# Authors who are barely selling anything!



## ctbrown (Jun 23, 2014)

There are a lot of forum threads about authors hitting milestones like making $1,000 dollars a month or big sales numbers but what about the rest of us - dare I even say, the majority of us?

I have been self-publishing for almost a year and a half, I am 4 books in and my sales are minute. A little over 50 in total with a handful of KU borrows. But I have had a bit over 3,500 free downloads which makes me feel a bit better! There are many others in a similar situation too, I expect.

I self-edit my books, not out of a sense that I can do it best but simply because I cannot afford anything else. It is all well and good to say it only costs a couple of hundred dollars but I just do not have it - I am studying to become a preschool teacher and my wife and I are living on her wage alone. Paying for rent and food trumps an editor, no matter how cheap!

As for promos, all I can do is pay for the occasional Bknights promo. I just launched my latest book for the price of one of those, the cover was from a free image and, as I self-edit, there were no other costs.

So, how about a thread to celebrate the, small, achievements of those of us not making much money but who do this purely for the love of it? What's mine? I just got the first 15 minutes of the first audio adaption of one of my books through ACX! Again, at no cost - profit sharing instead. What about all you others out there?


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## Eric S. Kim (Oct 22, 2014)

I self-published my first book just two weeks ago, and so far, I've only had two copies sold. It hasn't been that long, so I'm not experiencing the complete misery of small sales just yet. But maybe a year from now, I will know how you feel. I also self-edit my work and I rely on fiverr.com for cover art. I don't have the money to look for artists/designers who want over a hundred dollars for just one piece of cover art.

But I'm not complaining. I'll eventually get through this. I still have plenty of other books I'm working on, and I'm going to see if they will bring me fame and fortune or will be lost in between millions and millions of other ebooks out on the market. I just have to find out for myself.


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## Guest (Dec 15, 2014)

You're completely right that the majority of writers don't sell very much. In my first year I didn't even sell 50 books - much less. I only released one book that year, but released a fair bit more the following year. Even then I didn't have many sales. Four years later I sell a few copies a day, but that's about it - and I have nine books out (not including bundles)! Admittedly some of those nine books are permafree, but even with all the others combined I only sell a few books a day. I'm pleased with this result despite it being small, but this has only been happening for the last year. So for the first three years I barely sold anything.

Sometimes I read about people making thousands of dollars a month when they've only been published a short while, and I feel so small and insignificant. I'm glad some people have great success, but this is by far the exception rather than the rule. It's hard to remember that, and I beat myself up because I don't sell much and others make a full time income. But I am in the majority, we're just not a very vocal majority about this sort of thing


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## The 13th Doctor (May 31, 2012)

I started publishing in Aug 2011, and so far have about 20+ books out there under various pen names. The majority are novelettes and I have recently published my first novel-length book. I too tend to only use Bknights for marketing, but have used GenrePulse, SweetFreeBooks and others on occasion - I could never afford Bookbub.

Only since August of this year I have sold 50+ copies of my books in total, across all platforms, every month. This is a milestone for me, and I am aiming to sell at least 100 copies per month in 2015.

I'll be watching this thread with interest.


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## Amanda M. Lee (Jun 3, 2014)

I'm going to be honest here (mostly because it's 5 a.m. and I haven't been to bed yet) but I think covers are a big stumbling block for the first two posters in this thread. I wouldn't bother click on books by either of you. I know "affording" covers is an issue, but there are ways around it.


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## alawston (Jun 3, 2012)

I hear this. I sell about a hundred books a year, or 2 a week. I largely self-edit, but I have an awesome designer.

I've published a collection of short stories, a translation of an 18th Century memoir, and my MPhil thesis on aspects of obscure 60s French films. I'm writing exactly what I want, at exactly the pace I want, and it's pretty brilliant.

There is a thread for the more modest achievements for us lower key writers, but even they often make me feel like I'm underachieving. My current cause for celebration is the short story I've had published in pro anthology Sanity Clause Is Coming. That doesn't seem to be selling very well either, but it's all good.

Bottom line - I was writing fiction for at least ten years before I started self-publishing it. If ereaders closed their virtual doors forever, I'd still be doing exactly the same thing. Every sale, every reader, is a wonderful bonus.


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## Tim_A (May 25, 2013)

I'm just about managing a book a week. A good month is if I make $10, most months it's nearer $5. At the current rate I'll pay off my editing costs in around 7 years...


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## Dobby the House Elf (Aug 16, 2014)

YodaRead said:


> I'm going to be honest here (mostly because it's 5 a.m. and I haven't been to bed yet) but I think covers are a big stumbling block for the first two posters in this thread. I wouldn't bother click on books by either of you. I know "affording" covers is an issue, but there are ways around it.


The mods tend to not like unsolicited advice, but I was thinking the same thing as Yoda. Covers really are SUPER important when it comes to attracting sales.


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## RyanAndrewKinder (Dec 14, 2014)

I only recently (April of this year for the ebook, September for the softcover) began self publishing. I only have one real book to my name (and one microbook that I will likely take down at years end.)

When I see threads like this, I often wonder how people have promoted themselves. I am an animal, constantly trying to find new places to link my book. (Learned a few new places just reading this thread!) But other than promote my book, I have been trying to help many others with the things I have learned about promoting. Make new friends who you help and who help you. I swear that's been the key to the point I am at now. So far just in December 150 softcovers and 50+ ebooks (of my one main book.)

Bottom line: You can do it, I just think it takes a metric ton of strategy, discussion and a healthy amount of trial and error.


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## alawston (Jun 3, 2012)

Tim_A said:


> I'm just about managing a book a week. A good month is if I make $10, most months it's nearer $5. At the current rate I'll pay off my editing costs in around 7 years...


There's no justice, Tim. Your stuff is very good.


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## alawston (Jun 3, 2012)

There are plenty of people who self-publish and never sell a single copy beyond their own family.

And then are even more people who are "planning to write a book someday" and never get as far as firing up the word processor.

I've not written a romance trilogy with the first volume set to permafree, or bought a bookbub ad, or set up a mailing list. I know all the things I've done "wrong" in very precise detail. I don't really care, I'm still having a great time


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## dkgould (Feb 18, 2013)

Hey guys, just wanted to let you know that there are lots and lots of free places to advertise. It takes a long time to do it because you have to fill out a form for each site. Most of the time you'll only get half a dozen to 20 downloads with them, but if you plan far ahead and just do a few a day, you can really make a big impact on your promos without spending any money (you will be trading time that you could be writing though)
probably best to start here, I think Sophrosyne was keeping this pretty up to date: [URL=http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,149935.0.html]http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,149935.0.html [/url] (about a third of the way through the post)
bunch more here: http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,161795.0.html
and some more here (some are no longer working though): http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,146105.0.html

If you are willing to put in the time, it can make your free and 99 cent days go from 40-50 downloads to several hundred. Throw in a bknights promo or a Genrepulse for a little bit of money and you can start seeing some big numbers. I hope that helps a little from a fellow teeny seller


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## Vidya (Feb 14, 2012)

garam81, if you don’t mind saying, how many downloads did you get with SweetFreeBooks and what was your genre? Did you make them free or 99c? I'm thinking of using them  and would like to have more info about how well they perform.


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## SB James (May 21, 2014)

dkgould said:


> Hey guys, just wanted to let you know that there are lots and lots of free places to advertise. It takes a long time to do it because you have to fill out a form for each site. Most of the time you'll only get half a dozen to 20 downloads with them, but if you plan far ahead and just do a few a day, you can really make a big impact on your promos without spending any money (you will be trading time that you could be writing though)
> probably best to start here, I think Sophrosyne was keeping this pretty up to date: [URL=http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,149935.0.html]http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,149935.0.html [/url] (about a third of the way through the post)
> bunch more here: http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,161795.0.html
> and some more here (some are no longer working though): http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,146105.0.html
> ...


Thank you for posting these threads for these links again. They're useful for practically anybody, but certainly for authors who could use some more visibility.
I think I'm going to need to get the mailing list/my own website going in 2015. Not that I used Facebook (I think I have maybe 10 fans of my author page) but whatever they are doing over there, I heard it's not going to be good.
I've been at this for seven months. I lived through KU's rollout, the Summer of Doom, and Amazon algorithm changes which, for some unknown reason, never benefit me. Thankfully, Amazon is not the only game in town anymore, and I hope next year I will be able to concentrate on sending more book traffic to Google Play and Apple. I really think having a lot of little irons in the fire is the way to make money with this venture: a book sale here, a book sale there. 
And permafree really is a powerful tool. It does not work quickly, but it does still work.


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## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

I'm in the same boat. I keep waiting for that _one_ sale that will give me _one_ review that will start the trickle of sales, and then the trickle will grow, and... well, you know the fantasy.  (And please, no unsolicited advice about covers.... I know what my covers look like, which I like, and which ones I want to replace someday.)


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## ctbrown (Jun 23, 2014)

alawston said:


> I hear this. I sell about a hundred books a year, or 2 a week. I largely self-edit, but I have an awesome designer.
> 
> I've published a collection of short stories, a translation of an 18th Century memoir, and my MPhil thesis on aspects of obscure 60s French films. I'm writing exactly what I want, at exactly the pace I want, and it's pretty brilliant.
> 
> ...


I am completely with you, every sale and every reader is a bonus. I was writing for years before self publishing too and I am just glad to have my books out there! I write because I can't NOTE write, not to make millions - although the millions would be nice should they ever come along.

Congratulations on getting your short story into an anthology!


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## ctbrown (Jun 23, 2014)

YodaRead said:


> I'm going to be honest here (mostly because it's 5 a.m. and I haven't been to bed yet) but I think covers are a big stumbling block for the first two posters in this thread. I wouldn't bother click on books by either of you. I know "affording" covers is an issue, but there are ways around it.


Well thanks for dropping in and offering helpful advice, or not. Yes, my covers look amateurish - I am an amateur. I notice that you are so proud of your own covers they have overcrowded your signature so much the thumbnails are so small we cannot see them. This was supposed to be a thread for those who are not selling much to feel good about whatever they are achieving, if you want to offer advice please try and offer something rather than just rudeness.


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## ctbrown (Jun 23, 2014)

dkgould said:


> Hey guys, just wanted to let you know that there are lots and lots of free places to advertise. It takes a long time to do it because you have to fill out a form for each site. Most of the time you'll only get half a dozen to 20 downloads with them, but if you plan far ahead and just do a few a day, you can really make a big impact on your promos without spending any money (you will be trading time that you could be writing though)
> probably best to start here, I think Sophrosyne was keeping this pretty up to date: [URL=http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,149935.0.html]http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,149935.0.html [/url] (about a third of the way through the post)
> bunch more here: http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,161795.0.html
> and some more here (some are no longer working though): http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,146105.0.html
> ...


Thanks, those are really useful links.


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## RyanAndrewKinder (Dec 14, 2014)

Those are excellent links dkgould! I didn't know about a lot of those sites. I primarily used twitter, facebook and reddit when promoting my free days. I wrote a short blog post with links to where I promote and advice about promoting here: http://rykinder.blogspot.com/2014/12/places-to-promote-your-book-when-your.html that seemed to include links not mentioned in those three you provided.

I always make sure to put a couple links on reddit because there are a few retweet bots that scrape the free books subreddits. It's like getting more promotional oomph for free.


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## alawston (Jun 3, 2012)

ctbrown said:


> I am completely with you, every sale and every reader is a bonus. I was writing for years before self publishing too and I am just glad to have my books out there! I write because I can't NOTE write, not to make millions - although the millions would be nice should they ever come along.
> 
> Congratulations on getting your short story into an anthology!


It is a compulsion, isn't it? And it's a cheap hobby too  I don't know what I'd do with my time if I wasn't writing. The millions would be lovely, but I don't see it ever happening with the stuff I write, and I'm totally cool with that!

And thanks! It's exciting - I have another one due out in April. They've both been massively delayed (I wrote them at the end of 2012), but it's been brilliant getting to know a few other writers through the project.


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## dkgould (Feb 18, 2013)

RyanAndrewKinder said:


> Those are excellent links dkgould! I didn't know about a lot of those sites. I primarily used twitter, facebook and reddit when promoting my free days. I wrote a short blog post with links to where I promote and advice about promoting here: http://rykinder.blogspot.com/2014/12/places-to-promote-your-book-when-your.html that seemed to include links not mentioned in those three you provided.
> 
> I always make sure to put a couple links on reddit because there are a few retweet bots that scrape the free books subreddits. It's like getting more promotional oomph for free.


 Thanks Ryan! always looking for new effective things- Reddit didn't even occur to me!


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## Elizabeth Ann West (Jul 11, 2011)

It can happen any time. I was a non-seller too for years. I only had one book out for the longest time (you can see the whole thing here from when I publish in 2011 to today: https://docs.google.com/a/thecheapebook.com/spreadsheets/d/1i9tCrzZctNnucllTkxyRtTRrvN1_yu6Rb2xfmbr_RPY/edit#gid=1674240584) I share that link NOT to brag, but to give hope. Anyone can go from 1 or 2 sales a day to suddenly making an income to support their family. It takes time, lots and lots of market research, and writing.

If permafree isn't working for you, I would change things up. The market is so different than what it was just 3 years ago when I started. SO DIFFERENT. I don't think permafree is the right answer anymore as they don't get read. That's why authors aren't seeing that click through rate anymore. It's not the the # of free downloads has gone down, it's just that they are hoarded books aside from the handful of readers who truly read their freebies.

It's a really big ocean of readers out there. Keep fishing. Don't give up. ::HUGS::


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## darkline (Mar 30, 2014)

ctbrown said:


> Well thanks for dropping in and offering helpful advice, or not. Yes, my covers look amateurish - I am an amateur. I notice that you are so proud of your own covers they have overcrowded your signature so much the thumbnails are so small we cannot see them. This was supposed to be a thread for those who are not selling much to feel good about whatever they are achieving, if you want to offer advice please try and offer something rather than just rudeness.


