# How I Sold a Load of Books (Finally)



## Al K. Line (Mar 16, 2014)

I'm actually selling some books at last. I'm going to lay out what I did, and why I think I'm actually selling, but please take it for what it's worth - just the approach I took and nothing else.

*Background:*

I began my publishing journey the beginning of 2014, and since then I have worked my fingers to the bone publishing as of today 19 novels. So, that right there says a lot. None, and I mean none, of them have made me much money, and some of my launches have been so damn depressing that I honestly wondered if they were actually going to sell any copies at all.

I write across multiple genres and focus on building new worlds, adding something unique to all my work, or at least try. But they have never been easy to pin down in terms of genre, for the most part, and any promos I have done have quickly faded in terms of effect and I'm back at square one - hardly selling.

*My Plan*

Call it serendipity, something in the collective Kboards consciousness, or just a number of people coming to the same conclusions regarding the path they wanted to follow with their publishing career at around the same time, but I began forming a plan, and writing Black Spark, right about the time Domino began talking about Dead Man, J.A. Cipriano was shooting up the charts with Cursed and Sonya Bateman was doing gangbusters with Wrong Side of Hell.

I tried not to get my hopes up and knuckled down to writing. Since late last year I have written 3 books in a new series: Dark Magic Enforcer. An Urban Fantasy that I can absolutely classify as such. I wanted to try to Write to Market - something Chris Fox has been talking about a lot here and elsewhere and has had amazing results with with Destroyer. I was nervous, wondering if this meant selling my soul to the sell-out devil, but it actually had the opposite effect. I damn well enjoyed myself. I was focused, had a direction, and got excited about what I could achieve while writing something that I could positively classify for a change.

I have a kick-ass dude, tropes regards memory loss, he's covered in tattoos that channel his magic use, and I've tried my best to put my own spin on the genre while still keeping it strictly Urban Fantasy. Whether or not I've succeeded is not down to me to say, but I'm selling books.

*Pre-Launch*

I released the paperback a week before the kindle version, deciding that I need to be in KDP Select for this to get maximum sales. I'm wide with plenty of books, but for this I wanted to go all in. I have gathered a small ARC team and a few of them graciously left reviews on the paperback so they were there ready.

I emailed my small newsletter a few times leading up to launch, showing them the cover, the blurb, and the first chapter. Hopefully building some buzz. That, or nobody would buy it!

I booked Hungry Author for the main release announcement and that was about it, apart from a couple of small promos that did next to nothing.

*The Launch*

I did a quiet releases 5 days before the main release date on April 5 and 6. This gave me time to contact KDP and get the print and ebook linked, thus the reviews showing up. I also emailed my ARC team and got a few more reviews on the ebook. This also allowed me to contact Amazon to get my categories maximized, and I asked for more but you have to call it a day sometime. Having a quiet launch a few days before the main event allowed me to get things lined up as best I could, check everything looked okay on the product page, and bite my fingers nervously. The mad thing was people were buying my book before I told anyone. How did they find it? Because people are actively searching for new releases in the categories I was in, is all I can guess.

Launch day I emailed my newsletter, sold a handful of books, and the next day sold plenty of copies with Hungry Author.

Then I bombed. Okay, that's relative. I was still selling more than the rest of my entire catalog combined, but it looked like it was all over. But then page reads began to kick in, sales began to climb, and 10 days after release my also boughts kicked in. This is where the true magic lies, I am now entirely convinced of this.

At the bottom of my blurb I listed that the initial 99c price point would finish on April 11 and I sold a shed load of books on the final discount day. I wanted to hold off on increasing the price to $2.99 until the also boughts kicked in and this paid off. I returned to full price at the peak of my rankings..

Since then I have been ranking between #400 and #800 in the store.

*Moving Forward*

Book 2 came out yesterday. I will announce it to my newsletter on April 26 once I know everything is okay with the listing and hopefully this should maximize sales as it will be the final day of it being 99c. I plan to keep writing this series as long as people want to read it, and hope that I don't just disappear into obscurity once more.

*Takeaway*

Don't give up. I wrote 17 books in a little over two years, and none of them had done anything remarkable. I guess I'm just stubborn and have always looked at it as a long term plan to have enough work out there to allow to me to earn a living that way.

