Thank You, Mr. Vampire
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Holy dynamite, Deborah! I finally figured out how to increase my book sales! Okay, okay, I didn’t actually “figure it out.” Though, I am seeing a very nice trend and I wanted to share it with my fellow authors and readers. In the spirit of full transparency, I don’t know what I’m doing majority of the time … with book marketing, parenting, cooking, you get the general idea. I’m more of a screw-it-let’s-see-what-happens sort of gal. After 2 years of self-publishing, I’m seeing some nice happenings.
Let’s rewind a bit. Up until September of 2018, everything I’ve written has been under my pen name, Cass Alexander. Those books are all humor-based romance (and a few erotic romances, as well). I released my first novel in the fall of 2016. No social media presence. No announcement of the release. I simply had it proof-read by a colleague and threw it out on Amazon. With the second and third books, I did make some effort to have Twitter going, Facebook, etc. Admittedly, I did very little to promote these aside from asking bloggers for reviews, posting on social media, and starting a blog.
It was very time-consuming (and frustrating) to get those books out there and in front of readers’ eyeballs. Eventually, I made Working On It, that first novel, permafree. Since then, it’s had steady downloads (thousands of them in two years) and often trends in Amazon’s Top 100 for General Humor. NOT in romance. Which, by the way, I find freaking hilarious.
In 2017, I started reading some amazing fantasy and paranormal romance. I wanted to try it. So I did. An author friend advised I not release under Cass’s moniker because the series I was writing was full-blown fantasy/paranormal and it lacked the level of inappropriate humor in my other novels. With much encouragement from friends, I put on my big girl panties and released The Wolf King’s Bride under my real name. I did pay someone to do a blog tour this time around ($50ish).
The result? I had more preorders for this book than any other I’ve had. Don’t get too excited. I had 20 preorders. It was a start. I think having a gorgeous book cover helped tremendously. After its release, I had steady sales, more than all my other books combined. Again, calm yourself. We’re talking an average of 10 or less a day. Nevertheless, I was very excited because I’d never consistently been able to sell books every day of the month.
In October, I set Book 2 for preorder (could have been September?). I had an explosion of preorders–over 100! I had a sale price of $0.99 and kept it until December 3rd (reg. $2.99). In November, I released The Vampire King’s Mate, and I saw a quick uptick in sales. For both books! If you look at the chart, the change is pretty dramatic. I’m averaging over 50 a day now. Trust me, no one’s more surprised than I am. I did pay $90 for a book tour site to announce my new release on 70+ blogs, as well as a $25 giveaway. This, I’m sure, contributed to the increase.
I’m working on Book 3 at the moment. Trying to write without the crazy humor isn’t easy. The first novel in the series, which sets the stage for everything, has gotten majority of positive reviews. Some have been pretty awful and I made a mistake by reading them. After reflecting, I did see how I did too much explaining and expository writing. I think I overcame this in the second book (which is my favorite one, btw). Despite a handful of low ratings, the book continues to sell. I think the biggest hurdle was just getting in in front of readers. I’ve made my money back tenfold, so I can only conclude paying for the blog tours was worth it.
I won’t discount, however, that readers might just love vampires and the sexy King of Prajna is the force behind this trend. I’m okay with that.
Links to the Fate of Imperium Series can be found here.
