How long to getting consistent strong sales?

[John]

Happy August All!

What's everyone's experience with building their sales? How long did it take you to figure out how to use the various kinds of promotions? What did you find the most helpful in promoting your career? How many of you are actually making a living off your sales?

What do you feel has slowed you down the most? The least?

If you had it to do all over again, what would you do differently? What would you avoid like poison and go after like a bee for honey?

Thanks.

John

[Brock]

I started with pretty consistent and strong sales following the release of each installment of my Sorcerer's path series. It was after that series ended that I have fallen kind of flat. I have just released my 15th fantasy novel and still sell anywhere between 0 (very rare but it happens) to between 10-20 books a day. Not real consistent or strong (compared to previous years) but it keeps the bills paid if just barely.

I think what has slowed me (and other authors) down the most is the inundation of indie authors. When I started writing and uploading to Amazon in 2010, the ebook craze was still in its infancy, or at least toddler phase. Since then, it seems like everyone with a computer MS Word is cranking out a book or short story, offering them for free, and saturating the market. Not only has it made it very hard to get noticed, but the amount of just plain bad writing out there has really made it hard for new writers to be given a chance.

My two greatest regrets was trying to create my own covers and not paying for a proper proof reader/editor. I hurt myself for my first couple of years by not investing in my own work even after I saw that I had some popularity and could recover the cost. There are also changes I would have made to my Sorcerer's Path series regarding plot and characters. When I first started writing it, I wrote simply for the sake of writing with no real goal. After I saw that I could make a profession out of it, I was too attached to the story to put so much on the cutting room floor.