Ereader News Today promo results (hurrah!)

I'm still pretty new to the ebook self-publishing world, and I've been picking up information and advice as I go along. One common bit of advice is this: promote your book. Seems pretty obvious, right? But it's not necessarily as simple as it seems.

First of all, as I mentioned in my last post, I spend plenty of time struggling with self-doubt, and it's hard to work up the confidence to try to let people know about your book when you're already sure no one wants to read it. Fortunately, I've recently had a few indicators that there are people out there who want to read my writing, and I've been faring slightly better in the self-doubt struggle since then.

The second thing that complicates the self-promotion efforts is this: there are so many options, it's hard to know what's worth the time and effort. Despite my crippling self doubt, I have actually tried a few different things--from setting up this blog to paying websites for promotion. Many of those efforts have been mentioned in other posts on this blog, and none of them have proven very effective. In fact, it would be pretty accurate to say that none of them have been effective at all!

And so the lack of results from those efforts, coupled with my own lack of confidence, have sort of kept my foot on the brakes regarding self-promotion.

But a few weeks ago I signed up for the Kboards Writer's Cafe forum, and I've come across plenty of authors who have found promotion opportunities that actually produced results. I read their posts, I took notes, and I figured I'd give it another try. (Because I'd already tried doing nothing, and I'd seen the results that brought--none.)

The first promotional website I signed up with was Ereader News Today (also known as ENT). Yesterday they included Blood Brothers as one of their featured Bargain Books (I dropped the price to 99 cents for a temporary sale, in order to qualify), and the results have been excellent. Yesterday turned out to be the best selling day in Blood Brothers six month history. I sold more copies than I had on the day of the book's launch, when I guilt-tripped all my friends and family into buying copies. And selling a lot of copies in one day resulted in the book climbing the rankings at Amazon. Here's a screenshot I took of the book at it's peak.



I'm hoping that rankings boost results in a little more visibility for Blood Brothers, at least temporarily, and a few additional sales because of it. If nothing else, I consider it a success because it's shown me that promotions can work, if you're going through a good provider. And Ereader News Today is definitely a good provider, in my experience.

So now I'm looking at other promotion opportunities, and starting to lay out a strategy. Here's hoping I'll be able to keep stoking the flame, until Blood Brother's has a steady fire burning beneath it.

Hurrah! Moving forward in 2014

Whenever I've looked at the sales information on my Smashwords account, I've seen reports of a few sales directly through their website, and a bunch of zeros for all the other places they distribute my books. I assumed this meant that the books weren't selling any copies anywhere else. And then, yesterday, I realized there was a little 2013 button showing up on the page. I clicked that button, and saw that copies of the books have been selling, especially Zombie City, especially through Nook. It was a wonderful, and significant, surprise.

See, I'm a pretty insecure guy, and even though I've been writing for almost 20 years now (since I was 15), I still sort of tend to think that no one out there is going to want to read my stuff. It hasn't stopped me from writing--indeed, writing seems to be a sort of compulsion that I can't stop doing, no matter what--but it has inhibited my self-promotion efforts, and impacted my motivation.

Up until yesterday, I'd figured the Zombie City series was a failure. I'd sold about a dozen copies through Amazon, and just a few more than a dozen through Smashwords, in the three months since I'd published the first episode. I figured people weren't that interested in it. I didn't try to promote it, or to find any reviewers willing to rate it. I'd even decided to put it on the backburner for a while, to see if I could come up with a different story that people might want more.

But yesterday I found out that people have been buying it. There have been about 55 Smashwords affiliate sales for Zombie City, mostly through Nook.

I know, I know: 55 sales is pretty small potatoes. Still, I was excited, especially by the third episode sales. I reason that if people are going on to buy the third episode, they're pretty invested in the story. Not everybody keeps going, but more than half of the people who bought the second episode also went back to buy the third.

For me, that's validation I can use to beat back the paralysis my insecurities had given me about that project. It tells me that there are some people out there who want to read what I write.

So here's my plan:

1) I'm going to jump back into the Zombie City series. I hope to finish Episode 4 before the end of January, and maybe wrap it up with a fifth episode sometime in February.

2) I'm going to try to get Episode 1 to price-match for free on Kindle. Right now it's free everywhere else, but Amazon hasn't price-matched it yet, and I haven't really made any effort to get them to do it (cause I figured no one wanted to read it anyway).

3) I'm going to start trying to promote the series. Most importantly, I'm going to start contacting reviewers, in hopes that I can get a few ratings to show up for it. Right now, none of the episodes have any ratings, and I get the feeling that people are much less likely to try a book if they don't think anyone else is reading it.

4) I'm going to get more active in my efforts to build a mailing list. So far, the only thing I've done to get people to sign up is post a widget link on this blog, which hardly anyone reads. I'm planning on including a link to the sign-up in the books themselves.

