My self-publishing journey

Hi everyone! I've been lurking in this section for awhile now and I've learned so much from all of your self-publishing diaries and your methods/ideology, and I thought I too could share my experiences/experiment thus far for the benefit of anyone who finds the information useful.

Before I go into the details, I just want to thank this community for so much support over the years. And I'd like to do a quick happy dance because I came home from work today and saw that my self-published book actually made $ sales and was at number 1 in the 'hot new releases' for its category on amazon despite having no ARC reviews - and I'm basically a nobody with no platform or web presence other than on AW.

So here goes..

My goal from day one (self-published October 10 with kindle select) was not to make money, but rather to lose money in order to get as many copies of my book out as I possibly could, and I proceeded by using the free book promotion on KDP Select while running simultaneous highly targeted ads on facebook, goodreads and amazon to get readers to download free copies of A Portrait for Shy. I did this the very first two days it was available - Oct. 10 and 11. I also did it on Oct. 15, 16, and 22, thus using up my five days available of free book promotion which comes with the program.

Altogether, I spent about 500 dollars in advertising on those 5 free days (I know what you're thinking, but really, it's fine), not including the money I wasted advertising Pre-ordering.... rookie mistake, lesson learned (nobody pre-orders a nobody), and the money for my Goodreads giveaway which is still running. I budgeted to spend this much because again, my goal was not to make $ sales, but rather to get as many copies of my book into my target market's hands as possible, and do it in a very short time-frame (amazon ranks are all about time-frame). I guess I wanted to do this partly because finding legitimate reviewers for a self-published book proved to be much more painstaking than I thought, and partly because I just have confidence in the story-- that people would want to share it.


Here's the Amazon Kindle data so far for my experiment.

September 23:
1 Paid pre-order (my friend- who I didn't ask to buy it).

Published October 10th:
23 Free downloads

October 11th:
10 Free downloads

October 15th:
10 Free downloads

October 16th:
7 Free downloads

October 18th:
1 Paid sale at $4.99

October 22nd:
20 Free downloads
259 KENP pages read (kindle unlimited)

October 23rd:
3 Paid sales at $4.99
142 KENP pages read (kindle unlimited)


So for my investment, I got 70 people to download my book, and 4 sales (not friends nor family).

Some things I learned:
-It's very difficult to get your nobody's-heard-of-you-book downloaded by target readers even when it's free (I was hoping that number would be closer to 700, but most of the people clicking on the ads just don't follow through)
-IMO, Facebook and Goodreads ads, even well targeted, are much more expensive and do not produce results compared to Amazon 'sponsored product' ads. If you're going to run an ad, go for Amazon sponsored products.
-Amazon will use the KDP Select Free giveaway downloads data to rank your book not just in the free section while your promotion runs, but in the "Hot new releases" section as well. I suspect this is how my book made it to number 1 out of 40 titles, a lot of which are trade published, in its category. I guess 70 downloads in 12 days did the trick.
-Being number one in my category is what most likely brought those 3 sales -because I've been running the same amazon ads for my book through all the dates not mentioned with no sales to show for it. (maybe its worth something after all?)
-Amazon book giveaways are a joke because you only get spammy people who want free stuff
-Goodreads giveaways give you a bit more exposure- but I'd say about 2/3 of the people who enter just enter all the giveaways and could care less about your story (the ones with 40,000 books on their to-read list)
-I probably wasted 500 dollars (I'm okay ), but it's pretty damn cool to see your book up front in hot new releases above trade published ones -Even if someone has to click on KindleEbooks-Teens&YoungAdult-Literature&Fiction-Social&FamilyIssues-Death.. in order for it to be first lol.
-Kindle Unlimited data is pretty cool because it shows how many pages were read, and it looks like somebody out there read A Portrait for Shy cover to cover (53k words) in one sitting?, because it went from two weeks of 0 KENP pages read to 259 overnight.
-ARC reviews are important
-Don't get carried away with do-nothing ads
-It's not about the nyt bestsellers list, it's about telling your story

I'll post updates on how this blitz plays out when more time passes. I wish you all luck in your self- publishing journeys!

Thank you for the support everyone! I went into this after not pursuing my original plan of filming a little book trailer - too much work, not enough motivation. And I cut my original planned budget down from 2k because I started to see that there's only so much that money can actually do unless you're paying for sponsored reviews. I find myself a little surprised that people have actually purchased it because it hasn't been reviewed by anyone anywhere, at least not that I know of.

I set the price to $9.99 during the giveaway because it didn't matter anyway, and then left it at $3.99 for awhile before changing it to $4.99. All the sales so far have been at that price but I'm not sure if it's too high or low or just right. I heard someone around here say that increasing the price above the typical .99 or 2.99 may actually increase sales because of the perceived value in that price range. A lot of the other new kindle books are $9.99 but that just seems too high.

My book had dropped much lower on the HNR but then a sale brought it back to the top 3. I suspect just a few sales are the difference. - I could be wrong, but I think if someone were to somehow have a few thousand free downloads during a kindle free promotion thing after release day, that book would shoot to the top of the HNR main categories for the whole kindle store, regardless of $ purchases or reviews.

I don't have any expectations as far as being 'successful' -but I'm anxious, and somewhat terrified, to see if any genuine reviews come in. I hope nobody feels ripped off if they didn't like it- I see those reviews sometimes on other books and they just cut deep. It's not about the money anyway; I don't think sales measure the impact a story has on a person.

You guys have really nice book covers btw!
I'll post again soon about the happenings.

