Jumping into a very large pond (and trying not to drown).

rwm4768

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So I published The Gilded Empire last night.

So far, I have 1 sale, which makes me happy. Somebody liked the first two books enough to buy the third.
 

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Here's to many more sales, rwm. Many more.
 

rwm4768

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After a long stretch of no sales or page reads, I randomly made 5 sales yesterday. Even more exciting was the fact that 2 people apparently bought both books 2 and 3 of World in Chains.

That makes me happy because that means they liked the first book enough to buy the next two.

My overall reviews have been a mixed bag, but it warms your heart as an author when you know that even just a few people have really liked what you've written.
 

rwm4768

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May numbers!

Empire of Chains: 8 e-book sales, 3004 KENP read, 1 paperback sale

The Shadowed Land: 1 e-book sale, 684 KENP read

The Gilded Empire: 2 e-book sales

Sunweaver: nothing (ouch!)
 

rwm4768

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Just thought I'd pop in here with an update.

I have taken Empire of Chains out of Kindle Unlimited. The rest of my books will follow over the next month and a half. I'm not even leaving KU because of all the account threats and illegal page read stuff. I'm leaving because I've had a grand total of 23 pages read for June.

I have also gone permafree on Empire of Chains. It's free on all the other sites. Amazon has not yet matched the price. Here's the universal link: https://www.books2read.com/u/bzPgGq
 

Polenth

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Account threats? Would you mind to expound on that a bit?

Some authors hire people to borrow their books. This inflates their page reads with the borrowing system and earns them more money. Due to this, Amazon tracks readers with suspicious borrowing activity and bans authors who have a book borrowed by them. The problem being that it looks like these accounts also borrow other books (top theory is as an attempt to cover up what they're doing). Which means Amazon ends up banning a lot of people who had nothing to do with it, though there are often cycles of certain genres being targeted.

The only way to avoid this is to not be in KDP Select so that your book can't be borrowed. If you are in KDP Select, your account could be terminated at any time. You won't know it's happening until it does. Some authors have managed to get their accounts back. Some haven't.
 

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Some authors hire people to borrow their books. This inflates their page reads with the borrowing system and earns them more money. Due to this, Amazon tracks readers with suspicious borrowing activity and bans authors who have a book borrowed by them. The problem being that it looks like these accounts also borrow other books (top theory is as an attempt to cover up what they're doing). Which means Amazon ends up banning a lot of people who had nothing to do with it, though there are often cycles of certain genres being targeted.

The only way to avoid this is to not be in KDP Select so that your book can't be borrowed. If you are in KDP Select, your account could be terminated at any time. You won't know it's happening until it does. Some authors have managed to get their accounts back. Some haven't.

What a world we live in...
 

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rwm4768, I randomly check on your blog to see how you're doing every now and then (just like this thread) and saw your post about depression. Hope everything is going better now. It's easy to get caught up in worrying about sales and forget to have fun with the art. I hope you are in a better place now.
 

rwm4768

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rwm4768, I randomly check on your blog to see how you're doing every now and then (just like this thread) and saw your post about depression. Hope everything is going better now. It's easy to get caught up in worrying about sales and forget to have fun with the art. I hope you are in a better place now.

Thanks. It's been tough, and it always will be. That's why I'm working on putting less pressure on myself. It's what often happens when I make plans during the manic cycle. At that time, releasing a book every three months sounds easy.

Then depression hits, and I realize I need to alter my plans. Right now, I'm thinking the last book of World in Chains should be out around the end of the summer (beginning of September). But that depends on me editing it. Right now, I'm still on the second draft. It's slow going because I have to be really careful about internal consistency in this one.
 

rwm4768

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I just realized I never gave my June numbers update. I took Empire of Chains wide partway through the month. It is free wide, but still $0.99 on Amazon. I'd love it if some of you guys could report the lower price to make it free on Amazon. The Amazon link is in my signature. The link for the other stores is here:

https://www.books2read.com/u/bzPgGq

Empire of Chains: 3 sales, 23 KU pages read, 15 free downloads.

The Shadowed Land: 2 sales.

The Gilded Empire: 1 sale.

Sunweaver: 4 sales.

I think Sunweaver got a bit of a boost from being entered in the Self-Published Fantasy Blog Off. I also had a $0.99 promotion for all my books at one point during June.
 

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Hurray for continued sales! This finding an audience thing is sure slow, but you keep publishing, and that's supposed to be the best thing over time.
 

rwm4768

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I forgot to mention that Empire of Chains is now free on Amazon. I've had a decent number of downloads, and I'm hoping that those translate into sales for the rest of the series.

Which reminds me...I really need to get back to editing the final book.

And finishing the first draft of another trilogy.

But I'm finding both writing and editing a struggle at the moment. I go through periods like this. Not sure whether it's the bipolar or just the strangeness of being a writer. I have been on the depressed side lately, which has made writing feel like more of a chore.
 

rwm4768

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Empire of Chains has made it into the Top 100 Free in three categories, including epic fantasy and sword and sorcery. Not sure if that's really that good, but it should get me at least a little visibility (I hope).
 

rwm4768

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July numbers (long overdue):

Empire of Chains: 2 sales, 1 KU page read, 86 free downloads

The Shadowed Land: 1 sale

Sunweaver: 522 KU pages read
 

rwm4768

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August numbers:

Empire of Chains: 185 free downloads.

The Shadowed Land: 2 sales

The Gilded Empire: 2 sales

Sunweaver: nothing
 

rwm4768

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These September numbers are long overdue. Here we go.

Empire of Chains: 195 free downloads, 857 KU pages read

The Shadowed Land: 3 sales

The Gilded Empire: 1 sale

Sunweaver: 11 KU pages read
 

rwm4768

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October numbers turned out to be pretty good. My best month in a long time.

Empire of Chains: 6 sales, 29 free downloads, 2073 KU pages read

The Shadowed Land: 1 sale, 1397 KU pages read

The Gilded Empire: 2 sales

Sunweaver: 1 sale
 

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'Not huge' is all relative - if it's a good month for you then that is huge, and every single sale is someone interested enough to spend money/time on your work. I've got Empire of Chains downloaded and I'll give it a read as soon as I have the time. Your covers are absolutely gorgeous too, by the way.
 

rwm4768

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'Not huge' is all relative - if it's a good month for you then that is huge, and every single sale is someone interested enough to spend money/time on your work. I've got Empire of Chains downloaded and I'll give it a read as soon as I have the time. Your covers are absolutely gorgeous too, by the way.

Thanks. I hope you don't hate it.
 

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Pretty cool cover for Winds of Time (just checked your blog).
 

rwm4768

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It's a bit late, but let's get those November numbers.

Empire of Chains: 5 sales, 637 KENP read

The Shadowed Land: 1 sale, 1 KENP read (somebody probably looked at one page)

The Gilded Empire: 1 sale