Where I left off with my last post was this: I hired a talented cover artist (Mr. Steven Novak) to create a new cover for Connected, did a two-day free promo on Amazon, and when the freebie was over, I raised the price to my original listing.

My previous three-day free promo on Amazon utilizing my old cover resulted in 704 downloads. My two-day free promo with my new cover resulted in 975, including my first download from France (Merci!).

Prior to the new cover, I was at a standstill in sales at $.99. Since the new cover, I’ve sold 30 at $2.99.

This concludes The Great Cover Experiment. Results: I won’t get rich on it, but I’d say it’s a grand success!

Thanks, everyone!! Hope you found this information helpful!

New Cover For Connected

As many of you know, Trish and I started this blog to report our promotional efforts (what worked, what didn’t), and our sales (for better –Trish, and for worse – *clears throat*). And, as many of you may have noticed, I haven’t been reporting my sales as of late. And do you know why? Yup…there hasn’t been any.

True, I didn’t do the paid blog tour thing, or the paid advertising route. But I did a couple of giveaways, was featured on Stories of Romance, was mentioned by Kindle Lovers…twice (not sure how that happened). And I even did a 18-author-strong blog blitz. Plus, I dropped my price to $.99 around the holidays, and nothing.

Okay, so not “nothing”. Each mention by Kindle Lovers netted me 5 sales each, the blog blitz scored me one sale (I think that was one of the hosts), and my Goodreads giveaway put me on 111 people’s TBR list on Goodreads.  

Last ditch effort: enroll in the KDP Select program and do a free promo. So I did. I had Connected (Twists of Fate #1) for free for three days, and I only got 600 downloads (as opposed to the thousands I hear about elsewhere). And the highest I got on the list was 20,000+. After the three day promo, I dropped my price and did the wait-and-see approach. And I waited, and waited…and nothing happened.

I’ll be honest, even though I know I shouldn’t, I stared taking it a little personally. Maybe Connected wasn’t as good as I thought? Maybe people didn’t like the storyline? But then I’d take a look at my ratings (meager in number as they were), and I’d rethink my position. (Connected is holding a 4.62 on GR after 21 reviews, and a 5.0 on Amazon after 4.) Okay, so some people liked it. Then just who do I have to kill to sell a book around here? Well…the cover, apparently.

Let me explain…

Old Cover For Connected

Around that time, Connected’s cover was finally posted to the Cover Art Review blog. Yeah, it was another promotional thing to garner some attention, but I was also curious to see what people thought since I made the cover myself. *puffs chest out* And then I read the comments. *chest deflates* LOL

I saw the words “spiritual” and “sci-fi” a lot. And many people stated they wouldn’t have known it was a romance if not for the tag line. And you know what? They were absolutely right. It DID look spiritual/religious and like a sci-fi. And it certainly didn’t scream PNR! (What was I thinking?!) Right then and there I decided that I HAD to get a new cover before the next release in the series. No question about it. And since Twisted (TOF #2) wasn’t coming out until Fall 2012, I had plenty of time to work with.

*sigh* Wrong again.

Amber Eyes

As I was working on my edits for Amber Eyes, I realized how skewed my thinking was. Here I was, about to release my second book…and I’m going to put it on my virtual bookshelf next to Connected??? No, no, no, no, NO! I needed a new-and-improved Connected cover pronto! There was no way I was going to get residual sales from the cover I had! Must. Act. Now.

So, I did.

Enter: Mr. Steven Novak, or as I like to call him now, The Cover God. (You may remember the guest post he did a while back.) In a few short hours, he whipped out a gorgeous cover for Connected, beyond anything I could have imagined, or done, for myself. Just beautiful!!

After that, I decided to take this baby for a spin and see what she could do. First, I announced the new cover on every social outlet I could think of. From doing that alone, 5 people added it to their Goodreads TBR list, and 5 people bought the book. And that was in less than two days…AND after a price-hike!  (Whoa. Such power TCG wields!)