I agree popmuze, I think my surprise was because I assumed that a high HNR rank required some combination of pre-orders, paid downloads, reviews, etc., but then I saw how it changes through all categories by merely free downloads. It's not an accomplishment, but it's interesting and could help with the planning of a release strategy.

I should say as well that I was in fact greatly disappointed with having only 70 downloads after I discontinued the facebook portion of my ads where I spent most of that money. I will definitely look for better promotion options in the future like the ones you have mentioned. -I did do some mild research, mostly of the qualitative kind, and determined that with only 5 days to offer the book for free (kindle select), I needed facebook's vastness to reach as many target readers as possible in a short time. Facebook is nice for being able to narrow the audience from nearly every human on earth to just about the exact person(s) I would want reading my book- the ones most likely to enjoy/share/finish/5star it, or so I imagine. The parameter options are beyond fascinating. But for how much I spent I was really hoping for a thousand downloads.

I'm still seeing sale(s) each day at the 4.99 price and a lot of pages being read through kindle unlimited, so hopefully after a few months I can reduce the dent in my wallet.

Thank you again everyone for joining the thread : )

Just a wrap up and a few insights since my release on October 10.

70 Free downloads through KDP Select promotion
15 Paid kindle downloads at $4.99
1200 ish Kenp pages read.

I suspect most or all of the paid downloads came via my sponsored product ads on Amazon which thus far have given only around 50% return on investment, but through this time I have experimented with vastly different blurbs. Some of them seemed more successful, but my most recent one I am very happy with and I hope will bring higher sales in the future. I agree that the blurb/product description is truly the difference between a sale or not, perhaps more so than the sample chapters or cover.

My overall self publishing thoughts - I was not impressed concerning how few people downloaded the book for free, but the paid sales far exceeded my expectations; I'm ecstatic that anyone at all has actually paid money for my work, let alone 4.99. I would like to discontinue the ads and reach out to reviewers to keep my book in front of people, it's just a lot of work I haven't taken time for.

Thank you for the comments! I sent an email to the address you listed.

Checking in with some insights here. This is an update with all the data from my self published novel A Portrait for Shy which was released October 10 (we're at two months today).

I'd like to say first that the units sold mentioned below are heavily assisted by ads, and have not given a full return on investment, but they've been inching very close to it. (The sales have surpassed the amount spent on ads, but the royalties have not, I think they're around 60%.

Oct. 10 - Dec 10 (2 months data)

70 Free Kindle downloads
28 Kindle copies sold @ $4.99
18 Paperback copies sold @ 12.99 via createspace
2200 ish KENP pages read.

My Goodreads giveaway for 10 paperback copies ran from Oct. 14 to Dec. 1st, and had 790 people requesting (assisted by ads on goodreads and facebook), most of which occurred in the final day before closing. Not coincidentally, quite a few of my sales came in on that day and the day after, I suspect from people still wanting a copy after realizing they were not chosen. From that as well, a few hundred people (340) added the book to "to read" lists, and various other lists. My guess is that only a small fraction of that will end up reading/purchasing it, but that's good enough for me and my self-published debut.

One thing that really seemed to turn the tide from a dry spell was when I simplified my blurb on Amazon, literally cutting out every unnecessary word and plot point I thought I needed, and instead I just made sure it was cute and concise/interesting. I also added this line, which I crafted, in bold at the top> "Fans of ______ will devour this psychological supernova." Fill in the blank. And I think slogans like that really stand out. (I didn't pick up on it until I researched dozens of other books and saw how they do this well. I like the one for Girl on the Train.)

My primary ad on Amazon (amazon spnsored products) reads as follows: "A debut contemporary that will leave you clutching your whiskered loved ones." That's all, and it has a picture of my book. I listed virtually every author and book that relate to mine as a keyword, and I noticed that those keywords bring more sales than generic words like "love, romance, etc."

The data for my most recent campaign (started Nov. 1) are as follows:

2,382,000 impressions
1,870 clicks
$0.14 average cost per click (this varies widely by genre/audience)
$253 spent
$264 sales (not royalties)

I ran some similar ones prior to this with similar/slightly worse data.

I've noticed that the rate that sales are coming in has slightly increased over the two months, but I don't really know if it's a trend or just holiday shopping or what. Although, I'd like to believe people are talking about my book.

Overall, I'm a bit surprised that ads alone have resulted in enough sales to almost cover the cost, having virtually no reviews. It goes to show that the blurb, cover, and sample chapters alone can sell books even without a dozen reviews, but I would love to see more reviews come in, even a 1 or 2 star. I'm also surprised how many sales there were for the paperback edition considering everyone says that e-book sales are the bread and butter for self published. I think simply having a physical copy available influences sales in either form.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to the next few months, and I'll see if the sales come in stronger now that a lot of people are delving in. Hopefully I can break even someday, haha. Good luck all my self published peeps!

chracatoa said:

Justin, one unrelated question: how does it work for printed books? Is it printed on demand?

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If you use createspace (amazon company), yes. It can be linked to show both your kindle and paperback on the same product page. They do not print in advance. The only headache is formatting a createspce paperback, but there's lots of help and how-to's for that.

CathleenT said:

Interesting stuff on the keywords--I'd never thought of listing other authors and books. Thanks.

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You're welcome, give it a shot.

Daffyjkl said:

I read, somewhere, that the best time for ebook sales is between Christmas and February as people are trying out their new Kindles and tablets that they received as presents.

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E-sales today were up. I hope the trend continues!