Honorable Company

One of my all-time favorite authors is Georgette Heyer. I started reading her as a young teenager and have read all her books. My copies are tattered. I reread some of my favorites every couple of years. When I was at USC, I entered a competition sponsored by the library where you had to write a paper about why you collect certain books. I wrote about Georgette Heyer. The paper and the books were then displayed in the library for a couple of weeks. Only a few students entered. Of course, I was the only romance reader and my even-then battered collection of paperbacks looked shabby next to the other entrants' hardbound editions. I'd bought them all used from garage sales and thrift stores, a lovingly collected bunch that didn't do justice to how I felt about the books. Even now, when I could afford to replace them all with the newly reissued editions of Georgette Heyer's books, I prefer my familiar old copies.

Her historical romances are also being released on Kindle. A couple of them for free. Yay. I downloaded them.

For the last several weeks, my self-published ebook, Wild Montana Sky (as of today, I've sold 2700 copies of WMS and Starry Montana Sky combined in eight weeks) has been on some of the Amazon Top 100 lists. Today I was thrilled to find WMS right by The Grand Sophy, by Georgette Heyer. TGS is one of my favorite of her books. What a thrill to be on the same list. I feel so honored and blessed.

Thank much readers who are buying my books! I really appreciate it!!!

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.