New Cover For Connected...again

With this turn of events, I decided to take it a step further. I wanted to try something I had tried before, and see how much of a difference the cover makes.  So, I’m back to offering it for free on Amazon. Again, I announced it everywhere – same as last time. But this time, I can already see a difference. It’s free today (1/3/12) and tomorrow, and already I have 350+ downloads and my ranking dropped to 1293. Given, I still have a day-and-a-half left, but I can only hope my numbers build. (Feel free to spread the word!) LOL

Kidding aside, I think the moral of the story is clear: The cover absolutely DOES make a difference. And I’m curious to see just how much in the days to come.

(I’ll be posting the results next week.)

December’s Totals:

3439 sales between all distributors. (Although I opted into select in mid-December and pulled it from everyone but Amazon)

To my amazement, the book was also borrowed 204 times from the Lending Library.

2011 grand totals

September 2011 (published on September 7^th)

199 books sold.

$388.76 in royalties

October 2011

1367 books sold

$2630.46 in royalties

November 2011

5018 Books sold

$9642.70 in royalties

December 2011

3439 Books sold

$6686.30 in royalties

204 books borrowed from the Lending Library

No clue what this translates into revenue wise

Total books sold in 2011

10,023

Plus- 204 books borrowed through the lending library

Total royalties

$19,348.22

Plus- whatever my share is of the Select Fund.

By the end of December, Forged had picked up 110 reviews on Amazon and 89 reviews and rankings on Goodreads. Interestingly, quite a few of the recent reviews have been from readers who borrowed it from the Lending Library. I’ve also gotten several emails from readers who borrowed it from the Lending Library, who were looking for more books by me. So it looks like the Lending Library does introduce an author to new readers.

On average,  I’m still receiving between 2-5 emails from readers each day. It’s been absolutely amazing to me how many readers have taken the time to write me, send me their review of my book, or drop me a message through my contact page.

The most common message I get from my readers hasn’t changed in the four months the book’s been out. Most of them end with “write faster.”

Other authors reporting their sales

Theresa Ragan
Debra Holland
Norah Wilson

Lisa Mondello

As a little something extra for the holidays, she’s throwing in a giveaway – one copy of On Thin Ice, and one copy of Heaven Is For Heroes. Two lucky commenters will be chosen (one for each book).

Enjoy!

———-

I just released my second indie-published contemporary YA novel, On Thin Ice. My first book, Heaven Is For Heroes, came out just three short months ago in September, and my next one, Savage Cinderella, is slated for March 2012 (yikes, I’d better get on that). Granted, I had these three novels written before deciding to self-publish, but the revision, editing, book cover creation, and all around DIY publishing experience has been educational and life-altering. I thought I would share with you, the top ten things I’ve learned from my experience.

1)      Other than great content, book covers sell books. Either hire a professional or be sure that your cover stands out in the pack and looks professional. If you aren’t tech savvy, there are people who will design a cover for you for anywhere from $100-$300.  Also vet your blurb through critique partners or other established authors. Your front cover and back cover blurb may be the ONLY thing standing between you and a potential reader.

2)      Have your book professionally edited, line edited, and proofed. These are three separate steps in the process and I can’t stress the importance of having multiple sets of eyes on your book before you call it a finished product ready for upload. Typos and poor grammar can turn off readers faster than you can say “spell check.” After I “finish” a book, I send it out to critique partners, then after making recommended changes, I send it to my editor. She has two weeks to get it back to me, I make more changes, then send it for line editing. Matt “The Edit Dude” Rush, catches all my residual grammar, usage and punctuation issues, etc. He’s quick and he’s affordable (about $300 for line edits). I revise again, upload to Create Space and get a few proof copies. I give one to a “proofreader” (which costs me $100), and one or two to Beta readers who give of their time and opinions freely for the privilege of reading my books before anyone else and having a hand in the creative process. I give them a week with the book and then make my final changes before formatting and uploading to Smashwords, Amazon and B&N. My production schedule gets tight, but the results are worth it. You don’t want to have to re-upload because someone notices that you have two chapter 4’s in your book or a ridiculous amount of typos. Again, this can determine if you get positive reviews or not, and if readers will buy your next book.

3)      Reviews sell books. I’m convinced that reviews do sell books. Getting big name reviewers to read indie work is challenging, but one or two well-known reviewers can definitely sway a reader to buy a book.