This time I wrote a series trying to keep genre, expectations, and the reader firmly in mind. Maybe it's just that male driven Urban Fantasy is having a massive surge in popularity, or maybe it's that, combined with actually having a proper plan of attack and thinking about things before doing them. Or maybe it's blind luck and this was a waste of time reading.

That's not for me to decide.

I simply wanted to lay it out there for everyone that reads this. I know from firsthand experience how depressing and hard it can be to keep on writing when nothing seems to click with readers. But the only way you will ever know if you can write something that suddenly takes off is to keep on keeping on.

Get a genre specific cover, work the hell out of your blurb (I tweaked and tweaked mine, rather than rushing it as I usually do), ensure you actually know what categories your book is going to belong in before you write it, and do whatever it takes to get a little team behind you to get a couple of initial reviews or sales to get you going when you release.

With so much competition these days you can be sure that other authors are doing all of this and an awful lot more, so we owe it to ourselves to give our work the best possible chance from the get-go.

Okay, I don't know if this is helpful or just rehashing old ground, but I wanted to write this up as I've had so much help from these boards. Maybe it's a little bit inspiring (or depressing), or maybe it gives somebody hope they can sell some damn books too. Either way, please be kind. I'm not one for putting myself forward like this and I am in no way saying this is a plan that works, but it definitely helps give your release the best possible chance.

*A Few Musings*

The debate over going exclusive with Amazon or going wide is never going to end, but seeing how many page reads I get on Black Spark has me convinced I would never have got such decent rankings without being exclusive. I can't imagine every one of those reads equivalent to a book sale would have been a purchase if I wasn't exclusive. Would I be selling more if I had gone wide? I don't know. But I am selling books, and that gives me hope moving forward. It's a tough call, and I think it really depends on the categories you are in. If the top books are all exclusive then it will be harder to join them if you are wide, but maybe you will do better on another platform? Ugh, you could go around in circles forever over this.

Categories are nowhere near as important as also boughts. You should see the also boughts for Black Spark, it's like a Kboards meet-up. Amazon is doing a good job with their recommendations, and it reflects in the rankings.

Get eyes on your blurbs, and write out as many versions as you can stomach.

Respond to feedback. I've just updated Black Spark after reading a few reviews and they were right, so I fixed it.

Keep writing. But some form of marketing is important. I don't think the answer lies with all the promo sites though. I've used loads of them, and what happens is I get better rankings and sales, then fall back to where I was before. Personally, I can now see that I need to check on the baseline rankings for my releases and see if I am onto a winner or if I need to move on. This is hard to accept and I never have before - I just wrote the next in series and released to crickets. I honestly never really minded as I get nice emails from people, but it's also kinda nice to sell some books.

I guess I'm saying I did a lot of things wrong, and although making a plan and writing the most bestest book in the Universe is no guarantee of success, it will do better if you put your marketing hat on before you spend a month, a year, or more, to write your next novel.

Sorry, I'll shut up now.

_Removed link to your book--sorry, links to one's own books in the Writers' Cafe are seen as promotional. --Betsy_


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## Samuel E. Green (Nov 26, 2015)

Awesome stuff, thanks for the write-up.

Have the sales for the new series affected the others much? I checked the rankings and there seems to be a fairly big gap between the new series and the older stuff. Do you think it will just take a little while for the other books to get picked up by those who loved the new series, or is the new series hitting a completely different market?


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## Al K. Line (Mar 16, 2014)

It's definitely a different market. There has been little in the way of sell-through so far. Maybe it will change over time, but I don't know. Heck, I wish I could sell plenty of my backlist, there's enough of it!


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## Mark E. Cooper (May 29, 2011)

Grats. Keep up the good work. Now you have something to build on, it will only get better.


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## Al K. Line (Mar 16, 2014)

Thanks Mark, I appreciate it.


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## JTriptych (Aug 23, 2015)

Thanks for sharing your experiences. Like you I write across different genres- it may not be the best strategy in the world for me, but its something I want to do- I just cant follow what others are doing, but thats just me- I just want to be different. I have no problem at all with others who write to market- more power to them!

Looks like UF is the hot new market for indie authors.


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## Matthew Stott (Oct 22, 2014)

Hey, well done! This has again made me realise the project I should probably focus on first...


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Al K. Line said:


> It's definitely a different market. There has been little in the way of sell-through so far. Maybe it will change over time, but I don't know. Heck, I wish I could sell plenty of my backlist, there's enough of it!


