Mclesh's Mad Self-Publishing Diary

Jazen said:

Awesome news!!! How exciting to walk into a store and see you book! The cover is very eye catching.

Hope you book signing goes well and best wishes on sales!

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Thank you, Jazen! It's kind of funny. At first I was excited to have my books up on the shelf. Then I looked at how many other books there were surrounding mine and thought: How will anyone pick mine out of this massive selection? And then I thought: What if mine don't sell? The bookstore owners won't order any more. Waaah! Way to be positive; right?

So I guess that's how my tortured mind works.

lastlittlebird said:

Whenever I start thinking about my writing getting lost among the masses I remind myself how very much I read. This isn't a zero-sum game by any means

Your book looks amazing and people will want to read it. Getting it out there in front of them was most of the battle won!

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That is a very good point you make. I'll try to remind myself when I'm having doubts.

Thank you so much!

Literateparakeet said:

Both of those are awesome! CoNgRaTuLaTiOnS!!!

So how did you do it? Get into the bookstore I mean. I have an idea that I want to try for getting into a niche book store...you are inspiring me that there really is hope.

I'm so excited for you.

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Thank you, LP!

This is a store where I've shopped in the past, so the owners already knew me a little. Back in August, I gave them one of my proof copies. They were happy with the quality and the list price and wanted to know where they could order the book when it became available. I told them Ingram. They order their books through Ingram, so they said they'd make their order then.

Since then, I ordered my own box of books and paid them a visit. They bought a few to start and put them out with their Halloween selections.

So it's a personal connection. I doubt if I'll bother going anywhere else, but this book store is a favorite of mine, and I'm very happy to have a reason to send people there. Also, their target customer, besides parents, is teachers, which is a group I'd like to connect with.

That is my story.

Update: October was my best self-publishing month to date, but not because of Mr. Katz’s release, unfortunately. Although, it is very cool having two books on my CS and KDP dashboards with sales numbers. *feels all professional now* This was the first month I broke 200 sales, with the exception of last October when I ran a BookBub ad for LMGTOMC and had a large amount of sales over a two-day period.

Here are my October numbers:
Mr. Katz is a Zombie: 40 sales (20 paperback, 19 Kindle, 1 KU)
Let Me Get This Off My Chest: 213 sales (85 paperback, 106 Kindle, 22 KU)
Total: 253


With MKIAZ, I promoted where I could, had a couple of guest spots on blogs--my favorite was my Q&A interview on BadMenagerie--and found that the people who were interested in purchasing did so in the first week of release. (A similar experience to my other book releases.) With LMGTOMC, I did no promotion, but the book shows up very high in searches and has been in the top 100 of its category on Amazon since last October--because of its nonfiction niche--whereas MKIAZ only ranked in its category the first day of release. So, different books, vastly different experiences. But I knew MKIAZ would be a tough sell since it’s a children’s book and the interest level just isn’t there. (Mr. Steve and I have run a children’s story website for the past few years, and it’s something that people use as a resource but not so much a destination. The things I learn from the site stats are very interesting but a whole 'nother story.)


So what all this confirms for me is that I’ll have to do most of my promotion externally through book signings and other events. And that I’ll have to celebrate the little victories, which I’m happy to do.

I’ve got to get back to revisions on book 2 in the series. My attention has been so divided, I’ve hardly written lately. I do have some really cute book tie-ins, though--different components of a Mr. Katz is a Zombie zombie kit that we’ll be offering soon on my website as a free download. If anyone’s interested in seeing a sample, I have a foldable Mr. Katz up on my book’s Pinterest board. We also have a Pin the Tie on the Zombie game, zombie shelter signs, etc., that will be available as part of the downloadable kit.

So that’s my report for now! My goal is to finish my revisions to book 2 by the end of the year, and repeat most of what I did with Mr. Katz, but I’m not so sure about NetGalley. I guess I should talk a little about that.

My NetGalley Co-op Experience. I wasn’t sure of the value of entering into the co-op, but since the price was reasonable--$72 for two months--I decided to go for it, especially after I found that finding bloggers interested in ARCs of a kid’s book had proven to be very difficult. At the end of my two-month listing, these are my results: I received a total of 7 reviews on Goodreads. They tended to be in-depth and thoughtful, with a mix of ratings. One 5, three 4s, one 3, and two 2s. The upside to the 2s: neither actually hated it. (Yay?) And one of the 2s said she’d probably read the next book in the series. (Oh, boy! Um, lol.) I also received one 5-star review from LibraryThing. (And that didn’t cost a dime. Hurray!)

This process has been so interesting. One thing I’ve learned as an author is it’s tough selling books, but I am happy having control, and I am eager to get the rights back to my first two books, which will happen in October/November of 2015.

So that is my story. Sorry if I rambled.

(And thank you, Literate Parakeet!)

GretchenPaintedQuill said:

Just wanted to drop by and say that I really enjoyed Mr. Katz is a Zombie! My 8 year old nephew was also VERY intrigued as well... but so far hasn't picked it up - too interested in plants vs. zombies on XBox for now!!!

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Oh, thank you! I'm so glad you enjoyed it. I hope your nephew takes a break from his XBox for a few minutes to check out a page or two.

akaria said:

I totally get the control thing. Having to do everything makes my inner control freak sing.

Congratulations on a positive October!

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Haha, you should be doing quite a bit of singing then.

Thank you!

I have a book signing set up at the children's book store already carrying my book. Eeeeek! This is good and bad. Good for the experience. Bad because I'll be obsessing about it until the thing actually happens.

