Chris Seabranch's Blog
July 19, 2016
Book 5 is off to the editor
So, I have finished writing book 5 in the Chronicles of the Twenty-One Butterflies series and it turned out to be a long one. 97.500 words in total, making it my longest book so far. However, I also think it is an mazing one, and I hope that you will think the same. While you wait for the book, here is the illustration that Jessica Börner made for me for the cover. Spectacular:-)
Chris
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June 30, 2016
Time is up. Here are the results
January 1. I started an ambitious project to write and publish six full-length novels in six months. Today is the last day of my project and therefore it is time for me to look back and see what I had achieved.
Did I manage to write and publish six books in six months? No, I did not. I wrote five, but I cannot say that I am disappointed anyway. Here is why:
My first book Butterfly Islands is as of today downloaded 16.201 from Amazon, IBooks, B&N, and Kobo. Furthermore, it became featured on Wattpad with more than 40.000 chapters read so far. If you had thrown these figures at me six months ago I would have told you that you were nuts. Not in my wildest dream had I dared to hope for so much success. Just knowing that thousands of people from all over the world have read my first book makes me proud of what I have achieved. However, there is more…
Butterfly Islands have 44 reviews on Amazon with an average rating of 4.7 out of 5. On Goodreads the rating is 4.68. On Wattpad it has been received with even more praise. Hundreds of people have commented on the story, telling me that they liked it a lot and eagerly waited for the following books in the series. I could not be happier about the result of my first attempt at writing a novel. I wrote it, people read it, and readers like it.
However, the title of the project was six books in six months, and since I came up one book short, I have ‘only’ published three more novels with number five in the series currently with my editor. One thing is to give books away for free, it is an entirely different game to make people buy the books. To achieve that, I guess the readers must like what they initially read, meaning that they must have liked Butterfly Islands, to buy Maelstrom, Wailers, and ascension part 1.
Butterfly Islands became free on Amazon 65 days ago. During that time it has been downloaded on average 234 times a day. Maelstrom became available on Amazon the same day and has sold 274 copies, averaging 4.2 a day. Wailers has been available for only 54 day with a total sales count of 155 books averaging 3 sales per day. Ascension part 1 has only been available for 25 days, but still 70 copies have been sold averaging 2.8 copies a day. In total I have sold 499 books so far, which in my humble opinion is damn good, considering that I have been writing books, not promoting them for the past six months. I will say that my lovely wife has helped me a lot with the promotional side of publishing the books, and I am looking forward to see how far we can take it in the future. 500 books is only the beginning. Furthermore, I do not expect people to download one of my books and read it right away, so I hope for more downloads and sales in the future.
On a personal note. Writing five books in six months have been excruciatingly hard. I have punched out 400.000 words… Read it again… 400.000 words!!! It is more than five times the length of the first Harry Potter book (77.500 words). I am not writing short stories or novellas here. These are proper novels, and I have spent a lot of time in my basement, creating them. But it has been worth it. I have absolutely loved to immerse myself in my own pirate world and go on adventures with the Twenty-One Butterflies. I hope that you have too.
So, what does the future hold? Well, first of all I will publish the fifth book in the series and the write the sixth. I will need to earn some real money soon so number 6 might take a little longer than one month for me to write. After that, I will continue to write books until I sell enough of them to be able to dedicate myself full time to being an author. My 10 sold books a day does not cut it. I need to bring that number to about 50, but I will get there at one point. Next project up will be a science fiction trilogy. I already have the stories planned out. I just need to say properly goodbye to Buckeye, Dawn, Wall Brown, LeFevre, Peacock, Dusky-Wing and all the other characters that I have come to know and love for the past six months. Thanks you all. It has been a hell of a ride.
Chris
The post Time is up. Here are the results appeared first on Chronicles of the 21 Butterflies.
June 7, 2016
Book 4 is out
Hi there
Another glorious day. Today, I have published the fourth book in the Chronicles of the Twenty-One Butterflies fantasy series. It is a long one, coming in at 85.000 words, which is almost 50% longer than my initial goal that each book should be (60.000 words). I just could not tell the story that I wanted to tell in less:-) It is the first part in a part 1 & 2 mini series within the series, and I am working hard on getting the second part ready ASAP. A little behind on my writing, but I am overly proud of what I have achieved so far, and I feel comfortable that you will like what I have created for you this time.