4)      Marketing isn’t for sissies! That should be a book title! Marketing is by far the hardest part of this business and I long for the day when I can afford to hire someone to help with setting up blog tours, scheduling my tweets, and researching review sites. There are simply too many tasks for one person to accomplish on any given day, and still have time for writing the next book.

5)      Rejection is part of being a writer, indie or traditionally published. Maybe you don’t have rejection letters from agents and editors overflowing your in-box, but having a book published means you will likely have those who will hate it and others (hopefully a majority) who will love it. Keep your thick skin and don’t take anything personally. Learn, grow, and keep moving forward.

6)      Section breaks are not the same as page breaks. When formatting for Smashwords (or as I fondly call it the “meat grinder from hell”), you have to do some fancy formatting. I’ll confess, my husband does a lot of my formatting because frankly, I don’t have the patience. Even Kindle Direct Publishing has become much more complicated with their mobi conversion requirements. If you can follow exhaustive step-by-step instructions, go for it, but plan a whole weekend to upload your book for distribution and follow the specific guidelines to the letter. You can hire someone to format for a reasonable fee but you may not have the capability to go in and make changes after they’ve converted your document for you.

7)      Unless you have a FANTASTIC book trailer, don’t bother. I’m not entirely convinced book trailers sell books. I think it depends on the genre of your book, your target audience and how far your sphere of influence reaches. My first book trailer has had maybe a hundred or so hits since September. Granted, it’s a little long at 1:29 seconds and the music is a bit slow for YA readers to be wowed, but I haven’t given up. My next trailer will be higher tech and more geared toward YA readers, so we’ll see if views go up. I also have plans to add podcasts and videos to my You-Tube channel. That makes sense to me since teens spend much of their on-line experience on You-Tube.

8)      Networking is a worthwhile time-suck. I’m learning to time myself and limit how much of my day is spent on social networking such as Twitter, Facebook and the many writer’s loops I belong to. The people and contacts I’ve made have been invaluable and I could not do what I am doing without those contacts. Aside from the wonderful friendships I’ve made, I am blessed beyond measure by the generosity of others. When I need help or have questions, there is always someone on line ready to step in and help.

9)      Scrabble is like chocolate. When my brain is feeling fried and I need a distraction or a pick-me-up, a turn at Scrabble is often enough of a rush that I can get back to work with a fresh eye after only a few minutes. I am such a word geek! Like chocolate, it gives me a boost, but also like chocolate, it can be addicting. Moderation, people!

10)   Long tail sales are what count. After following the WG2E blog for a while, I went into self-publishing with the knowledge that I wouldn’t likely sell big coming out of the gate. I set goals and I planned for success, but I figured I wouldn’t start to see numbers climb until I published multiple works to my cyber-bookshelf. I’ll get back to you on how that’s going, but it makes sense to me and as I get better and better at indie-pubbing, I suspect those long-tail sales will catapult me to the next level—full time writing and publishing.

Is there anything you’ve learned about self-publishing you’d like to share? Any questions? I’d be happy to answer if I can. Thanks for having me Jolyn and Trish.

———-

For more on PJ Sharon, you can visit her website here.

On Thin Ice can be purchased here: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Smashwords | CreateSpace (paperback)

Heaven Is For Heroes can be purchased here: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Smashwords | CreateSpace (paperback)

A few weeks back, I blogged about DIY covers. Since then, I’ve had the pleasure of meeting Steven Novak—a graphic designer, illustrator, and writer. With a little bit of begging and a whole lot of bribing, he’s agreed to give his thoughts on the topic as well. Okay, so it was only a slight grovel-session, with a side of pleading. Kidding! In all honesty, he graciously agreed. And while he offers his cover-designing services (naturally), he also provides great tips for all you do-it-yourselvers out there. What a guy!!

Please give a warm welcome to Steven Novak as he chats, jokes, threatens (Yup! LOL), and informs. And don’t be shy; feel free to comment. Enjoy!

*Samples of Steven’s work are scattered throughout the post. Beautiful covers!

________

If you’re an author looking to self publish and you think the cover of your book is something you really don’t need to bother with, I should smack you right in the face. Okay, maybe I’m being a bit dramatic. I promise I won’t smack you.