Being wide is the key to selling backlist.

I wish I could do great launches. I'm trying, but I fail so hard at the writing to market thing because I just rather write what I want. But selling backlist... the more I have, the more it spills over, especially on non-Amazon sites, where you can also jack the price up a lot more in between specials.


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## Sonya Bateman (Feb 3, 2013)

Woo-hoooo!! Huge congratulations, Al!!!  I saw you in the also-boughts and thought YAY, another Kboarder! 

Here's to continued awesome sales for you!


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## Mark Dawson (Mar 24, 2012)

Good work. Keep writing, put a box set together, and enjoy the ride.


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## MinnieC (Feb 19, 2016)

Yay, congratulations!


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## A Woman&#039;s Place Is In The Rebellion (Apr 28, 2011)

Well done, Al! When you write in different genres, I def think it helps to have one clear winner of your books so you know where to focus your energy. Hoping for my own clear winner this year 

Love your covers, btw. Rebecca did a great job as always!


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## Al K. Line (Mar 16, 2014)

Augusta Blythe said:


> Well done, Al! When you write in different genres, I def think it helps to have one clear winner of your books so you know where to focus your energy. Hoping for my own clear winner this year
> 
> Love your covers, btw. Rebecca did a great job as always!


Absolutely. And I hope you get one. Rebecca is the business, and I think she is becoming the go-to for Urban Fantasy at the moment.

Thank you for the encouragement everyone, I wasn't sure if I was just blathering or it actually helped


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## Justawriter (Jul 24, 2012)

Great post! Gorgeous covers, really striking. Who made those for you?


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## Al K. Line (Mar 16, 2014)

PamelaKelley said:


> Great post! Gorgeous covers, really striking. Who made those for you?


Thank you. It was Rebecca at http://rebeccafrank.design/


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

I was more or less in your shoes. I've found some people will cross to backlist, but not many. Less than 8% for me, from what I could tell.

Fortunately, having front-list that is doing well is awesome. 

Congrats on finding something that worked! It's a good feeling, eh?


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## A.A (Mar 30, 2012)

Congrats!!
I also believe also-boughts are so important - which directly follows on from writing to market (something I haven't been great at doing so far!)


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## PhilipColgate (Feb 11, 2016)

Great post.  Thanks for sharing.  17 books!  Wow.  Sure, you changed your approach, but you stayed productive and determined and that's the real secret here.


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## Keith Soares (Jan 9, 2014)

Al K. Line said:


> ...You should see the also boughts for Black Spark, it's like a Kboards meet-up...


Ha! So true! I've seen this a lot, too.

Congrats on the success!

K.


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## RMGauthier (Apr 22, 2016)

Thanks for sharing your experiences, I know how difficult that can be but you offer hope to those who reading. Good luck in all of your endeavors.


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## Felix R. Savage (Mar 3, 2011)

Massive congrats, Alkaline! very inspiring. Keep it up!


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## Gator (Sep 28, 2012)

Congrats!  And thanks for sharing the details.


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## C. Gockel (Jan 28, 2014)

Thank you so much for sharing! Good luck.


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## Bbates024 (Nov 3, 2014)

Awesome post!


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## Al K. Line (Mar 16, 2014)

Annie B said:


> I was more or less in your shoes. I've found some people will cross to backlist, but not many. Less than 8% for me, from what I could tell.
> 
> Fortunately, having front-list that is doing well is awesome.
> 
> Congrats on finding something that worked! It's a good feeling, eh?


Haha, yes, front-list is rather nice  It's a very nice feeling. It's weird, this is the only release I have ever felt stressed over, but maybe that's because I could see it making sales and hoped for the best this time.



PhilipColgate said:


> Great post. Thanks for sharing. 17 books! Wow. Sure, you changed your approach, but you stayed productive and determined and that's the real secret here.


I never planned on giving up, although I did feel like I was going around in circles a few times. I do think that is the secret: keep on writing. Either you get something that takes off, or you build enough of a backlist to enable yourself to write full time.

And thank you everyone else, I'm happy to have contributed.


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## Amby (May 9, 2015)

Thank you for sharing, Al. I love reading posts like these. Congratulations on your success!


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## Al K. Line (Mar 16, 2014)

Amby said:


> Thank you for sharing, Al. I love reading posts like these. Congratulations on your success!


