# 12 Months, 12 Novels: My Results



## valeriec80 (Feb 24, 2011)

In 2013, I decided to try writing one book every month, inspired by Elle Casey, who reported very good results from doing so.

In 2012, I released 6 books, and I sold 11,055 books.

In 2013, I released 12 books, and I sold 23,455 books.

So, on the surface it looks like it worked really well. That doubling the amount of books I wrote served to double the amount that I sold.

But the truth is not so simple. Of the books I sold this year, 10,278 of them were _Slow Burn_, which was my "runaway hit." It sold most of those copies in January and February, when it peaked at about #200 in the Amazon store.

Since none of the books that I've written since _Slow Burn_ have achieved anything near that kind of success (even the ones in the same series), I think we have to conclude that _Slow Burn_ was a fluke.

If you subtract the _Slow Burn_ numbers from the totals, I sold 13,177 books in 2013. Of those, 6577 were titles released in 2013 (that aren't _Slow Burn_) and 6600 are titles published in 2012 or before.

So... I think it's fair to say that--in my case--increasing titles did not lead to a big increase in sales.

There are things I did wrong.

1. I didn't write in a popular genre. I tried to, but I ended up sort of sidestepping everything. So I wrote NA romance, but it wasn't contemporary. It was paranormal, science fiction, superhero, retelling of _Wuthering Heights_, and murder mystery. Even though _Slow Burn_ somehow managed to ride the charts, it was in spite of itself, not _because_ of what I was doing.

2. I didn't really even write romance, even though I called it that. Sure, I had two people falling in love and living happily ever after, but I relied on external forces to keep them apart (for the most part) rather than elaborately emotional misunderstandings and confusions and various other drama-drama reasons. I did this because I HATE that in romance novels. But I now realize that IS a romance novel. So... that was dumb.

We could conclude that this strategy worked, but only in the sense that it made it more likely that I managed to get a "hit."

However, considering that "hit" was the first book I wrote this year, my perception of the year has been one of a slow slide into relative obscurity, with each new release performing not-so-great. It doesn't help to have a book sell 10,000 copies, because it kind of makes you raise your expectations a wee bit. This year has been an exercising in lowering 'em right back down, lol.

I'm going to continue writing a book a month because I really love feeling as if I can almost keep up with all my ideas. I love being ABLE to write 12 whole books in a year, because there are so, so, so many stories I want to tell, and even at this pace, I can barely keep up with my muse.

However, if you're a slow writer, feel free to take this as confirmation that it doesn't actually matter how fast you go. To make money at writing, you need to be publishing books that people want to read. The end.


----------



## legion (Mar 1, 2013)

Lol! Hard lesson for me too. 
I have a difficult time writing formulaic romance, but I'll keep trying since, despite my deviations, those romance attempts sell better than anything else!

Anyway, congrats on your 'runaway hit' and *lifts glass* here's to more in 2014!


----------



## Anne Frasier (Oct 22, 2009)

wow, valerie.  a lot for us to think about. thanks so much for sharing.


----------



## mariehallwrites (Mar 14, 2013)

Romance does not have to be dumb misunderstandings that keep them apart. I hate that too. And I'm absolutely a romance writer.   That's just called trope. 

The main thrust of a romance is that the forward momentum of the novel is the romance itself. If you're book is mostly plot, with the occasional romantic interlude then no, it's not a true blue romance. It's got romantic elements though, so you could still label it a romance and get away with it, if that's indeed what you've written.

But hey, I'd kill to have your kind of output. I'm lucky to do a 90k in 2 months. Generally it takes me 3 months to write a full length. But just think, you're building such a great backlist of titles putting out something every month your monies should (realistically) start to increase even if your sales per title slips a little.


----------



## Nope (Jun 25, 2012)

.


----------



## Jack Zavada (Aug 21, 2013)

Valerie, thanks for sharing all that information.  It demands careful consideration.

One question it raises is, do we pursue a popular genre or do we write what we enjoy writing, even though it might not be the most popular genre at the time?

While it seems to make sense to go where readers are, we'll also be competing with established names in that genre, a genre that may already be crowded with writers trying to capitalize on it.

What to do?  What to do?  

Anyway, thanks for giving us some facts to work with!

Jack


----------



## valeriec80 (Feb 24, 2011)

mariehallwrites said:


> Romance does not have to be dumb misunderstandings that keep them apart. I hate that too. And I'm absolutely a romance writer.  That's just called trope.


Dude.

I knew I shouldn't have said that stuff about romance in there.

No offense, people. I'm not trying to denigrate romance at all. I realize, more than anyone, how tough it is to write, especially because I tried to write it when I didn't even really like it.

Honestly, I just want horror to come back in vogue. What I really want to write about is creepy love, not good, happy love. I want to write about people who are attracted to dangerously beautiful things that threaten to destroy them. I thought that the romance genre would contain writing about this, what with the fact that people like books about bad boys and monsters and stuff, but the thing is, I began to chafe more and more about reforming my bad boys. I don't wan to write stories about women leading happy lives with bad men. I don't even believe in that. I want to write gorgeous, gothic stories about obsession and attraction and sex and violence. I want to write difficult, unsettling stuff.

I don't know if anyone actually wants to read those stories, or if they're just out of vogue, or what. I do feel like I've read some thrillers that are exactly the kind of thing I'm thinking. I love, love, love Chelsea Cain's Gretchen and Archie books, for instance. So, I feel like getting away from romance makes better sense. For me, it's less about writing to market and more about finding the market that fits what I want to write (and tweaking the particulars to fit there, I suppose.)

