grayworld's self-publishing journey, in black and white

Hello!

I'm a long-time lurker here at AW who decided about a month ago to self-publish a pair of ebooks through Amazon. I've read all of the self-publishing diaries here, and they've all been very informative. I thought I would add my own thread to the mix in the hopes it's helpful to at least one person out there.

Last month, I uploaded my first novel to Amazon, then added a short story collection about a week and a half later. Going in, I was hoping to sell one or two novels a day, plus a handful of the short story collection overall. Well, it turns out that's exactly what happened, thanks to a last-minute surge of five sales right around the thirty-day mark.

Like a lot of other AWers mentioned in their diaries, I made most of my sales in the middle of the week, and hardly any outside the Tuesday-Thursday timeframe. But then again, I was getting the "we are experiencing a delay in updating your sales" message from Amazon for most of December. Also, the sales on the "Author Rank" page and the actual book page seem to be out of sync, which makes it really tough to gauge when exactly a sale was made. Judging from what I've read on the KDP message boards, this seems to be an ongoing issue.

Well, I think that wraps it up for my initial diary post. You can find much more detailed information about my first month in self-publishing by checking out the blog located at the bottom of my signature line.

Thanks, merrihiatt. I read about your roller coaster ride, and I hope I end up providing half as much useful info as you have.

Hi, Ann Joyce. And thanks for the welcome!

Thanks, Pushingfordream.

Thanks, Old Hack. As I read it now, that last line of my original post looks pretty spammy. I'll be more careful from now on.

I just wanted to add a little bit about the marketing and promotion I did for my books, what did and didn't work. When my novel went live, I did a one-time-only Shameless Facebook Plug on my personal page. That resulted in four or five sales from friends, and one offer (threat?) of an honest review on Amazon.

The same week I released the novel, I started a blog at Wordpress and a Twitter account, and I set up the blog to send a tweet when I update it. After reading the helpful self-publishing diaries here, I realize I should've gotten the ball rolling on the social media at least a month or two before the release date. Concerning the blog, my goal is to update it at least twice a week with what I hope are interesting tidbits about my self-publishing experiences, works in progress, and general writing stuff. So far, I've kept up the pace. As far as Twitter goes...I'm still figuring it out. A few things I know I need to do in the social media arena (thanks to what I've learned in the diary threads) are start an author Facebook page, learn more about / join Goodreads, and look into getting reviews, although it seems there's a huge backlog in that department.

I've kept the price of my novel at $3.99. Reading about price points here at AW and elsewhere, it looks as though the $0.99 and $2.99 price points have a bad reputation. Also, my novel clocks in at 112,000 words, so I think $3.99 is a fair price. I did drop the price of my short story collection from $2.99 to $0.99 after the first week, hoping the low price and the free sample would convince folks to take a chance on the novel. This doesn't seem to have worked, except maybe in the UK, where I had back-to-back sales of the short collection and the novel right after I dropped the price. Otherwise, I sold three at $2.99 and three at $0.99.

As for the future, I plan on releasing another novel around the beginning of February. At that point, I'll probably drop the first novel to $2.99, and possibly make the short story collection free through KDP Select. I plan on offering the new release for $3.99. We'll see how it goes...

Hi FionnJameson and merrihiatt,

I read about the $0.99 vs. $2.99 vs. $3.99 argument here (from the Interesting Links sticky): http://blog.smashwords.com/2013/05/new-smashwords-survey-helps-authors.html

The numbers only apply to Smashwords, so I'm not sure what they mean as far as Amazon ebooks are concerned. I've been tempted to lower the price of my novel to $2.99 to see if it increases sales, but I think I'm going to hold out until I release a new book in a month or so. I'm completely new to marketing/selling/etc., so this is one big experiment for me so far .

A belated Happy 2014 to everyone! I was hoping to post my final December sales numbers this past weekend, but it turns out the internet doesn't work too well around here when it's flash-frozen and buried under a foot of snow. So here we go:

In December, I sold 16 novels (14 in the US, 2 in the UK) and 4 short story collections (3 in the US, 1 in the UK). This was a steep fall-off from November, when I sold 20 novels (18 in the US, 1 each in the UK and Canada) and 2 short collections (both in the US). However, those November numbers are based on a short month, since my novel went live on November 20th, and the collection did so on the 29th.

Since we're already a week into January, I'll submit a progress report. So far, I've sold 4 novels and 1 short collection, all in the US. I'm pleased to see the sales continuing, thus far at an eerily consistent (4 novels, 1 collection per week) yet very satisfying rate.

I have more (including a random social media encounter with Margaret Atwood!) to report, but since I've spent the past ten hours or so alternating between sliding all over the road and being stuck in snowdrifts, I'm a little burnt out. But I guarantee another post this weekend.

Hi again. Just wanted to add a little bit to my previous post.

I lowered the price of my novel from $3.99 to $2.99 effective January 1st. So far, the book seems to selling at the same rate it was in December. I'll be sure to let you know if there are any significant changes, either up or down.

With the holidays and winter storms (and my own laziness) lately, I haven't been keeping up with my blog and other social media outlets the way I'd like to. But a few weeks ago I did have my first retweet ever, and it was by Margaret Atwood herself! There was a discussion of The Handmaid's Tale going on, and I mentioned how much I loved it. As a fan, I really got a kick out of the whole experience. Also, I think it was my first proper use of a hashtag.

January Sales Report

First off, a Happy Groundhog Day/Super Bowl Eve to everybody .

My January sales fell off a bit from December's, but I still managed to reach double figures (barely) with sales of my novel. I sold 10 overall (8 in the US, 2 in the UK) to go along with 4 of my short story collection (3 in the US, 1 in the UK). Considering the lack of promotion I'm doing, I'm very happy with these numbers. It seems as though people are stumbling into the books, reading the samples, and taking a chance on them. This pleases me .

Last weekend, I finally got around to uploading my books to Smashwords. No sales there yet, but I did have 19 sample downloads of the novel and 17 of the short collection. Also one copy of each was added to readers' libraries. I'm not quite sure what that means, but it sounds like a good thing!

February Sales Report

Thanks for the advice and encouragement, matt marshall and WriterBN!

Eliot insisted that April is the cruelest month. Pfftt. February's pretty darn close.

Okay, I'm being overly dramatic. Though my sales were unimpressive, I made decent strides on the social media front in February. I'm more active on Twitter, updating my blog more frequently, and participating more often here at AW.

The hard numbers...

Seven total sales of my novel: Five via Amazon (three in the US, one each in Canada and Australia), and two through Smashwords. My short story collection tallied a goose egg.

Honestly, I'm not too disappointed with these figures. As a longtime lurker here and as someone who's read every one of the self-publishing diaries, I was expecting a gradual fall-off in sales over time. That said, I've also learned (again, thanks to you guys) that the best way to increase sales is to release a new book. Well, I've got one scheduled to go live on Tuesday, March 4th. The cover is my new avatar, and I'm going to post links with more info in the Blogging/Social Networking section if anyone's interested.