Self-Publishing--What Works

Since my last blog post, I've had so many people ask me about what I've done to promote my books, Wild Montana Sky and Starry Montana Sky, that I promised to blog about what has worked for me.

I've been doing a lot of thinking about the question and realized that I can't just blog about promotion because I believe far more goes into a successful ebook than promotion alone. However, if I wrote everything I think works in one blog, you'd be reading a book. So I'm going to break it down into a series of blogs.

I've been amazed at the success of my books. They are simple stories, traditional, maybe even a bit old-fashioned. They are more "Americana," like Little House on the Prairie than "Western" like Lonesome Dove. And I think that's part of their appeal. There's a whole niche of readers who have missed "sweet" romances. They may have even stopped reading romance because they are uncomfortable with the sexuality. There's also a lot of other readers (like me) who just like romance. They won't care if it's sexy or if it's sweet. Readers who prefer "hot" romance will be able to tell from the cover and the description that these are not sexy books and, thus, won't buy them.

The other niche I've hit is historical Western. There are avid Western readers out there. Most enjoy both contemporary and historical Westerns. However, there aren't many historical Westerns published today, so fans of historicals tend to pounce on one when they come across it.

Therefore, if you're going to self-publish a book, think about your niche. It might be one that's tremendously popular--New York turns out lots of books in that subgenre. Or it might be a small niche, neglected by New York, that has avid readers. For example: Time Travel is a self-published subgenre that's doing very well for some friends of mine.

You might have to go with your instincts that readers will like your type of book. That's what I did when I believed that there were readers for sweet stories. The problem I always had was how can publishers find these readers if they've stopped buying romance? I've stopped worrying about that because those readers are finding me.

Or you might position your story to take advantage of a topic or activity that's already popular. Yesterday, I had a talk with a friend who's going to self-publish a book that was originally published in the late 1990s. The hero in the book is a retired Formula One race car driver. I suggested she make him a former Nascar driver. When the book was originally published Nascar wasn't as popular as it is now. Nascar has a huge and growing following. More and more women are are becoming fans. Therefore, she has a built-in market for her book.

Having a niche also ties in with your promotion efforts. Although I haven't done so, I've been thinking of promoting to the Christian market. My books aren't inspirational, but they do have some inspirational elements. I think that would also be a good word-of-mouth market. One woman likes the book, and she tells other women at her church about it.

I'm not saying write to the market or what you think the market is. I'm saying write the book you want to write. Just take some time to think about the possible niche or niches and see if there's anything you can do to increase your readership by tweeking your book in any way.

Self-Publishing--Showing the Money ll

I've had many people tell me they appreciated my prior blog (July 17) about my self-published sales of my two sweet historical Westerns, Wild Montana Sky (.99) and Starry Montana Sky (2.99). They also asked that I'd keep posting information about sales and money.

To recap, I published the two books on the evening of April 28th on Kindle, Nook, and Smashwords. I'm going to continue to only discuss Kindle because my sales on Nook and Smashwords are under $100.

Today, I received my sales report for July from Amazon.

Wild Montana Sky :

5026 US sales $1759.53

8 UK sales 2.08

1 Germany .30

Total $1761.91

Starry Montana Sky:

1777 US sales $3613.89

4 UK 5.08

1 Germany 1.40

47 (outside) 49.35

Total $3669.72

Total $ 5431.63

On July 31, I published the first in my fantasy romance series, Sower of Dreams.

3 US sales $1.05

This brings my Kindle income (three months and a couple of days) to date:

$7955.66

So far my sales for August on Amazon are:

Wild Montana Sky: 2227

Starry Montana Sky: 993

Sower of Dreams: 35

Reaper of Dreams: 20

I'm SO very glad I decided to self-publish. As you can see, my results have been (in my opinion) amazing! I'm so grateful to everyone who's supported me in this process, especially my readers!

10,000 Self-Published Sales!

Today I hit 10,000 for my two ebooks, Wild Montana Sky and Starry Montana Sky that I self-published 13 weeks ago. Wow. When I first started this process, I had no idea I could have this kind of success within such a short time period. It's exciting and humbling at the same time. By this time, I've made (even though the money won't be in my bank account for a couple more months) roughly $8000--probably as much as if I'd sold both books to some traditional New York publishers, and more than if I'd sold to some others. Definitely more than if I'd sold to a small press because they typically don't give advances.