Basically, in general, I'm planning on working harder at this whole self-publishing thing. There's definitely a lot more effort I could put in, and seeing that there are people out there who want to read my writing has motivated me to try harder.

Druidcast

About six years ago I was working as a carpenter in San Francisco, completely re-doing a house in Noe Valley for a rich Google exec. The project was so involved that we actually cut the house off its foundation, hoisted it into the air, and built another level to lower it down onto--effectively turning a three-story building into a four-story. (Probably would have been cheaper and easier to just demolish the whole building and start fresh, but San Francisco has some pretty restrictive building codes that we were able to get around by preserving some of the original structure, and the Google guy had plenty of money to burn.) Shortly after hoisting the house, the general contractor in charge promised all the grunt carpenters a free iPod if we could get things ready to drop the house by a certain date. We managed it, and we got our iPods.

In all honesty, I'm not too fond of the iPod, or the iTunes program you have to install in order to use it. I feel like the program is always mucking about with my music collection--my iPod ended up jammed full of repeated songs, and irritatingly void of full albums. Plus it seems like iTunes wants me to update my version every other day, which is a drag, and which seems to screw around the rest of my computer. On top of all that, the iPod battery lasts only a fraction of what it used to, and replacing the battery isn't really a feasible option.

But there is one good part of this story: through iTunes I discovered the Druidcast. It's a monthly podcast sponsored by, and affiliated with, the U.K.-based Order of Bards, Ovates, and Druids, and hosted by Damh the Bard. I originally downloaded the first four podcasts, and then something went weird with my iTunes and I didn't get any more. But those first four episodes were marvelous--they introduced me to an eloquent, organized, friendly form of neo-paganism, with an active group of intellectually-stimulating folks who cared about some of the things that were beginning to become important to me.

For a long time I was limited to those first four episodes. I listened to them all more than once, and they helped form part of the foundation of my interests in mysticism, pantheism, spirituality, and the natural world--especially the idea that nature can provide succor from the challenges of modern life. Those first four episodes planted seeds that would later bear fruit in many of my creative endeavors, most notably for my novel Blood Brothers--Verlvik's view of the world, and Athemon's special abilities, both reflect ideas and thoughts that started germinating in me during the time period in which I discovered the Druidcast.

I never went on to explore the other offerings of the Order of Bards, Ovates, and Druids, but recently (finally) I've gotten around to downloading further podcasts. I've listened through the seventh episode now, and they continue to be just as crucial as the first four.

To help give you an idea of the sorts of things the Druidcast covers, and which I find inspiring, here's a transcription of a snippet of Philip Carr-Gomm--the leader of the Order--speaking of the life of the order's founder, Ross Nichols:

"The message I take from him is it's worth striving for ideals--even if you've been wounded, even if you're going through difficult times, or the world is going through difficult times, hold on to those ideals, and cherish them. Create if you can some kind of sanctuary--a little place, a corner in your garden or in your home, or if you can get away to a little patch... do that, hold on, and keep connecting as much as possible to the natural world and to your spiritual path. And this will manifest, your dream will come true. It may not come true in your own life... [but] the benefits and the blessings will pass to lots of people, people all over the world. Which is what you can see now with the Order."

If you're interested in hearing the Druidcast for yourself, you can access all back episodes by clicking this link.

Blood Brothers in the U.K.

I'd never really thought about it before, but publishing a book on Kindle makes it available to a global audience. And other countries don't use the same Amazon.com website--there's a different website for each country. Recently I noticed a little drop-down menu on the sales-reports page of my Amazon site. I scrolled through some of the other countries and saw that copies of Blood Brothers have been downloaded in Germany, Italy, Brazil, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Cool!

Further investigation revealed that someone using the name "mpfc" has posted a review of Blood Brothers on the amazon.co.uk. Here's what they wrote:

Couldn't put it down...I loved this book, I got pulled in from the start and finished it in about three days. Really well written, excellent characters, I even cried a bit! Looking forward to Mr Soriano's next work.

I have no idea who mpfc is, but I definitely appreciate the review. Knowing that someone enjoyed the book, related to the characters, appreciated the writing--it means everything. So thanks!

Thank You!

I just wanted to send a quick note of thanks to everybody who bought a copy of Blood Brothers yesterday, or passed the word on to their friends and family about it. Your support was enough to put my book on the #7 spot of the bestseller list for Metaphysical Fantasy--right next to works by several authors I admire, like Paulo Coelho, Neil Gaiman, and Franz Kafka--and to get the book special mention as the "#1 Hot New Release" in that section. Rankings are added up hourly, so Blood Brothers might not be on those lists for long, but I'm hoping that even a temporary presence will put my book in front of more potential readers, and get the ball rolling.

So Thanks! Gracias! Mahalo! I am sincerely grateful for your support.
M.F. Soriano

P.S. If you didn't get a copy yesterday, you still can (wink wink, nudge nudge). Just click here.