Follow Buckeye and her fellow female pirates on yet another great adventure. Get the 4th book in the epic pirate fantasy series on amazon by following this link: Ascension – Part 1
Have an amazing day
Chris
The post Book 4 is out appeared first on Chronicles of the 21 Butterflies.
May 15, 2016
The making of Wall Brown
Here is another great creation by Jessica Börner. A timelaps of how she made Wall Brown.
I hope you will enjoy it.
Chris
The post The making of Wall Brown appeared first on Chronicles of the 21 Butterflies.
May 9, 2016
Book 3 (Wailers) is out
Woohoo. Finally my third book is on Amazon. You can find it HERE.
It is another fast-paced adventure with a lot of suspense and romance. I truly hope that you will enjoy it. The first readers of it have turned two thumbs up:-) I guess that is a good sign.
Book number 4 is well under way as well. I expect it to be on Amazon in three weeks from now.
Have an amazing day
Chris
The post Book 3 (Wailers) is out appeared first on Chronicles of the 21 Butterflies.
May 3, 2016
Update: Success!!
Hi all you lovely people
I just wanted to write a short post to keep you updated on my progress.
Here are the facts:
Books 1 & 2 are available on Amazon. The third (Wailers) is with the editor and will be available on Amazon as well within a week. I am three chapters short of finishing the fourth. A little behind schedule, but it is okay. I am writing as fast as I can, but promotion, editing, proofreading, blogging, tweeting, and so on is taking more time than expected.
Concerning the content, I am really pleased with how the story is developing. It seems that others are as well because I am getting a lot of positive feedback, but more on that later in this post. For now, I just want to tell you that I have written some great fantasy stories, which was exactly what I set out to do. Success!
Amazon: Butterfly Islands is free on Amazon and has been so for seven days. It has resulted in 1.500 downloads and a top 200 placement among the free books. Butterfly Islands has also been rated at the best ‘selling’ book in the categories ‘historical fiction romance’, ‘historical fiction fantasy’, and ‘action and adventure fantasy’. I do not know how difficult that is, but I just take it as a good sign. Overall, it has been a great success and I hope it will continue like that going forward. If not, I will figure out what to do next.
Wattpad: Wattpad is a site with 40 million users can read books free. It is not the easiest site to get discovered at since there are 100 million books for the readers to choose from. However, Butterfly Islands became featured there and since then, it has had 20.000 chapters read and a ton of positive feedback. Some of what people write makes me blush with pride and the readers are asking me for the second book already.
So to sum up. I made a checklist when I set out on the crazy adventure and I had a few partial goals that I wanted to meet. Here, at the beginning of the fifth moth of my project, my list looks like this:
Can I write in English? Check
Can I write a book a month? Check
Can I write something that people like to read? Check
Can I get people to read it? Check
Can I earn some money, writing books? Time will tell
Will I enjoy the process? Double check
That was all from me for now. If you have not yet read Butterfly Islands or Maelstrom, be sure to do so. They are amazing books and the story just gets better and better.
Have an interesting day
Chris
The post Update: Success!! appeared first on Chronicles of the 21 Butterflies.
April 21, 2016
The making of Captain Blue
Here is an amazing timelaps of how Jessica Börner from Kim-Design made the illustration of Captain Blue for Chronicles of the Twenty-One Butterflies.
I hope you will enjoyt it.
Chris
The post The making of Captain Blue appeared first on Chronicles of the 21 Butterflies.
April 15, 2016
Featured on Wattpad
Hi all
Yesterday Butterfly Islands became featured on Wattpad. If you dont know what Wattpad it, it is a website where you can upload and read books for free. Around 30 millioner users, 20 years of age in average. Since Butterfly Islands is already free and I am only looking for readers I thought that Wattpad would be a good platform to try out. Initially, I uploaded Butterfly Islands on Wattpad and applied for it to become featured. Guess what… Now it is.
My hopes are that in time it will lead to more readers, hopefully someone will want to read the following books in the series, but I also hope that people will want to visit my website to see the artwork and maybe give my books a review on Amazon. That is at least, what I hope for. We will se how it goes. At the moment of writing, 45 people have put Butterfly Islands on the to-read-list. I really hope they will enjoy it.
You can find Butterfly Islands on Wattpad here: https://www.wattpad.com/216725630-butterfly-islands-chapter-1
Have an amazing day
Chris
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