Share Your Successes!

I still find it hard to believe myself.

Nick Russell said:

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.

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And with only one book?! You must be making some pretty reasonable money from that one novel...
And thanks! That thread will be very helpful, I'm sure. I don't have an especially large blog following but I'm working at it! Good to know that an active blog helps. But selling so many copies, do you have followers in the 1,000s?

Yes, that number was for my first mystery, Big Lake, alone. I have some other nonfiction books that sell a total of 150-200 copies a month combined. And I published the sequel to the first mystery, Big Lake Lynching, on January 31. So far it has sold about 1,500 copies.

My daily blog gets several thousand hits, and our bimonthly Gypsy Journal Rv newspaper has about 15,000 subscribers.

Yes, remember that Nick had a solid blog presence (three different subjects) already in place, and that he had published in print form prior to his E-Book, BL. This established a fan base and readership. He had a great jump start because he cultivated his readers--he interacted--showed interest--supplied useful information and kept his blog sites up-to-date with regular entries.

This is just one area that really hit home with me.

Lately, my tie-in short was taken off freebie status. Now, this short was a sacrificial lamb, in that I didn't need sales from it, but only needed it as a buffer to link back to the book. To my surprise, the damn thing is selling. The book has hit a slight dip for some unknown reason, but the short is running the race. Neat to watch these things happening.

Tri--red-shifting to draft the next blog topic.

Nick Russell said:

My daily blog gets several thousand hits,

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A day?! Which blog is this? Sheesh, I'm going to need some blogging tips from you, too! I'm sitting at 100 per day and I thought that was okay... but it looks pathetic compared to yours!

Not to worry, MysteryRiter. I am but gum stuck to your shoe. At least for now, ha!

My non-fiction success remains modest but steady, so I decided to distill my experience into a 99 cent ebook: http://amzn.to/wJz0tE

It's the only one I'm selling for 99 cents, other than my romance. It will be interesting to see if I get more sales volume than I do on the $2.99 books, although it's not apples to apples since it's a totally different topic. I just released the new book today, so I'll report on the results as they come in.

Good luck, Ink.

MysteryRiter said:

A day?! Which blog is this? Sheesh, I'm going to need some blogging tips from you, too! I'm sitting at 100 per day and I thought that was okay... but it looks pathetic compared to yours!

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That's a day on my RV blog www.gypsyjournalblog.com. I have been very remiss with my self-publishing blog and my Bad Nick Blog the last few weeks, just because I have been so busy with other writing projects. I need to get back into them.

in_one said:

Well, I am getting ready to take the plunge. It is a small success, but I have completed my novelette! It is the first thing that I have completed and actually stepped up to publish! My work has never been read by an audience before, so I can only pray the reception is what I hope it will be! You can check out the first chapter on my blog. I would appreciate anybody willing to give me an idea of what they think!

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I was intrigued. I know you put the disclaimer in the beginning that what you posted was pre-edit, but once I tripped over the third typo, I stopped reading. When it is edited, I'd love to try again.

Not a major accomplishment, but I recently re-self-published (it was originally with a crap publisher for two weeks. Sold about 1 copy with that pub) my horror short story and in 24 hours, I've already gotten three sales! Which, as you see, is more than the previous publisher got me in 2 weeks. That was a bad publisher, lol.
This is my first thing on Amazon so I'm pretty excited and have linked to it pretty well on my blog. Am hoping for it to be read!
ETA: If anyone is interested, it's linked in my sig (THE PERFECT GAME).

I did, finally start a blog, and it's taken off better than I expected. I know for sure I can attribute sales to it since I got many, many rank spikes after I opened up for business. Ha!

The secret, or chore as the case may be, is to keep it active and current, network and socialize with the commentators. It's always nice to see some subscribes too.

My linking, marketing and promo has been a frenzy, and I notice if I slack off just a bit, I lose rank. So I'm still new and haven't reached critical inertia, or that momentum that self-sustains. That still takes plenty of work. The dividends are down the road...

Guerrilla Warfare For Writers:
http://guerrillawarfareforwriters.blogspot.com/2012/02/writing-and-marketing-woes.html

I don't know what happened on Thursday but my sales had a pretty big spike on both Amazon and B&N. Amazon is selling well above what B&N was but I had a personal record day on both...which was nice.

