Yesterday was the one year anniversary
of my first self-publishing piece. My short story “Mom’s Letter” first went live on Amazon as a Kindle book. Since it’s just a short story, I don’t have a print version available. As follow-ups to this, Documenting America went live on May 2, 2011, and “Too Old To Play” went live on January 26, 2012. Documenting America is also available as a print book.
So what have I learned in a year?
I learned that I can’t produce new works and format them as e-books as quickly as others seem to be able to do. Dean Wesley Smith says the self-published author should try to have something new published every couple of weeks. I don’t have enough hours in the day to do that.
I learned that I have to personally sell just about every book sold. I sold a Documenting America yesterday and mailed it today. Personally sold a couple of copies in January. General marketing has so far resulted in a few sales at best. Targeted group marketing has resulted in a few sales at best. I don’t know how long this will go on and when, if ever, these catch a buzz and take off. Maybe when I hit some number or titles that result in critical mass for sales.
Requests for people to review the books have resulted in zero reviews. I gave a few copies of DA away to people who said they would read it and write reviews. So far that has resulted in no reviews and, I assume, no reads. Any reviews that now appear on Amazon are unsolicited. The few contacts I made to web sites to review DA have gone unanswered. 100% unanswered. Ah, well, no one said this business was easy. At times I think I should just stick with engineering.
I learned that I’m not hitting the best seller list any time soon. Here’s where my books currently stand on the Amazon sales list (I won’t call it the “best seller” list).
- Documenting America – Kindle: 411,488
- Documenting America – Print: 4,107,954
- Mom’s Letter – Kindle: 549,047
- Too Old to Play – Kindle: 427,066
But I do have some sales. So far, here’s what I’ve sold, electronic and print.
- Mom’s Letter – 12
- Documenting America – 30
- Too Old To Play – 3
- for a total of 45
So, I’m not giving up. I have a work-in-progress that, if I finish, I self publish. I have my first completed novel waiting only on formatting and a cover. I have my second completed novel now on its 36th day with an agent. If it’s a pass, I self publish. And the ideas still flow.
I love reading about your journey – I have a very similar post coming out later this week. Congrats on a year! I know, it can be discouraging – particularly because a lady in a writing group I sometimes attend wrote what seems to me a poorly-written chick lit type of book, and it sold 20,000 copies in its first few months on Amazon. I think chick lit would be something general audiences would really like. Unfortunately (I guess), I have no interest in writing it … Wow, one should self-pub every few WEEKS? No way!
Dave: What is success? I to an disappointed with my sales. I published Survival at Starvation Lake on July 19, 2010. I remember the date not because of my novel but rather because on that day I lost my USMC Engineer son in law to a road side bomb in Afghanistan. I believe that I have sold close to 2,000 copies but I don’t know for sure because the accounting that the Westbow division of Thomas Nelson gives me is a bad joke. I have however made back the money it cost to publish plus a couple of thousand dollars
I wrote the book to reach people for Christ and I have reason to believe that it has been successful in doing that at least twice. How could one put a value on that.
I just published the sequel Lost at Starvation Lake for the Kindle on Feb. third. So far this month between both books I have sold 70 copies. My cut in that is less than $100.
I know there are a lot of bad and poorly written books that have sold far better than mine. The question I need to figure out is Why?
Gary:
I’m very sorry for the loss of your son. It’s something I’ve never experienced and hope I never do.
The good thing about self-publishing through e-books and POD is that the books never go out of print, and are always available through e-catalogues. A school of thought among self-publishers is that you shouldn’t promote much. Let your books be out there, available, and eventually they will gain whatever following their worth justifies. I’m not sure I’m quite in that camp, but life circumstances don’t allow me to do much promo at present. I hope to have three more titles added before the end of May.
Susan:
Thanks for the comment. I’ve recently (Sunday) returned from a 12 day road trip, and so haven’t been to your blog in a while. I’ll check out your post before the end of the day.
I have heard that chick lit is going out of fashion. Your friend’s success with the genre suggests otherwise. I’ve also heard that poorly written books sell poorly, and that quality of writing trumps quality of story-telling. Your friend’s success also speaks otherwise.