do what you do best, write!

But I do know the feeling. I just finished my third Big Lake book and it is in final proofing. I want to get it out there, but it's time to start working on a new issue of the Gypsy Journal.

Hi, guys. I have a thread going over at the Self-Publishing and POD, under the title of "Have Formatted Book and Cover..."

I sure could use your expert advice on my next step toward self-pubbing. I'm completely lost. However, the formatting for the book has been done and sent to me in a file, as well as a book cover. I just need to know very simply, where exactly to go from here. I assume registering at Amazon, eh?

Thanks,

Chris

It feels quite discouraging when you're still trying to complete your first book and get it out there whilst holding down your day job. Things come up that prevent you getting anything done and it feels like your goal is always on the horizon.

Success! The War Gate is alive and kicking on Amazon, and it's my first self-published book evah. It was a four-five-star back-list title that I just couldn't let die. So she lives on.

tri

Semi, nobody ever said it would be easy. A lot of us have day jobs, businesses to run, family obligations, etc. But you have to set some priorities, and make your writing one of them. That may mean skipping an hour of TV every night, or getting up an hour earlier in the morning to get some work done. For me, it has meant that sometimes I am selfish with my time and put off dinner with friends or family members to write.

Congratulations Chris, I'm thrilled for you.

Great Chris. I just saw your request for "how tos" from the other day and was going through my notes for some tips that made it easier for me. Then I saw that you'd already taken the plunge. Late to the party again, sigh. Hope it takes off like one of your rockets.

Semi, it is tough. Writing is a pretty lonely business and you just have to sometimes knuckle down and ignore all the "fun" distractions. I'm a technical writer by day and, often, the last thing in the world I feel like doing, is sitting down and writing some more. You just have to push through those moments the way athletes have to push through physical pain or disappointment to get to the next level or step.

Oh, Nick, if only...I just have to keep reminding myself of the advice I give to others: this is not a sprint and it takes time so don't get frustrated when the sales ebb after a bit of a leap. They'll leap again (usually, when I'm not even thinking about it).

Great advice from Nick and Beverly. I second and third it. Especially now that I'm back to working full-time and finding it a challenge to carve out time daily to write. I never regret the time I spend writing, even when I'm tired and feeling a bit crabby. I always feel better afterward. It's what I was meant to do.

I love the following quote: "Writing is the only thing that, when I do it, I don't feel I should be doing something else." ~ Gloria Steinem

I'll fourth it. Steal you time, Semi, and keep it your little secret. It's not easy, none of this is. Relax and take it in tiny steps. Those steps will lengthen and lead to bounds and leaps. Then mighty jumps.

tri

On July 31, I happened to notice that stories # 3-7 of "Becoming a Hero" sold one copy each on Amazon - but not stories #1-2. These copies seem to have sold since the last time that I'd logged on.

Looks like readers are filling in the blanks, Mark. Congrats on those sales, especially shorts.

I seem to have made very fast sales and obtained some great rank right off the bat. I wasn't anticipating that. But I'm aware that those are spike sales and I'll need to keep up with the push, since the numbers now are slowly climbing. But I gotta say, the self-pubbed book is leading the pack out of my nine Amazon publications.

I'm having a time of it trying to navigate through author central, setting up my author's page and getting all the info right. I get lost on Amazon, especially when I look for forum topics and such.

Question for you pros: I'm going KDP Select, and I'm currently on the Promotions page. It's asking for my "name" and "start date." By name, do they mean my name or the name of the book title? Just a little confused here.

Thanks for any response!

tri

You can use any name (first free promo is what I used, but it doesn't matter what you type in). Start date is the date you want your promo to start and then end date is the date you want your promo to end. For a twenty-four hour period for this Friday, you'd set a start date of August 10 and an end date of August 10. The promo will begin at 12:01am on August 10 (give or take 3-4 hours) and end at 11.59pm on the same date (give or take 3-4 hours). That's one twenty-four hour period.

Thanks, merrihiat. Got it straight. as of right now the free rank is showing 2,100. I don't know where to look for the amount of downloads. Maybe they don't give that information anymore?

I'm guessing that 2,100 is respectable?

tri

A belated congrats to everyone for all accomplishments I've been lurking like mad but told myself not to participate on AW (too distracting for me nowadays!) while I was finishing up book 2 in my fantasy series. Finally finished, so thought I'd pop by

Tri, the amount of downloads should be stated on your KDP reports page for 'Month-to-Date unit sales'. I think a rank of 2100's alright, but (do promote the free days as far and wide as you can because) most seem to see best results coming off free once the book's in the top 100 free in the Kindle store... Good luck with the promotion!

Nice, Tri. Welcome and congrats Isabella.

Divination has been up on Amazon and Smashwords for a little over a day and I'm at 6 sales. Gotta start somewhere, right?

Tri, the amount of downloads should be stated on your KDP reports page for 'Month-to-Date unit sales'. I think a rank of 2100's alright, but (do promote the free days as far and wide as you can because) most seem to see best results coming off free once the book's in the top 100 free in the Kindle store... Good luck with the promotion!

Ah, thanks. Oh, yeah, I know about blasting without perturbing the readers and I'm still doing it today and tomorrow. I'll go check my report page and click some buttons.

Rank keeps dropping. Now at 1,400.

We might get there!

tri

The closer to one the better, but I think anything around 1,000-2,000 is pretty average for a freebie these days. I love when a freebie cracks the Top Free 100 list.

I'm really glad to see people have success w/self-publishing. I'm working on a novel and whereas I'm not close to done I have gotten advice from people on self-publishing. I've been hesitant though due to seeing it run down on other parts of this board to some extent. On top of of my novel I would like to publish other nofiction works and I'd honestly love to write for a living if I could since it's the one thing I really excel at so it's nice to see this option is viable if I choose to go down it.

Coco: you have only to give it the old college try. Edit, format and cover it. Register and complete an account page. Do the downloading and hit send.

But think about it first and make sure all ducks are in proper single file first.

Good luck.

tri (rank now 850)