Eight Days in, and I've Already Sold More Books This Month than in All of April.

...and that's without and KDP Select Promotions, or really...any promotion.

Maybe I just got lucky? Go figure.

So far, though, March is my best month, at twenty-two books sold.

And, if I remember correctly, I haven't sold a single copy of The Dowry since February. But, that's okay - nobody was supposed to buy that one anyways.

After a Particularly Rough Morning, This Made My Day.

February Sales Records

Obviously, February's Sales Records came out ten days ago, so I'm a bit slow on the uptake. But this is something I've been meaning to do, and may do every month. Why? Because I like sharing.

tl;dr - February was much slower than January, especially in the UK, probably because free promotions just aren't as effective as before.


Now, without further ado...

Amazon US Sales

• Family History: Part 1:  4 Units Sold at 70% Royalty: $8.16
• Family History: Part 2: 1 Unit Sold at 35% Royalty: $1.40
• The Dowry: 5 Units Sold at 70% Royalty: $10.25

Total Amazon US Sales: $19.81

Amazon UK Sales

• Family History: Part 1: 1 Unit sold at 70% Royalty:   £1.16 (~$1.84)

Total Amazon UK Sales: $1.84

The UK trend is troubling, because I haven't had a single sale in the UK since the week of February 11th, and even when I offered my entire library (minus The Night Life: Chapter 1) for free, each book only got twenty-something downloads. In January though, I did relatively well in the UK. So, what's going on? (Because I honestly have no idea).

Without giving away too much, things are better this month (though not substantially). A freak KDP Select Promotion Bug actually worked in my favor, so I'm doing about as well as I did in January. Other than that, though, there's not much else to report. So, I hope y'all enjoy, and I'll probably doing this again in a few weeks come March. Have a lovely Sunday.

My Personal KDP Select Experiment, Part 2

First off, to anybody paying attention, I'm sorry I haven't posted anything since March 4th. All things considered, it's been something of a hectic week, and I just haven't made time for other things. For those interested, tl;dr: Applying for badass smart-person job in research for the summer, application requires a lot of work, oh, and I got a new iPod. (Not that the latter has anything to do with anything.) Don't worry - I've made hardly any time for Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, and even The Night Life.

Anyways, on Sunday, I made a post about how I put everything (excluding Chapter 1 of The Night Life)up for free just to see what happened. I managed to post some preliminary free download numbers, but, because of a glitch in the system, they weren't the final numbers.

If I remember correctly, the glitch was fixed at about 5:00 MST.

Anyways, numbers:

US Downloads

• Family History Part 1: 425
• Family History Part 2: 361
• The Dowry: 95

UK Downloads

• Family History Part 1: 26
• Family History Part 2: 28
• The Dowry: 23

Germany Downloads

• Family History Part 1: 4
• Family History Part 2: 5
• The Dowry: 1

If I recall, Family History Part 1 made it into about ~#33 in Contemporary Romance, while Part 2 was ranked at about ~50-60 in the same category.

If you read Sunday's post, you'll notice that nothing changed dramatically from expected. However, the part that was unexpected were the sales that followed.

You see, I'd gotten so used to nothing in a day, that what happened immediately after the free downloads stopped was somewhat shocking.

12 people bought Family History Part 1 and Part 2 on Sunday.

Squeee.

I thought that the downloads would continue, but alas, that wasn't meant to be.

On Monday, one copy of Family Hisotry Part 1 and Part 2 was sold.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, one copy of Part 1 each day.

And now? Nothing.

So it goes.

My Personal KDP Select Promotion Experiment.

First off, I would like to thank everybody who commented/gave me feedback on the KDP Select Promotion Survey results. The post caught fire, and even after it left the front pages of Reddit and Kindle Boards, it still continues to get views pretty frequently, which is amazing.

Also, considering it was so popular, I'll probably look into doing another poll sometime later this month. Obviously, people enjoy numbers and pretty graphs.

Just to get an idea: this weekend, I got three new followers on my blog, 3 comments on the blog (very rare for me), a few more on Reddit and Kindleboards, and ~500 views on the survey post on Friday (and many more yesterday). Also, the link was retweeted about four or five times on Twitter (also rare for me), and I received another like or two on Facebook.