I don't think YodaRead meant to be rude. She simply said the covers were probably the reason you don't sell much, and I agree. A reader once commented that she loved my book and she regretted that its bad cover had stopped her from clicking on the book for months. After that I changed the cover--and that book's sales went up. 
People are just trying to be helpful. Sometimes it's worth listening to other people's advice. But it's your choice, of course.


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## Chris Fox (Oct 3, 2014)

ctbrown said:


> Well thanks for dropping in and offering helpful advice, or not. Yes, my covers look amateurish - I am an amateur. I notice that you are so proud of your own covers they have overcrowded your signature so much the thumbnails are so small we cannot see them. This was supposed to be a thread for those who are not selling much to feel good about whatever they are achieving, if you want to offer advice please try and offer something rather than just rudeness.


I don't think she meant to be rude. Yoda has made it clear that to her this is business, one she is very good at if her posts are any indication. She can be blunt, but she's rarely wrong.

Readers judge books by three factors. Cover, Title and blurb. It doesn't matter what list you rank on, what site you advertise with or how much you promote if those three aren't top notch. Once those things are there they'll check reviews, and then your look inside to see if the book is well edited. If you pass all five tests you're far more likely to move books. If you fail even one you won't see many sales.

The beauty of indie publishing is that you can reinvent yourself every day. You can experiment with cover, blurb and even title changes. Eventually you'll hit on a recipe that works. Believe in yourself and keep writing. I firmly believe anyone can do this if they want it badly enough.


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## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

darkline said:


> I don't think YodaRead meant to be rude. She simply said the covers were probably the reason you don't sell much, and I agree. A reader once commented that she loved my book and she regretted that its bad cover had stopped her from clicking on the book for months. After that I changed the cover--and that book's sales went up.
> People are just trying to be helpful. Sometimes it's worth listening to other people's advice. But it's your choice, of course.


Generally, on this board, it's best not to offer advice or opinion unless the OP specifically asks for it. There are plenty of threads in which people say "critique my blurb," or "what do you think of this cover," or even "why am I not selling?" Unless asked outright or requested in that manner, I believe it's best _not_ to offer opinions on other peoples' covers, blurbs, or Look-Inside passages.


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## Tim_A (May 25, 2013)

alawston said:


> There's no justice, Tim. Your stuff is very good.


I know it. It's just convincing the rest of the world...


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## RBK (Nov 28, 2014)

I wrote a nice friendly post with advice on something you might want to address in the Look Inside for one of your books, but I realise it's off topic so never mind. You know where we are if you want some advice, OP. Good luck.


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## darkline (Mar 30, 2014)

Jena H said:


> Generally, on this board, it's best not to offer advice or opinion unless the OP specifically asks for it. There are plenty of threads in which people say "critique my blurb," or "what do you think of this cover," or even "why am I not selling?" Unless asked outright or requested in that manner, I believe it's best _not_ to offer opinions on other peoples' covers, blurbs, or Look-Inside passages.


I'm not sure what the point of this thread is, then. People just wanted to help and there was nothing rude about it.


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## alawston (Jun 3, 2012)

ctbrown said:


> So, how about a thread to celebrate the, small, achievements of those of us not making much money but who do this purely for the love of it? What's mine? I just got the first 15 minutes of the first audio adaption of one of my books through ACX! Again, at no cost - profit sharing instead. What about all you others out there?


FYI, I think that's the point of this thread.


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## darkline (Mar 30, 2014)

alawston said:


> FYI, I think that's the point of this thread.


Fair enough. But there's already a big thread for celebrating small achievements of those authors not making much money. http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,185327.0.html


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## alawston (Jun 3, 2012)

darkline said:


> Fair enough. But there's already a big thread for celebrating small achievements of those authors not making much money. http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,185327.0.html


Indeed. But there's several dozen WC threads talking about Bookbub and permafree on any given day, so I think this one small nugget of duplication is probably overlookable.


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## Hans Cummings (May 16, 2011)

I'm lucky if I sell 1-2 copies a month. I do OK at conventions and such; I usually clear enough at Gen Con to pay for the table and all my inventory. If I didn't stay at a hotel during the convention, it might actually be profitable (I could commute from home; it's only 15 minutes away, but logistically, it's more difficult). I've gotten good comments and my work seems to be well-regarded, but I don't get many reviews.

I would probably have more consistent sales if I spent more time marketing, but it's a delicate balance between being "That Guy" (you know, the one who constantly links and bother everyone they run across to buy, buy, buy) and actually have a life outside of writing and my day job. For now, I'm content, though I will admit, I wouldn't complain if I had an actual income on these books and they broke even (I spend about $1000 per book on art and editing).

Maybe the money I make from the anthologies (Sojourn 1 and 2... which I did not produce and have only a time investment in) will subsidize my novels.


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## alawston (Jun 3, 2012)

HansCummings said:


> Maybe the money I make from the anthologies (Sojourn 1 and 2... which I did not produce and have only a time investment in) will subsidize my novels.


I'm hoping that my anthology entries will do some of the marketing work for me. I make a smidge of money, but they also broaden my readership a bit. And I keep forgetting that I've got some Doctor Who stuff coming out in a drabble collection at some point, which is a bit of a dream come true.


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## 555aaa (Jan 28, 2014)

Hans, I really like your covers!

And the bacon fez. You can't go wrong with bacon.

I sell a few books a month also. I don't post them on my sig.


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## Howietzer (Apr 18, 2012)

Well, let’s see here… I first published with my co-author on December 4th of 2013. We’re pretty slow writers as we both have full-time jobs, families, and we’re slow. Did I mention that we’re slow? Yeah? Okay, sorry. Anyway, we only have two books out of a seven-book saga.

Our attempts at marketing thus far have been for experimentation only—just trying to figure out how everything works. Our results could be considered bad for some, and good for others. For us, it’s been good and bad. We learn something each time we advertise, publish, or read information from forums like this one, but the hopes of our story taking off has yet to be fulfilled.

Between the two books we’ve sold a little over a 100 copies. We’ve given away 5000 of the first book during a 5-day promo in Jan. 

Every time I look at our books on Amazon or when I sit down to write, I end up asking myself: How long can I stomach getting nothing (monetarily) for my efforts? It’s a hard question in which the answer changes every time I ask it, lol. 

One thing that has helped me deal with the lack of downloads/reviews was something my co-author and I discussed before we wrote a single word. A question that I think all authors eventually ask themselves: How badly do I want to do this? The answer for us was: Bad enough to finish this one story, whether we see a dime out of it or not. But even though my co-author and I have made our proclamations to carry on regardless of failure to achieve recognition, wealth or both, it still sucks to watch our work flounder. 

Not to end on a sour note: We're still pluggin' away, as are all of you. That’s a good thing IMO.


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## 69959 (May 14, 2013)

Set realistic goals, learn what you can about the industry, and listen to feedback. 

When I first published my initial goal was to get to the point where my books paid for themselves so that I didn't have to purchase anything out of pocket. When I hit that, then I focused on earning enough to pay for promotions - Freebooksy, ENT, etc. The next goal is to go full time. This is 25 months after publishing my first book, and though I haven't yet reached that goal I'm moving in the right direction. Once I get there I'll need to work on a new goal.

Do you spend a good amount of time learning about the industry? You're here posting on Kboards, so that's a great start. Do you follow blogs by successful indies? Listen to podcasts? 

A lot can be learned by paying attention to feedback. Pay attention to reviews. I ignored advice and reviews about my covers for a looong time. I changed them and my sales went up. I also re-edited my first book. Then I set it perma-free. That's when things really started to turn around for me.

It's a process, and it takes time. When I was writing my first novel I heard that it takes two years to really make traction for most authors. Hang in there. It's not an easy road, but it's worth it.


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## rsscheyer (Feb 21, 2014)

There is an old lesson in advertising that we learned in school.

A brewery hired a ad firm in New York and that ad firm did a really fine job of advertising the brewery's product. The only problem was, the beer wasn't that good really. So, they sold beer for awhile, but word got out and the ad company probably contributed more to its demise than anything else.

So, if I sell anything at all, and it is good, hey, that will eventually increase my sales. This is called faith. I do try to improve and I can self edit because I spent a lot of money investing in my writing at some point. My problem was: I didn't like writing all that much.

Well, things have changed, as they often do in life, and now I'm back to the writing gig.

Here is a Christmas offering, an interesting read about Dietrich Bonhoeffer. I must admit, now that I have it "out there," yea, it is a bit heavy for Christmas but I learned a lot from the research and writing of it and some people find it worth the time.

http://www.amazon.com/Mystery-Holy-Night-Robert-Scheyer-ebook/dp/B00I125EYQ/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1417625731&sr=8-3&keywords=the+mystery+of+holy+night

We are also competing with some pretty good story tellers out there.

Now, I'm not trying to discourage anyone, but if one can write, then the only reason to become a writer is because you can't help it. I have found it just plain hard work, so I put my energies in something more in my line of passion.


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## Redacted1111 (Oct 26, 2013)

I make my own covers and self-edit, but the reason I can make a livable income is because I write what people want to read. I am a complete and utter "sell out" and proud of it. Making a living as a fiction author is my priority. With all the threads about "writing what you love," threads like this one make me giggle a little. Honestly, if an author seriously wants to make money, she has to make THAT the priority, not her own artistic sanctification or pacifying her "muse." 

Anyone that tells you that you can "write what you love" and make money, is delusional or extremely lucky. Like Russel Blake says, "Most books don't sell." At least give yourself the leg up and write what people will buy. 

I'm not directing this comment to anyone in particular. This is a general public service statement.


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## anniejocoby (Aug 11, 2013)

Kayla. said:


> Now I wish I had posted sooner.  When I saw your covers, I thought they were really pretty. Honestly.
> I really like the flags. And if I have bad taste... Well, I don't. I've been complimented on some of my own homemade covers.


I actually was thinking the same thing. I like the covers, and I like the covers of the second poster, too.

Keep on keeping on. We're all living the dream just to make money off of our art. I still cherish every sale and every new reader because, you know, they liked me enough to shell out $4.99 or whatever, so that's a win!


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## anniejocoby (Aug 11, 2013)

Half Pint said:


> I make my own covers and self-edit, but the reason I can make a livable income is because I write what people want to read. I am a complete and utter "sell out" and proud of it. Making a living as a fiction author is my priority. With all the threads about "writing what you love," threads like this one make me giggle a little. Honestly, if an author seriously wants to make money, she has to make THAT the priority, not her own artistic sanctification or pacifying her "muse."
> 
> Anyone that tells you that you can "write what you love" and make money, is delusional or extremely lucky. Like Russel Blake says, "Most books don't sell." At least give yourself the leg up and write what people will buy.
> 
> I'm not directing this comment to anyone in particular. This is a general public service statement.


You're probably going to get a lot of guff for posting this in this thread, but I have to agree with you there. Not that the OP or anyone else is asking for advice, so I'm not going to give it, but I do think that writing to market is a good idea for anyone who sees this whole thing as a business. But there are plenty who want to write what their muse dictates and don't care about money or see this as a business, and I say more power to you, too.  Write for love, write for money, it's all good. It's just that if you're writing for money, it would behoove you to study the market.


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## MyraScott (Jul 18, 2014)

I have worked as an SEO for over a decade. (Search engine optimization, to be clear!)

People think, because I put up a website, people will come! Like a lot of books. I put it on Amazon, people will buy it! Right??

It just doesn't work like that. Just like there are tons of sites vying to be in the top 10 search results, there are tons of books vying to be the top of the category lists at Amazon. While there are some "hot" categories that consume everything new that is released, that's not the norm.

If no one knows about your book, it's not likely to sell. The biggest "tweak" you can do to help your book be more discoverable on Amazon... is sell more.

This is three year old data, but I could find the more recent one... http://blog.smashwords.com/2011/09/how-ebook-buyers-discover-books.html

While people do browse categories and sometimes buy books where they like the cover, the big sales come from being talked about. You have to promote, you have to get your books in people's Kindles and then into their minds. You have to capture their imagination, because one of the biggest slices of that pie is "I buy books by authors I like."

Your first book, even if it's free, especially if it's free, should knock their socks off. It should have them joining your mailing list and harassing you for more. And you need to promote it, often.

Think about the suggested people in your Facebook feed that you start to think you must know, because you see their name and photo so often. You want your book to become familiar. People need to see it multiple places, hear it being talked about and become evangelists themselves.


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## zoe tate (Dec 18, 2013)

carinasanfey said:


> I was going to try offer some helpful advice, but then I saw what happened to people who did just that. Never mind.


My perspective entirely. 

People self-publish for a really wide variety of reasons, with a really wide variety of aspirations and in a really wide variety of circumstances. Absolutely no criticism implied or intended at all, but some don't really want to run publishing businesses and don't really want to do much marketing at all. And that's fine. At the same time, publishers (trade and independent) whose books sell successfully tend to publish professionally, including some professional or at least good amateur marketing. "Them's the facts".


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## markobeezy (Jan 30, 2012)

Well, if everyone is going to throw out some unsolicited advice, here's my one cent: (I can't afford two)

A writing career is a grueling marathon. It's longer than 26.2 miles. As you try to make progress, random people jump in front of you and trip you. Water stations are few and far between. If you even make it to the finish line, you'll find 100 other people got there first, and they've already started the next race. The only way to guarantee that you never fail is to never give up. #toughlove


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

The only thing I would tell the OP is if he wants the readers to know about him, he might want to move about the author to the back because an ereader opens on the title page.    
Now since serial is short, I took advantage of KU and borrowed it.
If the OP wants my opinion,  he can message me.


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## Ted Cross (Aug 30, 2012)

My sales are just trickles so far, but it's early days. My book has only been out three weeks so far.


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## Gone To Croatan (Jun 24, 2011)

Half Pint said:


> Anyone that tells you that you can "write what you love" and make money, is delusional or extremely lucky. Like Russel Blake says, "Most books don't sell." At least give yourself the leg up and write what people will buy.


Sadly, that's the conclusion I'm coming to: 'write what you love' only really works if it happens to be what people want to buy. But that's not really anything new, many of my favourite authors had to write books that made money in order to have time to write the ones they really wanted to write.