And yours too. I'm watching with interest to see how the $3.99 price point does. You know, not in a stalky way or anything


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## Dominique Mondesir (Dec 15, 2015)

Thanks for sharing. Love your covers.


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## Eskimo (Dec 31, 2013)

Terrific post, thanks for sharing your experience. And as a baseball fan, you have a great name!


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## Amby (May 9, 2015)

Al K. Line said:


> And yours too. I'm watching with interest to see how the $3.99 price point does. You know, not in a stalky way or anything


Haha, yeah, I'm kind of on tenterhooks with that. I'm worried the rug's going to get pulled out from under me any moment now.


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## Al K. Line (Mar 16, 2014)

I can't see that happening. And I forgot to say, but that cover is seriously awesome. It rocks in thumbnail.


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## KevinH (Jun 29, 2013)

Congrats!  I really appreciate it when others share their experiences.


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## Salvador Mercer (Jan 1, 2015)

Very inspiring for those of us that have several books out and are still plugging away. Wish you the best moving forward, the blurb had me hooked


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## juliatheswede (Mar 26, 2014)

Good for you! Thanks for sharing your experience. I'm now wondering if I should write Urban Fantasy from now on. Except for Chris Fox, who seems to be an excellent marketer, I can't think of a single example of someone who's had a book/series take off lately here on Kboards that's NOT UF. Feel free to correct me as I'd love to know of other examples.


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## Chris Fox (Oct 3, 2014)

This thread made my day. Congratulations on your success!


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## Al K. Line (Mar 16, 2014)

My pleasure, Kevin.

Salvador, glad it had the desired effect. Usually I write a few different versions and then tweak the one I prefer. This time I kind of had a eureka moment (not that I'm saying it's brilliant or anything). Anyway, I figured if I took the better part of a month to write a book then I owed it to myself to at least spend an entire day writing blurbs and getting feedback on them.

Julia, I honestly don't know as I've been focused on UF. I think the main thing is that you enter an arena with a hungry audience but one where you have enough subcategories where you can get ranking and it builds from there, populating good also boughts. Luckily in UF there are a number of these, and I'll be honest that having the bestseller tag underneath a book in the also boughts is a draw to the eye. I think Chris covers this in his book - he's a wise man.

Chris, thanks dude. I was typing as you replied.


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## KevinH (Jun 29, 2013)

juliatheswede said:


> Good for you! Thanks for sharing your experience. I'm now wondering if I should write Urban Fantasy from now on. Except for Chris Fox, who seems to be an excellent marketer, I can't think of a single example of someone who's had a book/series take off lately here on Kboards that's NOT UF. Feel free to correct me as I'd love to know of other examples.


I feel blessed to have done well with my superhero series: http://www.amazon.com/Coronation-Kid-Sensation-Novel-ebook/dp/B01EERO56E/ref=zg_bs_6361473011_2


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## msdobing (Dec 8, 2015)

Well done,  sir.  I'm glad you're seeing success from your obvious hard work. 

Love the back list too,  really enticing covers.  I'll be checking them out when thus damned WIP is over the line!


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## TripEllington (Apr 11, 2016)

Congratulations on the success and thank you for sharing with us. How was your experience with HungryAuthor? I'm considering giving them a shot with my next release.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

So awesome, Al. Can't wait to read the series.


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## Marseille France or Bust (Sep 25, 2012)

Thank you for posting your experience. After reading this, I'm thinking about putting my first book in a series in KU as it has so few sales (released 2 months ago). Currently writing book 2.


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## Al K. Line (Mar 16, 2014)

Thanks M.S., be sure to buy them all  

Trip, it's a great service for giving you that initial boost without needing to worry about having reviews in place or a link to your book until the last minute. I'm sure Rebecca's service contributed to me getting such awesome also boughts from the start, and that's priceless as far as I'm concerned.

Becca, I hope you enjoy it.

Patrice, it's always a difficult decision, and I've usually gone wide. I don't think it hurts to try, but there are certainly no guarantees.


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## juliatheswede (Mar 26, 2014)

Al K. Line said:


> Julia, I honestly don't know as I've been focused on UF. I think the main thing is that you enter an arena with a hungry audience but one where you have enough subcategories where you can get ranking and it builds from there, populating good also boughts. Luckily in UF there are a number of these, and I'll be honest that having the bestseller tag underneath a book in the also boughts is a draw to the eye. I think Chris covers this in his book - he's a wise man.