Again, I can't thank everybody enough, especially those who spread the link around.

Anyways, yesterday, I did my own personal KDP Select Experiment, one that probably won't interest everybody as much, but is nevertheless interesting (at least to me). I put everything - meaning The Dowry, Family History Part 1 and Family History Part 2 up for free. Of course, there were some qualifications, to make sure that one didn't get more exposure than the other.

• I told nobody - this was completely unadvertised.
• All books were free on March 3rd, 2012.

Also, here's what I expected to happen.

• The Dowry, of course, would kill in the free downloads (just like in the past).
• Family History: Part 1 would get about a third of the downloads of The Dowry.
• Family History: Part 2 would get hardly any downloads.

The results were not what I expected. Not at all.

The reason I assumed that The Dowry would do so well is because it's always done the best during free promotions. Of course, maybe I just happened to put it up during all the right time frames; however, you can't argue with facts. The first free promotion I ever did, I did with The Dowry, and it got over 800 downloads between the US, UK, Germany, and France. The very next day, I put Family History: Part 1 up for free, and it received a measly ~250 downloads. When I put Family History: Part 2 up for free a few weeks later, it received even fewer downloads.

(An aside: if I learned anything from my KDP Select poll, it's that I suck at giving away books, at least compared to others.)

What actually happened (and note, apparently, Amazon is a little slow on the uptake today, so I'm actually STILL having people download things for free! Tsk tsk, Amazon!)

In the US:

• Family History: Part 1: 332 Downloads (as of 10:55 am MST)
• Family History: Part 2: 287 Downloads (as of 10:55 am MST)
• The Dowry: 85 Downloads (as of 10:55 am MST)

In the UK:

• Family History: Part 1: 25 Downloads (as of 10:58 am MST)
• Family History: Part 2: 27 Downloads (as of 10:58 am MST)
• The Dowry: 19 Downloads (as of 10:58 am MST)

Germany:

• Family History: Part 1: 4 Downloads (as of 11:00 am MST)
• Family History: Part 2: 5 Downloads (as of 11:00 am MST)
• The Dowry: 1 Download (as of 11:00 am MST)

Those results are very different from what I expected. My only real hypothesis for why this might have happened this way is because people were excited to see they could get an entire series free, and not just one or the other. Plus, I actually only just put The Dowry up for free last Saturday (in the US, it received about 219 downloads), and maybe most people who were going to get it had downloaded it already. It's tough to say.

Either way, I'm pretty happy with the results. I'm even okay with the fact that people are still downloading the stories for free (but seriously, tsk tsk, Amazon). More exposure for me!

KDP Select Promotion Poll - RESULTS!

If you've been keeping up with good ol' Predicted Hindsight, you may have noticed that I announced a poll on KDP Select Promotions. The point was for as many authors, ones who have done KDP Select Promotions ("free days") to participate in the poll and report their results/opinions. One week later, let's take a look at the results.

First off, not as many authors participated as I was hoping. I was hoping for a larger sample size, at least one-hundred authors. I got about 40. It's okay, but it's not great. Oh well. Perhaps if I were somebody like Konrath, I might have actually gotten a larger sample.

So, if you're not satisfied the results, and you didn't take the poll, then you have nobody to blame but yourself. :)

With such a small sample size, I feel the need to add some qualifiers before displaying all the colorful graphs. First off, links to the poll were posted in Reddit (r/writing, r/write, and r/selfpublish), Kindle Boards, and my personal Twitter and Facebook accounts. 

Second, you'll notice that many of the people reported doing their free promotions Between December 16th - 31st, and February 1st - 15th. Considering the poll was made last Friday, February 24th, I suspect that many people who responded to the poll are either very experienced with Self Publishing and crawl these places for various information, or are newly self published and are crawling these places for information, and may not be as likely to return as time passes.

Third, I received a few comments that I should have added an "unsure" option to the yes/no questions, so some of the answers to the yes/no questions may be slightly inaccurate.

Fourth, I use Microsoft Excel only on occasion, so I know some of my graphs (particularly the scatter plots) are kind of funky. I apologize for this.

Now, let's move on to the meat of the poll: the results.

Once again, forty people responded to the poll. Between the forty respondents, there were 299,852 total free downloads reported, with an average of 7,496 downloads per person. 

