Hey Everyone!! :-)
Elizabeth Horton-Newton has joined us today to tell us about her thoughts on being an author. Take it away Elizabeth! :-)
Elizabeth:
I published my first book on October 18, 2014. I remember much the way I remember my children’s birthdays. Every day I would eagerly check to see how many books had sold and if I had any reviews. Going was slow. Did I say slow? Sloths move faster than my sales did. I confess to a degree of discouragement. It wasn’t that I thought I would find myself on the NY Times Best Seller List, but I certainly expected more than one or two books being purchased daily.
Perhaps I was overly optimistic. After all, I knew next to nothing about self publishing. I had stumbled onto the Createspace site by accident and maneuvered my way through it clumsily. In retrospect it is funny. My awkward attempts at designing a book cover, my dreadful editing, and my myriad errors glare at me now.
As sales began to trickle in, so did reviews. Many of my early reviews mentioned the terrible editing. I took the criticisms to heart and re-edited the book. I’m sure there are still mistakes in there. But it is better. Amazingly I got some very good reviews. Some readers overlooked the editing and glowingly reviewed the story. That gave me hope. However the sales were still dribbling in. I tried a variety of measures. I offered free books on Amazon giveaways and my own blog giveaways, I set up a Goodreads giveaway, I posted on every social media site I could. The result was drip, drip, drip.
Meanwhile I was working on my second book, “Riddle”. It was quite different from “View…” and I thought that might make it more popular. I found a fabulous book cover designer on Fiverr. I had used her to design a book trailer for “View..” and had been very pleased with her work. I was ecstatic with my new book cover. I not only carefully edited the new manuscript myself but I had my husband and my sister read over it as well. Surely it was perfect. On June 15, 2015 I did a Facebook Book Launch. I had learned a few things from my previous experience.
“View..” continued to plod along. “Riddle” looked as though it was doing okay. Still no overwhelming rush to Amazon to buy it, but it was early in the game. Then two days ago something inexplicable happened.
Sales of “View From the Sixth Floor” went crazy. Okay, I don’t mean hundreds. In about 24 hours I sold 21 copies and over 600 were downloaded in Kindle Unlimited. What did I do? What clicked? “Riddle” wasn’t doing too badly. Certainly it was selling slowly but over 1700 people had downloaded it using Unlimited.
I have a couple of theories. One is that my Amazon Author Page now has two books listed. Secondly, I had done a lot of promoting with “Riddle”. It was very likely those promos carried over to my first book. However, it could be nothing more than hitting the right group of people at the right time.
So, if you are an indie writer, struggling to find an audience for your books, don’t be discouraged. Read your reviews. There may be hints there that tell you why your book isn’t doing as well as you hoped. Set up Facebook pages for yourself as an author and for your book as well. Start a blog and chat up your book, review books by other indie writers, set up giveaways. Make sure your book is on Goodreads and use all the opportunities for promoting they offer. Most importantly, don’t give up. If you are doing what you’ve always wanted, if you are fulfilling a dream, press on.
Connect with other indie authors and share suggestions. We are all in this challenge together. Indie support is the best kind of support you can get.
http://www.amazon.com/View-From-Sixth-Floor-Oswald-ebook/dp/B00NPCZW6W
http://www.amazon.com/Riddle-Elizabeth-Horton-Newton-ebook/dp/B0100NPW1S
http://www.elizabethhorton-newtonauthor.com/
I published my first book on October 18, 2014. I remember much the way I remember my children’s birthdays. Every day I would eagerly check to see how many books had sold and if I had any reviews. Going was slow. Did I say slow? Sloths move faster than my sales did. I confess to a degree of discouragement. It wasn’t that I thought I would find myself on the NY Times Best Seller List, but I certainly expected more than one or two books being purchased daily.
Perhaps I was overly optimistic. After all, I knew next to nothing about self publishing. I had stumbled onto the Createspace site by accident and maneuvered my way through it clumsily. In retrospect it is funny. My awkward attempts at designing a book cover, my dreadful editing, and my myriad errors glare at me now.
As sales began to trickle in, so did reviews. Many of my early reviews mentioned the terrible editing. I took the criticisms to heart and re-edited the book. I’m sure there are still mistakes in there. But it is better. Amazingly I got some very good reviews. Some readers overlooked the editing and glowingly reviewed the story. That gave me hope. However the sales were still dribbling in. I tried a variety of measures. I offered free books on Amazon giveaways and my own blog giveaways, I set up a Goodreads giveaway, I posted on every social media site I could. The result was drip, drip, drip.
Meanwhile I was working on my second book, “Riddle”. It was quite different from “View…” and I thought that might make it more popular. I found a fabulous book cover designer on Fiverr. I had used her to design a book trailer for “View..” and had been very pleased with her work. I was ecstatic with my new book cover. I not only carefully edited the new manuscript myself but I had my husband and my sister read over it as well. Surely it was perfect. On June 15, 2015 I did a Facebook Book Launch. I had learned a few things from my previous experience.
“View..” continued to plod along. “Riddle” looked as though it was doing okay. Still no overwhelming rush to Amazon to buy it, but it was early in the game. Then two days ago something inexplicable happened.
Sales of “View From the Sixth Floor” went crazy. Okay, I don’t mean hundreds. In about 24 hours I sold 21 copies and over 600 were downloaded in Kindle Unlimited. What did I do? What clicked? “Riddle” wasn’t doing too badly. Certainly it was selling slowly but over 1700 people had downloaded it using Unlimited.
I have a couple of theories. One is that my Amazon Author Page now has two books listed. Secondly, I had done a lot of promoting with “Riddle”. It was very likely those promos carried over to my first book. However, it could be nothing more than hitting the right group of people at the right time.
So, if you are an indie writer, struggling to find an audience for your books, don’t be discouraged. Read your reviews. There may be hints there that tell you why your book isn’t doing as well as you hoped. Set up Facebook pages for yourself as an author and for your book as well. Start a blog and chat up your book, review books by other indie writers, set up giveaways. Make sure your book is on Goodreads and use all the opportunities for promoting they offer. Most importantly, don’t give up. If you are doing what you’ve always wanted, if you are fulfilling a dream, press on.
Connect with other indie authors and share suggestions. We are all in this challenge together. Indie support is the best kind of support you can get.
http://www.amazon.com/View-From-Sixth-Floor-Oswald-ebook/dp/B00NPCZW6W
http://www.amazon.com/Riddle-Elizabeth-Horton-Newton-ebook/dp/B0100NPW1S
http://www.elizabethhorton-newtonauthor.com/
Great thoughts, hope your book continues to succeed:)
ReplyDeleteThank you for stopping by Lanie!! :-)
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