I’m actually a big ol’ softie.

And a bit of a pushover.

Still, while the cover of your book isn’t nearly as important as the content (ideally), it’s not so trivial that it can simply be overlooked. The cover is the first thing a potential buyer sees. It’s their first impression of the story, and the characters and the tone. Right or wrong, whether you like it or not, it’s also the first thing they judge.

No one wants to make a bad first impression – like threatening to smack someone, for example – that’s not a great first impression.

I’ve worked as a graphic designer and illustrator for nearly ten years. (Yikes, that makes me feel old.) I’ve dabbled in product design, and illustrated children’s books and done some corporate branding. I’ve written novels and I’ve drawn comics, and I’ve even put together advertisements for the local EZ Lube joint down the block.

If you’re a self-published author looking for a cover, the best advice I can offer is to seek the help of a professional.

Putting together a good cover is harder than you might think.

It’s not “breaking bricks on a chain gang hard,” but it’s still pretty tough.

I’m not saying you can’t do it yourself. For all I know, you might be great at it. You might even be better at it than I am. (Lots of people are.)

I do, however, believe there’s an inherent difference between someone who maybe has a passing interest in design, and someone who needs to be good at design in order to put food on their table.

Starvation and homelessness is an incredible motivator.

There are “professionals” out there that work cheap, and they work fast, and they can give you something that will not only knock your socks off, but rip your feet from your ankles and leave them spewing fountains of blood to boot.  

novakillustration@gmail.com Hint. Hint. Wink. Wink.

If you’re dead set on going it alone, there are a few bits of advice I can offer.

Take notes. There will be a test at the end.

Okay, that was a lie too. There won’t be any test.

There will be a vest, though – because vest rhymes with test.

(Gah. That was a terrible joke.)

1. Fonts should never be an afterthought.

This one is key. Nothing screams “I made this cover in my spare time” more than misused fonts. Let’s say that you’ve compiled your images, you’ve figured out the basic functions of Photoshop and you’ve managed to piece together a cover image that not only knocks your socks off and blows explodes your feet, but rips your legs for your torso as well.

(Yikes. Why am I getting so violent?)

Slapping an awkwardly placed, poorly-planned, afterthought of a font onto your incredible image is sort of like scooping some cat litter onto Angelina Jolie’s head.  Sure, she’s Angelia Jolie, and sure she’s attractive. She also has cat poop on her head.

It’s tough to look past the poop.

Think about your fonts and where you’re going to put them from the very beginning of the process. It’s part of the design and it should be treated that way.

2. Don’t try to tell the whole story.

I see this one a lot as well. Overly crowded covers with too many characters and painfully obvious attempts at depicting a specific plot point gives me a lemonface.

Covers aren’t books. Books are books. Your cover should be a tease. It should tempt you. If your cover was a skirt, it should hang to the knees. If it was a male bathing suit, it shouldn’t be a speedo.

A good cover is a hint of things to come.

Oh, and please don’t let it contain spoilers. Cover spoilers make the cover gods cringe.

It also gives them a lemonface – mostly because I wanted to type the word lemonface again.

3. Do some research.

Last but not least, look at your book objectively; take into consideration its genre and just who is most likely to add it to the Kindle. When you’re done with that, go to Google images and see what else is out there. Certain things appeal to certain readers, and if you miss the mark you’re going to be missing sales.

Missing sales sucks.

If you miss sales you can forget about that new pair of shoes you’ve been looking at.

That Nintendo Wii?

Nuh Uh.

Those tickets to Disneyland next summer? Mickey’s going to wonder why you abandoned him and he might even cry.

Okay, that last thing won’t actually happen. (That was mean of me.)

There’s nothing wrong with seeing what else is out there and what the current trends are. It’s not only smart business, but it might just provide you with the spark of inspiration you’ve been looking for.

In summation, even if you’re the kind of writer that does it for the art and only the art, and you couldn’t possibly care less about sales, and your only goal is to have a few people to read your work and enjoy it (which is really all that matters in the end), you still need to think about your cover. You spent months writing your book, and your book deserves a decent cover.

Why would you ever half-ass it? That’s just rude.