Let's take a look at the first question: "What was the start date of your earliest free promotion?"

The above data is pretty self-explanatory. As you can see, the more reported dates are the second half of December and first half of February. Obviously, due to the small sample size, the difference isn't really that significant, but it's definitely worth noting.

Now, let's touch briefly on the second question: "How many days did your free promotion last?" Spoiler alert: nobody does four-day promotions.

Again, the above data is pretty much self-explanatory: people love two day promotions, and four day promotions are pretty rare.

Now, for the real data, the whole reason I did this poll: "How many downloads did you receive on the first day?"

The reason I'm showing graphs for the number of downloads for the first day only is because, as shown above, everybody organizes their free promotions differently. Some people use one day at a time (like myself), while others use their five days all at once. It doesn't seem right to throw all that data into a single graph, especially when you think of cases where maybe one person got 700 downloads during a single-day promotion, while another got 1000 downloads over a five-day span. Logic dictates that the former author was more successful in their promotion, though the data would show the second person as being more successful.

Obviously too, you have strange outliers - like that person who had their book downloaded 21319 times on Day 1 (and 52438 times all together throughout a 3 Day Promotion). So, I redid this graph, but took out the four people who had 10,000+ downloads on their first day.

I have no idea if those "trend lines" actually tell us anything. I was hoping it would maybe show data for average number of downloads vs. time (and I was expecting this average to decrease with time, mostly due to the number of free books out there nowadays), but really, I think there's just too small of a sample size to begin hypothesizing such theories. 

Also, these were the graphs I could not make to save my life, so I'll help you out: the data points appear in vertical columns, because I never asked people for exact promotion dates: merely ranges. The first vertical column is for people who did their promotions during the first half of December, the second for people in the second half of December, the third column for people who's promotions took place in the first half of January, etc.

Now, let's move on to the final three yes/no questions. I'll post all three at once, then discuss them at the end.

Agh, sorry that this last one appears larger than the others. Gross.

Personally, I actually found these yes/no questions to be the most interesting part of the entire poll. Why? Take a look: all three of these questions were answered with 80% Yes/20% No. 82% of people reported seeing a noticeable change in sales (we'll assume a positive change, since I saw no indication in the comments section that mentioned otherwise), 80% considered their promotions to be successful, and 80% plan to remain enrolled in KDP Select (of course, note that some people were unhappy with the lack of an "unsure" option, so it's difficult to say how these answers would differ had I had the foresight to put in that answer). 

Quickly, I will note that CORRELATION DOES NOT EQUAL CAUSATION. Did you notice the scary bolded, italicized, and underlined text up above? In case you did not, let me say it again, though this time, in Large Rainbow Colors:

 CORRELATION DOES NOT EQUAL CAUSATION.

In other words, we can't automatically assume that everybody who saw a change in sales saw their promotion as successful, and everybody who saw their promotion as a successful plans to enroll in KDP Select. One person may have seen the promotion as successful even with few sales, because he's just happy that people have access to his work. Another person may have seen their promotion as successful, but was only using KDP Select as a tool to get attention to their work immediately following release. Even though the end results all appear similar, we actually don't know whether that's just coincidental.

Also, allow me to pull a few responses from the "additional comments" section.

"I think the promotion was a success in that some sales came that may not have happened without it. But it was modest all the same. Regardless, I don't think it's a good idea to leave a book in KDP-S for more than one 90 day period. Using it for anything other than to launch a brand new book, before you place it on other channels, is just stupid, IMHO."

"It was interesting watching the numbers rise although mine never particularly took off on this first go at it. What was weird was that I had 6 sales 3 days after the promo but these came up as zero royalty so must have been late editions to the promo. I will remain in it and keep trying it as I have nothing to lose. I think the key is to get on something like Pixel of Ink."

"Better than I expected. Actually, fantastic."

"I like KDP select, but I've had enough requests from Nook readers to make me think it's a temporary thing for me."

"Very positive- I am enrolling all of my titles in KDP Select."

"January was a good month to go free, but... subsequent promotions have had dismal results with diminishing sales "after free" even though "freeloads" were fairly consistent (lower level than the first, but consistent)."

