My travel log back down the self-published road after 14 yrs

A couple press releases have gone out to PR sites. Here is one of them.

Polly is doing good in Kindle world, sales every day. She remains in the low top 100 for 19th century history over several weeks now.

I have a gal I paid a couple hundred bucks to to do our PR stuff as this is what she does for a living. She sent out the press kits to the internet sites and is doing the local news outlets as well. She suggested I do a QR code to put on cards and flyers, so when scanned it goes to my website where all the purchase links are.

I'll post my June stats when I'm on my laptop, if anyone is interested.

Here are my June Stats for Bread & Butter the Murders of Polly Frisch (and a recap)

APRIL (27)
Kindle 19
Createspace softcover 5
Nook 1
LuLu hardcover 2 (That was surprising)

MAY (123)
Kindle 119
createspace Softcover 2
Nook 1
Smashwords 1

JUNE (195)
Kindle 193
createspace Softcover 1
Nook 1
Smashwords 0
Lulu hardcover 0

The other channels through Smashwords and Bookbaby I'm thinking I won't know until next month because of the reporting system. I didn't submit to them until the middle of May. I didn't realize I could do Kobo myself, so next book I will.

Kindle is doing really well staying in the top 100 in its categories. At this moment:

• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #17,312 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
  • #29 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > History > Americas > United States > 19th Century
  • #47 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Biographies & Memoirs > True Accounts > True Crime
  • #78 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > True Accounts > True Crime

It was #2 in India for a while for pre-20th century history, right next to #1 Twenty Years a Slave. How odd is that? Yes I did a screen capture of it. Right now it's #33 there.

REVIEWS
I got 2 reviews from my five book giveaway on Goodreads. One good, one not so good. But despite having only 5 reviews on Amazon I'm still selling consistently 4-12 a day. So I am a firm believer now, that it is consistent sales every day that keeps it in the top 100, more so than reviews. I'd also suggest anyone who is seeing their sales starting to taper off, to try tweaking the categories in the book setup for Amazon. As soon as I switched mine to just True Crime rather than True Crime>Murder & Mayhem I saw an improvement in ranking in the crime category into the top 100.

GIVEAWAYS
I did an author takeover on Facebook and gave away 4 Kindle and one softcover. I'm giving away 3 Kindle editions on my blog right now via rafflecopter as part of a "Freedom to Read" blog hop that runs until the 9th. We will see if any reviews come from either of those.

MARKETING
I did up one of those QR codes to put on business cards and flyers, so when someone scans it with their phone it will take them to the page on my blog about my book and all the places it is available for purchase. I have to upload my press kit yet and add a link to the PDF of it on the same page.

I did this thing on twitter called #IndieBooksBeSeen on July 1st. I almost thought there for a while it would trend. You had to post a pic of yourself with your book. Here is mine. I think it was a successful idea. My tweet got 33 retweets, 22 new followers, and 1,157 views. Quite a lot for one tweet I'd say.

My PR gal uploaded my press release to a couple press release sites and its turned up on a few websites, so that's cool.

COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT
Nothing new to report since post #16. Said plagiarizer found another way to get them back up on Amazon by having a bookstore in his area list it. Not sure what I want to do. Probably send another letter to Amazon. Other than that it will be based on what I can afford to pursue.

Thanks Athena!

Here are my stats for July, but first a recap:
April - 27
May - 123
June - 195

July (241)
Kindle - 235
Createspace Softcover - 1
Nook - 5
Smashwords 0
Lulu hardcover 0
BookBaby - ?

So sales are still on an upswing.

I'm not sure how BookBaby reports really. My book was accepted through them by iBooks, Kobo, Blio, Copia, Gardners on May 15th. I know I sold at least 1 on iBooks. I'm not sure how long it takes for stats to work their way back to them before I see it. Next book I'll upload direct to Kobo. I didn't realize I could. I'd do iBooks myself too If I owned a Mac.

Through Smashwords I have it on Page Foundry, Library Direct & Axis360. Haven't heard a peep there either. I only have an epub and Smashwords directly. I don't trust the meatgrinder not to muss up my formatting of block quotes, pictures, bibliography etc by uploading just the DOC to them.

LuLu hardcover I don't really promote because they are too darn expensive.

REVIEWS
I think people either like it or hate it. I am up to 8 reviews now. Five of them are 5 star, which is good.

RANKING
My ranking on Amazon is still consistent. Selling books every day keeps me in the top 100 for 19th century US history. Usually, its in the top 50 for that category. I've had sales still in other countries too---India, and now in Canada and Australia. It's #18 in 19th century US history in Australia.

GIVEAWAYS - A bit of promo and rafflecopter giveaways through blog hops. I did a couple giveaways on FB during an author event where you do an author takeover on the author's event page. Made some new reader and author friends too.

MARKETING
POSTCARDS - I just finished doing up some postcards to send to local retailers and libraries. I got them through Vistaprint. Really cheap for two sided, with one side being glossy color. It was normally $10.00 for 50 put I also had a coupon code for $5.00 off. Such a deal. If I can figure out how to show you those I will. It might be too big of a graphic for here. I could probably upload it to my site, and give you guys a link.

QR CODE- I did this last month and am starting to use it. I put it on my postcards I had printed, so when it's scanned it will go right to the page on my website about my book.

PLATFORM
BLOG REVAMP - My blog had a major meltdown and it took me a while to find a template I like. I posted a page there for my book with all the info and also one on me, of all my experience in the field of historical research. It's different, kind of a printerest look I think. http://historysleuth.blogspot.com/

Guess that's it. I'll try and post the postcard later so you can see it.

Thank you for your encouraging words literateparakeet.

Here is the link to the front part of my postcard anyway.

The back part was a brief blurb, contact, QR code and the discount for retailers and libraries.

PS on the plagiarism thing. Not sure what to do. My attorney says it's quite expensive to go to federal court, so would I recoup what I put into it? Probably not. I may ask for advice here on AW. I'm not worried about naming names anymore.

Thanks for asking Journo. Last time I heard from the editor was sometime in June. The proposal had to be presented to the board. And she asked what kind of time frame I'd need to complete it. I figured the spring as I'd have to track down some photographs. They like lots of photos with the text.

As to the $28.95, yes I think it is in keeping with hardcover prices, but I don't think someone will pay that for an unknown. I could be selling myself short on that though.

My murders of Polly Frisch is still selling. And I did get traditionally published, the book in my siggy. So I'm hybrid now. here is an interesting difference though. I played around a lot with the catgory choices when setting up my self published book in Amazon. I changed them around too until I found a good spot that picked up the ranking in my categories. There were 3 sometimes 4 levels in the drop down menu. Not so for my publisher.

i emailed and asked why in the world is my book under photography? It was Amazons choice not theirs. Granted it has 55 images but it's primarily text. So my go to gal had the guy who inputs to Amazon email me. Totally different. There is only one sub category off the main choice. For example History>US. That's it. Amazon itself adds a bunch, but still. So since it was really bugging me I emailed him back and said have them delete their photography catgory and manually put in history>US>19th century.

I'm thinking Amazon usually has two or three lines of ranking in categories. If they delete photography (which I find misleading) will it force it to pick a different more appropriate category? Doesn't hurt to experiment at this point. Sales in stores is good but Amazon is important.

So the book I self published over a year ago ranks higher in the categories than my new book. He did say the same kind of thing as a lot of us say. It's Amazon, no phone number of email, just the contact form. So not sure when they will answer but he'll try. And that's for a publisher!

Anyway, if your ranking seems low, go back in, and try some different category choices to see if you can get more visibility in a different area.