I'm finally joining the crowd!

[britnidanielle]

Hey everyone, quick update! I know it's been a while...

FINALLY finished & published by next book, Two Steps Back. It's the follow-up to the first book, Turn It Loose (TIL).

BTW: I also had both covers designed professionally (had TIL re-designed).

I decided to run a free promo on TIL on Saturday (it was originally supposed to last the entire weekend), and I got over 7400 DLs that day! Sales of both books have been pretty good so far. They're in some Top 100 categories, and TIL is sub-5,000 in the Kindle store, and TSB is around the 15,000 mark.

I bought a Goodreads ad on a whim for TIL, it'll be running later this week. Let's see if it yields any results.

Other than that, I'm still plugging along. Going to get started on the next book soon!

 

[britnidanielle]

Uber random update:

My book got mentioned on a list of 10 books by Black Women in 2013 You Should Read by a digital pub, and it (or me sharing the link on FB) bumped up sales of 'Turn It Loose' bit. I'd been somewhere near the 200k in the Kindle store, now I'm back in at 28k in the Kindle Store. Not bad & a nice surprise!

OH! And more people have DL'ed my book on Google Play! I just need them to buy book 2, instead of just get the freebie (which I'm trying to get price matched on Amazon).

 

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[britnidanielle]

Another mini-update:

The new covers on my Bad Dates series are up on Amazon, BN, and Google Play! I'm happy with how they came out.

 

[britnidanielle]

Hey everyone.

Well, the time has come to post my own progress thread. I've been reading & liking/commenting on most people's threads thus far, but holding off on my own because all I would have been able to add was "I'm writing!"

Today I actually FINISHED my novella. Yay! It's clocking in around 32k words, and I'm now in the editing phase. I emailed the manuscript to a handful of BETA readers this afternoon and I've been going through some draft and editing a printed & bound copy I made.

COVER


I was going to purchase a premade cover from http://goonwrite.com, but the one I had my eye on got sold, so I hit a few stock photo sites until I found an image I liked. I lucked up on one, and played with fonts & colors until I came up with a cover I really love. And it only cost me $3.50 (the price of the image. I used GIMP to edit).


LAUNCH STRATEGY

Although it's only 32k words (about 100 printed pages), I'm going to start off offering it at $2.99. From everything I've read, that seems like a respectable rate for short novels/novellas/new authors.

I don't have a dedicated plan for a launch, but I have about 1000 people on my blog's email list, so I'm using my own name for this one and emailing them when I publish it. It seemed like a shame to start from ground zero instead of use what I've already built. So, we'll see how many click on over to buy it.

I've also been updating my progress via Instagram/Twitter/Facebook posting graff snippets and my cover. I've gotten a good response from my followers so far.

ETC.
I'm excited!

I'm a little nervous about clicking publish (hopefully next week), but it's definitely exciting. I already have some ideas for the next project, hopefully a series, that I may be publishing under a pen name. We'll see.

Thanks for all of the inspiration folks!

 

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[britnidanielle]

Week 1 Update

I released my book a week ago & here are the stats:

• Sold 48 copies
• Currently below 40k sales rank (no top 100 listings at the moment, but I hit it a few times before)
• 6 reviews
• I previewed the print version, will be on sale in 5-7 days on Amazon.

After a week+ of not really working on anything new, I'm back at it. I'm about 2500 words into something, I want to release a weekly short, so I'm hoping to get it out the door by Saturday, which means I have a TON of work to do between now & then.

Thanks for all of the advice guys! Hopefully I can get on HfR's level soon

 

[ChickenHawk]

I remember reading somewhere (not here, but on another forum) that it takes seven books before the first one (under the same pen name) reaches its full potential. It will be interesting to see what kind of results come with having more books available for sale. You're definitely on the right track, that's for sure!

I noticed an interesting thing about the book that I just published under my new pen name. On Goodreads, a few people indicated that it was on their "to be read" list, but that they were waiting until the series was completed. I wonder if that might also be impacting your "bad date" series, as people say, "Wow, I'd really love to read that, but I'll wait until the series is done, so I can find out how the saga ends..."

 

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[britnidanielle]

Yo. YOOOOOOO!

I woke up to this...

• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,284 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
  • #20 in Books > Romance > Multicultural
  • #21 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Romance > Multicultural & Interracial
  • #31 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Women's Fiction > New Adult & College

 

[britnidanielle]

Mini-update:

After reading a post on Kboards about Google Play, I decided to upload my Bad Dates series to Google Play (peep it here). They're both live now & I've had 5 DLs of the first book--which I made free. I'm going to try to use Google Play to Price Match for Amazon to get Vol. 1 on permafree status. Let's hope it works!

I also hired a designer to redo my Bad Dates covers to make them look better. Will share when he returns them to me.

 

[britnidanielle]

Still in it to win it guys. Not sure why, but sales of my first book, Turn It Loose, have been pretty brisk this last week or so. The series is still slow...very, very slow to pick up, but I'm going to finish writing it.

Hoping to finish the follow-up to Turn It Loose by February and release it, then work on the 3rd book in my Bad Dates series. Either way, I'm still in it to win it!

 

[britnidanielle]

Tiny update: My first Bad Dates & Other Disasters book is FINALLY price-matched to free (from 99-cents), it only took like 5 months LOL.

I've already gotten a new lukewarm review about how short the book is. DUH, it's estimated at 30 pages lol. Oh well...I'm thinking of ditching that series all together b/c it's been a very slow performer (though it was FUN to write), but we'll see. I might just finish it just because.

Two Steps Back & Turn It Loose (my signature series, I suppose) is still selling (and getting reviews). This makes me HAPPY since I love it so.

Working on a new book. Wanted to have it out by August 1st, now moving that deadline to September. New genre, new pen name! *crosses fingers* I think it'll be a hit.

 

[britnidanielle]

Update time!

How long has it been?

Anywho, I JUST (actually, yesterday evening) released another book. Decided to try my hand at a new sub-genre (New adult/Interracial romance), but it's still a love story...which, I'm a total sucker for.

So far it seems to be going really well, borrows are outpacing sales and I already had one return (sucka!), but I'm happy. I expect it to keep climbing the charts!

I'm trying my hand at the sexy guy on the cover thing, so we'll see how it goes. Take a look:

Mosey on over to Amazon to read the prod. description, a preview, and give me your thoughts here.

 

[britnidanielle]

So, I have calmed down--a little bit--on the obsessive checking of the rankings/sales every hour. BUT! I just checked and I'm at my lowest ranking to date!

As of Sunday, 9:30pm PST....

• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,084 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
  • #16 in Books > Romance > Multicultural
  • #18 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Romance > Multicultural & Interracial
  • #29 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Women's Fiction > New Adult & Colleg

I'm alllllllmost in the hundreds. I hope I get there! I also spoke with one of my readers who had a TON of questions and requested a sequel by Christmas. lol. I'm gonna try to give it to her.

 

[britnidanielle]

Tiny update.

My book is still doing well, not AS well (I'm in the 1400s instead of being closer to 1000 like I was), but still VERY well almost 2 weeks later. I'm pleased!!

I also JUUUUUUST pushed publish on my first erotic romance serial (under a new pen name). It's an experiment of sorts. We'll see how this goes!

 

[COSenior]

Britnidanielle, I'm finally reading your first Bad Dates book, and I have to say, you're very funny! Just got to the Everyone Else part of the 'types' not to date...the one before that had me howling with laughter. Count on one more good review when I'm done.

 

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[ChickenHawk]

Wow, ranked at 3,409 just a couple days after release! This seems to bode REALLY well. Can't wait to hear how it goes from here!

 

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[britnidanielle]

Wow, ranked at 3,409 just a couple days after release! This seems to bode REALLY well. Can't wait to hear how it goes from here!

Hopefully only up. LOL *crosses fingers*

I already have one 4-star review, which came from a stranger cuz I didn't release any ARCs this time. I was annoyed cuz the person said they HATED the end of the book. Ugh. But then I remembered that I'm REALLY proud of myself for this book. It's my longest yet, and I really like my characters.

So...it's already a success, no matter what.

 

[ChickenHawk]

Still holding steady in the high 1900s/low 2000s. Any idea how I can push it solidly into the 1000s (and hundreds?...Any ideas?

