My indie journey, part 5

Midnight Treat has been for sale for 3 weeks now. I made the decision last week to increase the price from .99 to $2.99. I'm still doing little to no promo--I purposefully haven't done much just because I wanted to see the results of doing, um, nothing. :)

Week 3:

Smashwords: 5 copies

Amazon: 18

Barnes & Noble: 21

Total: 44 sales

Week 2:

Total: 37 sales

Week 1:

Total: 24 sales

My sales are low, but I'm averaging about 2 books a day if you look at the total three-week period. That's not bad for a relatively (okay, almost completely) unknown author.

But now it's time to kick it up a notch. I plan to pick one area of promo/social marketing to focus on at a time. I'm currently on Triberr and Facebook and some indie boards, but I am not too active on them. So this week, I will focus on Facebook. I will post a status every day (right now, I'm lucky to post once a week) and will comment and like others' statuses on the Home page each day. I'm also going to start blogging more. How? Not sure yet. What will I blog about? Not sure yet. But this is my week to figure that out.

Will these two things generate sales? Check back next week to find out. I'd love it if you followed me on Facebook, too.

Happy writing. Happy reading.

:)Becca

My indie journey continues, part 4

I considered not writing an update this week, because my sales haven't really sped up, but I started writing this series so anyone thinking about self-pubbing could go through the process, good/bad/ugly, with me.

I'm still not really doing any promo for this story, so the slow sales reflect that. But my goal this week is to come up with a promo plan and actually follow it. :)

My sales after 2 weeks:

Smashwords: 5

Amazon: 14

Barnes & Noble: 18

________________

Total: 37 sales

I learned yesterday that Midnight Treat was approved for Smashwords' premium catalog, which means it'll now be available at Apple, Kobo, Sony. Hopefully, that'll translate into more sales.

WEEK 1

Smashwords: 3 copies
Amazon: 8 copies
Barnes & Noble: 13 copies

______________________

Total: 24 sales

PRICE CHANGE:
After reading some interesting blogs about how Amazon is reconfiguring their algorithms (don't ask what that means, cuz I really have no idea), and how lower-priced ebooks might be affected, I decided to try an experiment. I upped the price of Midnight Treat from .99 to $2.99. Which means I'll get 70% royalties rather than 35%. Which means I'll make more money selling fewer books. But it could also mean I'll sell fewer books period.  I'll keep it this higher price for 3-4 weeks and see what happens, if anything.

As always, I'll keep you posted.

Part 3...Dipping my toes in the indie waters

Well, I did it. I uploaded my story and it's now "out there" for everyone to see and buy. :) I was afraid about the learning curve for formatting for nothing. It was actually very easy to upload on the three main sites (Amazon, BN, Smashwords)--all three just require a .DOC file. Each has a few different specifications, but it was quite simple to do. Whew!

Amazon|Barnes & Noble|Smashwords

Available now for just .99!

My problem? I uploaded before really having a promo plan in place. I think I was in such a hurry to get something out there, that I rushed things a bit. So, I'll share with you my numbers for the first week, but keep in mind the only promo I've done is to announce it on my Facebook page and once or twice on Twitter.

My sales after one week:
Smashwords: 3 copies
Amazon: 8 copies
Barnes & Noble: 13 copies

Yes. I'm putting in my 2 weeks notice at work. Not.

Considering I don't really have a name yet, thus nobody knows me (yet), I'm okay with these sales. Did a little part of me hope my story would jump right into the Top 100 lists? Well, of course it did. But I didn't really expect that. Really.