Be nice to your book. Pat it on the head, rub its belly and treat it right. It’s your baby, after all. Don’t dress your baby in a potato sack. If you do that, you’ll be hearing from the fine people at CPS soon enough.

A good cover can only help you get the readers you’re looking for.

It’s not going to make them like the book, but it will convince them to give it a chance.

________

For more on Steven Novak, please see his website (http://www.novakillustration.com/), or email him at novakillustration@gmail.com. 

Thanks again, Steven, for being our guest!

September 2011  (published Sept 7^th)

199 books sold

$388.76 earned in royalties

October 2011

1367 Books sold

$2630.46 earned in royalties

November 2011

5018 books sold

$9642.70 earned in royalties

Total books sold to date:

6584

$12,661.92 earned in royalties

Yesterday, one month shy of Forged in Fire’s three month anniversary, I walked into my boss’s office and gave my four week’s notice.  Yep, as of January First, 2012 I will be a full time, self-employed writer. No doubt quitting so soon is premature. My original plan had been to wait until spring, and if the book continued to sell well, I was going to quit then.

But the more I thought about it, the more foolish this plan felt. Right now the royalties Forged in Fire is earning are three to four times per month what I make at my day job. I can live on my normal wage and bank the rest.  I have five months of living wages coming through royalties already earned and that doesn’t include what the book earns in December or Jan.

I don’t doubt that December’s royalties will be way down from November’s rate since women are my audience and most women are so busy during the holidays they don’t have time to read. But I’m also confident the book will earn something comparable to my living wage, which will give me six months wages come Jan with an endless parade of monthly royalty checks stretching out in front of me.

Those monthly royalty checks are key, because even when sales start to slip, Forged will still be earning something and once I get Yesterday’s Child up, that book will start generating revenue as well.

The more I thought about it, the less sense it made to wait until spring to quit. Almost every day someone asks when the next book in the series is coming out. If I wait too long to get it out, this interest will wane.  Not to mention the sooner I can get the second book up, the sooner that one will start producing royalties too.

So, after a deep breath followed by an anxiety attack, I marched into the boss’s office and quit my day job.  Worst case scenario? The sales dry up completely and I’ll have to go out and find another job six months to a year down the road.

But until that day arrives, I’ll be living the life I’ve always dreamed.

Other authors reporting their sales

Theresa Ragan
Debra Holland
Norah Wilson

Lisa Mondello

I’d like to “talk” about paranormal versus fantasy, and what defines each genre. It seems no one can give me a definitive straight answer on this one.

I thought paranormal was anything to do with the spiritual world (ghosts, souls, spirits, Heaven, Hell, etc.) and fantasy was anything to do with mythical creatures (vampires, werewolves, goblins, demons, unicorns, etc.). I was pretty set in my views – this was the way to differentiate them. Then agents got involved in my way of thinking.

I submitted a query to an agent for a fantasy romance. And he came back to me saying there was no such thing, and I shouldn’t be making up my own genres. Whoops! My bad! I changed it to paranormal romance and resumed submissions. Then another agent requested the full, read it, and came back and said it wasn’t paranormal, but fantasy. *eye roll* Okay, okay. So, it’s fantasy, like I originally thought. But then (just to be sure) I asked other writers how they interpreted each, and got conflicting answers. So that led me to books I’ve read to see how they were categorized and (lo and behold) more conflicting answers. For example, the Black Dagger Brotherhood series is solidly PNR, and no one disputes that. But that’s vampires – isn’t that fantasy??

And now I’m ALL messed up!!

Let’s look in the dictionary, shall we?

Paranormal: of or pertaining to the claimed occurrence of an event or perception without scientific explanation, as psychokinesis, extrasensory perception, or other purportedly supernatural phenomena

Fantasy: 1) a supposition based on no solid foundation; visionary idea; illusion: dreams of Utopias and similar fantasies   2) an imaginative or fanciful work, especially one dealing with supernatural or unnatural events or characters

Okay. That didn’t help at all.

Does anyone really know the answer to this?

UPDATE: I just saw a genre listing on Goodreads that just blew my mind: Fantasy with a Paranormal sub-genre. *slaps forehead* Now I’ve seen everything.