Anyway, romance writers are awesome. Romance fiction is complicated and difficult. And people who denigrate romance are short sighted and idiotic, and I have no respect for them. Nor do I want to join their ranks.


----------



## mariehallwrites (Mar 14, 2013)

Do you mean like Louisa May Alcott's A Long Fatal Love Chase? Best book she ever wrote in my mind. That book is epic. It's one of her lesser known works, so anti-love does seem to be a bit of a tough cookie to sell, but I absolutely devour that stuff.


----------



## EC Sheedy (Feb 24, 2011)

As a romance writer trying to sort out what to write going forward--and how long each project should be and how fast I can write it--I truly appreciate this post. Thank you, Valerie. You've given me food for thought, even though it is past time my brain went on a diet and my ass got in first gear. ...le sigh...

I don't have trouble writing the emotional struggles that often precede thoughtful, intelligent  adults falling in love and making a commitment, but I do wonder if that's what readers want to read. And, of course, I worry that everything needs to be a series... 

Great post!


----------



## Sarah M (Apr 6, 2013)

valeriec80 said:


> I don't wan to write stories about women leading happy lives with bad men. I don't even believe in that. I want to write gorgeous, gothic stories about obsession and attraction and sex and violence. I want to write difficult, unsettling stuff.


I want to read that kind of stuff. Seriously.


----------



## Guest (Dec 27, 2013)

Good job getting books of that length out each month.  Some of those on your signature are 300+ pages; that must have been tough!


----------



## Michael Buckley (Jun 24, 2013)

I am new to this. I can only tell you what makes sense to me. I am trying to write a different genre because the one I am writing now just does not feel right for me.

If you want to sell your books, do you? If you don't want to write it then how can you expect the reader to want to read it?

I am fast and can write about 9k a day if I have a story in my head. I started out doing a 15k novella every other day, they were trash and unreal books, Neara world was one such serial I unpublished.

I am writing now about 1500 to 2k a day if I write at all. I am trying to find my place and my genre where I feel comfortable, I think I found it, but I have not written in a few days because I have real fear of failure, I have the story in my head and no writers block, just fear that keep me from writing.

As mentioned above it's not how many you write it's what the readers are happy to read, such as Slow Burn, the readers loved it.

I feel it never hurts to write and if you can write 12 a year that is great, maybe no sales now, but later they might take off. You have to write what you like and not what the reader likes. 

It's a crap shoot, some books will make it and other won't, all we can do is try and not give up, find are sweet spot in what we like to write, sooner or later some readers will like it as well if we are lucky.


----------



## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

Popping in as a reader:

I love paranormal romance where the woman is the one with the abilities! The guy is the one along for the ride and supporting her. All my favorites are sweet YA, but that's not a necessity:

"Awake: A Fairy Tale," by Jessica Grey
"Pyxis," by K.C. Neal
"Clockwise," by Elle Strauss


----------



## Nope (Jun 25, 2012)

.


----------



## katherinef (Dec 13, 2012)

valeriec80 said:


> Honestly, I just want horror to come back in vogue. What I really want to write about is creepy love, not good, happy love. I want to write about people who are attracted to dangerously beautiful things that threaten to destroy them. I thought that the romance genre would contain writing about this, what with the fact that people like books about bad boys and monsters and stuff, but the thing is, I began to chafe more and more about reforming my bad boys. I don't wan to write stories about women leading happy lives with bad men. I don't even believe in that. I want to write gorgeous, gothic stories about obsession and attraction and sex and violence. I want to write difficult, unsettling stuff.


I want to read that! Well, kind of. I want dark and creepy, but I'd still love to get a happy ending.  I'll be beta reading a book like that. The writer promised me a dark, creepy love with a bad/monster girl, lots of violence, little or no redeeming qualities and a happy ending. I like the concept so much that I'm afraid to tell the author that it will be hard to find an audience for that kind of a book. I'm sick of good girls meeting bad boys and reforming them. I can still enjoy stories like that, but I'd rather not read about a good girl.


----------



## 41413 (Apr 4, 2011)

This is super interesting, Valerie. Thank you for sharing. Man, I wish I could put out a novel every month. What's your workflow like?


----------



## olefish (Jan 24, 2012)

But think about it, of the remaining 11 'non-performing' titles, they had an average of 600 sales for the year.  Very few self-pubbed books sell 600 books on the first year of release, much less for cold genres. Certainly, 600 sales isn't 10000 sales but it shows that you can still make money on books "people don't care to read". As SM Reine says, you can make money writing what you want to write as long as you're very stubborn about it.


----------



## Lisa Grace (Jul 3, 2011)

Thanks for sharing.  I appreciate it!


----------



## hollyM (Dec 25, 2013)

I find your way of doing things truly amazing. If only I were brave enough to lose the day job and take writing full-on like you do. NaNoWriMo has never appealed to my because the idea of writing a complete novel in thirty days baffles me. For a seasoned writer, it must be possible, but, oh, I'm the kind of slow writer that can't imagine it. I admire it though. Would love, love to be able to have that ability. I wonder, you have so many ideas and so much dedication...what if you spend 12 months writing one novel...would the quality not be better? Not that you are lacking quality now, just, take the books you are putting out, and up that quality 12 times...which would you prefer?


----------



## valeriec80 (Feb 24, 2011)

Old Ben said:


> This is super interesting, Valerie. Thank you for sharing. Man, I wish I could put out a novel every month. What's your workflow like?


Uh, my books are on the short side. Most of the ones I put out this year were between 70-80K. I had two almost hitting 90K, but I really have trouble getting over that hump. Also, I have no children, just a boyfriend and a cat, and my boyfriend and I can go like three days without really talking about much of anything besides, "You hungry? Should I make dinner?" So all of that is helpful in terms of having no life, and therefore no distractions. 

