Jim Chaseley's Blog: Jim's Place - Posts Tagged "amazon"
Starting Out
Well, today has been a very exciting one.
I published my first book, "Z14", on Amazon, for Kindle. And then I spent the rest of the day realising I had no clue what I was doing, and getting the book "out there" at all had been a heck of an achievement for me.
So, although I was at work, I spent most of the rest of the day clicking "refresh" on my Amazon sales report page.
Slow progress. Five sales (thanks friends and family!). And yet, five sales is enough to get you to number #83 in Amazon.co.uk's Fiction > Humour category.
That's either bizarre or encouraging - I'm not sure which, yet.
Maybe tomorrow I can get over the shock of beating my mental inertia and actually getting my book released, and focus on marketing the hell out of the thing.
Hey, buy my book, it's fun! (Hah, I know, I know, I've got to try harder than that!)
I published my first book, "Z14", on Amazon, for Kindle. And then I spent the rest of the day realising I had no clue what I was doing, and getting the book "out there" at all had been a heck of an achievement for me.
So, although I was at work, I spent most of the rest of the day clicking "refresh" on my Amazon sales report page.
Slow progress. Five sales (thanks friends and family!). And yet, five sales is enough to get you to number #83 in Amazon.co.uk's Fiction > Humour category.
That's either bizarre or encouraging - I'm not sure which, yet.
Maybe tomorrow I can get over the shock of beating my mental inertia and actually getting my book released, and focus on marketing the hell out of the thing.
Hey, buy my book, it's fun! (Hah, I know, I know, I've got to try harder than that!)
A Blur
The past week has been a blur. Not a blur of activity, nor from a week-long drunken binge, but a blur of sustained excitement, anxiety and also self-inflicted boredom.
The bordeom comes from a needy compulsion to repeatedly refresh certain webpages, looking for feedback. Biting my nails. Hoping that "they" liked it.
So far, "they" have, and "they" have been lovely. I've had encouraging feedback, and have seen people I don't know, who have paid for my work go out and recommend it to others (and only with the slightest of begging from me for them to do so! Hah!). It's a bit surreal, really.
Also, blogging isn't for me. I'm having to talk about myself a lot to sell my book, but I don't want to (talk, that is, not *not* sell my book. Eeek!). I'm boring, but I've written a funny story. Read that, not me! :-P
But what next? Some more Twitter followers would be nice. But that's a chicken and egg thing...I'm not tweeting due to lack of followers, and maybe they're not following due to a lack of tweets. Feels stupid to tweet to an empty room, but I guess I'll have to do so. I think the Twitter account will work better if there end up being a pile of people out there waiting for a second novel. Another surreal thought.
Time to investigate other outlets besides Amazon, I think. And to walk the edge of the blade that is forum self-promotion. People trying to sell you things. Yep, it makes my top ten pet hates, so Im sorry, but, would you buy my book? ;)
The bordeom comes from a needy compulsion to repeatedly refresh certain webpages, looking for feedback. Biting my nails. Hoping that "they" liked it.
So far, "they" have, and "they" have been lovely. I've had encouraging feedback, and have seen people I don't know, who have paid for my work go out and recommend it to others (and only with the slightest of begging from me for them to do so! Hah!). It's a bit surreal, really.
Also, blogging isn't for me. I'm having to talk about myself a lot to sell my book, but I don't want to (talk, that is, not *not* sell my book. Eeek!). I'm boring, but I've written a funny story. Read that, not me! :-P
But what next? Some more Twitter followers would be nice. But that's a chicken and egg thing...I'm not tweeting due to lack of followers, and maybe they're not following due to a lack of tweets. Feels stupid to tweet to an empty room, but I guess I'll have to do so. I think the Twitter account will work better if there end up being a pile of people out there waiting for a second novel. Another surreal thought.
Time to investigate other outlets besides Amazon, I think. And to walk the edge of the blade that is forum self-promotion. People trying to sell you things. Yep, it makes my top ten pet hates, so Im sorry, but, would you buy my book? ;)
Jim's Place
Just the odd thought or two that springs from my mind about my writing, my reads, and my experiences with self publishing.
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