I've come to believe anything is possible in my self-publishing career, perhaps not with only two books, but certainly as I produce more. I'm starting to reconfigure the rest of my life, scaling back a bit on my psychotherapy practice and the corporate crisis counseling. Not much, but I can see a future where I do a lot less. I NEVER would have thought about cutting back, but I've found myself somewhat burned out lately with work I usually love, and I'm hopeful of making some changes--maybe not forever--but certainly for a while. Now if only I could make myself write more.

I'm about to launch (tonight or tomorrow) the first book in a fantasy romance trilogy, Sower of Dreams. This book was a Golden Heart finalist, but never sold because it's not sexy. The second book will go up as soon as the cover is done, and the third in January. It's going to be interesting to see what will happen with a different subgenre.

Self-Publishing, Showing the Money

I've been grateful for the self-published authors, especially my friend Theresa Ragan, who've been willing to talk about the money they've made from their experience. Before, I start, I want to say that everyone's journey is going to be different. I know people who are doing far better in sales than I am, and others who aren't. But every day, sales figures change. You may not be selling many books now, but in a year could make a nice living. Or you might just make enough every month to go out to dinner. But that's one night out that you wouldn't have had before. :) It's important to be patient. It's important to be grateful for every book sale.

I'm going to just discuss my Kindle sales because my Nook and Smashwords sales have been minimal--about 100 books on Nook and 10 on Smashwords. (In three months total.)

On April 28, I published Wild Montana Sky (.99) and Starry Montana Sky (2.99).

So I only had about two and a half days of sales in April and I'm sure most of those came from friends. :)

WMS 11

SMS 5 (1 outside the US/UK/Germany so it only makes 35%)

Total $13.06

May:

For the US

WMS 465

SMS 105 (2 outside)

For the UK

WMS 12

For Germany

WMS 2

Total: $377.12

June:

US

WMS 2441

SMS 633 (17 outside)

UK

WMS 5

SMK 2

Germany

WMS 1

Total:$2132.80

Total for the three months and two days: $2522.98

So far in July (as of the 17th) I've sold 2732 copies of WMS and 913 of SMS.

All this is passive income--I wrote the books (and had them professionally edited) 10 years ago.

I'm so very grateful for this experience and I thank every single person who has bought one of my books!

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.

600 and Counting

Wow is the best way I can describe my self-publishing experience. I self-published two of my books, Wild Montana Sky and Starry Montana Sky, on Amazon, Barnes & Nobel, and Smashwords four weeks and three days ago. Today I just hit 600 books sold. Wow! And that's without doing much publicity except mentioning it on Twitter and Facebook. Plus some of my friends posted about the books. I've also mentioned my experience to some of my friends, and they've been kind enough to buy the books. Thank you, dear ones.

This week, I've finally tuned into the Amazon top 100 lists. I didn't pay attention to them because I assumed I wouldn't make one. At least not at this stage. Then, Friday, one of my friends ended up on the Historical list. In checking it out, I found I was there too. #93. I don't know how long I've been on the list, maybe a couple of days. Since then, I've gotten as high (that I've noticed) as #80 and as low as #97. Wow! I can't believe I'm on an Amazon top 100 list!

What's the best thing about self-publishing? I'd say there's several:

One is control. I was able to tell my cover designer, Delle Jacobs, what I wanted, and she delivered. I love my covers. I'd never have a say in a New York publisher cover. I've held back from attempting to sell to small presses except for a couple that do great covers. I didn't like the covers most small presses put out (although that has changed with so many great people designing covers now) and didn't want one on my book.

The second is I love that people, many whom I don't know and will never know, are reading my books. I hope they are enjoying them. For books that have languished on my computer for years, to have them available to the public, is so wonderful. My first fan letters--one from my writing teacher and one from my uncle--brought tears to my eyes. Wow! My mom is reading Wild Montana Sky right now on the Kindle my brother and I bought her for Mother's Day. I think only a book by her daughter would have gotten her to try an ebook reader. Now she's loving it.

I have a great group of friends, members of the Wet Noodle Posse. We were all finalists in 2003 in Romance Writers of America's (RWA) Golden Heart contest. A few of my friends are ahead of me by months when it comes to self-publishing. Others are preparing their books. (You don't want to self-publish a book that's not well edited.) We are all having the best time, and it's brought us even closer.

So if you have a book that you haven't been able to sell, in spite of selling others, or winning contests, or good feedback from editors, consider self-publishing. And if you own rights to your previous books, then do it. Do it now!