Ten Thousand Ebooks Sold and Counting!!!

My Adventures in Self-Publishing

On Saturday, I hit another milestone in my self-publishing career. I pushed past the 10k units sold since I went "live" last August.

Can I just say:  Wow!!!

As I've sold more books, I've had many more writerly moments; some bad, but mostly good. It seems like every day, I experience a new writerly moment. It's a great time to be a writer!!!

Here are a few examples of some of my more memorable writerly moments:

*  It seems for every 1000 books sold, I get one review, maybe two. I don't know if this is normal, but it is normal for me. I'm very lucky to receive mostly four and five-star reviews. But two weeks ago, I received my first one-star review and I can tell you truthfully, it SUCKED!!!

I was pretty devastated. I know I'm supposed to have a thick skin, but it still hurt. Everyone's entitled to their opinion and you can't please everyone, but it still was not a pleasant experience especially since she said she hated it. Ugh!!!

And it happened the same night when both my Regencies hit the Top Ten Regency Bestseller List. Talk about flying on an emotional high one minute and crashing the next!!!

Luckily, a fellow writer (whom I did not know) noticed it. She bought my book and read it and liked it and offered to write a good review. Thank God!!!  This was my first experience with a Random Act of Kindness (or a Random Act of Kindleness as we Indies like to say). One of my finer writerly moments rising out of one of my worst. As Calvin's dad says: It builds character.

*   I've also been fortunate to have my books making the Top 100 Bestseller Lists in various genres on Amazon. My two Regencies are hovering around the Top Ten and two of my Westerns are in the Top Twenty and Fifty. This has helped sales immensely.  A few times, all six of my books have been on the lists at the same time!!! I'm sorry to say I don't know the secret formula or handshake to get on the lists. It's really up to the readers. They are the gatekeepers in this new paradigm.

*  During Read an Ebook Week in March, I gave away almost 500 free ebooks.  I also sold over 4000 ebooks that same month. Great writerly moment.

*  As I've sold more books, I've also experienced more returns. Not a good writerly moment, but it's part of the business. I just don't look at that column in the sales reports. *grin*

*  My sales are slowly growing across the pond. I sold 50 books last month on AmazonUK. This month so far, it's 100. Good growth. I can only hope it continues.

*  I haven't received any fan mail yet, but I do have my very own Customer Discussion Forum on Amazon where I can talk directly to readers.

*  And speaking of readers. My sister was right. There are readers out there anxiously waiting for the last two books in my Diamondback Ranch Series!!! Is that great or what?

Every day, it just keeps getting better and better. Writerly moments abound. I am living my dream:  Write books and publish. The readers are what count in this business. The money's nice, too.

Happy Writing!!!


Anne Marie   :)