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## ctbrown (Jun 23, 2014)

Ok, obviously I owe some people on these boards an apology. I thought advice was when you offer a suggestion in order to help with a problem. I also, obviously mistakenly, thought that saying that my covers are a problem and you wouldn't click on them was not advice but criticism. My dictionary clearly has an incorrect definition for 'advice' and I apologise for this.

Unfortunately when I post on this site I often make the mistake of assuming only those interested in what I have written will reply, silly of me I know. I know there are a core of users here who believe they know best and cannot resist saying so, the rest of us should just bow to their wisdom and let them have their private playground I now know.

I seem to get this wrong every time I post about anything on Kboards, I hear a lot on blogs about how helpful people are here so I can only assume the problem is me. Well it is time to give up now, this was my last try at getting something positive from this forum and I failed miserably. I will not be posting here again.


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## Hudson Owen (May 18, 2012)

Half Pint said:


> I make my own covers and self-edit, but the reason I can make a livable income is because I write what people want to read. I am a complete and utter "sell out" and proud of it. Making a living as a fiction author is my priority. With all the threads about "writing what you love," threads like this one make me giggle a little. Honestly, if an author seriously wants to make money, she has to make THAT the priority, not her own artistic sanctification or pacifying her "muse."
> 
> Anyone that tells you that you can "write what you love" and make money, is delusional or extremely lucky. Like Russel Blake says, "Most books don't sell." At least give yourself the leg up and write what people will buy.
> 
> I'm not directing this comment to anyone in particular. This is a general public service statement.


The phrase "give the people what they want" generally applies to journalism, though it could apply to anything. How do you know what the people want? Do they want more F-bombs or less, more sex or less, smarter words or dumber words? Do you simply follow bestsellers? I'm guessing that you write in popular fiction categories like Romance or YA, and that you have a knack for that kind or writing--you're a good writer. I know you, generally speaking, can follow your muse and not make money. But I think you need to engage your imagination at some level to compete with other authors. I don't think yet there is a computer program that can guarantee you financial success with your next novel, one programmed to give the people what they want.


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## RBK (Nov 28, 2014)

ctbrown said:


> Ok, obviously I owe some people on these boards an apology. I thought advice was when you offer a suggestion in order to help with a problem. I also, obviously mistakenly, thought that saying that my covers are a problem and you wouldn't click on them was not advice but criticism. My dictionary clearly has an incorrect definition for 'advice' and I apologise for this.
> 
> Unfortunately when I post on this site I often make the mistake of assuming only those interested in what I have written will reply, silly of me I know. I know there are a core of users here who believe they know best and cannot resist saying so, the rest of us should just bow to their wisdom and let them have their private playground I now know.
> 
> I seem to get this wrong every time I post about anything on Kboards, I hear a lot on blogs about how helpful people are here so I can only assume the problem is me. Well it is time to give up now, this was my last try at getting something positive from this forum and I failed miserably. I will not be posting here again.


FWIW: I quite like your covers. Your blurbs are good, too. My advice I held back from posting due to your request wasn't with your covers but actually with your story opening of Sovereign Nation, so your sample. There's typos and grammatical errors right from the first paragraph. Only minor ones, but ones that could put readers off and result in "barely selling anything". That's all I wanted to say so you hopefully take that advice and sell more copies. Or not - that's your call. 

Just a small point: try not to mistake people trying to give you a hand sell more copies to readers for a "core of users thinking they know best." After all, learning is a very, very important part of the process that all long term professionals admit they are still doing to this day. 

I wish you luck. I mean that, too. This forum is always here to offer advice, if you ask for it. Apologies if that comes off in any way as snarky - it's definitely not intended.

PS: I read the sample of your short story, Second Time Lucky, and found it really gripping and visceral. So you can write, that's for sure. Just keep on learning, keep on being willing to take advice and criticism on board, and keep on having fun.


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## Rue Hirsch (May 4, 2014)

To the OP: Congratulations on writing your books and getting them out there! That in itself is a huge deal. A lot of "writers" don't even get that far. Regarding everything else (covers, marketing, etc), don't worry about those things right now. Just write. There are other priorities in your life and it sounds like you have a tight head on your shoulders. Keep writing, don't give up, and continue doing the little things that you can in order to move you in the direction of your goals (Stacy Chaflin, awesome pointer on that).

This business is tough and there's so many times (almost daily), when I ask myself what the heck I'm doing. All we can do is sit back down on the chair, wipe away the tears, and keep creating. Your day will come. Keep on and I think its wonderful that you're celebrating the small stepping stones. Best of luck to you and everyone else out there trying to make it.


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## jimbro (Jan 10, 2014)

alawston said:


> ... I know all the things I've done "wrong" in very precise detail. I don't really care, I'm still having a great time


It would be nice to sell an umpteen gazillion books, but we shouldn't discount the fun we're having either.


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## Tim_A (May 25, 2013)

Ted Cross said:


> My sales are just trickles so far, but it's early days. My book has only been out three weeks so far.


Ted, might I suggest you have a wander over to the "UK Amazon Kindle Forum" group on Goodreads? It's a UK-facing group, but one of the mods lives in Baku and she's always on the lookout for new local writing talent...


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## Crystal_ (Aug 13, 2014)

anniejocoby said:


> You're probably going to get a lot of guff for posting this in this thread, but I have to agree with you there. Not that the OP or anyone else is asking for advice, so I'm not going to give it, but I do think that writing to market is a good idea for anyone who sees this whole thing as a business. But there are plenty who want to write what their muse dictates and don't care about money or see this as a business, and I say more power to you, too.  Write for love, write for money, it's all good. It's just that if you're writing for money, it would behoove you to study the market.


Everyone has different goals with their writing. Some people only want to express themselves and don't care much about if people read or buy their books. Others want to make as much money as possible. Most fall somewhere in between.

There's no cut and dry advice that works for everyone. If you want your books to sell, you help your odds by writing in a marketable genre--romance, erotica, mystery, thrillers--but that is still no guarantee of sales. You should write in a genre you enjoy, even if it's not your first choice.


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## The 13th Doctor (May 31, 2012)

Vidya said:


> garam81, if you don't mind saying, how many downloads did you get with SweetFreeBooks and what was your genre? Did you make them free or 99c? I'm thinking of using them and would like to have more info about how well they perform.


Hi. I've been out all day so just saw your post.

The book's genre is Contemporary Fantasy, it had just newly become perma-free, and it's 17 pages. My downloads were 785 (.COM), 50 (UK), 23 (DE), 15 (CA), 1 (ES) and 1 (BR).

For me, they performed wonderfully as I'd never seen those kind of numbers (the US, UK and DE) for any of my free books within a month. Well, worth the money.

I managed to hit #1 in the Kindle Store > Kindle Short Reads > 30 minutes (12-21 pages) > Science Fiction & Fantasy list for a day or two, and the book's been in the Top 100 in that list for the past two months (currently sitting at #3.

I should add that it also helps that I published the third book in the series in the same month, so I did see sell-through (is that the correct term?) from the free book to the subsequent books.

All in all, yes I'd recommend Sweet Free Books.


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## Kylo Ren (Mar 29, 2014)

My sales aren't great yet, but they're gonna be cuz my book is the shiz. So, just as soon as I figure out the magic spell to cast, things are gonna take off.


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## I&#039;m a Little Teapot (Apr 10, 2014)

artofstu said:


> My sales aren't great yet, but they're gonna be cuz my book is the shiz. So, just as soon as I figure out the magic spell to cast, things are gonna take off.


All you need are some more books in the series, and some decent promos, and you'll sell. Your cover is fantastic, your blurb is great, and your writing is very good.


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## Kylo Ren (Mar 29, 2014)

SevenDays said:


> All you need are some more books in the series, and some decent promos, and you'll sell. Your cover is fantastic, your blurb is great, and your writing is very good.


Awww, thanks.


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

Magic spell.
onto glee bin glout in glow bin.  Oh power of the reaDer give me sales.    
All said while sacrificing a dead tree.


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## Jennifer R P (Oct 19, 2012)

I don't even have a trickle right now. I have drips.

But.

I have two very short books, which tend not to sell until people know the author.

I have a novel with a small press that got badly review bombed. That's all I'm saying on that.

I'm now working on a novella trilogy, releasing each part and then I'm going to bundle them at a lower price. I honestly don't expect to sell as many of the individual books, even though they're good, my blurb is getting me positive responses to review requests on book one and my covers are absolutely fantastic.

I know what my problem is: People finding them. And I'm working on that. A lot of the time the reasons sales are abysmal are nothing more than your book getting lost in the noise.

Which means shouting louder and it also means being patient. Every review helps. Every sale helps. Every mention helps.


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## Nope (Jun 25, 2012)

.


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## H. S. St. Ours (Mar 24, 2012)

ctbrown said:


> I am completely with you, every sale and every reader is a bonus.


Yes, I'd prefer to sell more, too. But someone liking my books on Wattled or WriteOn, or commenting on my blog, means almost as much. I am thrilled every time I learn someone new is reading my stories. So I'll just have to take the long view: I can't stop writing, so there's that. And if I write for just me and my fans, well maybe that's enough. Maybe instead of for my daughter, these books are meant for my granddaughter. But it sure would be fun to sell more. 

And congrats on getting in that anthology!


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## Censored (Oct 31, 2014)

Alas, I don't have the creds to join the "barely selling anything" club. If anyone wants to join me, I'll be over here in the "selling nothing" club.


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## amyates (Feb 17, 2014)

ctbrown said:


> Ok, obviously I owe some people on these boards an apology. I thought advice was when you offer a suggestion in order to help with a problem. I also, obviously mistakenly, thought that saying that my covers are a problem and you wouldn't click on them was not advice but criticism. My dictionary clearly has an incorrect definition for 'advice' and I apologise for this.
> 
> Unfortunately when I post on this site I often make the mistake of assuming only those interested in what I have written will reply, silly of me I know. I know there are a core of users here who believe they know best and cannot resist saying so, the rest of us should just bow to their wisdom and let them have their private playground I now know.
> 
> I seem to get this wrong every time I post about anything on Kboards, I hear a lot on blogs about how helpful people are here so I can only assume the problem is me. Well it is time to give up now, this was my last try at getting something positive from this forum and I failed miserably. I will not be posting here again.


 

Your OP was clearly not asking for advice. But you're right. Whenever you post, you open yourself up to whatever the community has to offer at any given moment. I just wanted to say that I took your post for what it was. And I appreciated the thought. It's one I often share when I'm lurking around these threads... It's so easy to become discouraged when compared to what it takes to be inspired and motivated. It's a jungle, hang in there.

What I meant to say is that I see no reason for you to apologize. Nor should anyone else. Take what you want and leave the rest.


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## Colorwheel (Nov 21, 2014)

Good gravy, people. 50 copies a day or whatever is "small time"? If I'd sold one copy a day I'd be in a ball on the floor, crying in joy.

So beat this: TEN COPIES EVER. EEEEEEEEVVVVVVEEEEERRR. Zero free. One KU. I'm doubly over the "30-day cliff" as of this week, so that's it, that's the end. I literally know who bought every single copy. I may as well have photocopied it, stapled them together and handed them out at game night. It's probably the stupidest and most humiliating thing I've ever done. My whole life people have told me that my writing is good, culminating in a partial undergrad writing scholarship - and I found out at last that everyone was lying to me all along.

However.

This debacle came at the end of a five-year holding pattern in which I never finished anything and never let anyone read anything I wrote - which, psychologically, IS different from allowing people to read it and not having any takers. That, in turn, came after a five-year drought of telling myself I was flat out of ideas forever, in which I didn't even try to reconnect with this art that has been a lifelong source of joy for me. So IMO, compared to that, my complete lack of sales is pretty dang good.

That's how you can suck and still be really excited about it. Because at least you tried.


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## DimpDavis (Aug 23, 2014)

I debated all day over posting to this thread. 
Over the last few weeks I've published my first, second and third books. (Applause) 
Now for the groans. I've only gotten one borrow for all three books, total. 
Let's dig the knife in deeper, the books are short erotica serial romances. 
You know the ones almost guaranteed to give you handfuls of borrows everyday because everyone loves sex. 
Nope. 
Back to the good news. 
I haven't marketed the book, even though I know how. 
I haven't even told my critique partners the title of the books, because I didn't want pity buys. 
I am confident the writing, the cover, and the blurbs are all good. 
And I'm confident that when the ninth and final part is posted I will market them everywhere with every trick in the book and my hard work will earn it's payday.
At least that what I tell myself to go to sleep after another day of no sales.
Keep on writing, open yourself up to advice and take pride in your accomplishments.


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## Ted Cross (Aug 30, 2012)

Tim_A said:


> Ted, might I suggest you have a wander over to the "UK Amazon Kindle Forum" group on Goodreads? It's a UK-facing group, but one of the mods lives in Baku and she's always on the lookout for new local writing talent...


I can take a look though I'd probably feel out of place. I'm from the US and only working in Baku. On the plus side, for some reason out of the blue I sold a lot more books yesterday, which put me at #2 Hot New Releases for Cyberpunk. It's still not a lot of books sold, but it's weird how things happen for completely unknown reasons.


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## K.B. Rose (Sep 7, 2014)

ctbrown said:


> Ok, obviously I owe some people on these boards an apology. I thought advice was when you offer a suggestion in order to help with a problem. I also, obviously mistakenly, thought that saying that my covers are a problem and you wouldn't click on them was not advice but criticism. My dictionary clearly has an incorrect definition for 'advice' and I apologise for this.
> 
> Unfortunately when I post on this site I often make the mistake of assuming only those interested in what I have written will reply, silly of me I know. I know there are a core of users here who believe they know best and cannot resist saying so, the rest of us should just bow to their wisdom and let them have their private playground I now know.
> 
> I seem to get this wrong every time I post about anything on Kboards, I hear a lot on blogs about how helpful people are here so I can only assume the problem is me. Well it is time to give up now, this was my last try at getting something positive from this forum and I failed miserably. I will not be posting here again.