Those are some very good points. I actually thought of a first book that I think took off that's solidly outside UF or something closely related, and that's Dawn Lee McKenna's Low Tide. She does have it in good subcategories that has given her a consistently good ranking. Also, it's a good book that hits all the genre conventions (I read it). It does end on a cliffhanger and while lots of ppl voted yes that this was bad in a one-star review, it doesn't seem to affect her sales. Something to definitely keep in mind.


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## Matthew Eliot (May 4, 2015)

Congratulations and thank you for sharing!

May I ask what the word count on Dark Spark is, and if that played any part in your launch strategy?

By the way, I love the idea of a Welsh setting.


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## Al K. Line (Mar 16, 2014)

Thanks Matthew. About 67K if I recall (I'm not on the work computer now). I guess the size was part of the strategy, meaning I'd just come from writing two 110-120K word novels and in no way wanted to go back there as it's too much for me. For this I wanted short snappy chapters of 1-2K each, ending on some sort of cliffhanger. It makes for a quick read but is long enough to give plenty of room for world building and character development, which is how I like to write.


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## Pauline Creeden (Aug 4, 2011)

Thank you for sharing and congrats! I didn't feel your story was long at all, and I learned a few little tidbits on how to use a mailing list and how to optimize a 99¢ sale, etc just from reading your helpful hints


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## Marilyn Peake (Aug 8, 2011)

Thanks so much for sharing that information. And congratulations on your success! That's awesome!


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## Darius Brasher (Feb 6, 2015)

I downloaded Black Spark days ago as it appears in my books' Also Boughts. Good God I'm so happy to read about how successful your book has been so far, especially since you wrote several other books before this book took off. I love hearing about how persistence pays off.

I'm taking a page out of your and others' playbooks by writing more strictly to market once I finish the fourth book in my Superhero Detective series. The sales of the series have been okay, but nothing to sneeze at, mainly I think because it straddles two genres. I think I need to just focus on the superhero genre and hit the usual tropes harder.

I'm inspired by your success. Thanks for sharing it with us.


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## EllieKeaton (Apr 12, 2014)

Huge congrats on your success. Persistence does seem to be key and also learning and listening to others.  I love posts like this.  VERY best of luck with the rest of your series.


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## D-C (Jan 13, 2014)

Al K. Line said:


> Thanks Matthew. About 67K if I recall (I'm not on the work computer now). I guess the size was part of the strategy, meaning I'd just come from writing two 110-120K word novels and in no way wanted to go back there as it's too much for me. For this I wanted short snappy chapters of 1-2K each, ending on some sort of cliffhanger. It makes for a quick read but is long enough to give plenty of room for world building and character development, which is how I like to write.


Awesome work. Congrats!

That 99c boost in visibility, get KU eyeballs on it, and then switch to full price strategy is killer.

May the sales continue!


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## Matthew Eliot (May 4, 2015)

Pauline Creeden said:


> Thank you for sharing and congrats! I didn't feel your story was long at all, and I learned a few little tidbits on how to use a mailing list and how to optimize a 99¢ sale, etc just from reading your helpful hints


Great, thank you very much, Al!


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## rowanc (Feb 21, 2015)

Wonderful post! I so appreciate that you shared what you did wrong as well as what you did right. This is very inspiring for those of us still slogging away. Congrats on your well-earned success!


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## K.J. Garnet (Mar 24, 2016)

Congrats! Not long at all. I was discussing your jacket copy (okay, blurb -- I'm old. Blurb to me is a quote from someone people know) with my cowriter and mentioning how eye-catching it was for the market you're aiming for. Glad to see your success. Also, I can't imagine writing that many books in 2 years; current day job is day sucking.


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## geronl (May 7, 2015)

good for you.

I hope it doesn't take 17 for me.


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## BlinkFarm (Oct 25, 2015)

Well done. And thanks for the insight into your 17-book slog to personal success. Always nice to hear about people sticking with it and having an outcome that satisfies them.


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## schweinsty (Jul 14, 2014)

Congratulations, and best of luck going forward! It's great hearing new success stories . Sounds like your learning and hard work is finally starting to pay off


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## Mxz (Jan 17, 2015)

Congrats!  Hearing all of these stories is encouraging.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

juliatheswede said:


> Good for you! Thanks for sharing your experience. I'm now wondering if I should write Urban Fantasy from now on. Except for Chris Fox, who seems to be an excellent marketer, I can't think of a single example of someone who's had a book/series take off lately here on Kboards that's NOT UF. Feel free to correct me as I'd love to know of other examples.