The book store is a magical place I love, but it's a little off the beaten path. It's not in the middle of downtown but a couple blocks east, so it doesn't get the foot traffic it needs. I'm hoping my signing will bring a few extra bodies in the door.

The event is on Small Business Saturday, which is two days after the kickoff to our great American gift buying season--Thanksgiving. It's meant to get consumers to think about the independent businesses and shop them instead of the big box retailers.

I set up a Facebook event and invited just people in the area. It's public also, so anyone might happen upon it and decide to go. (I guess that could happen.)

Here's the FB event link, if anyone's interested. I'd love to see any AWers who live in the San Gabriel Valley area. Stop on by, and we'll give each other a squeeze!

In the meantime, I'm creating foldable Mr. Katzes with card stock. My goal is to have enough to give one away with each book purchase. They take a ridiculous amount of time to create, and I'm sure I could find much better use of my time, but that is my story.

Mr. Katz made a 2014 10 Best Indie MG List!

So I got some unexpected good news in my inbox this morning. Mr. Katz is a Zombie was selected by Foreword Reviews as one of their 10 Best Indie MG Novels of 2014! I'm very surprised and happy.

Also, I had my book signing a little while back. That went pretty well. I brought 20 books with me and sold 19. As I was pulling my books and things that I'd brought with me out of my boxes, a woman came up and asked if she could buy one. So that was a very good omen. I had a good turnout of family and friends, luckily, since they purchased most of the copies. I sold 4 books to strangers, which fits right with the numbers I'd read somewhere that an unknown author can expect to sell an average of 4 to 7 books at an event.

I'd sent a press release to one of the local papers two weeks pre-event, according to the paper's guidelines, but they ran the notice two weeks prior, so I don't think that worked at bringing in people. It was much too soon. There wasn't much foot traffic in the store, either. But I'm definitely not complaining! Just trying to give an account of how it went. The up side was that most of the people who bought my book also bought other things. The book store owners had a happy cash register by the end of the day.

So that's my update. Feeling good today on my SP roller coaster.

Celeste Carrara said:

I was axiously awaiting an update from you!

And then this!!! I am so happy for you!!! That is so awesome and well deserved!!! Congrats!!

Thanks for the info about your signing, I told you it would go well!

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I survived!

Thanks so much, Celeste! Tacos tonight for sure!

Thanks, Norman!

It's Time For An Update!

Lately, life has reared its head, shaken things up a bit, so my self-publishing schedule has had to be completely revamped. My son became really ill (he is now on the mend), but taking care of him (mostly worrying/not sleeping) has taken me out of the game writing-wise pretty decisively the past few weeks. Then yesterday I received the email from the publisher of my first two books with the notification that they’re shutting down February 28th.

So what this means... I’ve decided to put off the release of the second book in my MG series, Martin Barton Might Be A Werewolf, from springtime to October and have a Halloween release like I did with Mr. Katz (which actually makes a lot of sense promotions-wise). And I don’t think anyone in the world will mind that I’m putting Martin Barton’s release off. Except for my mom. Sorry, Mom! (Oh, am I going to hear it now. ) And for the next few weeks, I’ll be working on re-releasing first Normalish, then Finding A Man For Sylvia.

Steve (husband, partner, design whiz) is planning to shoot the new cover for Normalish. We were talking about his ideas last night. (I’m so excited. Eep! It’s going to be similar to the cover he shot for Let Me Get This Off My Chest, which has worked really well. Not with lemons, though. ) He’s going to lay out the print version first, then create the ebook. Since we’re doing the print book first, I’ll want to order physical proof copies, which will lengthen the process. Then we’ll repeat with FAMFS. I’m going to have to think about doing some marketing for the re-releases. (Not sure about what I’ll do, and I don’t want to spend a lot of money.)

One note about getting my rights back: I’ve been working on a book in the same world as Normalish--not a sequel; it takes place concurrently, but the story is told from the MC’s sister’s perspective--so now I have freedom over what I end up doing with this one. I was bound under my contract to submit it to my publisher since they had the right of first refusal, so now I don't have to worry about that.

This post is getting long. I was going to report the results of my Kindle Countdown Deal for LMGTOMC, which recently ended, but I’ll save that for my next update. (It did make it to the #1 spot in its category and got the little “bestseller” label, which is always fun for that few hours. I tried a staggered approach with the promotions during the Countdown, which worked out well, and I will elaborate in the next post.)

So much to process right now. I do hope all the other Musa authors find good homes for their books. I wish them all well. It’s really tough. We put our hearts into our work, and it sucks when things don’t work out the way we'd hoped. But at least we all have options.

slhuang said:

AAAAAAAAAAAA THIS IS SO EXCITING!!!!!

Ahem.

So good to hear about all the developments. Whee yayyyy!!

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Thank you, my dear!

CathleenT said:

I'm so glad it sounds like you're taking the difficulties in stride. Not that I'm surprised, but still I'm glad to hear that things are looking positive.

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Thanks, CathleenT! I'm trying. What is the saying, just keep swimming?

Guess who has a new cover? Me! Me!



Steve and I decided to change things up and get the ebook version of Normalish done first. I love the new cover. It captures Stacy so well. To me, it's just right. She looks like an average teen, not some glam girl. I uploaded to KDP last night, and it was ready this morning. I sent a request to link reviews, and just a few hours later, they were linked (although the number of reviews reflected is a little off).

I've not enrolled in Normalish Select and will be uploading to other vendors soon-ish.

Steve noticed a couple of tweaks he wants to make to the cover, so I will be uploading a newer version of the book soon.

So far, so good. (Plus, the book interior now has daisies!)