"All it did is get me one stars from people who complained about the theme of the book, which is stated quite well but since it was free they never bothered to check. Free does not work. Actually, it did do something. It made me raise my prices."

"Prior to Select, none of my books were selling well at all. I've now done this with four different titles with four different outcomes. The level of success varied wildly, but each time I was left better off than I was before."

"The problem with Select is that it follows the same model as regular book sales. Before, people were buying bestsellers. Now that they have Prime, they're borrowing bestsellers. Free promotions were more effective via Smashwords and Amazon's price-matching. I consider my experience with KDP Select a failure and I feel that an independent author needs books over many different distributors as opposed to one exclusive distributor that is offering no additional marketing or promotional value."

So, there you have it people. Mixed successes, wild variations in the number of downloads, etc. Feel free to add your own comments below, whether they're about your experience with KDP Select, your number of downloads, or your opinions on my sub-par polling skills. :)

I'm Doing a Poll on KDP Select, and Would Love For You to Participate

Obviously, if you've never participated in a KDP Select Promotion, this poll isn't exactly for you.

But, I'm very interested to see how people have done with different promotions, and whether they see them as a valuble resource.

Again, the link to the poll can be found here.

Now, allow me to post the directions I've posted everywhere else:

I'm mostly unfamiliar with SurveyMonkey, and even though I think I did everything right, I probably did something wrong. :/

Also, I'm sure somebody's going to get all uppity and pipe in to say, "Your survey is all wrong! You should have asked/done xyz." This is the internet, after all. But really, I don't want to hear that. That's why I added the text box at the end.

Again, though, if something is wrong with the questions themselves, like say, it won't let you enter a number in the number box or something weird, do let me know of that.

Anyways, hopefully you can do this survey multiple times. So yeah, go through it once and use data from one promotion for one book, and if it lets you do it again, then feel free to add information for your other books. Please, though, just use your earliest promotion for one book - do not include later promotions for the same book (like, if you did a 2-day promo in December, and another 2-day last week, do not use the 2-day from last week at all).

I hope I've clarified myself. When people have answered, I'll do graphs and stuff and post them.

Again, I'm very interested to see the responses, so please, take two minutes to participate!

January Sales Reports

Today is February 15th, which means that I was granted the privileged of seeing my first monthly sales report. Hooray! And...tl;dr: I'm not a millionaire. But that's okay, because Family History: Part 1 was only published on January 4th, 2012. It would actually be pretty silly to expect to make that much money off a single $2.99 title in less than a month.

Now, for some actual statistics...

Total Amount Earned in Amazon US: $29.30
Total Amount Earned in Amazon UK: £9.94 (~ $15.58)
Total Earned in January 2012: ~$44.88

Many of you are probably thinking, "That's not very much at all!" But again, keep in mind that these numbers represent totals from less than a month of publication. Additionally, it is worth noting that, at the moment, I am exclusively published on Amazon. I'm not planning on continuing this exclusivity deal, though that is another post for another time.

Now, allow me to do a quick-and-dirty breakdown by title.

Family History: Part 1; US

• 5 Units Sold at 70% Royalty: $13.00
• 1 Unit Borrowed: $1.60
• 331 Units Downloaded Free

Family History: Part 1; UK

• 4 Units Sold at 70% Royalty:  £7.04 (~$11.04)
• 88 Units Downloaded Free

The Dowry; US

• 11 Units Sold at 70% Royalty; 4 Units Returned: $14.35
• 867 Units Downloaded Free

The Dowry; UK

• 2 Units Sold at 70% Royalty:  £2.64 (~$4.14)
• 111 Units Downloaded Free

Family History: Part 2; US

• 188 Units Downloaded Free

Family History: Part 2; UK

• 47 Units Downloaded Free

The Night Life: Chapter 1; US

• 1 Unit Sold at 35% Royalty: $0.35
• 138 Units Downloaded Free

The Night Life: Chapter 1; UK

• 2 Units Sold at 35% Royalty; 1 Unit Returned:  £0.26 (~$0.40)
• 33 Units Downloaded Free

Granted, it must be noted that KDP sent out a mass email tonight about sales reports not all being correct. From what I understand, the amount of money I earned this month should be correct, though I do believe there might be a few free downloads missing. However, for those who are in the loop who are thinking, "So why is it that YOUR sales reports are correct?", I figured I might as well throw in this little addendum to calm your nerves.