In the beginning of the year, I was doing 5K a day, five days a week. I've since upped that to 8K. I can do about 2000 words per hour, so I do four hour-long sessions. One or two before lunch and one or two after. Sometimes I don't get to my last session until after dinner. I take long breaks between sessions in which I hang out here. Or read. I'm trying to read more and hang out on the forum less.

Um, so I can usually draft a book in about 12-15 work days, which is about three weeks. (You'd think 10, right? If I'm writing 8K and the books are 80K, you'd think 10. And I've done it in 10, but I do find giving myself a wee break for one or two of the days and only doing 4K or 6K does wonders in terms of keeping up motivation.) Then I reread it and make comments (takes a day usually). I do a second draft in two-ish days, sometimes three depending on how much I have to rewrite. And then I listen to the book with text-to-speech for final proofreading stuff. I've only had one person point out a typo since I started doing that, but someday when I'm rich I dream of hiring people to proofread, because text-to-speech is tedious. Anyway, that takes about another day. And then one more day to upload. So, it's usually about a month, give or take. Three weeks to draft. One week to polish and publish.

Oh, and I don't take breaks either. So, the day that I upload the last book, I'm then outlining the next book.

It would be a fabulous schedule and a fabulous life except recently, I'm in bad shape with money, and so everything is just constant anxiety. And I'd be in better shape with money if it weren't for A-seriously underestimating my estimated taxes and B-an avalanche of expensive disasters including cars, vacation mishaps, and lawyers (don't ask).



hollyM said:


> I find your way of doing things truly amazing. If only I were brave enough to lose the day job and take writing full-on like you do. NaNoWriMo has never appealed to my because the idea of writing a complete novel in thirty days baffles me. For a seasoned writer, it must be possible, but, oh, I'm the kind of slow writer that can't imagine it. I admire it though. Would love, love to be able to have that ability. I wonder, you have so many ideas and so much dedication...what if you spend 12 months writing one novel...would the quality not be better? Not that you are lacking quality now, just, take the books you are putting out, and up that quality 12 times...which would you prefer?


I don't know. I've never, ever taken that long to write a book, even when I was working full time. I think I slavishly followed On Writing in which Stephen King says the draft of a book shouldn't take longer than a season? So, I used to write 2K a day when I got home from work every day. (Weell... for the three months when I was writing the book, anyway. When I had a day job, I would routinely go months and months without writing. I usually wrote about two books a year, but that was mostly because I only wrote for six months out of the year.)

I figure if I decided to write a book in twelve months, I'd get bored with the thing and give up on it without finishing it.


----------



## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

Jack Zavada said:


> One question it raises is, do we pursue a popular genre or do we write what we enjoy writing, even though it might not be the most popular genre at the time?


I'm going to attempt to do both in 2014. Who knows whether it'll work out well for me!

Valerie, thanks for sharing your experience. It does highlight the importance of writing a book that readers want to read. And, hey -- you did it once with Slow Burn. You can do it again! And then again, and again. Hopefully that thought encourages you somewhat.


----------



## OJ Connell (Mar 23, 2012)

Thank you for sharing! I love threads likes these. A lot of food for thought in here.

And heck, I too hope Horror has its day soon


----------



## Guest (Dec 27, 2013)

Horror is so hot right now in film and especially TV with the likes of The Walking Dead, Grimm, Bates Motel, American Horror Story, etc. I can't understand why horror novels aren't selling well.  It's so disappointing as horror ism, without a doubt, my favorite genre.


----------



## 41413 (Apr 4, 2011)

valeriec80 said:


> Uh, my books are on the short side. Most of the ones I put out this year were between 70-80K. I had two almost hitting 90K, but I really have trouble getting over that hump...


I feel like you've said this elsewhere, but I can't remember - are you a plotter or a pantser? Consistently writing 8k a day is great. I feel like I'm pushing it to do 5k every day for more than a week or two at a time and it really kills me. I can manage an occasional 10k, but no more than that. The big problem is knowing just where I'm going, and I have no idea how to get over that "wtf I need better ideas" hump.


----------



## Gone 9/21/18 (Dec 11, 2008)

You have my sympathy in all departments, Valerie. I also have the one fluke book. I sometimes feel jealous of that one on behalf of my other books, but the fact is _Eyes of Silver, Eyes of Gold_ represents 39% of my overall sales. It will be 4 years old next April, and except for the first month, and maybe the second month of a new release, it continues to outsell all the others. I am grateful. Without that book, I'd have to get a regular job, but still....

I also sympathize with the genre problem. Every post from someone who says they're going to write such and such because it sells better even though they've never even read it makes me wonder -- how anyone can do that? I can only write what I'd want to read. After all you spend far more time in a story writing it than reading it. If it wouldn't be a pleasure to read, how can you force yourself to spend all that time with something you don't like? Okay, it's a job. I see that way of looking at it, but even though I hated every day job I ever had, they were all doing something I didn't mind doing. What I hated was the clock and taking orders.

The one a month thing I'm not physically capable of; I'd cripple myself. Still, I keep wanting to write more per year. Maybe 2014 will be it. Then again, I'd settle for just one and it being another fluke.


----------



## Michael Kingswood (Feb 18, 2011)

hollyM said:


> I find your way of doing things truly amazing. If only I were brave enough to lose the day job and take writing full-on like you do. NaNoWriMo has never appealed to my because the idea of writing a complete novel in thirty days baffles me. For a seasoned writer, it must be possible, but, oh, I'm the kind of slow writer that can't imagine it. I admire it though. Would love, love to be able to have that ability. I wonder, you have so many ideas and so much dedication...what if you spend 12 months writing one novel...would the quality not be better? Not that you are lacking quality now, just, take the books you are putting out, and up that quality 12 times...which would you prefer?


