2018 Wrap-up

As I've done in the past, I thought I'd take a moment to tally up my book sales and marketing progress and share the results with you. My sales are always modest, with income that can buy me a few pairs of shoes and not much else. That said, as an author hoping to grow her platform, my biggest concern has always been distribution--getting my books to as many readers as possible. In that regard, this was definitely my best year yet.

Here's how things looked as the year closed:

What She Inherits: 633 paid purchases/downloads; 78,030 free downloads
The Latecomers Fan Club: 30 paid purchases/downloads; 931 free downloads
Watch Me Disappear: 29 paid purchases/downloads; 484 free downloads

At the end of 2018, I had a total of 705 paid purchases and nearly 80,000 free downloads. That's a lot of readers! In fact, my goal back in 2017 was to sell 500 books, a goal I did not reach. But in 2018, I sailed right past that number. Here's to never giving up, friends.

Now, I know what you're thinking: Do people actually read the books they download for free? Well, a fair number do, if we take as proof the huge increase in the number of reviews What She Inherits picked up this year.

Before my major promotion in early September, What She Inherits had about 50 reviews on Amazon and no reviews on iBooks or  Kobo. As of this writing, that picture has changed dramatically:

Retailer / Number of Reviews / Star-rating

Amazon / 181 Reviews / 4.5 stars
iBooks / 205 Reviews / 4.5 stars
Kobo / 40 Reviews / 4 stars

To be honest, my biggest fear in running a free giveaway and promoting it on Bookbub was that What She Inherits would suddenly get a barrage of bad reviews. It had mostly favorable ones up to that point, and I knew I was taking a risk. That said, my faith in my book wasn't misplaced and I'm thrilled that readers have enjoyed it.

Overall, I haven't been especially active in promoting my work in 2018. I have been focused on other things--like writing my next book, keeping up with my day job, and finding quality time to spend with my family once in a while. That said, I learned that running a Bookbub promotion was 100% worth the money I spent, just as it was several years ago when I used it to promote Watch Me Disappear. In fact, I have earned back the cost of the ad and--for the first time in my self-publishing career--actually ended the year in the black, and that is a very good feeling.

To compare this year to previous years, you can check out these past posts:

2015 Year in Review
2017 Year in Review

BookBub Promotion Takeaways

Last Sunday, my most recent novel, What She Inherits, was up on BookBub's list of Featured Deals in the Women's Fiction category.

I have used BookBub once before for my first novel, Watch Me Disappear, and it was my most successful promotion. That time I discounted the book to $0.99.  In fact, I was quite happy to have enough downloads during that promo to fully pay for the rather steep cost of the BookBub promo and even have a little cash leftover.

For What She Inherits, I took the plunge and paid the big bucks--$433.00--to tell the world I was giving my eBook away for free for one week. One week later, it feels like money well spent.

How to Use Audible Promotion Codes

If you've taken my advice and made our book into an audio book through ACX, you've been given audiobook codes for free downloads to give away review copies. The upside is that you can give your audiobook to people for free. The downside is that the promotion codes can actually be used for any book, so giving away the codes might not help you find reviewers. Here's a video tutorial shared with me by Becket Royce, who narrates The Latecomers Fan Club, to help you lock down those codes!

#SelfPubAdvice #BookMarketing: Getting Reviews

In this post, an excerpt from The Sane Person's Guide to Self-Publishing. Links to sites referenced in this post can be found under the resources tab above.

There’s not much you can do to get readers to review your book aside from politely asking them, which you should do. There are, however, lots of ways to pay for reviews.

Thanks to the culture of online reviews, high profile reviews no longer have the power they once did. It seems to matter more that you get lots of reviews than it matters who wrote them. This is good news since the New York Times probably isn’t going to review your book.

Basic options for paid reviews: