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!)