I published my first
work, In Dulce, Disturbed, a short story, in 2010. It was a
lark. I was mad because, years ago, I successfully published a couple
of mystery short stories in Alfred Hitchcock and another
magazine without too much bother. Today, the competition for a spot
in a magazine monumental.
I looked at a few
online magazines, but then I decided to publish the story myself with
amazon. It was easy enough in those days. I used a couple of beta
readers and no editor and I actually went with the default cover.
(Remember that thing….kind of blue, I think, like a library book
from the 19th century.) It was so ugly. Looking back, it
was insane to expect success with a formula like that. But I wanted
an audience and wanted to write. So I did it.
And I sold five
stories the first month – and it wasn’t to friends of mine, but
to readers out there who were curious about this self publishing
thing – I guess. Or perhaps I
landed a few folks
interested in the Jicarilla Apache Reservation where Dulce is located
or in the UFO facility that is
falsely said to be located
there. I don’t know who they were, but
I was hooked. Back then, five
readers was enough.
I
wrote a few more stories. In
those early days,
I could list a story
on amazon for free
and get
over a
thousand downloads without buying any promotional spots
at all. It was so much fun. I
also
listed
the stories
for free in a promotional newsletter and got
multiple thousands of downloads. That was a short lived marketing
window, but I miss it today when I have to pay $20-40 dollars for a
spot and often don’t get anything close to a hundred downloads. Of
course, I don’t promote
the books for free anymore.
I
wrote five
short stories in all,
hired a cover creator, and then a
better cover creator. From
this time on I rarely sold less than 20 stories
a month. Readers gave me their honest opinion, and several insisted
that it was time for me to write a novel – so I did. That’s when
I hired my first editor and proofreader.
Plus, that first book was
favorably reviewed by Publisher’s Weekly/Booklife (no fee back
then, I was selected from a pool of applicants). This review led to
my first contact involving film rights. While this didn’t pan out,
I was so amazed to get that kind of attention. Those small
recognitions and the readers
are
what kept me writing. Readers
– and
the editors I hired
– helped me see the strengths and weaknesses in my writing. This
was invaluable to me, and I don’t think I would have made the
progress the readers and editors taught me to make if I had not been
able to publish independently.
On
the journey
I began to pick up more
reviews andreceived
my first one star review.
I pushed passed it – everyone wasn’t
going to like my writing, I knew, but it was great that some people
were enjoying my work. I began to get grammar trolls (as I call them)
who moan every typo.
This helped me too, though. For my second novel, In
Albuquerque, Abandoned, I hired
a two
proofreaders.
This
was the novel that gained the most success of anything I’ve
published so far. A few months after it’s release, the book sold
700 copies in one month. The other books and short stories in the
series sold well, too. This success led to continued sales in the
hundreds for months. I took the profits and tried all sorts of
marketing combinations that included Facebook ads, trailers, Amazon
ads, Freebooksy, Books
Butterfly (loads of
downloads, not many sales), google
ad words and other
promotional ideas.
I made more than I spent, but
I didn’t get the kind
of audience I really wanted.
As for Bookbub, they never gave me a shot, though many of my fellow
writers were actually making real money with Bookbub. No matter how
many reader reviews
or good professional reviews or great covers I
had, I was
never up to snuff for
those guys. Now they seem to
do
a lot of ads for the traditionally published crowd, so I’ve quit
trying until I write
more books and get a bigger audience. Bookbub
will take me yet, I say.
But
will writing more and
improving my craft really help? In other words, if
I build it, they will come? I
honestly don’t know. But I
look up to successful
independently and traditionally
published writers – I still want to be one of them. And the way to
do that is to keep writing.
But
what about marketing? The first book in my new Cotton Lee Penn series
of southern novels has been very well received. I paid for
professional reviews and even Kirkus gave me a thumbs up. This book,
Gone on Sunday, was my
best success with amazon ads and made money there for a few months,
then fell off. The reviews are good. I get emails (and someone even
stopped me on the street) asking when the next book in the series is
coming up. That’s fun.
Still,
I have five short stories and
three books on my author page, and
I have fallen back to my early sales record: 20-30 books a month.
Thus,
I feel like I am marketing up from the bottom of a well. I have a
blog, a Facebook
page, a mailing list, a website – I’ve tried stacked marketing,
going exclusive with amazon, going wide. I
have two audible books. I
now have an editor, and two
proofreaders plus several beta readers and
a great cover artist. And yet here I am – right back where I
started. What next?
I’m
nearly done with the first book in a new series about a family that
runs a missing persons agency called The Finders. And I am also
nearly done with the second novel in the Cotton Lee Penn series. I
tried for an agent and got some reads but no offers with the first
Cotton Lee Penn book. My plan is to try for an agent again. The
Finders book, Silencing Sistine,
fits squarely into the mystery genre, and
that makes it easier to sell to a publisher.
And
speaking of publishers
– who knows whether traditional publishing is that much better than
independently publishing? I might sell more than 30 books a month,
but that might not mean much. I need to get over the hump, out of the
dark, to the tipping point….and maybe I will…or not. But I will
tell you I love the writing, and I love the readers and editors. I
keep learning about writing, and, for me, that’s addictive. If I
don’t
make a little more money,
I’ll have to quit because independent publishing is expensive, but
it’s a blast, it really is.
And
that’s why for now, it’s
still … mysterious
in New Mexico.