Please don't quit posting here. Someone didn't like your covers, but more people in this thread did. I didn't see them, so I can't say either way. But, you can't have a thin skin if you're putting your writing out there. You say you write because you love it, which is something most of us can relate to. Reviews of any kind are helpful, but really, it's all just opinions and personal taste. Some people won't like it, but the amazing thing is that some people will. Keep writing and appreciating the milestones. I think your original post in this thread was inspirational and something that struck a chord in a lot of posters here.


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## storyteller (Feb 3, 2014)

I know why my attempt to self-publish didn't work that great.  I'm not ready to self-pub yet.  I had some offline stressors come up that made me feel like I had to self-pub now or neverrrrr, but I've since dealt with those and along the way got some excellent advice.  

In my personal, specific case, I haven't written fiction regularly since I started around the time I got an account here.  And today was the first time I hit 1k words for the whole day.  That's...not a lot of writing, even when I was writing 4-5 days a week.  So I went back and looked at my published shorts as if I were casually browsing and saw that all the good, interesting bits happen in the middle and end, hilariously right at the point the default sample runs out.  That's the kind of problem you can fix with writing more and more often, and *then* releasing a finished product.

So for me, I really do have to just buckle down and churn out 100k or so words on a near-daily basis and then look at what finished products result from that kind of focused practice.  And with that much practice, I can then rewrite my shorts and release them under another name, or as part of longer works as better, more interesting writing.

I'm going to make a series out of my only real seller, my AU story about Nixon, and keep those shorts in KU/Select a few more months once I finish a couple more next month and put them up, but the other series was more of a general theme than a series and it's coming down when the Select time expires.  And all of that is fine, because I need to write a heck of a lot more fiction words to find out what my 'voice' is.  And then I can worry about marketing that voice, but I have to make a sincere, concerted effort to write a baseline number of words this coming year at least every weekday.

1k down, 99k to go.


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## Michael McClung (Feb 12, 2014)

I love everyone for posting honestly in this thread. There's so much bombast out there, so many writers trying to puff themselves up and make themselves look bigger/better/more than they (currently) are. So many others are chasing down an agenda. And then there are the ones who use the cloaking device of anonymity, because that way what they say is consequence-free.

I've been up, and I've been down, but mostly down. I think the main thing to remember is nobody can kill your dream but you. You don't lose until you quit. These are truisms, and maybe you're tired of hearing them, but that doesn't make them any less important to remember when you're staring at the BBOS.


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## Michael Buckley (Jun 24, 2013)

I agreed what others have said here. If you write most will never sell. I have written over 50 books, half I unpublished. I am a realist and know if I write a book it might never sell or just get a few downloads a month. I have one book that has 3 sales and one borrow. If that book was not in select it might sell on other channels which it has. The numbers are not great, but the book sells for 2.99 and it's just a guide. If you had five or six others that sold only a few copies it all add's up. I had series that never sold a book and had serials that sell a few each month. I think serial with permafree's is the best bet for most places. I think anything free at B&N is a poor choice. It's hard to figure out what you want to do with all the sales channels because they are different.

I feel you have to write until you find a book that readers like. I'm not talking about novels, just books over 15k and closer to 20k. Series and serials that size have a good chance to sell a few books each month, if there good the many books could be sold. If ones series failed write another one. No one knows for sure what a reader will like or not like. I agreed that you have to find away to let the reader know the book is out there. either through other promo's or direct promo for the book you are trying to sell.


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## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

Colorwheel said:


> So beat this: TEN COPIES EVER. EEEEEEEEVVVVVVEEEEERRR. Zero free. One KU.


Soon to be two KU. I just downloaded it (from the UK), so watch out for the blue blob on your graph later today when I get to 10%.

You have some great reviews, by the way. Here's the snippet that convinced me:



> I love reading books like this...or rather, I'd be able to say that if more books like this existed. Not many do, so The Healer's Road was a very welcome surprise. The characters in this book are medics, herbalists, and merchants; in a brick-sized epic fantasy, people like them would be nearly invisible unless they did something to help or hinder the hero significantly. Here, two healers and their fellow caravan travelers are the stars of the show, and they carry the reader on a sincere journey of risk, trust, and personal redemption.


Who could NOT love a story like that? I get so tired of the bam-bam-orc-fight-splat-goblin-battle-bam-bam type of fantasy. Or 'muscly men having muscly adventures', as another of the reviews puts it.


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## Vidya (Feb 14, 2012)

Thanks,  garam81. That's very useful info about SweetFreeBooks. Sounds like they do as well as or better than BK Nights. Perhaps better since a couple people mentioned BK Nights resulted in some screwy alsobots.


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## The 13th Doctor (May 31, 2012)

Vidya said:


> Thanks, garam81. That's very useful info about SweetFreeBooks. Sounds like they do as well as or better than BK Nights. Perhaps better sxince a couple people mentioned BK Nights resulted in some screwy alsobots.


No problem. I do like Bknights too, and haven't so far had screwy alsobots (touch wood!).


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## I&#039;m a Little Teapot (Apr 10, 2014)

Michael McClung said:


> I've been up, and I've been down, but mostly down. I think the main thing to remember is nobody can kill your dream but you. You don't lose until you quit. These are truisms, and maybe you're tired of hearing them, but that doesn't make them any less important to remember when you're staring at the BBOS.


Holy cow, your new covers are fantastic!


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## MM3313 (Dec 2, 2014)

alawston said:


> It is a compulsion, isn't it? And it's a cheap hobby too  I don't know what I'd do with my time if I wasn't writing. The millions would be lovely, but I don't see it ever happening with the stuff I write, and I'm totally cool with that!


Love the positive attitude! I'm approaching things the same way. I absolutely am putting in the effort to learn as much as I can and when I start publishing my own work (April '15 or bust!), I'm going to do everything I can to give my own little business a chance to have some success...BUT, I'm also going to do everything I can to remember that the reason I'm doing it in the first place is because I love to write. Always have and always will...so when I'm on here in two years or so looking for some encouragement due to lack of sales, someone please remind me of this thread


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## alawston (Jun 3, 2012)

It's good to keep that balance - and I'm positive that if the passion for your writing is visible in your work, you'll end up selling more in the long run anyway 

I'll keep an eye out for you in April 15!


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## Christian Price (Aug 3, 2012)

There used to be a thread here, I haven't seen it in awhile, it was for "successful" indies only.  It was "tongue-in-cheek"...membership requirement, your books needed to be in the 1,000,000+ range.  It was a great thread, if it's been awhile since it's graced the front page here, I'll see if I can dig it up.  It was good fun.


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## alawston (Jun 3, 2012)

Christian Price said:


> There used to be a thread here, I haven't seen it in awhile, it was for "successful" indies only. It was "tongue-in-cheek"...membership requirement, your books needed to be in the 1,000,000+ range. It was a great thread, if it's been awhile since it's graced the front page here, I'll see if I can dig it up. It was good fun.


I love it! All my self-published stuff certainly qualifies right now!


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## Christian Price (Aug 3, 2012)

alawston said:


> I love it! All my self-published stuff certainly qualifies right now!


I can't find that thread without some serious digging, maybe someone else remembers it. It would be great to see it back up routinely, I have books that would put me in that circle.


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## JR. (Dec 10, 2014)

http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,82422.0.html

type your query into the address bar followed by the site:
indie 1,000,000 ranking site:kboards.com


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## Foxolio (Jul 15, 2014)

RyanAndrewKinder said:


> I only recently (April of this year for the ebook, September for the softcover) began self publishing. I only have one real book to my name (and one microbook that I will likely take down at years end.)
> 
> When I see threads like this, I often wonder how people have promoted themselves. I am an animal, constantly trying to find new places to link my book. (Learned a few new places just reading this thread!) But other than promote my book, I have been trying to help many others with the things I have learned about promoting. Make new friends who you help and who help you. I swear that's been the key to the point I am at now. So far just in December 150 softcovers and 50+ ebooks (of my one main book.)
> 
> Bottom line: You can do it, I just think it takes a metric ton of strategy, discussion and a healthy amount of trial and error.


Oooh - well, I bought your book on writing prompts. Mainly because I'm the kind of person who searches for books like that (I don't remember if I specifically searched for 'writing prompts' or just 'writing'). So, your book was out there enough to appear on a search, and its cover is super. So, in that respect you're doing awesome! (And, I liked it and have done a couple of the prompts too!)


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## Christian Price (Aug 3, 2012)

JR. said:


> http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,82422.0.html
> 
> type your query into the address bar followed by the site:
> indie 1,000,000 ranking site:kboards.com


Yup, that's it! Thanks


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## Foxolio (Jul 15, 2014)

Edward M. Grant said:


> Sadly, that's the conclusion I'm coming to: 'write what you love' only really works if it happens to be what people want to buy. But that's not really anything new, many of my favourite authors had to write books that made money in order to have time to write the ones they really wanted to write.


I'm always in two minds about this. I write whatever I want (whether I actually _finish_ what I start is a separate issue), and I generally write what I want to read. I consider myself to have reasonably commercial tastes, and when I think about the writers that I buy a lot of books from, who I think my stuff is kinda similar too... well, they're doing OK. So by my reasoning, if they're doing OK with their stuff, there's a market for that, and therefore I'll do OK with my stuff as there's a market for it (when I get round to finishing it).

I don't think there would be any point in me writing something purely to make money. I have enough trouble finishing the stuff I want to write, let alone writing stuff I'm really not into. And, I wouldn't do a good job of it, the books wouldn't be that good, and therefore wouldn't sell. I mean, I've tried - don't get me wrong. Oh how I've tried! And, it just never works out.

But really - I can only say I will probably eat my words when I start to have more in my inventory. 10 books in, books I wanted to write, and still no sales... Yeah, I'll probably agree with you!


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## Hans Cummings (May 16, 2011)

I finally found someone who can help me punch up my blurbs. I've been fiddling with keywords lately, too, so maybe with the new trilogy coming out (which will put me at 8 full-length novels +2 two anthologies on Amazon, I'll start to see some consistency.


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## Tony_A20 (Dec 8, 2011)

I'm with you alawston,

"I don't really care, I'm still having a great time."

Writing is a vocation, not a job. Authors who believe it's a good profession to make a living, die poor. Success depends more on luck than ability, although a lack of writing skill or business acumen will quickly destroy good fortune.

I write because I like writing. I create and do everthing myself. I like to share what I know, and I like to create stories that are interesting, well written, and that readers will enjoy. Self publishing is more a means of making books available than making a profit, but my time and knowledge is not worthless, so I don't believe in giving away free what I've written.

I've made three books available on Amazon, Kobo, Barns & Noble, Scribd, iTunes, and Inktera since May 2014 and every book has received five star reviews. I've made $53.

Like you, I'm having a great time. I have three more books in work; one is finished, one nearly finished, one planned with content prepared. They should all be published before May 2015. I will be happy if any book I write is well received, regardless whether it makes any money. I've been writing since 1990, and know quite a bit about the process, but the main thing is, writing is something I like doing-and there's not much in life better than that.

Tony


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## sngraves (Aug 10, 2014)

Colorwheel said:


> Good gravy, people. 50 copies a day or whatever is "small time"? If I'd sold one copy a day I'd be in a ball on the floor, crying in joy.
> 
> So beat this: TEN COPIES EVER. EEEEEEEEVVVVVVEEEEERRR. Zero free. One KU. I'm doubly over the "30-day cliff" as of this week, so that's it, that's the end. I literally know who bought every single copy. I may as well have photocopied it, stapled them together and handed them out at game night. It's probably the stupidest and most humiliating thing I've ever done. My whole life people have told me that my writing is good, culminating in a partial undergrad writing scholarship - and I found out at last that everyone was lying to me all along.
> 
> ...


Hun, you have one book up. Just one! I doubt it would even do you a lot of good to advertise with just one book up. I seriously doubt that anyone was "lying to you", I'm willing to bet no one really even knows your book is there! You have to get eyes on it before you can really call it a success or failure. Maybe just put up some shorts that you can advertise with, and PLEASE write the next book. Anyway, I'm snagging the one you have up now with KU and I will leave a review.


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## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

Tony_A20 said:


> Writing is a vocation, not a job. Authors who believe it's a good profession to make a living, die poor. Success depends more on luck than ability, although a lack of writing skill or business acumen will quickly destroy good fortune.


I sort of agree with you - that it's a vocation, not a job. And the part, upthread, about letting the passion shine through. That's important to me, to write what excites and enthralls me, not necessarily what happens to be marketable today.

BUT - big, big BUT - there are plenty of writers right here on Kboards who have set out to make a living from their writing, and succeeded. There's an element of luck involved, of course, and any business plan, no matter how carefully thought out, can be side-swiped by the Amazon juggernaut changing direction without notice. But still, there are people making it happen, by being very astute businesspeople as well as capable writers.

Personally, I can't work that way. I write primarily for my own amusement, but having written and published the thing, I want to give it a bit of a push out of the nest to see if it can fly or not. It's more falling with style at the moment, but you never know. My books are tiptoeing round the edge of the popular genres - fantasy with romance - although they fail in the werewolves, naked-men-on-the-cover and oodles-of-hot-sex departments. So it would need luck, in my case. But that's OK. At the moment, I'm basking in the glow of very kind reviews: words like "compelling" and "wordsmith" and (my personal favourite) "I read it to the end".


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## 69959 (May 14, 2013)

PaulineMRoss said:


> BUT - big, big BUT - there are plenty of writers right here on Kboards who have set out to make a living from their writing, and succeeded. There's an element of luck involved, of course, and any business plan, no matter how carefully thought out, can be side-swiped by the Amazon juggernaut changing direction without notice. But still, there are people making it happen, by being very astute businesspeople as well as capable writers.


That reminds me of a great quote I heard the other day: "Success is when luck meets preparation." We need to work hard and smart in order to be prepared for the time when our strike of luck hits. We'll have both ups and downs, but if we're not working smart then the ups won't be nearly as significant.


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## AA.A (Sep 6, 2012)

Never give up. That is my advice, it only takes one book to click, then the sky is the limit.

*The Gardener of Baghdad* has sold around 1000 copies since its release 30/7/2014. Although not great numbers, but I feel this is the one.