You're falling victim to one of the classic blunders. The biggest being never start a land war in Asia. But only slightly less well known is this:

Taking More Time =/= Increased Quality

Your final question is a non-sequitor. But even were that not the case, you first must define what you mean by quality or else the question is merely meaningless.


----------



## Chris P. O&#039;Grady (Oct 28, 2013)

Old Ben said:


> This is super interesting, Valerie. Thank you for sharing. Man, I wish I could put out a novel every month. What's your workflow like?


I wish I could write with your quality.... Oh if wishes were fishes ....


----------



## valeriec80 (Feb 24, 2011)

Old Ben said:


> I feel like you've said this elsewhere, but I can't remember - are you a plotter or a pantser? Consistently writing 8k a day is great. I feel like I'm pushing it to do 5k every day for more than a week or two at a time and it really kills me. I can manage an occasional 10k, but no more than that.


I go back and forth, honestly. I "pants-ed" Wuther, which was one of those books of the heart things that I wrote in 9 days, but it kind of didn't count, because Wuthering Heights is, you know, an outline, so I was really following a set plot already. I'd say that to get in the upper word counts per day, I usually need an outline. But right now, I'm trying to outline this book, and it's not working at all. What I'm getting is just the next scene, not the overall plot, so I might try just winging that one. I probably outline 70% of the time, but I reserve the right not to outline if I don't feel like it.

As for the "pushing it" and feeling like it's killing you, I actually would have agreed with that earlier in the year. I did an 8K a day experiment in January of 2012 and wrote a big, long thing about how exhausting it was and how I couldn't handle doing it regularly. But now I am, since mid-October. I credit three things for that.

One was DWS's session writing. Before, I would sit down and try to write 5K all in one go, and it was just exhausting. But writing for a bit, then taking a break, and then going back and writing more feels way less hard. I feel like I mostly goof off all day.

Two was switching from half-hour sessions to hour-long sessions. I was doing 5 half-hour sessions. And... weirdly... doing four hour-long sessions somehow feels less hard.

The third thing is just desperation. The less money I make, the harder I work. (Which I'm beginning to suspect is madness and might actually be driving me mad. Honestly, I'm not sure that there's any reason to write 8K a day. It sure does make the story fly by more quickly, though, and that kind of pace can be a bit addicting.)



Old Ben said:


> The big problem is knowing just where I'm going, and I have no idea how to get over that "wtf I need better ideas" hump.


Have you ever read this? http://www.amazon.com/Holly-Lisles-Create-Plot-Clinic-ebook/dp/B004EYUHXS/ Basically, the whole book is different tricks to get your creative brain thinking up ideas. One of my favorites in there is using a tarot deck. You pull out a random card and stare at it and ask yourself how you could incorporate something from the card into your book. But there are like twenty-five different exercises, ranging from "When things are going well" to "When things go splat." I swear by that thing, but it obviously isn't going to work well for everyone. (Also, the sheer awfulness of the cover lets you know that it's going to be amazing. Yes, everyone, that _is_ Papyrus.)


----------



## valeriec80 (Feb 24, 2011)

ellenoc said:


> You have my sympathy in all departments, Valerie. I also have the one fluke book. I sometimes feel jealous of that one on behalf of my other books, but the fact is _Eyes of Silver, Eyes of Gold_ represents 39% of my overall sales. It will be 4 years old next April, and except for the first month, and maybe the second month of a new release, it continues to outsell all the others. I am grateful. Without that book, I'd have to get a regular job, but still....


I'm definitely grateful too. I've caught a lot of lucky breaks since I started. Sometimes it's easy to wish things were even easier than they are, but I am grateful for every bit of success that comes my way, and every month I don't have to get a regular job.  I am blessed.


----------



## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

A full year is too long for this analysis.

Throw out _Slow Burn_, and do a monthly graph of unit sales for all the other 17. Put it on a single graph. This would show 17 lines going across 24 periods (months). A new line would start each period. Don't worry about the lines mashing on top of each other. i don't know what this will show, but its the first thing I would do in looking at the data. It sounds like a pretty good data set. Few have the luxury of such a data set. Squeeze it. See if it tells you anything.

What does the trend look like? Do individual books follow a common path? Are there periods when they all move up or all move down?



> I find your way of doing things truly amazing. If only I were brave enough to lose the day job and take writing full-on like you do. NaNoWriMo has never appealed to my because the idea of writing a complete novel in thirty days baffles me. For a seasoned writer, it must be possible, but, oh, I'm the kind of slow writer that can't imagine it. I admire it though. Would love, love to be able to have that ability. I wonder, you have so many ideas and so much dedication...what if you spend 12 months writing one novel...would the quality not be better? Not that you are lacking quality now, just, take the books you are putting out, and up that quality 12 times...which would you prefer?


I couldn't imagine falling out of an airplane until I was halfway down.


----------



## dalya (Jul 26, 2011)

I also know the pain of having one book sell well, and then discovering it doesn't leave any sort of legacy. It's like pulling teeth to get people to sign up for your mailing list, for cryin' out loud! It really is! And you might have great sales for a month, but all the customers who bought that one book have little chance of buying an author's next one ... unless it is already rocketing up the charts and getting a lot of buzz/getting noticed.

In 2013, my best seller was a book I wrote in 2012. I'm not joking.

