RELAX, WRITE, POLISH

I am seeing way too many writers scrambling around desperately trying to get their books released and then blogging and tweeting until their fingers are blue with little or no results.

Relax.

For many years now there was nothing I could do to make someone buy my book. I had no choice but to write and submit, write and submit. Nothing has changed. You do NOT want to put your work out there too soon. You'll regret it if you do.

And once you have sent your book to a few reviewers, bought an ad or two, and blogged a few times, sure you can spend a few minutes on FB, Twitter, and Kindle Boards, but don't make the mistake of being frantic about your promo/marketing...feeling as if your book needs to sell today! If you're lucky enough to have a story that appeals to readers, then you need to be patient and wait for word of mouth to do it's job.

Return of the Rose is just now working it's way up the charts after four months. I hope Finding Kate Huntley and Taming Mad Max have the same success in a few more months. I'm blogging tomorrow and next week and then I plan to RELAX while I write.

Who is going to feel better in two months? The writer who has finished another book or the writer who is still frantically searching for that one magical advertisement/blog/review that will make his/her book sell?

Edit and polish an old book. Start a new book. Just write.

If anyone is having trouble commenting on blogger, you have to hit preview 2 or 3 times and then UNCHECK the tiny box that says "stay signed in" and then yay, your comment should go through!

Talking Money - Part II

From B&N I get an exact amount of # of books and $ owed as the books are sold. With Amazon, it's all accumulative and I don't want to make it sound more complicated than it is...but some of the $2.99 books earn 35% through the UK, etc., so it's not a matter of just multiplying number of books by a certain amount. It depends on WHERE the books sold. Also, if you move your prices up and down (I'm trying that with Taming Mad Max right now) that makes it harder to determine exact amount you earn for that month until you get the monthly KDP transaction report. I don’t have the report for May from Amazon. I believe it will show up before the 15th.

Now for $$$ amounts...

March, 2011: I SOLD my VERY FIRST BOOK on Amazon about seven days after I released it, then I put out the second book at $.99 and within days both books were selling really great.

Amazon:   $524

B&N:         $157

April, 2011: I was already thrilled with sales (over 100 books a day) and then on April 12th, Pixel of Ink pushed my rankings from 2,500 to #68. Both books have been selling great ever since.

Amazon:  $3,524

B&N:         $469

May, 2011: I released Taming Mad Max on 4/25 and Finding Kate Huntley on 5/6. So I had 4 books out for most of May.

Amazon:   $5,300

B&N:         $320

June, 2011: I released ABDUCTED (5/30). 5 books out in June and these amounts are for 5 days.

Amazon:  $1,150

B&N:         $80

GRAND TOTAL $11,528 in about 12 weeks.

Weeks before self-publishing, I was looking through the want ads for a job and trying to decide what type of work I was going to do now that my youngest child was going off to college. Financially, I had known the day would come when I would need to go back to work full time, but with the economy and other factors, the pressure was on more than ever. From the beginning, I wrote every day and I never stopped writing or learning the craft...because I wanted to be able to do this for a living. This was never a hobby to me. My passion was and is writing. It's all I want to do. It's all a lot of writers want to do.

But at the beginning of 2011 I truly thought my time was up. I had tried and failed...because as much as I just wanted to write…financially my husband and I knew that I had to go back to work. In February, 2011, thinking I was going back to get a "real" job, I decided to put my medieval time travels out there...I had nothing to lose at this point. I never for a moment thought about the $. It was more like, okay, the gig is up. Time for me to get a "real" job so I might as well throw the books out there and see if anyone else likes them as much as I do.

And then a miracle.

The books started selling and my life literally changed overnight.

19 years and suddenly...BOOM. I'm selling books, getting fan letters, and making $. For the first time in my 19 years of writing, I realize I just might get to WRITE for a living! How cool is that?

I'm still pinching myself.

One more thing about the money. How much would I have received in advance money for these books? Seriously? When I first started writing I was hoping for a $10,000 advance. A year ago, I would have taken $1,000.

If my two time travels alone bring in $2,000 to $3,000 a month, that would be $14,000 to $21,000 at the end of 2011, not counting the $11,500 I’ve already earned.

If this keeps up, I could potentially make over $7,000 a month. The sky is the limit.

At this point, though, I just want to write. I don't even want to look at the dollar amounts which is why I have to figure it all out everytime someone asks me for a dollar amount. I want to sit at my desk and write books that make me smile. And it looks like that's what I'm going to get to do and I feel blessed and lucky and happy.

If this had happened 19 years ago, I have a feeling it wouldn't have been nearly as satisfying.

One more thing...I still see blog posts out there saying self-published books suck. That's silly. It's like saying all doctors suck or all Chihuahua's shiver (mine doesn't). Not all traditionally published books are great. Not all self-published books are great. Not all doctors suck. And every Chihuahua in the world doesn't shiver. 

IF you are going to take the time to publish your book, send it to someone who knows how to edit. Spell-checker isn't going to do the job.

More than that...I say believe in yourself. Dream big. Write the books of your heart. Never give up. That's what really matters.