So I’m pasting in the first fifteen days of sales and royalties for November.

Total books sold from Nov 1-15 (Kindle, B&N,SW) were 2666

Combined royalties from Nov 1-15 were $5148

Total sales so far are 4232

Combined royalties are $8146

Remember the royalties in the chart below were an estimate. I had to deduct a dollar a piece for the books that were sold out of country at 35% royalty. There are 182 of those so far in November alone, and 301 total.

Some interesting observations.

My Barnes and Noble sales have suddenly increased. They still don’t amount to much, but I was lucky to sell a book a day before this month. In September I sold 19 books, Oct I sold 18, but already through the first half of November I’ve sold 30. Within the last two weeks I started selling between 2 and 7 books a day. I went over to check my product page, and for the first time ever they had the “People who bought this, also bought this” window up. This has never been up on my book page before, I’m not sure if this is a new feature at B&N or whether they have always had this feature, but my book just hadn’t been selling enough to bring it up.

As of this morning, it looks like my sales for this week are going to be very similar to last week’s sales.

Last week, and now this week, are the first time I’ve actually experienced the weekend highs and mid-week slump. Maybe this is because I’m simply selling alot more books. Before I hit the 170-226 slot I never noticed any days in the week that sold better or worse than others.  Sure there were days that sold less books, but it seemed rather random. Those slow days were just as likely to be a Friday, Sat, or Sunday as a Tues or Wed.  But last week and now this week, there was a big drop between Fri, Sat, Sun, Mon and Tues, Wed, Thurs.  Right now my ranking is back to the 220-230s, like it was mid last week too.

Right now it feels like the book may have hit a plateau, or at least it doesn’t seem like it’s in acceleration any longer.

My blog tour ended on the 14th, but last weekend I announced a Kindle Fire Giveaway/drawing in appreciation of all the reader support I’ve been getting. This may have increased my exposure a bit, but considering sales look identical to before the announcement, I would say not by much. Which is fine, since I never intended the giveaway to be a promotional move, I just wanted to show my appreciation to all the people who have read my book, and took the time to either review it, or email me about it. The support from the reading community has been phenomenal.

One more interesting thing that occurred yesterday. I woke up yesterday morning to find that Amazon had lost all my reviews for Forged in Fire. There were no reviews on the product page. (I have 45 reviews) Instead they had that tab, “be the first to review this book.” I emailed Amazon and within the hour the reviews were back. My sales were way down that morning, which at first I blamed on the missing reviews, but I’ve reassessed that. I think it’s more likely the drop in sales was a result of it being Wed, the sales pattern was almost identical to last Wed.

You know the saying “Don’t judge a book by its cover”? Well, in this case, that a bunch of bull…loney. Sometimes that’s ALL a book is judged by, so make it sharp, make it snap, make it pop…*looking in thesaurus*

Anywho, you get my point. Basically, you want to make sure it will grabs someone’s attention as they’re scrolling through a computer screen full of little itty-bitty thumbnails. Make it stand up, wave its hand and say “Over here!”. After you catch the reader’s eye, then you can draw them in with a catchy title or interesting log line. The author’s name, IMHO, needs to be prominent, but not overwhelming. (If they knew you by name, they’d be searching for you by that, not by a catchy cover.)

I was going to pull together a collage of covers to illustrate my point, but I didn’t want to unintentionally diss on someone’s cover so I decided against it. I am posting my covers below to show you what I’m talking about though (the “pop” factor). Or my attempt at it, anyhow.

Okay. So far I’ve only given you my opinion. Now, for the facts:

• Cover size: 500×800 (generally good size)

Ah…that’s about it. After that, it’s all preference and opinion. If you want more views to consider than just mine, I would suggest checking out Cover Art Review. Here, authors can submit/post their covers for review. It’s a great way to get other’s perspectives.

Now, for how to make the cover…

I use Paint.net to create mine. But I know others who use Gimp or Photoshop. Some use all of the above in conjunction with each other.

Once you decide on your program, it’s time to go photo shopping! (Remember, you need to have royalty rights in order to use the picture for profit. Watch the agreements for details.) When you purchase, the bigger the print, the better. You can always shrink it down, but when you try to blow up something small, it can become distorted.

