AgathaChristieFan's self-publishing journey

Thanks Sandree. It’s definitely been a long road, but when I first started out in 2013, I had realistic expectations. I didn’t even think I could sell 50 books. Soon, I’ll be posting how I thought Fussy Librarian, Robin Reads, and Bargain Booksy went.

Right now, I did a 20 book giveaway of Plenty of Fish on Amazon. I did the first come, first serve option with people having to follow me on Amazon. All prizes were claimed. Before that, I had put 5 books of Perfect Little Murder as a giveaway. They have to follow me on Amazon, but I chose winner as random draw. I instantly regretted it after the first day. The lowest option was every 100th person a winner with Amazon saying they’d help promote. I only have 2 days left and so far 76 have been entrants. I doubt I’ll get 100 people. So, my next try will be all 5 prizes switched to first come, first serve basis. The only plus I can see is getting more followers on Amazon unless they quickly unfollowed me after not winning lol.

Perfect Little Murder wasn’t accepted for a new release mention on Bookbub, so I’ll play around on Book Brush to create an ad and start a BookBub ad. Something cheap to start out with. I have a feeling if I can get eyes on my books from BookBub then things may start looking up.

Sandree, good luck with your kindle countdown

For April, I forgot to mention on Prolific Works, Twisted Obsession had 20 free claims. I had joined the website on April 26th.

For May, I think those mysterious 39 Amazon sales came from Fussy Librarian because on the day it was supposed to be featured, One By One wasn’t in the newsletter or on the website. That would make sense if my book was featured on this earlier date. I’ll never try Robin Reads again, only getting 5 Amazon sales from that. Bargain Booksy gave me 18 Amazon sales. Then, I had 6 D2D sales from those promotions.

At the end of May, I kept One By One at .99 cents, and also lowered to my new release, Perfect Little Murder, to that price. I sent my subscribers a newsletter. At that time, I had 52. Now, my newsletter has gained 328 subscribers thank to Prolific Works. In May, with these new readers, 8 people took a chance on me. I got 2 sales on D2D and 6 sales from Amazon.

MAY SALES:
AMAZON
One By One 73
Plenty of Fish 22 (20 of those was Amazon’sgiveaway)
Twisted Obsession 1
Perfect Little Murder 19 (5 of those was Amazon’s giveaway)

ACX
No sales

D2D
One By One 9
Perfect Little Murder 1

By Hand
No sales

PROLIFIC WORKS
One By One 150 free
Something’s Amiss 98 free
Twisted Obsession 108 free
Six Plus One 181 free

For June, I didn’t promote any books.

JUNE SALES:
AMAZON
One By One 2
Perfect Little Murder 1

ACX
No sales

D2D
Six Plus One 1
Perfect Little Murder 1

BY HAND
No sales

PROLIFIC WORKS
One By One 306 free
Something’s Amiss 172 free
Twisted Obsession 191 free
Six Plus One 219 free

Thanks, Norman

For July and August, I didn't promote any books.

JULY SALES

AMAZON
One By One 1

ACX-no sales

D2D-no sales

BY HAND
Something's Amiss 1 (My coworker bought this book after hearing I had one book that wasn't scary or dark lol)

PROLIFIC WORKS
One By One 5 free
Something's Amiss 77 free
Twisted Obsession 110 free
Six Plus One 4 free

AUGUST SALES

AMAZON
Perfect Little Murder 1

ACX-no sales

D2D-no sales

BY HAND-no sales

PROLIFIC WORKS
One By One 201 free
Something's Amiss 118 free
Twisted Obsession 25 free
Six Plus One 0 free

For September, I got an email from Bargain Booksy asking if I wanted to resubmit One By One for a promo, so I said sure. With this promo, I also sent out a newsletter to my subscribers. Close to 500 now. I keep updating my list by archiving people who never open my emails. I don't want to have to pay for 2,000 subscribers on MailChimp, if these readers aren't interactive. So far, I've only had to delete about 30 people, which isn't that bad, considering I get a bunch of new subscribers every week.

Bargain Booksy gave me 4 sales from D2D and 9 sales from Amazon. My newsletter gave me 5 sales. However, some of these could have been the outcome of potential readers picking up my business card at my book signing. I need to learn how to space these things out, so I can better determine results lol.

SEPTEMBER SALES

AMAZON
One By One 17
Plenty of Fish 6 KENP read
Six Plus One 1

ACX-no sales

D2D
One By One 4

BY HAND
One By One 1
Something's Amiss 2
Perfect Little Murder 10

PROLIFIC WORKS
One By One 5 free
Something's Amiss 2 free
Twisted Obsession 56 free
Six Plus One 354 free
Perfect Little Murder 11 free

In September, I participated in Craft Train 2 in Martinsburg with other local authors. The city officials were there to make sure we had our business registrations at our tables and made sure we charged 7% sales tax. I was worried that the extra percent for taxes would make people not want to buy, but I was pleasantly surprised. No one complained. My mom and her ex stopped by. Two of my writing buddies, a coworker, and one old high school buddy came too. I was shocked that I could sell to strangers lol.