I'm going to be doing a .99 cent special on both sites for a few days just to generate a bit more buzz maybe.

Good for you, Elena. This is a mysterious business, one in which we'll never know the secret success formula. Some days are hot, some are tepid.

Congrats, Elena! I've begun to send out a bunch of review copies of my newly self-pubbed book to some mildly well known horror mags. I'm hoping that if they agree to read my book and enjoy it, a good review from one of them will inspire confidence among readers. We'll see.
It's been only two days and I can already see how unpredictable self-publishing is. But it's kind of fun, too.

After being in Amazon's Top 100 for 75 days in a row, rising to #22, Big Lake's rating began to decline, as happens to all books sooner or later. It was all to way down to #200 yesterday morning, and then started to rebound, and this afternoon is is back up to #100.

"The only constant is change." ~ Isaac Asimov

You never know what is around the corner. One day a book ranking may be fabulous and the next day, not so much. It's fascinating and a bit mysterious.

I'm thankful to all of you for reporting back with your successes. Having access to your own sales data can be crazy-making, but it is also helpful information for spotting trends.

One thing I've noticed in the last couple months is that I sell more titles in the first half of the month and receive more KOLL borrows during that time, too. Interesting.

Interesting, merrihiatt. Thanks for all your help in the thread I started, BTW. I kind of feel like starting a self-published author socializing/sale reporting/news thread... That would be fun, wouldn't it?
I really like hearing about what works and what doesn't work from you guys! It's been really helpful. I got my 5th sale today, which isn't much, I know, but I'm pleased that the book is being read!

Five readers is five readers. I celebrate each and every one!

As far as a socializing/sales reporting/news thread, start one if you'd like. I try to limit my time on message boards as I can spend hours and hours reading/posting when I really ought to be writing. I do check-in throughout the day, though, for quick snippets of time.

Each person promotes their work in varying ways. For me, focusing on writing has been the best method of promotion. I update Facebook regularly and my website often, but other than that, and offering a book for free for a limited amount of time, most of my efforts are really spent writing. After all, that's what I quit my day job to do.

I brought out Tollesbury Time Forever on January 3rd 2012 and it has had almost 500 paid downloads so far and received almost 50 five star reviews. These figures are UK and US combined with the vast majority being UK.

I really have been astounded by the response but am just getting my head around the whole expectations thing. Where once I would have been ecstatic at two downloads in a day, I went through a period where if I didn't reach double figures the whole thing was dead in the water! So now I celebrate each and every download and review with a little dance and a big grin! The only way to do it without driving yourself in sane!

Major Question: I'm not self-pubbed for my e-books, but I'm thrashing out promo and marketing just like everybody else. I watch my rank numbers but only my publisher knows actually how many given copies are sold. Like an idiot, I didn't realize I'm up at Amazon.ca and Amazon.uk, as well as in the States.

My ranking numbers are different for all of them.

Am I selling books in each Amazon division per country? Or all they all lumped together somehow? I notice (now) that my rank in the UK is the best overall. What other listings for Amazon should I check?

Gudd, I'm stupid. I also believe I'm with Sony and Kobo, and haven't even looked there.

Oh, made two or three sales over night--the book and the short!

Tri

triceretops said:

Good for you, Elena. This is a mysterious business, one in which we'll never know the secret success formula. Some days are hot, some are tepid.

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Tell me about it, haha. My husband reminds me each day to not focus on the sales but concentrate on the next book. It's hard to do but I understand sales are out of my hands (except for promoting). The one thing I'm in charge of completely is how much I write per day and how often I can complete a new book.

MysteryRiter said:

Congrats, Elena! I've begun to send out a bunch of review copies of my newly self-pubbed book to some mildly well known horror mags. I'm hoping that if they agree to read my book and enjoy it, a good review from one of them will inspire confidence among readers. We'll see.
It's been only two days and I can already see how unpredictable self-publishing is. But it's kind of fun, too.

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Good luck with your new book. I've sent review copies as well. At least if you have a review from a site or magazine it's one more thing you can link to and tell others about to promote your work!