I think word-of-mouth is a great thing, but it's absolutely minor compared to getting a favorable tip on the algorithms, which is a matter of degrees. Tiny degrees. Word-of-mouth is a wind-up rubber duckie next to the cruise ship of Amazon algorithms. The right cover. The right blurb. And a viewing-to-sell-through rate as little as .005% better than its competitors, and that's a hit book right there.

I've learned a lot this year. For example, the top book under my author name pulls sales from my other books. You'd think increased sales would boost more sales, but it doesn't. Every time one of my new books had the top rank, the sales of my unrelated, best-selling title would drop. I wouldn't believe it if I didn't have the data.

Anyway. 

I'm a risk junkie. I love the thrills. I did a boxed set this month when conventional wisdom would be to wait 30 days. 

The only thing that gets me down is not being able to reliably get my head into the right zone for writing. I got 2400 words so far today, but half of that was through the buzz/fog of an agitated mind. 

Before this year, I didn't believe in writer's block, but now I do. I can more than handle the business side of this business, but the head game... the battle of the mind against itself... that's a tough one.


----------



## Perro Callejero (Dec 23, 2013)

Thanks for this post, Valerie.  I admire your work ethic.  I'd like to be more productive, but I'm just so damned lazy!  Reading this post is inspiring, though.


----------



## MarilynVix (Jun 19, 2013)

It's good to reflect on the process. Seriously, the ups and downs can make you crazy. Why did it sell? Why is it not selling? Was 12 books enough? I've always marveled at the writing speed on the board. But pushing yourself can produce something that you don't expect. I thought one day, can I write Romance? Something I can sell better? Here I am with a new pen name and trying it for myself. More books is always good for any pen name.

The process is hard to recreate for everyone too. But most of all, it has to work for you. If 12 books a year with one top seller worked, why not try it again? Isn't there that zone of writing when you've lost yourself, the characters are flowing, and there is nothing better. Like a passion, obsession, drug. Greatest high of all when you're in the writing zone. If you get into the zone, then you can write as much as needed. Anything to get to a bestselling book.

I hear a lot at writing conferences, they want the writer, not necessarily the book. If you can do one book, you can do another. The author's voice and style are hard to recreate. You are the best asset. So, if you write a lot of books, it's only better. But, good books is essential. I think rushing any book isn't the best. But I did write the first draft of _Never Marry A Warlock_ in a week. It flowed. But then, I've had to work 3 months on just getting it ready for Oct. release, even though I wrote it in July.

I think different parts of the process are at different speeds. Anything that produces a good book. If 12 books worked for you, go for it again. Your readers might start to expect that. Could be a hook. You never know.


----------



## Aya Ling (Nov 21, 2012)

Thanks for sharing, Valerie. I understand when the stuff you want to write isn't what the market wants--a lot of current trends, such as the angst in NA or bad boys in romance, aren't my cup of tea either   It's amazing that you managed 12 books in one year--I wish I can be that productive! At least it'll be easier to advertise when you have a large backlist. Hope next year you'll come out with more hits like Slow Burn.


----------



## valeriec80 (Feb 24, 2011)

Terrence OBrien said:


> A full year is too long for this analysis.
> 
> Throw out _Slow Burn_, and do a monthly graph of unit sales for all the other 17. Put it on a single graph. This would show 17 lines going across 24 periods (months). A new line would start each period. Don't worry about the lines mashing on top of each other. i don't know what this will show, but its the first thing I would do in looking at the data. It sounds like a pretty good data set. Few have the luxury of such a data set. Squeeze it. See if it tells you anything.


I guess I'm not understanding where these numbers are coming from. What are the other 17 books? I published 12 books this year, so that's another 11. If you want to study all my books, that's like another 31 besides Slow Burn. (It's near 30, anyway. I don't feel like adding them all up right now.) And if a year is too long, then why am I studying 24 months, which is double that?


----------



## P.C. (Peter) Anders (Feb 6, 2013)

Those are staggering numbers.
My mind ceases to work at such rarefied levels.
So all I can do is congratulate you and wish you more success.


----------



## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

Michael Kingswood said:


> You're falling victim to one of the classic blunders. The biggest being never start a land war in Asia. But only slightly less well known is this:
> 
> Taking More Time =/= Increased Quality
> 
> Your final question is a non-sequitor. But even were that not the case, you first must define what you mean by quality or else the question is merely meaningless.


I agree.  I think the idea that more time spent = better quality came from the Tradpub industry, where authors were put on longer publishing schedules because the publishers didn't want anything competing within their own brand. Most authors out there can, and want to, write faster than that. They are not releasing one new book every year or two because that's the best they can manage. It's what their contracts dictate.

Writing a book is a skill like any other. The more you practice it, the better you get at it, and the more it becomes second nature to create things like tense plots and believable characters and great dialog, without having to stop and think about it. It's the stopping to think about the best way to proceed that trips up many new writers and slows them down...and that's just fine, because they're early in their skill-refinement journey, and they need more time to think about those basics. A more experienced writer can see her way past road blocks a little quicker and easier with each book, so the more you write, the faster you become.

An example: I took two years to write Baptism for the Dead. I wrote The Crook and Flail in three weeks. I sell about 3 copies of Baptism for the Dead for every 100 I sell of The Crook and Flail. If The Crook and Flail suffered from the short time I spent writing it, I would expect it to sell more poorly than Baptism, not better. (Fortunately, this ratio has crept up minutely over the year from 1:100 to 3:100, so I'll take it!  )


----------



## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

valeriec80 said:


> If you subtract the _Slow Burn_ numbers from the totals, I sold 13,177 books in 2013. Of those, 6577 were titles released in 2013 (that aren't _Slow Burn_) and 6600 are titles published in 2012 or before.


The above is the lesson. Maybe you missed it:

You just proved the point of the "write more books" folks.