If you do, you should probably get on it quickly. Given the success many of us are having in UF, I expect the deluge of followers to saturate things like what happened with New Adult and PNR Shifters within 6-12 months, so... write like the wind?


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## juliatheswede (Mar 26, 2014)

Annie B said:


> If you do, you should probably get on it quickly. Given the success many of us are having in UF, I expect the deluge of followers to saturate things like what happened with New Adult and PNR Shifters within 6-12 months, so... write like the wind?


Yeah, probably. But I won't. I already tried chasing a genre my heart wasn't 100% into when I started---NA---and I wasn't very good at it. I'll just stick to my mysteries...


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## Dom (Mar 15, 2014)

I've been watching your book kick butt, and now you've got the 2nd out quickly. Congrats!


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## jellybelly (Apr 20, 2016)

Major congratulations! That's awesome, way to stick with it


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## Al K. Line (Mar 16, 2014)

Thanks once again, everyone, just got up and saw the replies.


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## writerc (Apr 15, 2016)

Congratulations and thanks for sharing!


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## Steve Shelley (Jan 10, 2015)

Al K. Line said:


> I never planned on giving up, although I did feel like I was going around in circles a few times. I do think that is the secret: keep on writing. Either you get something that takes off, or you build enough of a backlist to enable yourself to write full time.
> 
> And thank you everyone else, I'm happy to have contributed.


Thanks for your post, very inspiring! So glad to see you doing well!


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## Writer&#039;s Block (Oct 29, 2014)

Congratulations.  Enjoy the ride!


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## martyns (May 8, 2014)

Well done and congratz on the awesome results.  I think writing to market is hard, I could MAYBE do it, but I don't know if I could finish a project I wasn't really comfortable writing in a timely fashion - and I'd be worried the market moved. I suppose the balance is important too. It has to be YOUR story and it should be unique, but it should also be familiar and within the commercial zeitgeist. If you enjoy success with this series, you might pick up readers who really enjoy it and choose to start ploughing through your back list! This could be more winner than the late Michael Winner!


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## Al K. Line (Mar 16, 2014)

martyns said:


> Well done and congratz on the awesome results. I think writing to market is hard, I could MAYBE do it, but I don't know if I could finish a project I wasn't really comfortable writing in a timely fashion - and I'd be worried the market moved. I suppose the balance is important too. It has to be YOUR story and it should be unique, but it should also be familiar and within the commercial zeitgeist. If you enjoy success with this series, you might pick up readers who really enjoy it and choose to start ploughing through your back list! This could be more winner than the late Michael Winner!


Now that would be Winnery


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## Evenstar (Jan 26, 2013)

Count me among those who found this thread fascinating.

I'm pulling the plug on YA in June and starting over, and it is really scary (I also have 17 books out now). It's great to see how it's worked for you.


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## J.A. Cipriano (May 27, 2014)

Congrats Al! I think it's telling that so many of these UF Author stories are like yours!



Annie B said:


> If you do, you should probably get on it quickly. Given the success many of us are having in UF, I expect the deluge of followers to saturate things like what happened with New Adult and PNR Shifters within 6-12 months, so... write like the wind?


Yeah, this is what keeps me up at night.


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## angela65 (Oct 8, 2014)

These types of posts are my favorites. Thanks so much for the valuable info as well as the motivation. Makes me feel (a little) less guilty when I'm writing and start thinking about all the other things I should be doing instead.

Hopefully one day I'll be able to post something inspirational, too.


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## Al K. Line (Mar 16, 2014)

Evenstar said:


> Count me among those who found this thread fascinating.
> 
> I'm pulling the plug on YA in June and starting over, and it is really scary (I also have 17 books out now). It's great to see how it's worked for you.


Maybe that's a good thing it's scary. I know I got totally stressed over this new series and for the first time the whole year actually didn't write for an entire week. Maybe the fear shows we put our all into our work, I don't know. Good luck with the new projects, I hope you do amazing.



J.A. Cipriano said:


> Congrats Al! I think it's telling that so many of these UF Author stories are like yours!
> 
> Yeah, this is what keeps me up at night.