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## beccaprice (Oct 1, 2011)

I still get thrilled when I see that I've sold a book or someone has borrowed one of mine. My goal is one a day - which I have not reached, really, although December is being nice to me.


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## meh (Apr 18, 2013)

Stacy, that's a perfect quote. We can't control what readers do. All we as writers (and publishers) can do is to keep writing, keep producing, and make our products the best we can make them. If you're proud of what you've created, that's enough. Hell, there are so many artists and writers who weren't appreciated during their lifetime. If you want to write for the mass market, that's cool. (Worked for the pulp sci fi writers!) If you want to write art, that's cool too. (worked for Milton.) 

I'm very much a midlist writer right now. My books range in ranking from 100,000 to over 1,000,000 (those are mostly my older attempts that didn't go so well.) The most I've sold in a day is 60 books during a 99 cent deal (before Countdown), and the most I've made in a month is $150. So I can't claim to be a non-seller, but I certainly can't also claim the fame of great sales either. I'm probably about average over the entire spectrum. 

For all of us this is a journey. I'm not here to offer advice but support. However, if you feel like you should be getting sales and you're not, I'm happy to offer opinions. Some of you have great covers, so it makes me wonder why you're at least not selling a few copies here and there. It's pretty ruthless in the marketplace. I think we've all achieved something just to have written books, and gotten them out there.


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## Shannon C (Nov 15, 2014)

Michael McClung said:


> These are truisms, and maybe you're tired of hearing them, but that doesn't make them any less important to remember when you're staring at the BBOS.


Okay, I feel silly for asking, but what the heck does BBOS stand for?


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## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

beccaprice said:


> I still get thrilled when I see that I've sold a book or someone has borrowed one of mine. My goal is one a day - which I have not reached, really, although December is being nice to me.


This is me too. I hate zero days! I always feel better to have just one sale or borrow on the board, so to speak. I'm still getting some impact from a post-free-promo bump, so I'm averaging two a day, which is very nice. And my December royalties will work out to more than a glass of wine and a cupcake, for a change. Plus I have another book out next month, so I'm hoping that January will be nice to me too.

Onwards and upwards, people!


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## Ted Cross (Aug 30, 2012)

PaulineMRoss said:


> This is me too. I hate zero days! I always feel better to have just one sale or borrow on the board, so to speak. I'm still getting some impact from a post-free-promo bump, so I'm averaging two a day, which is very nice. And my December royalties will work out to more than a glass of wine and a cupcake, for a change. Plus I have another book out next month, so I'm hoping that January will be nice to me too.
> 
> Onwards and upwards, people!


I hate the wild swings for no apparent reason, selling ten one day and feeling good and then selling zero the next and wondering why the universe is collapsing.


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

Most of us have a mix of motives and goals -- all unique.

I think for the more literary and niche writers, it's very often a slow path getting started. We can't play games with algorithms and count on mad promotions to boost our books. We have to do it the old-fashioned, organic way of slow, steady word of mouth among persnickety but enthusiastic readers. (And it takes a long time to win over each one.)

BTW, to find other threads of slow-selling folks getting together, look for the word "prawn" in the header. Someone a while back described herself (or himself) as a "Happy Prawn" (i.e. bottom feeder) - and that became a catchphrase.

(BTW: I started a thread once called Happy Prawn Economics, where people could share what has worked and not worked for them.)

Camille


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## RyanAndrewKinder (Dec 14, 2014)

ClareYoung said:


> Oooh - well, I bought your book on writing prompts. Mainly because I'm the kind of person who searches for books like that (I don't remember if I specifically searched for 'writing prompts' or just 'writing'). So, your book was out there enough to appear on a search, and its cover is super. So, in that respect you're doing awesome! (And, I liked it and have done a couple of the prompts too!)


Excellent. It's always awesome to see people out in the wild, so to speak, that randomly discovered my book. I worked really hard to get to the top of searches for "Writing Prompts". I'm on page two when people search for just the basic word "writing". (I had hoped for page one, but page two is awesome, too.) I had been using a trick I had read in a book on promoting yourself on amazon that mentioned appending keywords for your book in all the urls you use when you share your link with people. (I asked Amazon if this practice was fine or if it even worked. They didn't seem to have any issue with it but they also didn't say if it worked or not. I believe it does.) I've written a few (three, I think) blog posts recently about my efforts to improve and promote the book. It's tough work, isn't it?

The cover was made by a friend of mine called thetophus. He did me a total solid and only charged me twenty bucks. I'll definitely be using his talents again but for a fuller price for my next book. Gotta have loyalty, right?


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## Sonya Bateman (Feb 3, 2013)

Cactus said:


> Okay, I feel silly for asking, but what the heck does BBOS stand for?


BBOS = Brown Bar Of Shame, which is what used to appear on the KDP dashboard when the month rolled over and there were no sales to report.

There is no brown bar anymore, though. They redesigned it, so now it's a White Box Of Shame that says "There are no sales to report during this period."

Such a lovely term, the ol' BBOS.


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## RyanAndrewKinder (Dec 14, 2014)

S.W. Vaughn said:


> BBOS = Brown Bar Of Shame, which is what used to appear on the KDP dashboard when the month rolled over and there were no sales to report.
> 
> There is no brown bar anymore, though. They redesigned it, so now it's a White Box Of Shame that says "There are no sales to report during this period."
> 
> Such a lovely term, the ol' BBOS.


BBOS can now mean Blank Box of Shame.


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## Sonya Bateman (Feb 3, 2013)

RyanAndrewKinder said:


> BBOS can now mean Blank Box of Shame.


Hooray, the acronym still works!


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## going going gone (Jun 4, 2013)

I suspect (with no scientific evidence whatsoever to support this) that if we are not selling, our finite time is best spent on writing/revising more. (If writing is what we like most, that is. If PR is what we love best, then by all means, do that.


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## Jarrett Rush (Jun 19, 2010)

> On the plus side, for some reason out of the blue I sold a lot more books yesterday, which put me at #2 Hot New Releases for Cyberpunk. It's still not a lot of books sold, but it's weird how things happen for completely unknown reasons.


Congrats, Ted. I noticed you mention the book in a Goodreads group the other day. Then saw you posting here. Glad to see you having some success. I'm a cyberpunk writer too, and the book looks great.


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## Ted Cross (Aug 30, 2012)

Jarrett Rush said:


> Congrats, Ted. I noticed you mention the book in a Goodreads group the other day. Then saw you posting here. Glad to see you having some success. I'm a cyberpunk writer too, and the book looks great.


Thank you, though the huge changes in sales day to day are frustrating. I had that day of ten followed by a day of only one sale.


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

Ted,
Amazon's reporting is not instantaneous.


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## Ted Cross (Aug 30, 2012)

cinisajoy said:


> Ted,
> Amazon's reporting is not instantaneous.


I figured that, though it does seem to be relatively quick. I've seen times when nothing is selling and then someone tells me they are just now buying the book, and it isn't so long before the sale shows up on KDP.


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## RyanAndrewKinder (Dec 14, 2014)

Sales are just plain strange. The past nine days I have been selling double digits of print copies. Yesterday was sixteen sales. Now, so far today, zero print sales. Weird to be chugging along at a decent clip to a full stop.


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## RipleyKing (Mar 5, 2013)

What I learned here: How to place ads, the best places to place ads, keyword-rich blurbs, and smut sells. I need to be fast, accurate with that speed, and have fun! Storytelling from a storyteller, and have fun! Ads work, and ads work. It all takes time, and ads work.

Also, each year, usually about this time of the year, I read through everything I got up, looking for anything I might have missed in my editing process. I'm always learning, and always strive to be better. I do that for my readers. 

I don't sell more than a book or three a month, but my three freebies are constantly on the move. I know I need to reach readers, and the marketing process is only the first step. This year begins step two. Should I set the price for my books at 99 cents for the month of January to help promote myself as I explore my new marketing options? Why not! I have zero to lose, and everything to gain.


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## DanaG (Feb 13, 2011)

Half Pint said:


> I make my own covers and self-edit, but the reason I can make a livable income is because I write what people want to read. I am a complete and utter "sell out" and proud of it. Making a living as a fiction author is my priority. With all the threads about "writing what you love," threads like this one make me giggle a little. Honestly, if an author seriously wants to make money, she has to make THAT the priority, not her own artistic sanctification or pacifying her "muse."
> 
> Anyone that tells you that you can "write what you love" and make money, is delusional or extremely lucky. Like Russel Blake says, "Most books don't sell." At least give yourself the leg up and write what people will buy.
> 
> I'm not directing this comment to anyone in particular. This is a general public service statement.


One million percent in agreement. I write to support my family. I spent a long time studying the bestseller lists, buying bestsellers in the genres I was interested in, analyzing how the writers did what they did...everything from the opening paragraphs to how they introduce the hero and heroine, how the heroine and hero react when they first meet each other, etc.

I do enjoy what I write, but I very specifically went after the romance genre because I felt that was where I could make a living. And I do.


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## Darryl Hughes (Nov 17, 2014)

Ted Cross said:


> I hate the wild swings for no apparent reason, selling ten one day and feeling good and then selling zero the next and wondering why the universe is collapsing.


God, I know that feeling. This has been a particularly bad Christmas sales season for me. Someone said it's the Christmas book sales lull. That folks are giving kindles and ereaders as gifts and sales will pick up after Christmas when those folks start using their gifts and looking for books to read.

I'm crossing my fingers. 

Dee


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## Chuck Habakkuk (Dec 12, 2014)

No kidding... You should see my sales' chart. It flatlines until I offer a free book, and then I get a sudden spike out of nowhere. Oh well, work through it, publicize, get reviews, keep moving...

Keep moving... Like a shark.


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## Senseidoji (Jul 12, 2012)

I have sold so few that I spent most of 2014 with a flat line for sales. I just released a new book, which is the first part of a two part series. It is actually making a few sales. I agree that connections matter, but frankly I haven't been able to make a lot of them. Most of my connections are other struggling authors. We promote each other, but that hasn't done much good.


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## Shannon C (Nov 15, 2014)

S.W. Vaughn said:


> BBOS = Brown Bar Of Shame, which is what used to appear on the KDP dashboard when the month rolled over and there were no sales to report.
> 
> There is no brown bar anymore, though. They redesigned it, so now it's a White Box Of Shame that says "There are no sales to report during this period."
> 
> Such a lovely term, the ol' BBOS.


Thank you for the explanation.


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## Eva Lefoy (Jan 25, 2014)

If it makes you feel any better, I am trad pubbed (ebook) and self pubbed and on the average, i tend to do a high sale when my publisher books come out, but then it drops off quickly and my self-pubbed stuff keeps chugging along. MTD i'm about sale per book.


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## bberntson (Oct 24, 2013)

I've been doing this for over a year now and am a hybrid author.  I have plenty of work out there, but few reviews, and few sales, though they are better now than they they were over the summer.  I keep redoing the covers, re-editing, tightening up little details along the way, and I have some friends going over books to check for typos, but I can't afford to pay for an editor or a cover designer.  I do everything myself.  Still, I'm actually proud of my covers, because I really think they capture the imaginative nature of the tales they are about.  I have updated my website, but only just started with a mailing list.  I never realized how important it was until I read about it from so many other writers.  I think I have one subscriber so far and that is a local friend.  Still, I haven't had a chance to really market a whole lot yet, but today I actually had five sales during my free promo and one borrow, so  technically, that's six a day!  I never made it over two a day, and for a while there, I didn't sell a single copy for more than two weeks.  So today is a milestone for me!  

This weekend I am doing my first official book signing at B&N in Boulder, CO. for Castle Juliet, what I think is a great Christmas read, and it will be very busy, so I am hoping for some good turnout.  I work there, so the staff is very supportive, and I have plenty of other work in print that I will be featuring.  So, there is plenty to be kind of scared about, but kind of exciting, too.  Staying active and getting people to read your work is more important than anything.  Hopefully, hearing positive feedback is a part of that.  I've been lucky in that regard, and have heard some good things, so I keep my fingers crossed.  

I think JA Konrath said it best:  If you're willing to go through it for the sake of the art and the stories, if you're willing to put up with the pain, heartache, and rejection, all because you simply love to write and read, and you don't give up, then success is bound to find you.  It's not easy staying positive through all that, I know, but you have to have something like that to keep in mind.  

I'm glad someone started a threat for us little folk.  Good luck to everyone and I hope your fan base grows!  Happy Holidays!


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## Colorwheel (Nov 21, 2014)

daringnovelist said:


> BTW, to find other threads of slow-selling folks getting together, look for the word "prawn" in the header. Someone a while back described herself (or himself) as a "Happy Prawn" (i.e. bottom feeder) - and that became a catchphrase.
> 
> (BTW: I started a thread once called Happy Prawn Economics, where people could share what has worked and not worked for them.)
> 
> Camille


Whaaaaa... I assumed that was, y'know, pr0n. Ha!


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## derekneville (Jun 18, 2014)

The tough days recently for me are I'm finally getting reviews from bloggers who I gave ARCs to prior to my books release ... and even though the blog posts have gotten positive comments and the reviewers have a decent sized audience I still haven't seen a sale or a borrow. I'm keeping my head up though and plowing forward on the next project.


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## evawallace (Aug 7, 2014)

Thanks CTBrown for starting this thread, I've just finished my second novella, which was written after taking advice from the people on these boards. ie: write another book. I'm about to start promoting so thank you to those who have posted places to promote. It does seem to be hit or miss as to whether you get critical mass or whether you slog away for years and get nothing. I've never read "50 shades of grey" but I hear it's not that well written, but it just caught the publics imagination. Maybe I should write S and M instead of romantic comedy.


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## RyanAndrewKinder (Dec 14, 2014)

The day seems to be panning out as a full stop for print sales. Sixteen yesterday to zero today. It's one of those things where you look at your book page just to make sure it's still up!  Here's hoping it randomly picks up again tomorrow.


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## SB James (May 21, 2014)

RyanAndrewKinder said:


> The day seems to be panning out as a full stop for print sales. Sixteen yesterday to zero today. It's one of those things where you look at your book page just to make sure it's still up!  Here's hoping it randomly picks up again tomorrow.