What I'm Expecting

• I honestly think the fact that I got any sales at all this month was somewhat of a fluke. I'm not expecting these numbers again, at least not for awhile. 
• However, since I have recently received two reviews for Family History: Part 1, I am hoping that I somehow see a jump in sales because of this.
• In terms of sales, I'm expecting to maybe average around $20 total, between the US and UK, per month. Maybe. (Like I said, I strongly believe that this prior month was merely a fluke.)

What I'm Hoping For...

• Most Importantly: I'm hoping to have The Night Life up for sale sometime around August. 
• I would be tickled if it became my best-selling novel. Of all of them, I believe this one deserves it the most.
• Money-Wise: I want to earn enough money from my writing that I can order a load of $100 bills, just so that I can fill a large room with said money and throw money all over myself while screaming, "I'm rich! I'm riiiich!" Realistically of course, I don't ever see this happening. :)

I Just Got My First Review. Eeeek.

Okay, so it's a 3-star review.

Personally, I'm totally cool with that, though. Because to me, 3-star reviews still mean that they liked it, or at least they thought it was okay.

Considering I wrote Family History Part 1 and Part 2 two years ago, though, and had not really looked at them too much since, I'm good with that. I know that I've gotten better. I also know that not everybody is going to like my writing. In fact, I'm surprised anybody's liked it enough to buy it. Especially The Dowry. I'm dreading the day somebody finally decides to review that book...*shudder*.

But honestly, I would rather have a mix of good and bad reviews. There's this one guy on my twitter who is constantly boasting about how his book has something like 27 Five-Star reviews. I clicked the link to his book to see if it was true. It was, indeed true, but there was something else missing - other reviews. That's right, his 27 5-Star Reviews were his only reviews.

Honestly, that just makes me feel like he has a generous extended family or an extensive group of friends.

Anyways, here is the link to Family History: Part 1 with the review. I'll post the text below:

KT Hall's Family History Part 1 is a generational tale about Collie Barrett and her descendants and how they deal with an old family curse. The story begins with Collie and her brief but passionate sexual encounter with a stranger. She gets pregnant from this encounter with Marie. Marie grows up to become a beautiful albeit naïve girl who, like her mother before her, finds herself with child and an uncertain future. 

It's easy to mistake the novel, which is set in the backdrop of 19th century England, as a historical romance. It's not. Far from it. Even though the bulk of the book deals with romantic love, the characters are complex and do not adhere to any kind of stereotype that you might find in romance books. Collie for instance is a strong-willed woman who is quite intuitive about people. Yet, her daughter, Marie, is almost the opposite. It's revealed in the book that while she thought she was pregnant with her beau's child, it was in fact his cousin that she had unwittingly been sleeping with. 

The writing is focused and does not meander. You can tell that KT Hall is a precision writer who values control. In fact, it might be too controlled. The story is divided into different time periods that almost read like thinly connected vignettes. This is a good thing if you like reading snippets of what life is like in 19th century England. However, in this case, you won't know it without the chapter titles. The author does not take the time to world-build so you're left with little to discover about what life was like back then. The characters all talk like it's Midwest USA, 2012. Maybe that's a point, if not the point. Some readers will like it because it's postmodern. For me, at least, it's a distraction and therefore at times it pulls me from the story, particularly when a character refers to someone as a "guy". Would it have killed the author to at least use some English slang--not all the time but at least once or twice--to create verisimilitude?

As for the family curse: I don't think it's ever intended to be a mystery. In the first few pages, you'll find out what it is. And yet, the author never truly delves into it. Perhaps, again, it's because the story doesn't end with Part 1.
Still, despite these shortcomings, the book is an enticing read, one filled with intrigue. When you read this book keep in mind that it's the journey that matters not the destination. It is, after all, just the first part of an even bigger story. I can't wait to find out what happens next.

...my favorite part was "KT Hall is a precision writer who values control."


Yay for first reviews!

Family History: Part 1 is now $2.99 on Amazon.