Yup! Write another book.
Not even kidding. My breakout book (Book#1) peaked a full month after its release date, so you still have lots of time for your rank to climb naturally.

And...
My Book#1 didn't REALLY peak until a few weeks after Book #2 was released. If it were me, I wouldn't "waste" your effort on marketing just yet. Instead, I'd work your butt off to get another similar book out there asap. If it appeals to a similar market, it will pull up Book#1 naturally, and the momentum of both books will fuel each other, giving you a ton more bang for your effort.

My theory: You're actually better off if your current book doesn't hit the top 100 right now, because you have nothing similar to offer. If you have two books hit at the same time, however, you can make some SERIOUS progress.

 

[COSenior]

Don't look at me...the only times mine rank anywhere near yours are when my publisher does a Bookbub ad. The one in my avatar had a Bookbub ad on Saturday and is still at 99 cents. We hit #67 paid for a few hours and now it's floating back toward 1000 rank. You know what's funny? It's available as a KU. I think there are people like me who read voraciously and don't typically buy books who are flocking to KU for books they can't get at their local libraries, and people who want to own their books so they can re-read them. @Thriftypreneur's idea is a great one. I won't be leaving my books in KDPS once I've found a following...I'll put them there for one 3-month period and then branch out, because borrows don't pay as much as the royalty on higher-priced books, and I'm done with the $2.99 price point for anything over which I have full control.

BTW, you guys...it isn't a very good idea to do an 'accidental' series, especially not with the same characters. Two or three books down the road, it's going to break, because you haven't planned the elements that will hold it together. Just write another book, @britnidanielle, doesn't have to be in a series. If you do want the momentum a series gives you, write the first book in that series, but plan the series right. I highly recommend Holly Lisle's How to Write a Series course.

 

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[britnidanielle]

No. People don't buy physical books anymore, and if they do it is for academic reasons or a book that they will want to refer back to later on. Fiction doesn't happen to fall into that category unfortunately.

Your best customers will come from the e-book world. Borders shut down for a reason.

I buy them. lol. And all are fiction. But I'm partial to actual books.

And Borders shut down because people bought their physical books from Amazon. But I hear you.

 

[britnidanielle]

Thanks for the advice guys. The only reason I'm leaning toward also offering a print book is because 1) It doesn't cost me any money to offer the option, and 2) I want to (I know selfishness isn't a Fastlane principle, but ehhh...yeah. lol).

I took COSenior's advice & did a little research + added a spine.

Here's the tweaked wrap-around cover.

 

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[britnidanielle]

UPDATE:

Just clicked *publish* on my book. I didn't realize I had to wait 12 hours for it to be live, but I guess it's good I didn't wait until tomorrow morning to publish.

I'm excited. I even added social media links on the last page (as recommended here: http://www.thebookdesigner.com/2013/08/david-kudler-kindle/). I will probably have to update them once the book is live so I can include the Amazon link and point the others to my Amazon sales page, but yeah.

QUESTION: How quickly does Amazon process updates once it's live? Does it always take 12 hrs?

 

[britnidanielle]

UPDATE:
Day 1: According to the report I have 15 sales. Either they still haven't tallied all of them yet or some of the people who said they bought it lied. lol. Either way, better than zero!

I didn't email my list yet, figured I'd work social media to see how that went, then hit my subscribers with the link tomorrow. We'll see how it goes.



Also, I cracked the top 50 in one sub-genre & am 12,001 in the paid Kindle store (I'm guessing it doesn't take very many copies to rank, since it has me at 15)

Either way....exciting!

 

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[britnidanielle]

End of the Month Update!

So, I published my first novella (Turn It Loose) on 10/10/13 & my the first book in my series, Bad Dates & Other Diasters on 10/24.

Here are the deets:

Turn It Loose
I sold 76 copies in the US, 2 in the UK and I have 9 reviews (all 4 & 5 stars).

I raised the price to $3.99 last weekend, sold a few copies, then NADA...no more sales. I guess the $3.99 curse is real. lol I changed the price back to $2.99 yesterday & have sold a couple since then. So...who knows.