I know that feeling, especially if I see by a certain time of day that I haven't had any downloads of the permafree, and I think, oh (!) they've put my book back to 99 cents!


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## Ted Cross (Aug 30, 2012)

On the positive side, a friend wrote to me today that Amazon recommended my book to him. I'll take any good news I can get!


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## Amanda M. Lee (Jun 3, 2014)

Sorry, I missed the bulk of this thread because I forgot about it. I actually forgot posting on it, mostly because I'd been up for 20 hours straight when I did. I forget that people are sensitive. I used to be sensitive about my covers. I've been looking at this business for so long -- and in a different way -- that things just kind of blow over my head. First off, the first two sets of covers I used are embarrassingly bad. I learned. I took criticism. I enhanced my own skills through YouTube videos. You can make your own covers -- and you can make good covers. You can do it with training. It is entirely possible.
Second, if you're in this business and you have thin skin, get out. Did people making fun of my original covers hurt? I'm not sure "hurt" is the word, but I didn't want to believe anyone else. I'm not that way anymore. If you can't take cover criticism, then book criticism is going to cripple you. People complain. That's what they do. I have so many one-stars on books I've long since stopped looking at reviews. Some people tell me I'm going to Hell because I'm promoting witches, and others claim I'm simplistic, and others claim that snark is rude and doesn't sell. I'm over it. Everyone has to get over it.
As for "anonymity" -- I don't put my books in my signature because of one-bombs. It happens on here. It happened to me. I'm not sensitive to people disliking my writing. I'm sensitive to people infringing on my advertising possibilities. It's as simple as that. There are people on here who know who I am. I've had people private messaging me because they were worried they figured out who I am. I'm not ashamed of what I write. I just hate the one-bombing. It is what it is.
I made a decision. I decided I wanted to write, and I wanted to make money doing it. I have two prevalent names right now. I have told certain individuals both of those names. I'm a work in progress -- and I work hard. Do I think my covers are the best ever? Absolutely not. I'm still a work in progress there. I do treat this like a business. This is my business. This is what I want to do, and this is how I want to live the rest of my life. There's always stuff to learn on here. And, if you put a bandage over your wounded pride, you can learn a lot. I've learned so much on here I can't put it into words. Does the same thing work for everyone? Absolutely not. I can say that the thin-skinned won't inherit the Earth, though. People are mean. People are blunt. People are ... jerks. I try not to be a jerk. Perhaps I don't always succeed.


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

YodaRead said:


> I do treat this like a business. This is my business. This is what I want to do, and this is how I want to live the rest of my life. There's always stuff to learn on here. And, if you put a bandage over your wounded pride, you can learn a lot. I've learned so much on here I can't put it into words. Does the same thing work for everyone? Absolutely not. I can say that the thin-skinned won't inherit the Earth, though. People are mean. People are blunt. People are ... jerks. I try not to be a jerk. Perhaps I don't always succeed.


Yoda you did more than not succeed, you completely flunked it. The OP asked for those who were not successful to share small successes and you came in as a known success story and told the OP what to do to be a success, which was not what the thread was about. And you're still snarking about them being a thin-skinned wannabe who does not take this business as serious as you do.



ctbrown said:


> So, how about a thread to celebrate the, small, achievements of those of us not making much money but who do this purely for the love of it? What's mine? I just got the first 15 minutes of the first audio adaption of one of my books through ACX! Again, at no cost - profit sharing instead. What about all you others out there?


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## Foxolio (Jul 15, 2014)

RyanAndrewKinder said:


> Excellent. It's always awesome to see people out in the wild, so to speak, that randomly discovered my book. I worked really hard to get to the top of searches for "Writing Prompts". I'm on page two when people search for just the basic word "writing". (I had hoped for page one, but page two is awesome, too.) I had been using a trick I had read in a book on promoting yourself on amazon that mentioned appending keywords for your book in all the urls you use when you share your link with people. (I asked Amazon if this practice was fine or if it even worked. They didn't seem to have any issue with it but they also didn't say if it worked or not. I believe it does.) I've written a few (three, I think) blog posts recently about my efforts to improve and promote the book. It's tough work, isn't it?
> 
> The cover was made by a friend of mine called thetophus. He did me a total solid and only charged me twenty bucks. I'll definitely be using his talents again but for a fuller price for my next book. Gotta have loyalty, right?


The cover is superb - so defo use thetophus again!! In fact, that's what attracted me to the book in the first place (I thought I'd let you know about how I found it, so you know your efforts aren't in vein!!) It looks a lot more pleasing to the eye than a lot of other writing book covers.

I'd also say page two is nothing to be sniffed at. And page two isn't really technically accurate either, seeing as it depends on what you're searching on. I do a lot of book-buying on my kindle - via the book search tab (that you get to via your library) I don't know where abouts you are (don't have my kindle on me) but it's an infinite swipe. So 'pages' doesn't count. And, via the Amazon store tab...I can't remember how that works now but again, it's not gonna be in 'pages'. I think that's infinite swipe too. Plus, for me anyway, if you spend a lot of time searching for writing books (for education purposes, you understand. Not procrastination reasons) you will always find the same kinda books at the start of your search. So therefore, I always go past them and see what else is there. So in that respect, page two would be 'here are where all the newer writing books are that I've not seen before' and therefore be a good place to be.

(I am also quite sure you pop up as Amazon recommendations for some of the other books I have. I'd have to check - but on the Kindle I swear you appear on the lower carousel when I look at other books on my main carousel.)

Sorry for the babble - I'm always fascinated about that link between how we as self-publishers approach marketing and how we actually capture books in the wild. There are so many books I discover and 'capture' via completely random ways - it's trying to figure out how to replicate that!

That keyword url approach sounds interesting - I might look that up when I have more things to sell!


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## RyanAndrewKinder (Dec 14, 2014)

Intriguing. It's fascinating to hear of the ways people discover books and what drew them in.

A lot of my beliefs about search positioning come from the standpoint of basic marketing techniques. Showing up on page two, or better yet page one, is encouraging an impulse buy. (When I speak of pages, I mean on computers and web browsers.) I have read surveys where people won't go beyond page three because they usually find what they're looking for on page one. It's the supermarket equivalent to being the first thing customers see when they walk in. It might not have been on your grocery list, but now that you see it... it kind of looks appealing. Showing up in the also bought/also viewed lists is like being the candy bar in the checkout lane.

I am constantly trying to think of new ways to market it. Even though yesterday was a flatline (not for the ebook version - six sales and four borrows), I sold six copies this morning alone of the print version so far. I am on pace to having my first four figure month ($600 in print, $150 in ebook so far.)

Like you, I was also fascinated by how other self publishers promoted. I read this book about being successful in self publishing. What he wrote sounded like BS. He was talking about hunting for keywords that people might type in and seeing if there was a low amount of books in that subject, then making a book for that keyword. Thus getting into a niche market. I still think it's BS. (Plus, his books were riddled with typos and he releases a buttload. He's one of those people I've heard about here that just seems to repurpose stuff from around the web. I loathe books that put a ton of reiterated filler in the sample so you get no content in the preview. Hence why I opened the introduction to my book the way I did.)

I think the key is this: Find out what the readers are looking for and see if you can organically incorporate it into your project. For me, I wanted to write a book of unique writing prompts. Before I began writing I said "Let me see what the competition has out there." I did and, to no surprise, I couldn't find one prompt book with any personality. It was all the kinds of prompts my creative writing teacher would assign us in the 90's. "Tell us where you see yourself in twenty years." Which is all well and good, but it's dry. Seeing what your future "competition" is doing is one thing. The next thing is to read the reviews for them and see what readers were hoping to get out of the experience that they just didn't find.

I'm babbling now too, but I could talk for hours on marketing/promoting/etc. - This year has been such a great learning experience and I feel that I will be so much more informed and prepared for my next release. I won't have to rely on dumb luck for boosts. 

edit: Took out the name of the author of the book on marketing. You never know if a person will google themselves and then have an axe to grind. (Especially since the author in question seems to have a bunch of people who vote 5 stars for his books and he votes theirs 5 stars. Yucko.)


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## DanaG (Feb 13, 2011)

Ryan, your observation about writing what your audience wants to read is spot on, and that is your best marketing. The other thing - if you have only one book out, unless you're Dan Brown, that one book won't earn you enough to make a living.  I make a six figure income. I do it by writing a LOT - and I do very little advertising, and my only marketing is sending out book announcements on my Facebook page and newsletter list.  (Yes, I know Dan Brown wrote more than one book, but that one book would have been enough for him to retire off of.)

Amazon pushes books down in the algorythms pretty quickly these days - I ALWAYS see a noticeable sales drop after a book's first 30 days. Yet another reason to write a lot of books.  When you write a new book, if it does well, it tends to increase sales of your old books.


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## RyanAndrewKinder (Dec 14, 2014)

I come from a unique position that people search for my name because I created a rather large (1.6 million) writing community on reddit (edit: not bragging, just saying that I have a unique way of getting my name out there for future stuff.) But I would never rely on a single book. Especially one with such a specific targeted audience. That's why I am working on five projects in the new year. Four of them fiction. I know it takes a bit of time and patience to traditionally publish, as I want to do with one of my books, but working on and releasing some of this other stuff ought to keep me occupied when I am waiting for responses from agents. 

As I have always said: I love writing and entertaining. Making money is a happy side effect. Learning marketing and strategy is something I didn't think I would enjoy. Funny how perceptions change when you have a product to push.


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## cebap (Dec 15, 2014)

Even though I'm not selling a lot, I find that writing has helped me out of a really bad bought of depression an anxiety. I would have panic attacks about every two weeks which would scare me and leave me exhausted for days. Seriously, I've been going to a therapist and the writing work I have done has helped so much more. Seeing that people do download my silly stories is extremely uplifting to me. Being part of a community of writers helps me. 

Overall, writing is good for the soul, whether you sell a lot or not.


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## Nomadwoman (Aug 25, 2011)

garam81 said:


> For me, they performed wonderfully as I'd never seen those kind of numbers (the US, UK and DE) for any of my free books within a month. Well, worth the money.
> 
> All in all, yes I'd recommend Sweet Free Books.


Thank you for sharing your results - I've added SFB to my promo mix for xmas week


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## wtvr (Jun 18, 2014)

YodaRead said:


> Sorry, I missed the bulk of this thread because I forgot about it. I actually forgot posting on it, mostly because I'd been up for 20 hours straight when I did. I forget that people are sensitive. I used to be sensitive about my covers. I've been looking at this business for so long -- and in a different way -- that things just kind of blow over my head. First off, the first two sets of covers I used are embarrassingly bad. I learned. I took criticism. I enhanced my own skills through YouTube videos. You can make your own covers -- and you can make good covers. You can do it with training. It is entirely possible.
> Second, if you're in this business and you have thin skin, get out. Did people making fun of my original covers hurt? I'm not sure "hurt" is the word, but I didn't want to believe anyone else. I'm not that way anymore. If you can't take cover criticism, then book criticism is going to cripple you. People complain. That's what they do. I have so many one-stars on books I've long since stopped looking at reviews. Some people tell me I'm going to Hell because I'm promoting witches, and others claim I'm simplistic, and others claim that snark is rude and doesn't sell. I'm over it. Everyone has to get over it.
> As for "anonymity" -- I don't put my books in my signature because of one-bombs. It happens on here. It happened to me. I'm not sensitive to people disliking my writing. I'm sensitive to people infringing on my advertising possibilities. It's as simple as that. There are people on here who know who I am. I've had people private messaging me because they were worried they figured out who I am. I'm not ashamed of what I write. I just hate the one-bombing. It is what it is.
> I made a decision. I decided I wanted to write, and I wanted to make money doing it. I have two prevalent names right now. I have told certain individuals both of those names. I'm a work in progress -- and I work hard. Do I think my covers are the best ever? Absolutely not. I'm still a work in progress there. I do treat this like a business. This is my business. This is what I want to do, and this is how I want to live the rest of my life. There's always stuff to learn on here. And, if you put a bandage over your wounded pride, you can learn a lot. I've learned so much on here I can't put it into words. Does the same thing work for everyone? Absolutely not. I can say that the thin-skinned won't inherit the Earth, though. People are mean. People are blunt. People are ... jerks. I try not to be a jerk. Perhaps I don't always succeed.


Totally spot on for folks who want to make a serious go of this business. Not everyone does, though. *shrug*


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## The 13th Doctor (May 31, 2012)

Nomadwoman said:


> Thank you for sharing your results - I've added SFB to my promo mix for xmas week


Good luck!


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## rjspears (Sep 25, 2011)

Like others, I really appreciate this thread, for many reason, but mostly it is where I live - in the land of limited sales. My favorite response was this one:



> It is a compulsion, isn't it? And it's a cheap hobby too  I don't know what I'd do with my time if I wasn't writing.


This is where I am, too. Writing as a hobby. Writing as a creative endeavor. Writing to write. '

Don't get me wrong. I want to make some money at this. I'm not chasing my muse or noodling away on esoterica. I'm trying to find some traction in a semi-popular sub-genre, but not finding much. My marketing efforts come in fits and bursts. I don't want spam folks, but when I do push, I generally get some sales.

Half of my work is self-edited and half of it has an editor via the small press I publish through. I've done all my own covers and do my own eformating on my self-pubbed books.

In two years, I've released 2 novellas, 4 novels, a collection of short stories, and had over a dozen short stories published online or in print anthologies. In terms of sales, I'm at around 15 a month. My self-pubbed books out sell my small press books 2-to-1. I've given away over 2,000 books. My sales numbers are discouraging because I'm working about as hard as I can.

The truth is that I'm not even close to stopping. I'm in this for the long haul. I may switch genres, but I've got a dozen or more new books in me and they're getting out there. Now, back to writing.

Some people have said that more books mean more sales, but I've doubled the amount of books I had out there an my sales are flat.

Several poster have said that the key to get more sales is becoming more "discoverable" and I agree with this. The problem is how? I don't have a vast marketing budget, but I push as much as I can.


