Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Number 19 -- Something to Brag About?

One of my new obsessions is checking my sales numbers on Amazon.
Since my book The Summer of France was published last fall, the numbers haven't been amazing, but they've been climbing slowly. After the initial purchases by people I know, the numbers fell off. In February, I decided to get serious about marketing. I started advertising on Goodreads. (Friend me if you want. I'd love to read your reviews.)
I've sent some press releases to the local newspapers and I'm preparing for a tour on Francebooktours.com, which is, of course, about books set in France.
So in February I set a goal to sell at least one book per day and I surpassed that goal. In March, I was shooting for two books per day and surpassed that.
For April, my goal has been four books per day. I'm a little behind that goal, but I've sold more than three books per day, so maybe I'll get an upsurge at the end of the month to meet my goal. (I feel like public radio.)
My ritual for checking my sales numbers is to first look at the Amazon.com numbers to see where I rank. Next, I look at Amazon.co.uk numbers to see where I rank there. My numbers are almost always better in the UK than in the US. It might be my British sense of humor! I've risen to as high as #8 in Kindle books under France.
Today, I hit a low number for the U.S., coming in at #19 for books on France in the Kindle paid category. Top 20. If my book were a song, Ryan Seacrest would be announcing me on the Sunday morning radio. (That's today's Casey Kasem for those of us who are older; and today's Dick Clark for those who are even older.)
So, I'll keep plodding along, hoping that each book I sell will lead to another one, or another two.
After all, it took 18 months for Eat, Pray, Love to hit the bestseller list. (I read that somewhere and I haven't verified it because it gave me hope and I don't want to lose hope.)
Thanks for all your support as I continue to muddle through this writing/publishing thing.

7 comments:

Linda said...

That's really great! The hard part of being an author is promotion. Have you read the Bedlam Farms blog? He's an author and is finding new ways to promote his book.

Paulita said...

Thanks for the tip, Linda

Just Me said...

That is so funny and wonderful - just like your book.

aguja said...

I did not realise that you have a book out. I will look for it and add a little to your sales!
Your sales are way above my 'Violet Jelly Trilogy' sales - fantastic; I am impressed!
My best wishes for your future writings.

Anonymous said...

Great steady growth. And hopefully http://francebooktours.com will be of help

Bonnie said...

Good luck with the book sales and blog tour! What a great idea to have a tour for books on France. I have a kindle copy of your book and look forward to reading it!

Ali said...

This is great progress! Good for you!

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