1000 Self-Publishing Sales

Yesterday, I reached 1000 sales (combined) of my self-published "sweet' historical Westerns, Wild Montana Sky and Starry Montana Sky. Wow. I'm amazed how much I sold in less than six weeks. I haven't done much publicity. I've blogged about it here (although I don't think anyone reads my blog posts.) I've written another blog, and I've Facebooked and Tweeted. Some friends have also Facebooked and Tweeted on my behalf.

One thing I have learned is about the importance of TAGS. Tags are descriptive words that people can use when searching for your book. Before I published, I read a post on an Amazon forum that discussed the importance of using as many tags as you can think of. When I published, I used about six tags. Then, as I've gotten reader feedback through reviews or letters, I've set aside some of their words to use when I wanted to add tags--"Wholesome Romance," and "Family Romance" were two descriptions people used.

My friend, Colleen Gleason, has a self-published paranormal/science fiction/romantic suspense, Siberian Treasure, that partly takes place in an underground city, reached through a cave. She added "caving" to her tag list. Low and behold, her book showed up on the Amazon top 100 list for Outdoor Adventure Books. The last part of Starry Montana Sky takes place in a cave system, so I decided to follow Colleen's example and added "caving" and "miniature horses" as tags.

Yesterday, when the tags went into effect, Starry Montana Sky, started having more sales than usual in the morning. Soon, it showed up as #64 on the Outdoor Adventure list, sending me into a fit of giggles. Also yesterday, I had a record amount of sales for Starry--16. My previous high was 10. Usually, I have about 6 to 8 sales.

So if your thinking about self-publishing a book, carefully consider your tags. They're more important than you think.