There's definitely some kind of revolution going on with some of us that have been self-publishing for a few years now. As Annie B said, I plan on writing like the wind. Well, I always do! A book a month is ideal for me.


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## GP Hudson (Sep 16, 2013)

Thanks for sharing Al. These posts are great.


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## Guest (Apr 25, 2016)

That you have an extensive back-list is very good. In a few weeks you'll notice people buy more of your older stuff. But you need to get on the ball as quickly as you can. Typically, an indie book gets about three months of strong sales. After that you'll see a marked decline. And if it's a series you'll see less sales from each new installment. But don't worry. If you release a new book soon enough, the previous books in the series get a boost. So it sort of levels out.
The main thing to remember is that it's one thing to gain momentum. It's another to keep it. So get busy. And congratulations.


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## Heffnerh (Feb 1, 2013)

@ Original Poster -

Thank you for this post! I recently attended a writers' conference, and there was a small publisher there who offered great advice that paperback releases are key. This publisher mentioned selling at least 500 copies paperback before releasing e-book version. He mentioned a trend they had been seeing was that ebooks usually get a lot of people to download them, but never read them. Those who buy paperback are much more likely to read the book and become fans who look forward to your next book! Building this initial foundation is key. This is really important for authors like me, who have been relying too much ebook sales. Anyway, it's interesting, and congrats to you!


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## Antara Mann (Nov 24, 2014)

Thanks for this post!
Yes, probably in less than a year the market will get saturated but first before I start to write this time, I'll read a bunch of UF novels (already doing it).
Everything happens when the time is right is my philosophy.


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## Brock O. Lee (Mar 10, 2016)

Antara Mann said:


> Everything happens when the time is right is my philosophy.


I love that philosophy!


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

Congrats, Al, and  thanks for sharing your success story! I hope you don't mind if I shamelessly borrow some of your launch ideas. I launch my UF series in a few weeks and I'm excited to hear about your success.


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

Antara Mann said:


> Thanks for this post!
> Yes, probably in less than a year the market will get saturated but first before I start to write this time, I'll read a bunch of UF novels (already doing it).
> Everything happens when the time is right is my philosophy.


Who cares if the market gets saturated? It just means the folks who've been in it a while will need to innovate and maybe write something outside the genre or in a corner of the genre yet untouched, and more writers will stretch the boundaries of the genre into new and interesting places. Win win for readers. More diversity of stories and story tellers. UF is a huge subgenre; plenty of room for a lot of writers to play in. Same can be said for most other genres too. 



> Everything happens when the time is right is my philosophy.


Love it.


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## KL_Phelps (Nov 7, 2013)

always love to hear success stories


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## Ashlynn_Monroe (May 24, 2012)

Wow awesome!


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## Yayoi (Apr 26, 2016)

First of all, congrats on your success! Please answer these questions 
I have, thanks!

1. You said you contacted your small newsletter list for your newest launch, but you also said you wrote books before that didn't make sales. So how'd you have a list, then?
2. What do you mean contacting Amazon when maximizing categories? Did you call them or something? 
3. What's ARC?
4. Approximately how many copies are you selling each day now?
5. How much did you spend in total when you launched your book?
6. How did you get reviews before the launch? How much did you spend for that? 
7. What's a backlist and a front list? Sorry for being a newbie.
Thanks for your kind replies!


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## Al K. Line (Mar 16, 2014)

Jim Johnson said:


> Congrats, Al, and thanks for sharing your success story! I hope you don't mind if I shamelessly borrow some of your launch ideas. I launch my UF series in a few weeks and I'm excited to hear about your success.


Absolutely not, Jim. I'm really looking forward to seeing how your launch goes.

Hey Yayoi.

1. They didn't make huge sales but I have sold "some books"  People signed up for free stories or the second in a series or just because I put a link to my newsletter in the back of my books.
2. I emailed them.
3. Advance Reader Copy. You send out copies before they are live for everyone to buy.
4. More than I used to 
5. Less than $200.
6. I put up the paperback and asked my ARC team to leave a review. It cost nothing but my time and undying gratitude for my small, very kind, A-Team.
7. Backlist=other books you wrote before the current one. Front list=books you are yet to write or your current offerings, I guess.

And no problem.


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## NoLongerPosting (Apr 5, 2014)

Awesome! I'm so happy for your success.
This is a very inspiring thread, and just what I needed to read today.
Here's to continued success!


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