Here’s a list of a few stock photo sites:

• Shutterstock
• Big Stock Photo
• iStock Photo

Then manipulate and make it yours! (I’ll be talking about font and text glow in a separate posting.)

Of course, there are sites you can pay to do all this for you, but the really, really nice part about doing it yourself is the cost (or rather, lackthereof).

<– It cost me $10 to make this cover.

<– It cost me $20 to make this cover.

<– This cover was free!!

Fun story about this last one… A friend of mine made the cover for me before I was even considering Indie publishing. It was just a creative representation of the story. But I loved it so much, so I went on the hunt for the owner of the “amber eye”. First, I checked my favorite artists site (deviantART – seriously talented people here!), and for some reason it didn’t come up. So then I went the long way about it: did a Google search and tracked it back down to (you guessed it) an artist on deviantART. Haha! Her name is Giulia Manchi (JuLyFriDay on deviantART) and (long story short) she gave me permission to use the photo for free! Lovely woman, that one! I did end up buying an actual print to help support her work, and it’s now on the wall in my writing space. (Amber Eyes was the first novel I ever wrote, so the picture holds a special place in my heart.)

One last piece of advice I want to give you is this: Don’t be afraid to play around with the programs. It took me two years of trial-and-error with Paint.net to get where I’m at today, and I’m still not 100% with it. But the more I play, the better I get.

So, in closing, take the saying “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” and toss it out the window. In this case, absolutely judge a book by its cover!

(I wish it was “don’t judge an Indie author by the first three words of her prologue”, but that’s a little unfortunate mishap we’ll discuss later.) *snicker*

From the first the book sold better than I’d expected. Before publishing I’d lurked on the Kindle Boards, so I knew the average book sold somewhere between 5-60 copies its first month out. But I’d also heard that romantic suspense was hot, and when I checked out the bestsellers list for romantic suspense over half of them were self published works. Obviously my target readers were open to self published authors. So I put it up with the expectation of selling 100 books a month for those first few months until word of mouth spread. Instead it sold 278 books its first month out and earned $556.64. I was thrilled.

But about a week later sales started accelerating, and so far they don’t show any signs of slowing.

Here are some quick comparisons.

On my first day, September 7^th, I sold 7 copies and earned around $14.41

On the last day of the second month, November 6^th, I sold 199 copies and earned around $397.94

My first full week, I sold 54 copies and earned around $108.41

My last full week, I sold 1001 copies and earned around $1998.82

My first full month I sold 278 copies and earned around $556.64

The second full month I sold 2169 and earned around $4134.49

It took the book 50 days to sell its first 1000 copies.

It sold 1000 copies last week alone.

It’s initial Amazon ranking was around 12,000 because of the seven copies sold within a matter of hours, but it quickly rose to around 20,000, then it bounced between 12,000 and 28,000 for a couple of weeks.

It ended its first two month run at #282 in the Paid Kindle Store and # 14 in romantic suspense.

I started this journey with no fan base, no publishing credentials and no name recognition. I ended my second month with 32 reviews on Amazon, 30 rankings and reviews on Goodreads, four on B&N, three on ibook, thirty-eight fan letters and a list of people who have asked to be notified when I release another book.

It’s been an incredibly joyful ride so far.

As of November 6^th Forged in Fire has sold 2447 Books and earned $4691.13

*Note* you’ll notice a discrepancy between the royalties listed on the chart below and the royalties quoted here. This is because when I do my spread sheet I use two dollars per book for Amazon US, but not all the books sold through the Kindle store are at 70% royalty. If the book was bought through US Amazon by a customer outside the US, my royalty drops to 35% or a dollar a book. There were two hundred such books sold as of Sunday, November 5^th royalty report. So I deducted 200 dollars from the royalties reported here.

Edited to add: Regan asked about production costs, which reminded me that I wanted touch on those costs here too. Total costs in producing Forged in Fire were 864.00. The break down follows.