Bad Dates & Other Disasters:

It hasn't sold well AT ALL. I sold 7 copies this month (in 7 days), but sold 1 today. Yay! I suspect the slow sales may be due to the fact it's only 30 pgs and it's $2.99, but we'll see. When I drop book 2 in the series I'm going to put book #1 on permafree to see if it'll reel people in. Book 2 will be out later this month (as will the follow-up to my novella).

Now...the money!

My royalties for October were $163.45 (and £4.14 in the UK, which I can't get until I reach £10). Not AMAZING, but not bad. Hopefully when I drop part 2 of both books I will continue to improve from there.

ETC.

This whole thing has been a HUGE learning experience, but it has taught me a few things:

1) I can actually finish a book! I've started so many projects over the years and this is the first one I've actually finished (damn near 10 years after getting my MFA. SMH).

2) I can write a book that people will read & like (even if it's only 70 people...they liked it).

3) This whole ebook hustle is TOTALLY possible, but it's HARD. It takes work, but I'm SOOOOO here for it.

4) I can TOTALLY do this!

5) You guys are AWESOME. I really wouldn't be here without you guys. Thank you!

 

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[britnidanielle]

Quick update:

Finished writing book # 2 in my Bad Dates series today. Took a little longer than I thought, and it's also a little longer (about 32k words), but I also think it'll need quite a bit of clean up. So I'm going to tackle that this week as well as get started on the follow-up to my novella. I wanted to have them both finished by Black Friday, but we'll see. I'll at least have one done & ready to sell.

Also, with the sale & extended 99-cent price, I sold 100 books last week. Crazy. Way more than I sold last month LOL. But the book has tumbled back to the 57,000 sales range. I switched the price back to 2.99 and will keep it there, probably until I get the follow-up done and then I'll run a sale on the first book, then have the second one out for sale.

So....I'm just writing, writing, and then editing.

 

[COSenior]

I just need them to buy book 2, instead of just get the freebie (which I'm trying to get price matched on Amazon).

Very nice, and congratulations on the bump in sales and rank. Don't worry, they will buy it if they like your free one and it compels them to read book 2. What I've found, I think, is that people don't read as fast as I used to, three or four books a week. I say used to because now much of my reading time is spent writing instead.

I noticed that 2 of them are around 120 pages...is that around 60000 words?

I've seen elsewhere that Amazon uses an algorithm to determine approximate page length, and that it depends a lot on how much dialog is present in the book. Mine average about 315 words per page the way Amazon calculates them, so 60k would be closer to 190 pages. I'd love it if all of us would check that out and post the numbers, so we could figure out a range of averages. In fact, I think I'll start a thread for that purpose.

 

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[britnidanielle]

Sorta update

Not much has been going on around these parts. I told myself I was just taking a short break around the holiday, but I could have totally been writing, but didn't. Oh well. I'm not beating myself up about it. I got a really big (and AWESOME) freelance assignment in mid-December, due Jan. 3rd , and had another medium-sized one sprinkled in, so I've been focusing on getting that done + the general holiday stuff.

I DID start receiving my royalty checks from Amazon this weekend. AWESOME! I sold 5 books on Nook this month (lol), and I've had 330 Downloads of my book Bad Dates & Other Disasters Vol. 1 on Google Play--but no sales (*sad face*).

All in all, I'm happy. I'm working on the follow-up to my first book & hope to drop it by Feb. As I mentioned before, my goal is to write 6 novels in 2014 dropping tentatively in Feb, April, June, August, Oct, and Dec. Let's hope I can stick to it!

 

[COSenior]

I'm running a 99-cent sale on all ebooks this weekend. We'll see how it goes.

Woohoo! My chance to grab 'em all! I mean the two I didn't already have. Got 'em.

 

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[joanna]

Don't take it down unless it's hurting your brand Even one sale once a quarter is an extra sale. If you're happy with the book, it's always something in your backlist for those who enjoy your writing.

 

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[Lex DeVille]

Yes, they just changed the system. Borrows count toward rank, even before you have buys now.

 

[britnidanielle]

Still holding steady in the high 1900s/low 2000s. Any idea how I can push it solidly into the 1000s (and hundreds? calling @ChickenHawk @COSenior @Rawr, et. al).

Patience? I only have 5 reviews, so buying an ad somewhere may not be possible.

Any ideas?

 

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