Dialing Back the Shameless Self Promotion

Possibly because I haven't released any new books for a year, my sales have fallen into a deep abyss and are circling the drain.

I've been published by small presses since 2005 and have been an Indie publisher since last year. I still have one title with Eternal Press, Thousand Dollar Pharaoh. It's sales are worst of all.

I'm not even selling an average of one book per week now, out of 13 available to chose from. My sales at iBooks, All Romance eBooks and Kobo fizzled last autumn. I've sold one paperback in the last nine months, and that was to a Twitter pal in the UK. I've never sold any directly at Smashwords. Kindle and Nook sales are my only outlets now.

I've experimented with prices. I've determined the price readers will readily pay for my books is zero. I've given thousands away. And in return for free literature, those people have given me horrible, gut ripping reviews for books they wouldn't buy and probably didn't read. My few good reviews were from readers who were interested in my genres and story lines and actually paid to read them. Go figure.

I've spent more hours of my life online promoting my books than I care to admit. I have paid for an app to automatically send tweets and it also automatically retweets other authors. It wasn't much, but since it's prepaid for a year, I'll probably keep it active on a low key par. No longer sending a tweet every five minutes. Not retweeting up to 30 others per hour.

Oh, have I mentioned I'm scared of Facebook and don't understand Pintrest? All of my promo is on Twitter. I have 24,000 followers now. Hundreds of daily click-throughs to my blog and Amazon. And yep, I still sell less than one book per week. And if that book retails for 99 cents, my gross royalty is 35 cents before taxes and expenses.

Anyhow, I do enjoy Twitter. I like bantering about mundane life: dogs, kids, laundry, food, Disney, General Hospital, running and yoga. And I help newbie authors. So you'll see more of me tweeting live and less automatic buy my book tweets. You're welcome.

 I have written two first drafts of novels which I won't polish and publish. No point in putting out more books that will just be rejected. Honestly, I don't enjoy writing anymore. I'm done, and climbing out out the fire and into the fresh air. Hello Spring!