At first, I thought that all of this fuss over pricing was a bit of rubbish. I've seen it all over the place - blog posts dedicated to authors musing over "raising prices". Forum posts with the theory behind the "99 cent" zone. Just the other day, I read about somebody who lowered their novel prices to $2.99 from about ~$6 per book, and found that risk paid off. when it came to sales.

Initially, I was planning on making both "Part 1" and "Part 2" at $2.99 each, just because. But, after some thought, it seemed better to try $3.99, just to see what happened. So far, not much has happened. So, I figured I would lower the price, just to see what happens. I'm not expecting much, but you know, it's an experiment.

Enjoy.

I Just Did My First Review. Was I Too Harsh?

The other day, I received a message on Reddit with an offer. The offer was simple: a review for a review. I read/review his, he reads/reviews mine.

I hope he comes through, by the way, because I can't help but wonder if he will.


Anyways, the book in entitled Agents of Light and Shade by S.L. Pineda, and follows the lives of come-and-gone super hero Captain Splendor and the recently released from prison Anton. It takes the traditional comic book-like Super Hero/Super Villain and gives them real, human qualities. The heroes, as it turns out, are flawed; while the villains are not just 100% pure evil people. 


My review from Amazon is below.


"Agents of Light and Shade" stars two meta-humans, Captain Splendor and Eclipser, in a low point in their lives.

The story starts out talking about how Anton, AKA the Eclipser, has just been released from prison after a fifteen year sentence. Meanwhile, Craig, AKA Captain Splendor, is shown to have a troubling gambling addiction and has turned to endorsements from pizza commercials to support himself.

Although it is noted the Captain Splendor is a "super hero" and the Eclipser a "former super villain," it is easy to believe the opposite in the beginning of the story. For most of the story, it is nearly impossible to see the "villain" in Anton/Eclipser, especially when he notes that he "plays by the rules" of Super Hero/Super Villain encounters. Meanwhile, Captain Splendor, a supposed super hero, is characterized as a being with many flaws. He is addicted to gambling (though we never see this first hand; we are only told this through the story of him attempting to repay his debts), he is messy, he mooches off his friends, and of course, we see how truly weak and moral-less he is as the story progresses (as in, unlike Anton, he doesn't follow the rules, and he even breaks out of his "Super Hero" role a few times throughout the story).

What I liked: "Agents of Light and Shade" tells the story of typical Television and Comic Book-like Heroes and Villains and humanizes them. Super Heroes are assigned flaws while Super Villains, as it turns out, are not all bad people. Heroes hold grudges, they gamble, and as it turns out, they're very flaky people. Villains, as we find out, stick together, work hard, and do what they can to support their families.

What I didn't like: The story is filled to the brim with cliches and unnecessary metaphors. Granted, in this novel, they are necessary to some extent, since the entire story is about traditional super heroes and villains. That said, they do not just appear in relation to the characters themselves; they also appear too often in the writing style. For example, there's a portion in the story where the author is characterizing Craig's mom. The author characterizes her with a paragraph talking about how "if you gathered all the bitchy women in the world and had them vote for their top ten favorite living bitches and then had those bitches vote for their favorite bitch, Matilda's name would not come up. She would lose to someone famous like, say, Imelda Marcos or Barbra Streisand. No one with a functioning brain would think of Craig's mother as their favorite anything." The author attempts to be humorous, though to me, the cliches and metaphors often come off as unnecessary.

Also, there are too many characters. Some of them are important, some not. There is a side story about Sara and a cook in her husband's restaurant, Matias. Sara is an ex-super villain and ex-man. In the main story, her only real purpose was to give Anton a job following his prison sentence, to show that "Villains stick together". While the back story is interesting, parts of it do not make sense (for example, I'm still not really clear on why she entered into a sexual relationship with Matias), it is not necessary to the main story, and it almost feels as if it were written in the story to shoehorn in a moral lesson on transsexuals.

Overall: This is an interesting story if the whole "Super Hero/Super Villain" culture appeals or interests you. It is a unique take on the traditional "Hero saves the day, Villain goes down" story that features both humans and villains.

Also: I don't know if this is appropriate here, but the description for the story is took clunky.

Bring it On: Why Isn't My Book Selling?

I suppose I'm in desperate need of some advertising.

That, or I just need a little more gumption. However, I am proud to announce that I did do a fair number of Organic Chemistry problems this afternoon. We're going over reactions of alkenes.

