It has been a little over two years since I started this journey into the world of self-publishing and it has been quite an interesting experience. My first book, No Cure for Broken Hearted, took off almost immediately, climbing up to the top 10 overall list on Amazon UK. I ended up selling about 45,000 copies of that title, though most of them for .99 cents. Still, it was an exciting time for the four months or so that the rush lasted.
My second book was originally titled Sweet Ophelia, and that one didn't do quite so well. It was a little bit harder to categorize, I think. Like the first, Sweet Ophelia was a romance, but instead of being about a charming billionaire, this was about a down-on-his-luck homeless guy in Hollywood. Still, the book sold around 15-20,000 copies. Not too bad, but in an effort to improve things I tried changing the title, first to Tinseltown Fairytale and then to Tinseltown Blues. Neither change had much effect.
For my last book I moved away from the romance genre completely. Natalia is more of a suspense/thriller. I think it could best be compared to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series. Mine is also about a strong female lead, but in this case she is tracking down the mobsters who abducted her and held her in slavery.
I felt good about the book. I spent weeks working full-time to promote it, giving away free paperback and e-book copies, contacting numerous blogs and generally pushing it as hard as I could. In the end I sold about thirteen copies of Natalia. Ten of those were to verifiable friends and family. So after more than a year writing the book, and then formatting, editing, promoting, etc., I made about $20 from sales.
Not that I'm complaining here, it's just the way it is. Finding an audience can be tough. Now I'm wondering, though, should I try a new title for this one? Would it make any difference? The problem is that I'm having a hard time coming up with something that would seem to fit. Hopefully I'll think of something soon so that I can give it a try. But if anyone else out there has any ideas or suggestions, I'd love to hear them! Thanks, and keep your eyes on this space to see if I come up with anything...
My second book was originally titled Sweet Ophelia, and that one didn't do quite so well. It was a little bit harder to categorize, I think. Like the first, Sweet Ophelia was a romance, but instead of being about a charming billionaire, this was about a down-on-his-luck homeless guy in Hollywood. Still, the book sold around 15-20,000 copies. Not too bad, but in an effort to improve things I tried changing the title, first to Tinseltown Fairytale and then to Tinseltown Blues. Neither change had much effect.
For my last book I moved away from the romance genre completely. Natalia is more of a suspense/thriller. I think it could best be compared to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series. Mine is also about a strong female lead, but in this case she is tracking down the mobsters who abducted her and held her in slavery.
I felt good about the book. I spent weeks working full-time to promote it, giving away free paperback and e-book copies, contacting numerous blogs and generally pushing it as hard as I could. In the end I sold about thirteen copies of Natalia. Ten of those were to verifiable friends and family. So after more than a year writing the book, and then formatting, editing, promoting, etc., I made about $20 from sales.
Not that I'm complaining here, it's just the way it is. Finding an audience can be tough. Now I'm wondering, though, should I try a new title for this one? Would it make any difference? The problem is that I'm having a hard time coming up with something that would seem to fit. Hopefully I'll think of something soon so that I can give it a try. But if anyone else out there has any ideas or suggestions, I'd love to hear them! Thanks, and keep your eyes on this space to see if I come up with anything...
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