If you had not written those 12 books, you would have made less than half the money you did, even without your standout best seller. You would not have made more money if you had not written those books.

I know that people here tend to read magic bullets into any kind of advice they get -- but nobody said that by writing more books, all your individual books would do better. Quite the contrary. What they're saying is that if you have more books out there, you have a buffer against hard times. When the sales on each book slows, you have more of those slow selling books to make up the difference.

Now it's true, you have to find the pace that works for you. Your shifting understanding of the genre, how you went about writing those books, your imagination's stamina, your ability to do good covers and blurbs and titles for a lot of books while trying to write more: all that has an effect on the quality of the product. You have to find the pace that works for you creatively.

The big question is: can you honestly say that if you had not set out to write 12 books you would have written that best seller? If so, then yeah, follow the instinct that caused you to write that book and see if you can reproduce that lightening in a bottle. But if you wrote that book in the same way you wrote the others, then it must be counted in that effort.

Your experiment was a success any way you look at it. It's just that your expectations (perhaps skewed by the success of that book early on) were perhaps too high.

Camille


----------



## 31842 (Jan 11, 2011)

Mimi (was Dalya) said:


> Every time one of my new books had the top rank, the sales of my unrelated, best-selling title would drop. I wouldn't believe it if I didn't have the data.


Just wanted to pop in that I've experienced this, too! I thought I must be imagining things. But I'm not! I'm not alone! I'm not crazy! I haven't been singled out for random drops!


----------



## Guest (Dec 27, 2013)

valeriec80 said:


> I guess I'm not understanding where these numbers are coming from. What are the other 17 books? I published 12 books this year, so that's another 11. If you want to study all my books, that's like another 31 besides Slow Burn. (It's near 30, anyway. I don't feel like adding them all up right now.) And if a year is too long, then why am I studying 24 months, which is double that?


You know you're starting to make it when the number of books you have escapes you from time to time.


----------



## emilynemchick (Sep 25, 2013)

It's a huge achievement to release so many books in so little time no matter the sales results. Be proud, and I hope 2014 will be a great year for you!


----------



## MichelleH (Aug 8, 2011)

Thanks for posting this.

I'm a slow writer, and the idea of cranking out books faster seems really daunting. 

What was your typical word count per book?  I'm seeing that many authors who crank them out are writing novelettes or novellas with counts under 50K.


----------



## valeriec80 (Feb 24, 2011)

MichelleH said:


> Thanks for posting this.
> 
> I'm a slow writer, and the idea of cranking out books faster seems really daunting.
> 
> What was your typical word count per book? I'm seeing that many authors who crank them out are writing novelettes or novellas with counts under 50K.





valeriec80 said:


> Uh, my books are on the short side. Most of the ones I put out this year were between 70-80K. I had two almost hitting 90K, but I really have trouble getting over that hump.


----------



## lynnfromthesouth (Jun 21, 2012)

valeriec80 said:


> ..gorgeous, gothic stories about obsession and attraction and sex and violence.


You should put that in one of your descriptions. I think it might appeal to a lot of people. It's a lovely and simple way to grab attention.


----------



## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

valeriec80 said:


> I guess I'm not understanding where these numbers are coming from. What are the other 17 books? I published 12 books this year, so that's another 11. If you want to study all my books, that's like another 31 besides Slow Burn. (It's near 30, anyway. I don't feel like adding them all up right now.) And if a year is too long, then why am I studying 24 months, which is double that?


6 + 12 - Slow Burn = 17.

That's just how I read the OP. Maybe I messed up.

When I say a year is too long, I mean the time increment is too long to spot trends. Two years divided into two one-year increments only gives two data points. And for 12 of the books, they would only have a single data point. This kind of analysis is based on change from one period to the next.

I don't know if it will show anything valuable. But the best information I find is often the stuff I didn't know was there before I looked. Data is fixed. It doesn't change. Information is developed by manipulating data in ways that let us make decisions.


----------



## valeriec80 (Feb 24, 2011)

Terrence OBrien said:


> I don't know if it will show anything valuable. But the best information I find is often the stuff I didn't know was there before I looked. Data is fixed. It doesn't change. Information is developed by manipulating data in ways that let us make decisions.


I did play around a good bit with the numbers before I posted this, and I decided against putting up a lot of more detailed data, because I wasn't discovering anything interesting from it.

But I admit to not really knowing what I'm looking for exactly.


----------



## KevinH (Jun 29, 2013)

Thanks for sharing; I found this extremely interesting. Forgive me if I get this wrong, but it sounds like you've found a modicum of success writing in a genre that you're not wild about. Personally, I've always been a fan of writing what you love. Bearing in mind how prolific you are, why can't you "waste" one or two books a year writing the type of novel that you want to write? In my mind, that would be a fair tradeoff for spending the rest of my time writing novels in other areas.


----------



## valeriec80 (Feb 24, 2011)

KevinH said:


> Thanks for sharing; I found this extremely interesting. Forgive me if I get this wrong, but it sounds like you've found a modicum of success writing in a genre that you're not wild about. Personally, I've always been a fan of writing what you love. Bearing in mind how prolific you are, why can't you "waste" one or two books a year writing the type of novel that you want to write? In my mind, that would be a fair tradeoff for spending the rest of my time writing novels in other areas.


I'm not writing romance anymore. I'm finishing up my lone romance series this month, and then I'm done with that (for a while, at least.)

At the risk of boring everyone to tears, I'll sort of explain what happened to me.

I used to read a fairly straight diet of speculative fiction, with an emphasis on supernatural horror. I liked Stephen King, Clive Barker, Poppy Z. Brite, Anne Rice, Caitlin R. Kiernan, Peter Straub, etc. Anyway, along came Laurell K. Hamilton, it wasn't a big stretch (at the time) to move into vampire/mystery books and urban fantasy stuff. And then I kept reading UF, and I somehow started reading YA UF, so I started writing YA. And most of my early books were YA UF. They had romantic aspects, but they weren't necessarily Romance with a capital R, you know?

Anyway, then New Adult barged into the room and everyone who'd been writing YA UF all started writing NA contemporary romance. I guess I sort of figured that this was what was expected of me, and I tried to jump on the bandwagon. It was a bad idea, I now realize.

I didn't actually realize how much I hated the contemporary NA genre until my readers kept talking to me about other books they were reading, and I would look at them and think, "Ugh." And this wasn't until maybe... August of this year? Because I do like romantic stories, and I do like bad boys. So, it took a while for me to even realize that I wasn't writing something I loved.

Meanwhile, UF itself had also tumbled down into this weird romance spiral, where there was essentially nothing new or interesting going on.

I found myself unable to find anything to read anymore (for like the past two years, actually). I didn't like any of the speculative YA that was out there anymore. I didn't like the super romancey UF. I definitely didn't like contemporary NA. I was sad, sad, sad. I didn't have anything to read, and I didn't even _know_ what I wanted to write. I stumbled onto a Chelsea Cain book when I was reading something on Chuck Palahniuk's website, and I started reading her stuff. And then from there I found Gillian Flynn and Jennifer Hillier and a bunch of other really awesome contemporary suspense books. And then I was like, "Eureeka! _This_ is what I want to be doing." But I had about three series obligation books that I had to get out, so it took until this month that I was actually even able to start switching. So, my first contemporary suspense book will be out in January. I'm really hoping it does okay. I think I'll maybe give that genre three books (because that's how many ideas I have right now) before trying zombie apocalypse stuff or maybe straight murder mystery with a P.I. or something. *shrug*


----------



## 58907 (Apr 3, 2012)

Mimi (was Dalya) said:


> I also know the pain of having one book sell well, and then discovering it doesn't leave any sort of legacy. It's like pulling teeth to get people to sign up for your mailing list, for cryin' out loud! It really is! And you might have great sales for a month, but all the customers who bought that one book have little chance of buying an author's next one ... unless it is already rocketing up the charts and getting a lot of buzz/getting noticed.


This.

My Thanksgiving novelette is doing really well--very steady--and my Christmas novelette is sinking fast. 15 people joined my mailing list between releases and even less people opened my email about the Christmas release than did the Thanksgiving email. I can hardly rocket up the charts without sales from the support of my immediate fan base--being a newbie an all.

However, 12 titles a year is awesome. Great motivation to get more titles out next year. I really believe the more books the better--especially if they're well-written with all the necessaries like cover, blurb, etc...


----------



## JeanetteRaleigh (Jan 1, 2013)

I wonder though, that if you hadn't written 12 books, would Slow Burn be the hit it was?  Maybe some of the other books gave you the practice needed to have all of the elements for Slow Burn in place, or maybe the timing of the release was just right for the book to soar and it wouldn't have been as popular in two or three years.  There are so many factors.  

When I listen to those writers who are successful, they ALL put in the same kind of hard work. It's rare for someone to hit the top of the charts right off.


----------



## valeriec80 (Feb 24, 2011)

JeanetteRaleigh said:


> I wonder though, that if you hadn't written 12 books, would Slow Burn be the hit it was? Maybe some of the other books gave you the practice needed to have all of the elements for Slow Burn in place, or maybe the timing of the release was just right for the book to soar and it wouldn't have been as popular in two or three years. There are so many factors.
> 
> When I listen to those writers who are successful, they ALL put in the same kind of hard work. It's rare for someone to hit the top of the charts right off.


Well, _Slow Burn_ was the first of the 12 books I wrote last year.

But it was my... *checking*... 23rd novel written (21st published since two of my books were too crappy to ever see the light of day), so your point about practice is probably right on point.

(But in my darker moments, I'm fairly sure that the only reason the book sold well was because of the stock photo I found and the fact that I billed it as _Beautiful Disaster_ meets _Nikita_. _Beautiful Disaster_ was really hot last January. In my darker moments, I'm fairly sure that it's all chance, every single bit of it. That it doesn't matter if you have skill or talent or know your way around a story at all. Thing is, even if that _is_ true, I don't _want_ it to be true. So I try not to think that way.)


----------



## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

valeriec80 said:


> I did play around a good bit with the numbers before I posted this, and I decided against putting up a lot of more detailed data, because I wasn't discovering anything interesting from it.
> 
> But I admit to not really knowing what I'm looking for exactly.


Your numbers are really nobodys business. But the reason for moving the data around is to see if something pops out. Each month has some debut book. Graph that. What does the debut in Jan, feb, mar... show? Change from incremental data for each month to cumulative data. What does that show? Plot the changes for each book month to month. Make a stacked histogram of sales by month. What will it show? I don't have a clue. Thats why I do it. Some folks like to reason to this stuff. Im not as smart as they are. I prefer to let the data tell me.

Excel can make this much less work than it sounds.


----------



## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

valeriec80 said:


> Anyway, then New Adult barged into the room and everyone who'd been writing YA UF all started writing NA contemporary romance. I guess I sort of figured that this was what was expected of me, and I tried to jump on the bandwagon. It was a bad idea, I now realize.


You know, this in and of itself throws a very different light on the meaning of your numbers. Doing some of the stuff that Terrance suggests could help sort it out, but I suspect that to really know how things will work for you, you have to write 12 books you want to write.

