Welp, my novel has officially been published. I must say, a full day after publication, I feel…

Relieved.

The preparation and waiting for publication were a bit stressful, but all the other parts were fun.

Pre-Order Madness

My pre-order period for Kindle began June 19 and ended July 17.  30 days is definitely too long for a pre-order period, but I’ll talk about that more another time.

During that time, I posted to my book to my personal Facebook, ordered print copies from CreateSpace, began a PPC campaign through Taboola, sent a press release, and tried to make progress on my next book — oh and, you know, tried to sell books.

So, here’s a rundown of how that all went.

Facebook

My two Facebook posts — one a week into the pre-order and one after publication — were surprisingly successful. And no, I don’t mean the RSPC Facebook page, which is basically worthless to me now.

Between those two posts, I received 200+ Likes, a handful of Shares, and at least a dozen encouraging Comments. I’m pretty sure a few people also pre-ordered the Kindle version, but that’s solely correlation. Within a few days of my initial post, I had three pre-orders from Amazon-US.

It was also really encouraging to see people’s enthusiasm for my book.

Ordering Print Copies from CreateSpace

I don’t want to get into this now, but CreateSpace has a terrible UI. I basically didn’t know that my book was going to be “published” in late June until I hit the submit button.

Either way, I received my proof copy, ordered 15 others, and have now ordered an additional 20 because of how quickly I’ve run out of stock…!

Taboola PPC Campaigns

It inexplicably took 10 days for my campaigns to actually start generating clicks, but since July 11, I’ve had 400+ extra visitors to this site from Taboola. It’s unclear how many of those have become buyers, but I’m letting the campaigns run another week to see if anyone bites.

I’m preparing a couple of posts about this whole process.

Press Release

I just sent the press release on Wednesday on a bit of a whim, but it has already generated some interest in my book. However, I don’t want to speak to soon and spoil any surprises.

Actual Book Sales

Minus the seven print copies I’ve given away to my alpha readers, my editor, and my mom (and the copy I kept for myself), my sales have been solid.

Seven of my friends/relatives purchased copies from me directly, which was really amazing. I already talked briefly about my night in Baltimore hocking books to my friends. That was all them.

KDP’s reporting during the pre-order is a little weird, but I’m pretty sure I sold eight pre-order copies (at the discounted price) and one copy since publication.

One of my cousins also texted me this morning to tell me that he ordered the print version on Amazon, which is awesome.

So, not including the seven copies I gave away, I’ve sold 17!

I really tried to go into this whole process with 0 expectations, so that’s exciting. What will be really interesting, however, is to see how my sales do once the Honeymoon phase of New Publication has worn off.

I’m not sure when that will begin, but it will probably be a complete dead-zone of several weeks without a sniff of a sale. Maybe not, but I’m bracing for it.

My WIP

Holy crap, a lot has happened this week. I have really tried to put some time into The Warden of Everfeld: Legacy, but all of these other things have kept me occupied.

I’ve written 4,057 words for Camp NaNoWriMo, barely one-fifth of my 20,000-word goal. Last weekend, I promised myself to set aside time to write each day, with a daily goal of 715 words (which would get me to 20k in 28 days). But even that was difficult.

I’m really okay with it. I just want to get back into the routine. I’m hoping I can do so now that the publication binge is settling down.

Goals for 7/27:

1. Achieve 715 words written per day on my WIP
2. Prepare other posts and things for WoEM as planned
3. Get more sleep — stressing out about publishing is not conducive to sleeping well.

Steve D