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## SA_Soule (Sep 8, 2011)

ctbrown said:


> I self-edit my books, not out of a sense that I can do it best but simply because I cannot afford anything else. It is all well and good to say it only costs a couple of hundred dollars but I just do not have it - I am studying to become a preschool teacher and my wife and I are living on her wage alone. Paying for rent and food trumps an editor, no matter how cheap!


Don't you have any critique partners to help you edit your work?


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## SA_Soule (Sep 8, 2011)

I am a Prawn!  

I think it is tougher for some writers (like me) who write in highly popular genres like paranormal romance. The market is sauntered with PNR, so it is hard to break through and get your book(s) noticed. 

This business can be depressing and discouraging... 

I have yet to generate enough income to live off of and I have been writing for over 3 years now with 7 (fiction) books published thus far. I have published one YA series and two stand-alone novels.

I get more sales from my non-fiction self-editing handbooks, than my fiction. Which I am grateful for, but I wish my fiction titles would get more love.


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## SA_Soule (Sep 8, 2011)

DanaG said:


> One million percent in agreement. I write to support my family. I spent a long time studying the bestseller lists, buying bestsellers in the genres I was interested in, analyzing how the writers did what they did...everything from the opening paragraphs to how they introduce the hero and heroine, how the heroine and hero react when they first meet each other, etc.
> 
> I do enjoy what I write, but I very specifically went after the romance genre because I felt that was where I could make a living. And I do.


I also study bestselling authors and their plot formulas. ;-) It does help you to write faster, too.


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## Darryl Hughes (Nov 17, 2014)

I've seen the putting keywords in your url thing being shared on Amazon's Kindle boards recently. It's an interesting idea. 

Dee


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## RyanAndrewKinder (Dec 14, 2014)

Sherry, just bought one of your books. Loved the cover, it will look good in my carousel. Lol


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## Darryl Hughes (Nov 17, 2014)

RyanAndrewKinder said:


> Those are excellent links dkgould! I didn't know about a lot of those sites. I primarily used twitter, facebook and reddit when promoting my free days. I wrote a short blog post with links to where I promote and advice about promoting here: http://rykinder.blogspot.com/2014/12/places-to-promote-your-book-when-your.html that seemed to include links not mentioned in those three you provided.
> 
> I always make sure to put a couple links on reddit because there are a few retweet bots that scrape the free books subreddits. It's like getting more promotional oomph for free.


Thanks for this. Can't afford all the BookBubs, etc, at the moment. So anything free promotion wise is a help.

Dee


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## RyanAndrewKinder (Dec 14, 2014)

Darryl Hughes said:


> Thanks for this. Can't afford all the BookBubs, etc, at the moment. So anything free promotion wise is a help.
> 
> Dee


You're welcome! I am still basically a "prawn". It was only midnovember until now that all my promotion in april has equalled double digits (for the print book. The ebook sometimes has days in a row where I flatline. So as far as the kindle goes, I am still a total prawn.)

The links and especially the previous blog post where I outlined hourly how I spread things with promoting should help you. It resulted in 1,000 downloads.

My best time with the ebook was in early September. A facebook page I had never heard of called Pixel of Ink saw my book was free (I hadn't even promoted it on any site) and that resulted in 20,000 free downloads. I thought "This is it! I made it!" Got to #16 free overall. Once the free period was over sales of the ebook were 20 the first day. 21 the second day. 22 the third day! Keep in mind, right before the free period I had a stretch of five days with zero sales. I thought "How long will this bump go on?!" Turns out three days was the answer. Day four was six sales. Day five was three. Day six flat line. Day seven flat line. The four times I have done free periods it seems to be my experience. Three day bump, extreme drop off. I just wonder if once the new year starts if the print sales will go back to many days of zero in a row. One thing's for certain: gotta write more.


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## RyanAndrewKinder (Dec 14, 2014)

It is such a comedown isn't it? Lol. I couldn't tell why I spiked to #16 overall free. It was only when a friend told me I was featured on pixel of ink that I figured it out. My previous google searches didn't work so thank goodness someone happened upon it. I guess google doesn't search facebook so maybe that's where your book showed up. Opengraphsearch does search facebook, so I have used to learn that if I get a spike. Haven't had double digit ebook sales since that september for three days.


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## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

Sherry_Soule said:


> I am a Prawn!
> 
> *I think it is tougher for some writers (like me) who write in highly popular genres* like paranormal romance. The market is sauntered with PNR, so it is hard to break through and get your book(s) noticed.
> 
> ...


LOL, that highlighted piece struck me as funny. I have the opposite problem: my stories (some novels, a lot of novelettes) seem to straddle traditional categories, or fall under a generic 'women's fiction' umbrella, or whatever. In other words, not popular genres; in fact, genre not easily defined, period. That's what I tell myself, anyway: stories that don't fit neatly into major genres aren't easily looked for (or stumbled upon) by a lot of people.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.  (Until sales take off. )


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## RyanAndrewKinder (Dec 14, 2014)

Kayla. said:


> Given that I live in a very non-popular country when it comes to Kindles, *my book spiked at #72 (overall book ranking* so I was in the *general* top 100 for Kindle). I'd like to explain how that feels, but I can't.
> Coming down was NOT nice. Now, some of my books are ranked #116K in that same store. Ouch.


I am curious, as a side thought. Some authors have their books listed in their sig. Some, like yourself, do not. Why is this? (I am still very new to the boards.)


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## hayley (Oct 21, 2014)

I'm selling about 5 per week and giving away 210 for free. My reviews are great, I'm got a run of promotions coming up for chirstmas and book 3 in the series coming out next month. I'm focusing on reviews, but more sales would be nice. It's a good thing this is my five year plan, at this rate I will need 50 books out to be a full time writer.


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## Senseidoji (Jul 12, 2012)

I am new...well returning and highly inexperienced on these boards. I started a long time ago and barely did anything and then sort of avoided them for a few years. Anyway, you people are confusing the heck out of me. 1: What is a "one-bomb" 2: What is a "prawn"?


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## Darryl Hughes (Nov 17, 2014)

I got a sale today! An actual sale! It's been so long I almost didn't recognize it. LOL! 

If you go to the Amazon KDP forum folks there are lamenting the lag in recent sales. They've even pinpointed the date the bottom seemed to fall out of sales--November 24th. I'd have to agree. Around that date is when the bottom fell out of my sales.

Dee


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

Alternative definition of Prawn:  Writers who don't sell a lot of books, and whose measure of success may be something very different from those who are devastated when they don't have a best seller.

While some prawns may very much like to sell more books, most of us don't sell a lot of books partly because our primary goals have to do with serving our stories, and our audiences (which may not be large -- but who have a right to find stories they actually like, rather than be forced, by lack of choices, to read what other people decide is best).

Camille


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## Darryl Hughes (Nov 17, 2014)

David S. said:


> A one-bomb is a one-star review left out of spite, jealousy or some reason other than having actually read the book and finding the book itself lacking.


I got one of those. I posted a link to my book on a thread on the Amazon Children's Forum and someone from there posted a "one bomb" on my book page saying that they "don't buy from spammers so they wouldn't be buying anything from this author". I contacted Amazon about having it removed because the "reviewer" clearly states that they didn't buy the book they were "reviewing" so it was just commentary, but Amazon wouldn't remove it.

Dee


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## Ted Cross (Aug 30, 2012)

Darryl Hughes said:


> If you go to the Amazon KDP forum folks there are lamenting the lag in recent sales. They've even pinpointed the date the bottom seemed to fall out of sales--November 24th. I'd have to agree. Around that date is when the bottom fell out of my sales.


Ah, so it was me. Apologies. That's the day my book came out. I'm used it by now, so I'm not surprised.


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## Ted Cross (Aug 30, 2012)

shimmering said:


> You took literally all the sales?? That's some going!


I wish! Things just tend to break whenever I enter a room...


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## Colorwheel (Nov 21, 2014)

Jena H said:


> LOL, that highlighted piece struck me as funny. I have the opposite problem: my stories (some novels, a lot of novelettes) seem to straddle traditional categories, or fall under a generic 'women's fiction' umbrella, or whatever. In other words, not popular genres; in fact, genre not easily defined, period. That's what I tell myself, anyway: stories that don't fit neatly into major genres aren't easily looked for (or stumbled upon) by a lot of people.
> 
> That's my story and I'm sticking to it.  (Until sales take off. )


Fist bump. I'm meandering between women's fiction and low fantasy. I don't know anyone outside this board and (assuming) a librarian friend who even know what women's fiction IS, let alone seek it out. "It's like something somebody's mom would read, but not quite romance" is about as close as I understood it before doing the research.

I angst about genre more than is healthy. I don't think genres are bad, or even limiting. They're like rules to a board or card game; they let readers understand how to engage with the story. But impose more house rules than standard rules and you don't know what you're playing anymore.

Problem is, what I _like_ to write is an unholy mix of poker and Yahtzee, and I have to decide where the balance is between playing my favorite game and having others play with me... i.e. my writing enjoyment for an audience of one vs. discoverability and saleability.

(in fact, my username is about genre confusion; my husband commented "It's not like you're trying to reinvent the wheel, just painting it a different color." So genre is a bit of a fixation.)


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## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

Colorwheel said:


> I'm meandering between women's fiction and low fantasy.


Meander as much as you like. Your book is amazing. Seriously. It makes me cross that no one's reading it except me and a handful of others, yet all sorts of rubbish gets sold by the shedload. There's no justice.


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## Colorwheel (Nov 21, 2014)

PaulineMRoss said:


> Meander as much as you like. Your book is amazing. Seriously. It makes me cross that no one's reading it except me and a handful of others, yet all sorts of rubbish gets sold by the shedload. There's no justice.


Hahaha. Thank you, that brightened my day.

But early on, I had to remind myself that things that sell well reach people and touch people in a way that the readers respond to, no matter whether the books have other flaws. I may think such-and-such a book's dialogue was wooden, but all those readers found joy in it, and I'm not getting in the way of that. I may "argh" a while, but in the end... I love reading nearly as much as I love writing, and it makes me happy when people read. Even if they're reading a title I personally wouldn't touch with a barge pole. There's something for everyone.

Sooo that's my "prawnishness doesn't have to equal jealousy" soapbox. 

The challenge is figuring out "does my story not speak to people, or is it the proverbial tree falling in the forest?" - which is "write better" vs. "promote better". Or both.


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## SA_Soule (Sep 8, 2011)

RyanAndrewKinder said:


> Sherry, just bought one of your books. Loved the cover, it will look good in my carousel. Lol


*BIG SMILE* You just made my day. ;-D


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

As I clicked to read the updates it finally struck me that the thread title conjures up an image of a desperate author staffing a bric-a-brac stall with everything on the table (including their books) and nothing on their person.

Must be a slow sales day.

Who am I kidding? It's a no sales day. Comme toujours.


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## Kylo Ren (Mar 29, 2014)

I'm actually starting to wonder if Amazon's reporting is broken.


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

artofstu said:


> I'm actually starting to wonder if Amazon's reporting is broken.


Let me read to 11%.


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## EC (Aug 20, 2013)

A few of us could help with some genuine advice, but remarkably, we have been bullied off a thread on a forum intended to boost writing careers. 

Bit of an oxymoron that, isn't it?


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## RyanAndrewKinder (Dec 14, 2014)

artofstu said:


> I'm actually starting to wonder if Amazon's reporting is broken.


"Thanks, Ryan!
The Heart Thief (The Rhapp's Barren Triptych Book 1) will be auto-delivered wirelessly to Ryan's Kindle via Amazon Whispernet."


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## Kylo Ren (Mar 29, 2014)

RyanAndrewKinder said:


> "Thanks, Ryan!
> The Heart Thief (The Rhapp's Barren Triptych Book 1) will be auto-delivered wirelessly to Ryan's Kindle via Amazon Whispernet."


Okay, it's not broken.  Thanks so much!

At least, the Units Ordered chart works. The Month-to-date report is seriously lagging, though. There are sales from almost a week ago that haven't shown up on that yet. I guess they'll show up eventually. Or not. Oh, Amazon. You vex me so.


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## RyanAndrewKinder (Dec 14, 2014)

artofstu said:


> Okay, it's not broken.  Thanks so much!
> 
> At least, the Units Ordered chart works. The Month-to-date report is seriously lagging, though. There are sales from almost a week ago that haven't shown up on that yet. I guess they'll show up eventually. Or not. Oh, Amazon. You vex me so.


The opening two paragraphs hooked me enough to buy it. The table of contents looked long.


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## Darryl Hughes (Nov 17, 2014)

Hey Ryan? About the keywords in the url thing you mentioned? Is it /&keywords=your+keywords? Because I've seen it mentioned by someone who quotes you to use /@keywords=your+keywords and I'd rather get it straight from the horses mouth so to speak.

Both work btw.

Dee


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## Kylo Ren (Mar 29, 2014)

RyanAndrewKinder said:


> The opening two paragraphs hooked me enough to buy it. The table of contents looked long.


Lol. It's a full-length novel for sure. 113,000 words. The chapters themselves are fairly short, though. Mostly.


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## RyanAndrewKinder (Dec 14, 2014)

Darryl Hughes said:


> Hey Ryan? About the keywords in the url thing you mentioned? Is it /&keywords=your+keywords? Because I've seen it mentioned by someone who quotes you to use /@keywords=your+keywords and I'd rather get it straight from the horses mouth so to speak.
> 
> Both work btw.
> 
> Dee


I use the former, not the latter. Putting the at symbol seems needless. The site is informed by the keywords command. You can actually add a bunch of needless symbols and it will ignore it except for the proper commands. For example:

Http://amazon.com/1-000-Awesome-Writing-Prompts-ebook/dp/B00JOVSYC2/ref=sr_1_40?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1399036355&sr=1-40#=÷×#^;;:/&keywords=writing

I added a buttload of gibberish before &keywords. Give it a look.


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## Darryl Hughes (Nov 17, 2014)

RyanAndrewKinder said:


> I use the former, not the latter. Putting the at symbol seems needless. The site is informed by the keywords command. You can actually add a bunch of needless symbols and it will ignore it except for the proper commands. For example:
> 
> Http://amazon.com/1-000-Awesome-Writing-Prompts-ebook/dp/B00JOVSYC2/ref=sr_1_40?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1399036355&sr=1-40#=÷×#^;;:/&keywords=writing
> 
> I added a buttload of gibberish before &keywords. Give it a look.


