The Day After

Marketing, ,

Thought I would drop a line or two about my promo results.

Moved from somewhere above 500,000 in ranking to #6100, and made it onto three Top 100 categories, but that’s not saying much…and I don’t think improved rankings have ever sold books for me.

Actually sold 58 books, which is better that my last promo, however, I paid Book Gorilla $50.00 for the promo.

That was 18 books more than my last ENT promo, yeppers, I think the days of 200-400 per promo are over.

@ 35% royalty, that comes to $20.10, which means I went in the red $29.90.

On a positive note: Fifty-eight people might read my book. 🙂

I’m really about over the whole marketing scene for this book. I think it’s just going to have to sit there until and unless someone happens upon it or wants to see something else I’ve written after more books are published. I do have an interview coming up, but I have a hard time getting tremendously excited about those. They often net me a reader or two.

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How to deal with it? The only answer is writing more books. To that ends, I have decided to go ahead and publish Naked Alliances. It got the approval of ten out of twelve beta readers. I have a new editor with an established reputation in the genre, who likes the sound of the story as I described it to him. Now, it’s just a matter of getting the Synopsis ready for him. He should complete it in September. Depending on how much work it requires, I might be able to release before the end of the year.

And The Conduit is coming together for me. So, there’s that to look forward to next year.

35 thoughts on “The Day After”

      2. Yes, but you appealed to an existing market with that one. I’m a bit nervous, admittedly, reaching out to market in an entirely different genre. I know I’ll lose a few who like the writing style of RC&R, but I’ll likely gain a few who like the style of Naked Alliances.

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      4. Well, my second book is absolutely nothing like my first, and my third is far removed from either the first or second. Elmore Leonard wrote westerns and crime novels. Some of the people who loved his crime novels hated his westerns and vice versa. I have no clue where my niche is. I have fun writing and that’s what matters most.

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  2. I admit having no idea how to get attention. I have a few titles, and try some fairly unique stuff, but my results are small. I’ve paid for a promotion a time or two, and it always involves going in the red. I don’t know that more titles is a guarantee either. Maybe after a couple of dozen titles it matters, but I can’t write that fast. I’m glad you drew attention, and I think you’ve done pretty well with this title. Modern sales numbers don’t seem to be in the thousands.

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    1. It was a good starter. I consider myself to be very fortunate to have had the supporters I did with my first book. My WordPress family has truly been the most fantastic emotionally, and physically. They have beta read, edited, reviewed, promoted, and cheered me all the way. I am forever indebted to them all.

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  4. I’m in the same boat as you with my first book–I’m not really promoting it anymore. It’s almost three years old. I’m focused on getting the next one out and finishing the third. The more books we have out, the less marketing we have to do for the earlier ones. Great news about your upcoming book!

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    1. Thanks. I’m on the edge about Alliances. It’s a niche market, so I don’t expect a great deal of sales, but I’m thinking I want it out there. If people ask for more, then the series is outlined and ready to go. If not, no harm done. Now I’m focussing my energies on The Conduit.

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  6. Thanks for explaining your results. The number sold is impressive. I guess there’s no way to know if they read it. Best of luck.

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    1. Please do. It’s on sale right now for 99 cents. Sale ends Sunday. Thanks! I thought I was producing a book that would be most likely enjoyed by women. Surprisingly, men have left some of my best reviews.

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  9. And sometimes sales come in waves and starts.I’ve had promotions take me nowhere while my Betimes colleagues have reached number 1 in various countries. And then from nowhere without any promotion, a surge. I like your thinking of Write on through to the other side. It’s the only way. Otherwise the shifting of books can become an immense weight on the creative joy of the experience. Maybe by the time you write your fifth, the world will be clamoring for your first four (see where my daydreaming leads me? 🙂
    Well done and write on!

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    1. I love your daydreaming…that’s delightful! I don’t want to do anything to ruin the creative joy of the experience. That’s what I came here for! I once at a surge for no reason. I figured some book club must have read the book. It’s a book club read with the sort of controversy that would promote discussion.

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  10. By the time I had the MS done for my first book, it was so long it could be two books – so I cut it in half and released book 2 shortly after book 1. (It/they were a compilation of vignettes about family humor so I could do that.) Book 3 followed shortly thereafter, with several short stories/novellas published in between, all in the same theme. I should mention book 1 sold NO copies for about 6 months while I learned about having a nice, professional looking cover (mine was a homemade disaster) and while I tried my hand at promotions. Most promotion success came from asking other authors what worked for them, and then doing that.

    After about 6 titles (not books, per se) in a year, any time I ran an ad or promoted one book, the others would get a smattering of sales, too.

    So, more titles was a big factor for me. Over the following year I did 3 cookbooks, 3 illustrate children’s book, and 3 novels, one of which was released; the other two needed some help and will be released in the next six months. This was mainly to get titles out under my name, and it worked. Rarely did a day go by with no sales, as in, I almost always had nice sales every day, even when I wasn’t promoting a book, and with that many titles I was always promoting a book or running an ad.

    This year, 2015, I focused more on writing, and sales have dropped as I promoted less, but the quality of the writing has increased drastically and I’m not the rookie I was.

    Nether are any of you.

    With time and experience we’ve all become better writers and marketers and etc. that all goes into the equation, but the main driver is MORE BOOKS.It has benefitted me greatly that when somebody bought one book and liked it, there was another one for them to buy. Publish your short stories. Give your fans something to read while you write the next novel. It all adds up.

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    1. Thanks for sharing you story. My first book went much similar to yours. (I look back at the original cover and cringe.). I have a girlfriend who has published a dozen titles and gotten in with Anne Rice and her assistant Beck. She sits on Ms. Rice’s panel every October in New Orleans. Ah….the sweet smell of success. 🙂 I’m still writing and have a couple of crime novels in the works. I enjoy reading them and am trying my hand at writing them. One is with an editor and the other is at about 30,000 words. Never give up!

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    1. I know it’s not wasted time. There are certainly things I have learned about writing, publishing and marketing by having put a book out there. I have a firm conviction that a writer needs to have a few books ready to publish, maybe more than a few…fully edited and ready to go. Only then, publish the first one, as it becomes nearly impossible to market and write. Having a backlist of books prepared to publish is paramount to success unless you have developed a team of fans that truly love your writing and will aid the promotions.

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