Sales have Doubled

It's been a few weeks and the sales numbers have doubled!  That's right, I've sold TWO books.  My friend, Chris, bought a copy with a promise to write a review.  Now I'm really hoping he likes it.

All kidding aside, now is the time to focus on two things: 1 - Marketing and 2 - writing the next book.  Part two is both fun and easy.  After all, I've done it before.  However, the first thing is not particularly fun and it's not something I know how to do.  Yet, it's something I must learn.  I've been reading articles and anything else I can get my hands on in an effort to become educated.  The problem is that there are as many ideas as there are authors.  And the ideas that work for a cookbook may not apply to a fantasy adventure for young readers.  What I'm looking for is basic principles that apply across the board.  It's taking time to glean them, but they're there.

Then comes the hard part.  Doing it.

And so it begins...

Stumblingstone has been finished for a while and I made the decision to go ahead and self-publish on Amazon.  The one thing that I didn't like about the process is the cover options.  My daughter is an artist so I asked her to read the book and create a cover.  She came up with a concept that matched exactly what I had in mind, with one exception: she thought the portal would look better orange-red rather than the original blue-purple.  Her thought was that it would look better on the cover.  And she was absolutely correct.  The cover pops!  I love the way it turned out.

It took a few days to get it all set up.  Finally, yesterday, I got the book with the awesome cover uploaded.  The site said that it would take a bit of time for it to appear on Amazon.  This evening the sales report shows that not only is it available for sale, I sold one!  I can't believe it!  Somebody has purchased and will read my book!  It probably helps that it's only $0.99.  Either way, I'm thrilled.  The book is out there and someone found it.  This makes me feel like a real author.  Now I need to get the second one done and out there.