It actually gives a 404.

I ask because the guy on the KDP forum who quotes you says his tech guy says to use the /@keywords=your+keywords and that's what they've been using with what you posted there.

But, like I said, both work.

Dee


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

Colorwheel said:


> Hahaha. Thank you, that brightened my day.
> 
> But early on, I had to remind myself that things that sell well reach people and touch people in a way that the readers respond to, no matter whether the books have other flaws. I may think such-and-such a book's dialogue was wooden, but all those readers found joy in it, and I'm not getting in the way of that. I may "argh" a while, but in the end... I love reading nearly as much as I love writing, and it makes me happy when people read. Even if they're reading a title I personally wouldn't touch with a barge pole. There's something for everyone.
> 
> ...


Your book does look really good, however, I had to see what people here were saying and look at the categories to see that it was fantasy. You'd probably find your audience more easily if you had a more fantasy cover and mentioned in the blurb that it was fantasy as well. Same with your categories. Hope that helps.


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## RyanAndrewKinder (Dec 14, 2014)

Darryl Hughes said:


> It actually gives a 404.
> 
> I ask because the guy on the KDP forum who quotes you says his tech guy says to use the /@keywords=your+keywords and that's what they've been using with what you posted there.
> 
> ...


Yeah, it gave a 404 because kboards didn't read the whole url properly and rendered boxes (which WILL break a link. lol.) Hopefully it works better here: Http://amazon.com/1-000-Awesome-Writing-Prompts-ebook/dp/B00JOVSYC2/ref=sr_1_40?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1399036355&sr=1-40#=#^;;:/&keywords=writing

I don't understand where the person working for Amazon would come up with the @ symbol informing the system that the keywords are more valid. (I do have a friend that works for Amazon, I can ask him... but he will probably be as coy as the KDP team was when answering me. lol)

I'm fairly certain the @ symbol is needless and, if anything, puts more attention on link clickers eyes on the url. You can pretty much disfigure a large part of your url and it will only pay attention to a few key commands. Like the title of your book? That means zilch. The dp and AISN - that's important. So, for example:

http://amazon.com/This-isnt-even-the-title-of-my-book/dp/B00JOVSYC2/Youcanprettymuchtypeanythingyouplease.&keywords=writing+prompts

Bottom line: I believe it neither helps nor hurts to add it. I think it makes the link look worse visually for anyone who looks at links (there are nerds out there that do. )


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

Ryan,
Even though your book will probably be useless to me as a reader I borrowed it because you have me curious as to what a writing prompt was.


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## RyanAndrewKinder (Dec 14, 2014)

cinisajoy said:


> Ryan,
> Even though your book will probably be useless to me as a reader I borrowed it because you have me curious as to what a writing prompt was.


Thanks cini! Take a look at the other writing prompt books out there too. A lot of them are very... hohum. Which can work for people who are looking for very basic stuff. I also created a site where users can post their own prompts and reply to the prompts with different takes. http://reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts (If you're ever bored. )


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## Darryl Hughes (Nov 17, 2014)

RyanAndrewKinder said:


> Yeah, it gave a 404 because kboards didn't read the whole url properly and rendered boxes (which WILL break a link. lol.) Hopefully it works better here: Http://amazon.com/1-000-Awesome-Writing-Prompts-ebook/dp/B00JOVSYC2/ref=sr_1_40?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1399036355&sr=1-40#=#^;;:/&keywords=writing
> 
> I don't understand where the person working for Amazon would come up with the @ symbol informing the system that the keywords are more valid. (I do have a friend that works for Amazon, I can ask him... but he will probably be as coy as the KDP team was when answering me. lol)
> 
> ...


The guy on the KDP forum said it was his tech guy who suggested using /@keywords=your+keywords. There's even a new post by him giving his tech guys explanation of what he thinks happens when you put keywords in your url. I'll find the link for you.

But since you're the guy who came up with this if you say use /&keywords=your+keywords then that's what I'm using. 

Dee


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## Darryl Hughes (Nov 17, 2014)

Ryan? Here's the KDP forum link where the guy posts his tech guys explanation of what he thinks happens when you use keywords in your url:

https://kdp.amazon.com/community/thread.jspa?threadID=215171&tstart=0&messageID=814457#814457

Let me know what you think.

Dee


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## RyanAndrewKinder (Dec 14, 2014)

Darryl Hughes said:


> Ryan? Here's the KDP forum link where the guy posts his tech guys explanation of what he thinks happens when you use keywords in your url:
> 
> https://kdp.amazon.com/community/thread.jspa?threadID=215171&tstart=0&messageID=814457#814457
> 
> ...


His tech friend doesn't really give any sort of reasoning that I can see on @ vs &. I don't even know if @ works. (Not the uniformity of any url when you search and click on something on amazon. Even in your url to that thread. The & qualifier is saying "You're looking for thread ID # 215171. AND (&) you're going to start reading from the top of a particular message. AND (&) the message in the thread you're going to be reading is 814457." This is why I recommend & over @. If anything, I'd think @ would break the chain. Not certain.)


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

I don't know if selling 12-18 books a month on Kindle is "barely selling anything", but it feels like that, this month and the last. I've had better months: far better months. And my books used to be priced higher, and do well at those prices.


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## Colorwheel (Nov 21, 2014)

ㅈㅈ said:


> Your book does look really good, however, I had to see what people here were saying and look at the categories to see that it was fantasy. You'd probably find your audience more easily if you had a more fantasy cover and mentioned in the blurb that it was fantasy as well. Same with your categories. Hope that helps.


Thank you! It does. If I could get any deeper into subcategories than "general fantasy" it would help, but that's a rant for another day.

I have struggled with the wrappings, though, because I don't want to let down anyone looking for straightforward fantasy. The structure / plot is women's fiction / lit-fic except that it takes place in a World Not Our Own at a post-medieval tech level. Anyone looking for "stable boy overthrows the Dark Lord" or "only decent Dark Elf angsts across the land whilst slinging fireballs" is going to feel enormously cheated and bored out of their skulls. Fantasy isn't all epic fantasy, just as sf isn't all "hard sf", but they are what readers expect.

tl;dr Thanks a lot, but I would disappoint actual fantasy readers!


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## MT Berlyn (Mar 27, 2012)

Colorwheel said:


> Fist bump. I'm meandering between women's fiction and low fantasy. I don't know anyone outside this board and (assuming) a librarian friend who even know what women's fiction IS, let alone seek it out. "It's like something somebody's mom would read, but not quite romance" is about as close as I understood it before doing the research.
> 
> *I angst about genre more than is healthy. I don't think genres are bad, or even limiting. They're like rules to a board or card game; they let readers understand how to engage with the story. But impose more house rules than standard rules and you don't know what you're playing anymore.*
> 
> ...





Colorwheel said:


> Hahaha. Thank you, that brightened my day.
> 
> But early on, I had to remind myself that things that sell well reach people and touch people in a way that the readers respond to, no matter whether the books have other flaws. I may think such-and-such a book's dialogue was wooden, but all those readers found joy in it, and I'm not getting in the way of that. I may "argh" a while, but in the end... I love reading nearly as much as I love writing, and it makes me happy when people read. Even if they're reading a title I personally wouldn't touch with a barge pole. *There's something for everyone.*
> 
> ...


All I can respond is to say, "Thank you." These were very meaningful posts.

I'm not sure if "write better" is so much the dilemma, but to "write differently" might be more apropos. There's a whole lot of luck involved either way, but generally I see that the leaner the prose and the more quickly the concept of a particular story is grasped by the mainstream reader, the more a book will sell with some promotion, if even moderately more. I tend to write with a more heady prose style, and therein rests the issue for my own work. It's not necessarily easy to write differently than one does naturally, but it can be done. I've been experimenting with different styles and the journey is interesting.


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## Colorwheel (Nov 21, 2014)

Thayer Berlyn said:


> All I can respond is to say, "Thank you." These were very meaningful posts.
> 
> I'm not sure if "write better" is so much the dilemma, but to "write differently" might be more apropos. There's a whole lot of luck involved either way, but generally I see that the leaner the prose and the more quickly the concept of a particular story is grasped by the mainstream reader, the more a book will sell with some promotion, if even moderately more. I tend to write with a more heady prose style, and therein rests the issue for my own work. It's not necessarily easy to write differently than one does naturally, but it can be done. I've been experimenting with different styles and the journey is interesting.


Thank you, and you're welcome. I'm trying to figure all of this out as I go along. 

"Write differently" is a very good point. It's a personal challenge not to jump to "I suck" as the explanation for everything, and to be cooler-headed about it.

The advice that resonates with me the most so far is from _Write. Publish. Repeat_ -


> Be authentic, and work to attract the people who like what you do _as it exists in its purest state._


This may not translate to a lot of sales, necessarily. But that doesn't mean that a tiny niche is inherently better or worse (more artful, more authentic, blah blah) than a bigger, more popular one. They are what they are. I am grateful to the authors I've found so far who write in small niches that speak to me. I'm excited when I can talk to other readers about a super-popular book that just came out. There are a lot of levels to the ecosystem.


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## SunshineOnMe (Jan 11, 2014)

My sales are just trickling in, but the "not looking" is helping a lot.


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## RyanAndrewKinder (Dec 14, 2014)

SunshineOnMe said:


> My sales are just trickling in, but the "not looking" is helping a lot.


I am obsessive about looking at the sales chart. I don't know HOW to not look. The days where I flatline I ask myself "What do I do? How do I jump start it?" I just have to realize that some things are out of my control. I've been thinking of blocking the sales stats page from every computer in the house for a month. lol


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## SunshineOnMe (Jan 11, 2014)

RyanAndrewKinder said:


> I am obsessive about looking at the sales chart. I don't know HOW to not look. The days where I flatline I ask myself "What do I do? How do I jump start it?" I just have to realize that some things are out of my control. I've been thinking of blocking the sales stats page from every computer in the house for a month. lol


I was really stressing out. The business aspect of publishing was very unexpected, and I felt the pressure every time I got on the computer. I've been feeling better since I quit checking. I'll get back in the saddle after Christmas, hopefully with a bit more balance.


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## CASD57 (May 3, 2014)

I check all the time.. but my vise is trying new writing software, looking for the perfect program, now that kills my writing time..
Oh I've made about $80 since May when I started..


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## CoraBuhlert (Aug 7, 2011)

Colorwheel said:


> Thank you! It does. If I could get any deeper into subcategories than "general fantasy" it would help, but that's a rant for another day.
> 
> I have struggled with the wrappings, though, because I don't want to let down anyone looking for straightforward fantasy. The structure / plot is women's fiction / lit-fic except that it takes place in a World Not Our Own at a post-medieval tech level. Anyone looking for "stable boy overthrows the Dark Lord" or "only decent Dark Elf angsts across the land whilst slinging fireballs" is going to feel enormously cheated and bored out of their skulls. Fantasy isn't all epic fantasy, just as sf isn't all "hard sf", but they are what readers expect.
> 
> tl;dr Thanks a lot, but I would disappoint actual fantasy readers!


Regarding subcategories, here is a link to the suggested keywords that get you into specific browse categories. Of course, it can be a problem if your book doesn't actually fit into any of those subcategories.

I had no idea your novel was fantasy, as well. Actually I assumed historical fiction or maybe western, going by the cover. And I actively look out for new indie fantasy/SF.

I understand your reluctance to brand yourself more strongly as fantasy, if your book does not match the typical epic or urban fantasy tropes. But I think an women's fiction novel in a fantasy setting could find a niche market among those who are bored with traditional "farm boy beats dark lord" epic fantasy and its grimdark cousin. Of course, the problem is finding those readers.


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## Colorwheel (Nov 21, 2014)

CoraBuhlert said:


> Regarding subcategories, here is a link to the suggested keywords that get you into specific browse categories. Of course, it can be a problem if your book doesn't actually fit into any of those subcategories.


None of them, unfortunately. Thanks, though, that's a helpful link. I had gone looking for things like that after gnashing my teeth over the standard list for days. It's helpful for new folks to know about in general. I know I'll have it bookmarked.

That does remind me of the other problem of being marooned between genres: not alienating people who like either genre in its unadulterated form. I don't want to sound like "Heyyyy, your favorite genre sucks, read my book instead!!" - that's no way to build a fanbase, son.


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## melbatron (Dec 8, 2013)

So there is a LOT of useful advice and encouragement in this thread!

My first book has been out for just over a year now, I'm selling between 2-5 copies a month on amazon. I started ordering paperbacks from Createspace and attending local craft fairs and was able to put new tires on my car from the profits of that venture. I will keep doing that, because it is earning me money and it's flipping fun! I wrote some short stories about the characters and put that out there, too, free at first, then 1.99. Not a wiggle. Not a bump. My goal is to get the 3 rough drafts I have edited and up before the end of 2015, as well as at least start on the next book I have outlined and waiting. Is that fast enough? I don't know, but it's as fast as I can go, so whatever. I want this to be my full-time job, but the bottom line is, in order for that to work, this has to be something I can do. And maintain.

I hate reading short books. Hate it. I want something I can curl up with for days on end and come back to over and over when I want to re-live the story. So that's what I try to write. Even my short story collection wound up being 100 pages or so. Is that stupid? Maybe. Again, in order for this to be a job, it has to be something I can do and maintain. I want this to be my job because I love it. If I suck what I love out of it, why bother?

Marketing? I'm lost. The economic crash hit me and my husband hard, and we are barely getting by. (The new tires from books sales were such a relief, cuz I wasn't going to get them any other way!) I have no money, and wouldn't know where to take it in any case. I'm paying close attention to things like keywords and free websites to post books on, but part of me feels like it'd be a waste of time to really advertise until I have a couple books going. Part of me is also scared.

Thank you to everyone who has nice things to say to those of us not making it. (Yet!) Thank you to the folks who have offered advice. I've gotten some fabulous help from this site so far, and intend to return for more and offer any when I can.


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