The cover- which was designed by Laura Morrigan cost $105.00.
The copy/line editing,  which was done by Jim Thomsen cost  $600.00
The proofing, which was provided by Anne Victory was $124.00
The formatting, which was done by Lucinda Campbell costs $35.00
Total production costs were 864.00

But the Bewitching Blog Tour was $99.00, which bumps total production and promo costs up to $963.00

Jim, Anne and Lucinda can all be found on under the service provider pages.

So far, from what I’m seeing, Forged is still accelerating in sales. Yesterday I sold 218 books and my Kindle Store ranking fell to #222 and # 09 in best selling romantic suspense.

You’ll notice from the chart below that the book’s been jumping in sales by a significant amount every so often. Recently I noticed that the length between jumps is accelerating. It jumped from selling 20-26 books a day to selling in the 50s & 60s on October 17^th.  Thirteen days later it jumped to the 120s. Six days after that it jumped to the 150s. But it was only three days later that it jumped into the 200’s. It will be interesting to see what happens in the next few days, whether it keeps jumping or whether it hits a peak.

I’m pasting my Excel spread sheet for those of you curious about how the sales progressed, and then I’ll talk about marketing.

I’d noticed early on that guest blogs had a powerful impact on sales. I offer a free book for every guest blog. But the book is always given away several days after the guest blog in order to give late arrivals a chance to win. In the first three guest blogs, I noticed my sales spiked the same day the winner of the book was announced. (not the actual day of the blog) This told me people were waiting to see if they won before buying the book themselves, but those who didn’t win, were still buying the book. This was later confirmed by emails from the people who had bought it, or by the reviews they posted.

With the first two guest blogs while sales spiked for a day or two, they quickly fell again, so the effect was temporary. And then I guest blogged on Joan Swan’s Romance Giveaways. We drew somewhere around thirty or forty readers. This was back on Sept 20^th and at that point I was selling between 5-7 books a day. The day Joan announced the winner of Forged in Fire, my sales jumped to ten. But this time the spike stayed and I started selling between 9-13 a day.

By this point I was convinced guest blogs were the way to go, so I signed up for a month long guest blog tour through Bewitching Blog Tours, but my tour didn’t start until October 11^th. In the mean time I set up several guest blogs through other people I knew. My hope was to keep my sales where they were at, so when I started my blog tour I would be able to drive the book’s sales ranking down to around #2500. You see I noticed that the books that made it onto Kindle’s bestselling romantic suspense list were just hanging out there, selling up a storm and with no promotion what-so-ever. These books were selling through word of mouth and Amazon’s  “people who bought this, also bought this” algorithms.  I wanted in on that action. But to get onto the bestselling romantic suspense list, I needed an Amazon ranking of #2500 or lower—that would put me around 90-100 on the list.

My big plan back then was to use the guest blog tour to get down to #2500 and onto the bestsellers list and ride that list all the way through Christmas. Books that got on that list seemed to stay on it for a good three months.

I hadn’t actually figured in the impact of the guest blogs I was doing prior to my tour starting. Those guest blogs (there were three of them) introduced me to quite a few new readers, but I was also getting word of mouth spread on Goodreads by the readers who had already bought the book off the last guest blogs. The day after my blog tour started the book suddenly jumped in sales again and dropped onto the bestselling romantic suspense top 100. It hit the list at #97, and bounced in and out for a few days.

I think the key factor here is that Forged hit the list right as I started a month long, intensive blog tour. The blog tour stops, along with Amazon’s own Algorithms started working in tandem to increase sales. Not to mention word of mouth was already spreading from the people who had already read the book.

Honestly, by the time the blog tour started my sales were significant enough I couldn’t tell whether any specific blog tour stop had more impact than others. Forged was featured on Digital Book Today right around the time I jumped from 125 sales a day to 150, so I’m guessing that promo had some effect. But the sales never dropped back to 125 after the promo spot was over like I expected.

The only promo (with the exception of Digital Reader Today) that I’ve done in the last month is the blog tour. I’ve backed off Wattpad because I don’t have time to update regularly. I rarely tweet or facebook.

So in my opinion the blog tour and Amazon’s algorithms are what’s driving Forged in Fire’s sales.

And word of mouth. Word of mouth is gold.

Here are some other authors posting their sales information.

Theresa Ragan
Debra Holland
Norah Wilson

Lisa Mondello