Ok, that's not my line, it's a line from Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure but it's one I've always loved...I just don't want to be accused of being a plagiarizer. That would be bad. I'll be honest. When I published my novel in August I thought it would be successful. It still will, I believe that, I just thought it would have some success early. It has a good title, a great cover and it's a good story. The problem of course, was driving traffic. I didn't know how difficult that would be.
I knew that all my sales had been to friends and family and I'm forever grateful but I wanted more. I didn't just want a few sales to people I know so I could say look at me. I signed up for KDP Select through Amazon and with that program they allow you to put your book free for up to five days. I hadn't sold a book in four weeks so I thought what could it hurt and I set it to be free on Monday and Tuesday. I woke up Monday morning and forgot about it the first hour I was up. Then I looked up my sales page, hoping to have 5 or 10 downloads. I had 510. I couldn't believe it. I had things I wanted to do that day but I was rooted to the spot and I just watched the numbers all day, it was my first bit of success. All told in the 48 hours, it was downloaded 2246 times on the US site, 305 on the UK and 46 on the DE site. A shade under 2600 downloads when a day before, nobody cared.
I know most people probably download tons of free books every day, that's what happens when a kindle will hold 3000 books. People fill them up because they can. My hope is that 10% will read it. Further still, my hope is 10% of those will leave a review. The first of that 10% I was looking for left a review on Monday, a 1 star review. I couldn't believe it. It's the first negative I've heard about my writing from anybody and it was really rude. He admitted that he stopped after a couple chapters and asked if a 14 year old wrote it. To be honest, I wish I were still 14. There's a lot I would love a second chance at. I would love to find the girl I grew up with and haven't seen in 22 years. Not reaching for that brass ring is my biggest regret. I would like to do better in school. I didn't try in school because I didn't need to. I wish I had tried and I wish I would have cherished the time I had with my Father instead of being almost 40 and struggling to remember every moment as they slip further away over the past 15 years since his death. It was irresponsible to leave a review like that, especially when he didn't even read it but after I stared at it for a while, I went and looked at the 1 star reviews from my two favorite books from last year, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and The Help and I felt instantly better. I will admit though, every time I go to my Amazon page I'm waiting for another review to come in and treating it like a land mine that could go off at any moment. I would love to hear from somebody else but I'm praying it's not negative. I know the successful people don't pay attention to reviews, good or bad but I'm not to that point yet. I devour each one....and it devours me.
I was wondering what would happen after my book went back to $2.99. Would it go back into obscurity, only selling copies when one of my friends decided to buy it or would I start to see some success. So far, I'm thrilled it's the latter. In 6 months I sold 47 books, positive they were all to friends and family. Yesterday I sold 23 books and today already another 10. It's a modest start but a start nonetheless. My second book is done and once I get the cover and editing, I will publish it. I finally feel like maybe I have a chance and I couldn't be happier.