So, perhaps it's not gumption I'm lacking. After all, I did just agree to a trade: a review for a review. Also, I think I'll be nice and post that Redditor's book here. Not that it will benefit him any.

Speaking of which, would anybody be so kind of to review a book of mine?

I digress. Despite the start, this actually isn't a "I'm a new writer and I'm not a best seller!" rant. (However, how fantastic would it be to be a best seller two weeks in? I would be jumping for joy!). No. Actually, I'm writing this because I am confused. Why? First off, let me note: I haven't sold a book since Saturday, and Chapter 1 of The Night Life, though free, has had only about 120 downloads in 4 days in Amazon's US store. For comparison, The Dowry had about 750 downloads on the day I made it free.

If you're reading this, you're either thinking, "But KT, what's up? You've only been published for three weeks! Why so impatient?" or "Who are you? I just stumbled on this by Googling SOPA!" (Alas, that ship seems to have sailed with Blackout Day.)

Really, though, I'm confused because other people say it's good.

From Kindle Boards:

KT:
Your blurbs and samples are too good not to draw heat.
They are tight. They pop.
(Are you having us on?)
Give it another day or two.

Also:

I took a look over your books; they both appear to have great covers, and the sample chapters were well written and interesting. 

And from Reddit:

...this book looks interesting. I loved the sample. I think I'm going to buy it.

Okay, that all seems well and good, right? Sure, it's only three people (I actually had one or two more buried in Reddit comments), but still, if three people are personally messaging me to tell me that the book seems interesting and they loved the sample, what about the people who see it and say nothing about it?

Oh, look, a suggestion appears!

I did notice that you haven't got any reviews up however. I was selling one book week basically until I got three or four reviews up; you really want to reach that 'five' number. Ideally they should be four or five star reviews... and I honestly prefer a scattering of fours (which is all I've gotten), since I think that means they're being critical.

So, is that what it's going to take, eReaders? You want me to solicit people for reviews? Well, if that what it's going to take, then bring it on.

 

Facebook 'Like Button' Added.

You see it there, on the side?

Yeah, if you have Facebook, you really ought to click that little button?

Why? Well, because then, I won't have to spend money on advertising. Now that I have or will do that anyways.

Also, boyfriend really wants me to get a Twitter account as part of advertising. No offense to Twitter users, but I've been staunchly anti-Twitter since it became popular, so unless I start seeing a very large benefit of getting a twitter account anytime soon, there will be no updates from me on Twitter.

Also, don't forget to download a free copy of "The Night Life: Chapter 1" today...or Friday. Whenever, really.

The Night Life: Chapter One is for Sale up on Amazon. However...

So, I'm pretty much an ignorant Little Spoon.

*Cough* I mean, I'm a big spoon.

Anyways, I was hoping that I would be able to offer a free preview of Chapter One of The Night Life up on Amazon; however, it seems that unless I put it up on Smashwords, I won't be able to do that for a little while.

Well, I'll get around to doing that eventually.

That said, unless you really want to fund the "KT Hall Fund" (ha), then seriously, do not bother paying the 99 cents for the book. If you're really that interested, I'm more than happy to send you a PDF.

Also, that said, it will be free for the next five days, give or take (ahem, take) for the next five days. So, you can also get it there.

FYI, here is the link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B006XXOQX0

Like I said, though...don't buy it. Don't borrow it. Honestly, I'm probably going to remove it after a couple of "Free" days. This was done purely for advertising, and this is not something I want to sell. That feels dishonest at best.

Seriously, if you're reading this and are sincerely interested, just email me, comment here, or something.

$25.31

Hooray for success!

Since January 4th, 2012, I've made $25.31 off "The Dowry" and "Family History".

Come on, you know you're insanely jealous of my immediate success.

That's more than 10% of my rent for the month, after all.

Or, it could be a meal or two from a Chinese Takeout place for Boyfriend and I.

Or, it could almost pay the gas bill for last month.

Yeah, you know it. I'm a success.

I'm Still a Noob at "Working" Amazon; however, I'm Pretty Sure "The Dowry" Actually Sold copies.