A couple of thoughts about your numbers and your results:

*If those first six books were not in the NA genre, then the new books you wrote would not help your audience find your old books. So yeah, your sales would be slower than if you were writing new books that attracted the same audience.

*New Adult is now yesterday's news. You saw it yourself: the genre is narrowing and becoming repetitive. Some author who loves the genre and is in tune with the audience will likely invent a new wrinkle, but for the most part, the market is saturated, and the audience is more likely to go to the established "masters" of the genre for their fix, and it's harder and harder for less established writers to get a foot hold.

And yeah, it is good to face the fact that unusual success is often due to luck -- but that luck is often a learning experience. For instance: that cover you found for that first book -- if you really believe it could be responsible for the success of that book, then for goodness sakes, why didn't you move heaven and earth to find as provocative a cover for one or two of the other book as a test. Even if you had to spend more on it, it seems to me it would be work the expense. (And why let a cover stand between you and success?)

If that is the reason the first book succeeded, then the lack of success in your other books is NOT a matter of luck. (However, you shouldn't kick yourself for that -- it can take years to sort out all the lessons we learn from something like this.) IMHO, if you've got a couple of books left to go to finish the series (or if you just have a book recently published enough to still be on the "new" lists) test out that theory and look for cover upgrades.

Camille


----------



## Courtney Milan (Feb 27, 2011)

ellenoc said:


> You have my sympathy in all departments, Valerie. I also have the one fluke book. I sometimes feel jealous of that one on behalf of my other books, but the fact is _Eyes of Silver, Eyes of Gold_ represents 39% of my overall sales. It will be 4 years old next April, and except for the first month, and maybe the second month of a new release, it continues to outsell all the others. I am grateful. Without that book, I'd have to get a regular job, but still....
> 
> I also sympathize with the genre problem. Every post from someone who says they're going to write such and such because it sells better even though they've never even read it makes me wonder -- how anyone can do that? I can only write what I'd want to read. After all you spend far more time in a story writing it than reading it. If it wouldn't be a pleasure to read, how can you force yourself to spend all that time with something you don't like? Okay, it's a job. I see that way of looking at it, but even though I hated every day job I ever had, they were all doing something I didn't mind doing. What I hated was the clock and taking orders.
> 
> The one a month thing I'm not physically capable of; I'd cripple myself. Still, I keep wanting to write more per year. Maybe 2014 will be it. Then again, I'd settle for just one and it being another fluke.


Ellen, as someone who bought that book, and then bought every book you've written since, I'm glad that you're writing what you want to write, because I want to read what you want to write. And as someone who would die if I tried to write a book in a month, too, I am with you on that.

I have one book that's responsible for 45% of my total income self-publishing. I think everyone, at every level, has books that outsell the other books in their stables for reasons that are not necessarily clear. Some books are just more aerodynamic than others, and when you put out a book that is seriously aerodynamic, it's kind of magic, and it fools you into thinking that maybe _you_ are magic.

But before I had that book, there was another book that felt magically aerodynamic in comparison to the rest--and before I released Magic Book #2, THAT book was responsible for 43% of my income.

So I'm going to make a different suggestion: the fact that you've written ONE book that has that aerodynamic quality means that you're capable of doing it, and if you can do it once, you can do it again. If you write enough books, you WILL do it again.

The trick is to make sure that (1) you take advantage of the aerodynamic books that you have to send sales to the rest of your stables, and (2) that you do your best to grab the people who are interested in you as an author and make sure that they find out about your newest releases.


----------



## jvin248 (Jan 31, 2012)

(I like that "aerodynamic" description for a popular book.)

Any of the twelve books you published last year could pop this next year or at a minimum they all continue working and selling for you for years ahead.


----------



## belindaf (Jan 27, 2011)

I'm amazed by anyone who can put out a book a month. I need six. And that's me working 'fast'. My books run around 70-90K, except for short stories and anthos, and honestly, if its working for you, KUDOS!

I don't do my own editing and I typically crunch four drafts out before sending to my editor, who is another well-trained author that I swap edits with to conserve cash. 

I paid for cover art and editing on both of my Strandville Zombie novels and started a good grand in the hole on each of them, worse with "Cure" because I had to pay an intellectual property lawyer to hash out a film option that, after months and co-writing the script, languished in a drawer in Hollywood somewhere. So that one started me 3K in the hole. Brutal.

My kids are grown-ish (we have two 18-year-old boys) who come home on occasion, and a 23-year-old girl with a two-year-old. I love my time being "Grammy" so I take more time than I should to just play with the baby. We watch her a lot in the winter while her mom works a second job at a ski mountain.

2014, my resolutions are two-fold: write faster and write with more confidence. You must REALLY believe in your stories to be able to just finish them, clean them up, and send them out into the world without developmental criticism. I want to be more fearless like that, and see if I can't beef up my backlist.

Congrats! You're an inspiration.


----------



## Perro Callejero (Dec 23, 2013)

I'm wondering if SLOW BURN's lion-share success actually owes some of that success to the fact that you've got so many other books.  If people keep seeing your name pop up, hitting high on a list when a new novel debuts, they might be curious to see what your writing is like.  They'll click your name and look at your books, and maybe pick the book that has the highest ranking, the most reviews, whatever.  Some readers don't pick one author or one series and follow it through to the end before starting something else.  Some readers jump around, only rarely (or never) revisiting an author.  Readers like that look for what might be considered your "key book", and might not be good for followup sales, but they're still helping your bottom line.  And all of the other titles you've published might have been part of the reason they remembered your name in the first place.


----------



## LKWatts (May 5, 2011)

Wow.

Have you slept this year as well?


----------

