The Demon’s in the Details
[image error]
Yesterday marked another Book Birthday for this girl when I released The Demon King’s Destiny. It gave a most-welcome bump in my download numbers and I’d like to take a second to give a huge thank you to all the readers who have given this book and this series a chance. This has been one amazing ride.
As an author who was used to making $20 bucks a month or so on her RomComs and erotic romance (under another pen name), no one was more surprised than me by the steady increase in sales for my fantasy/paranormal series released under C.A. Worley. December and January were the best months evah! (For me, obviously). No, I’m not raking in five figures a month, but breaking the four-figure mark was an amazing feeling.
Sales declined a bit in February, as I expected them to when the first two books started to lose their new-book-shine. But then I noticed my preorders for Book 3 had increased by lots. Check it out:
[image error]
I know it’s not record-breaking or best-selling-list worthy, but this was a huge deal for me as an indie author. I increased preorders five-fold each time. How did I do that? Not sure what exactly put me over, but I’d like to share some steps I took to help myself out.
I went wide with distribution: Amazon and Smashwords (which gets my books to places like Apple, B&N, etc.).
I made the books available for preorder over a month in advance (I’ve read mixed philosophies on this).
I gave away 700+ copies of Book 1 via Prolific Works and joined two giveways on the site.
I made Book 1 99 cents.
I made Book 2 and Book 3 99 cents during preorder and for a week after release.
I posted ARCs on BookSprout (you get 20 free ARC reviews via their network of readers–reviews are not guaranteed, but most of the readers posted for me).
I emailed ARCs to 25 readers who signed up via a Google Form I put on my social media.
I found an amazing cover artist on Fiverr.
I posted on my social media consistently and in several Facebook groups I joined (I try not to get spammy).
I joined an author group that does giveaways periodically and it increased my followers (especially on BookBub).
I linked my books on BookBub and an alert went out the day Book 3 was released to my 250+ BookBub followers (free of charge).
I used AskDavid.com to get tweets out to their followers (free and paid options–I usually use the free option, but joined for 1 year…$10 maybe?”
I hired Xpresso Book Tours to do a Book Blitz for Books 2 and 3. It got me onto 70+ blogs. Each time, I did a $25 Amazon Gift Card Giveaway.
I posted on sites that allow you to promo for free (not guaranteed they will accept your book): AwesomeGang.com, Pretty-Hot.com, etc. A list of them is here. Some of them are paid sites, but many don’t charge.
That’s it in a nutshell. A 14-step nutshell. Again, I’m not sure what the “magic formula” was. Probably the mix of everything. If I had to pick what was most important, I would have to say the genre I wrote might have a huge part in it. After that, the book covers and the Book Blitzes. Again, I don’t really know. So for each release after this, I’ll probably stick with what I’ve been doing.
If you’re an author, I’d love to know what’s worked for you. Happy reading and writing, y’all!