That's right! Three people, technically four, actually bought "The Dowry". You crazy bastards, you realize I wrote that when I was fifteen, right?
To the fourth person who returned my book: You realize I wrote that when I was fifteen, right? You're a smart man.

That said, offering a free download of "The Dowry" was a relative success. So far, there have been a total of 744 copies sold and downloaded. When I checked this morning, the number was at 741. So, at least three people actually decided that, for whatever reason, the book was worth buying. Probably that kick ass cover I created in about half an hour (re: I need to develop my 1337 Photoshop skills). So, between selling at least three copies, and the awesome thing a professor of mine said to me today, it's been a pretty good day.

By the way, for the one person who might read this between now and 1 a.m. Mountain Standard Time, "Family History: Part 1" is still free until, well, 1 a.m. Mountain Standard Time. That's 12 a.m. Pacific Time, 2 a.m. Central Time, and 3 a.m. for you Easterners. (See side bar.)

Family History will be Free Tomorrow on Amazon.

Beginning at 1:00 am, Mountain Standard time on January 9th, 2012, Family History: Part 1 will be free on Amazon.

The Dowry: Free Download, 1/8/2012

The Dowry, by KT Hall

I was going to wait until 1 a.m., Mountain Standard Time, to make the official announce it and have it be true; however, I just got back from picking my roommate up from DIA (about a 2-2.5 hour drive from here), and even though all I did was sit in a car (okay, so really, I was just the GPS), I'm tired and do not want to wait another 40 minutes to "officially" announce it like I had planned.

That being said, I have had one or two well wishers, as well as one or two Redditors who have said, "Oh! Family History! That looks like an awesome book! I want!" - I have had no bites yet. That's right, donut holes.

So, I hope this works.

Hooray!

Seriously, though. This time zone thing is working against me right now, because even though it's already January 8th for me, it's not January 8th for those folks out in California.

However, if all goes as planned, California will be in the ocean soon anyways.

Speaking of which, this reminds me of this video, which I remember watching for the first time in something like 2003-2004:

Good night, everybody!

P.S. Google searches continue to yield increasing numbers of visitors searching for slutty outfits. The only appropriate response so far: LOL.

The Dowry: Now Available on Kindle (And Kindle Select!)

Click to Start Reading

Following the murder of Alexandre Thalo, the most powerful and prominent man in a small English village, Edward Thalo finds himself suddenly desperate to find himself a wife to produce heirs for his large family fortune. When a poor village farmer offers his pretty young daughter, Edward seizes the opportunity for marriage, fearing that he may otherwise leave the Thalo family fortune unclaimed.

Elizabeth Savage is reluctant to marry Edward Thalo, especially after she happens upon a gorgeous young servant by the name of Joel Barrett, who cannot resist the urge to court her, even after her marriage to Edward Thalo.

A romance filled with suspense, secrets, and treachery; The Dowry details the lives of Edward Thalo, Elizabeth Savage and her two sisters, and the servants of Edward Thalo, William and Joel. Each one of them holds a deep secret that threatens to destroy the lives of their makeshift family in a time where they are controlled by the mentally unstable, money hungry mongrel, Edward Thalo.

A lot of people seem to have luck with Kindle Select, so I have added The Dowry onto Amazon and am currently just hoping for the best. That's all I can do at this point, right? That is, that's all I can do when I'm still at the stage of getting excited by a few more page views. Just so you know, two people viewed this page last night.

How do I get an audience without much advertising? So far, all I've done is post links in forums and whatnot. They say blog tours help, but who in the world would "host" me? I'm an amateur, a kid, basically. I mean, I would let somebody guest post in a heartbeat, but that's just because I think that would definitely be pretty sweet. That, or maybe I'm just desperate.

Anyways, I hope you all find The Dowry an enjoyable read.

Family History: Part I is Now Available on Amazon!

Please, check it out, share with your friends: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B006T89E7W.

Seriously though, I'm proud of myself for doing this much. Part II will be up somewhat soon (hopefully), but it's hard to say when. Of course, I would love to sell at least one copy before putting the second book up there, which, honestly, who knows how long that could take? Honestly, it could take months, that's right, months, to even sell a single copy. In other words, I'm not exactly hopeful. I'll post to Reddit in a few days and see what happens there, etc. But, for now, it's just a game of waiting, watching, and plugging away.