Well it was exciting, huh, publishing 2 of my old ebooks and then writing and publishing a brand new short story (albeit based on an existing game so I essentially had the whole plot and much of the dialogue ready to hand, so it was a lot quicker than writing a short story from scratch).
Not so exciting is the fact that I've made almost no sales and have managed to completely derail writing my novel in the process. It's a tough business, self-publishing, because once you've actually written, formatted, proof-read, re-written and proofed again, got your cover designed and finally hit the magical PUBLISH button, you've done about 10% of what you need to in order to ever see decent sales. Promotion is vital, especially for a new author, and it's also difficult. I did actually shell out some money on a paid promotion thing but (without particular surprise) found it to be highly ineffective. (Normally I would not risk the money but this was the ultimate proof of my suspicions, so ... just about... worth it.)
It's a situation faced by all indie authors, apart from (perhaps) the handful who've been at it a long time, got a large back catalogue and got an established following. Perhaps I, and others who are in a similar position to myself, will reach that stage one day. But that day is most definitely not today.
Anyway, I won't want to sound like I'm complaining about the situation, it's pretty much what I was expecting and I plan to keep building up my list of titles, my social media following and hopefully (hint hint) a few people might subscribe to this blog by email and thereby make sure they are informed of new titles, special offers and whatnot. I certainly have some things to improve too - 2 of my 3 covers so far are definitely not up to scratch, and the blurbs for all 3 probably need a little work.
If by chance you were planning to pick up The Captain Disaster Collection when it's $1.23 instead of $2.99, don't forget that offer starts on 11th December for 5 days! (Why starting on a Sunday? I don't know either, I think I clicked the wrong thing...)
Oh, and I will definitely get back to writing my novel!
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