Wow. It’s all I can say about what happened this past month with my novel JIMMY which I began offering for sale as an e-book download for the Amazon Kindle at the end of July. For two months the novel was doing okay, its sales usually falling somewhere between two and five a day, which often kept its sales ranking between twenty and forty thousand. Every now and then it would do better then this and maybe sell between five and ten copies a day, at which point the sales ranking would drop below twenty thousand, but, sadly, never stay there for long. In addition to this the reviews and customer comments that were coming in were almost always positive. Readers were enjoying the novel and often commented to me through Facebook on how odd it was to grow so attached to a character like Jimmy given the awful things he was doing to the two girls he had strung up in an old abandoned fallout shelter. Hearing this always put a smile on my face. It also allowed me to be content with how the book was being received by those who were reading it, though at the same time I was wondering if it would ever get beyond this level of sales and enjoyment. Would the novel ever take off? Would the e-book sales reach a point where I could take the novel to a print publisher and see if they wanted to finally issue a paperback copy? This was, after all, one of the reasons why I finally decided to release JIMMY as an e-book. I wanted to prove to those publishers I had been in talks with after I took the novel from Dorchester in late 2010 that there was a market for it.
Given how the novel did this past month I think that goal is drawing near. It started with the first weekend of October. I was at a reenactment during the first and second, so I didn’t get to check the novel stats until Sunday evening when I went to my parent’s house for dinner (the reenactment was in their hometown). Now, in all the weeks previously checking my novel states on a Sunday afternoon or Monday morning could probably be classified as a masochistic act because the sales usually dropped to only one or two on that final day of the week -- I have no idea why. This time around, however, the book had sold over fifteen copies during the weekend. Needless to say I was both surprised and pleased, but also knew it could have been a fluke and therefore didn’t hold out any hopes that it meant anything. A week later after the book had already passed up its September sales, I started to think differently, and then the following week was even better than the first week had been. Even better the sales ranking was suddenly staying below twenty thousand, and every now and then would get close to the ten thousand mark, which was one I desperately wanted to break. The following week this happened. I was at the library getting ready to do an hour or two of work online when I decided to check the JIMMY Amazon page and saw that the sales ranking was near eight thousand. I checked again the next day and it was still there below the ten thousand mark, the sales having been steady during that twenty four hour period. A week later the book was near the five thousand sales ranking. I was at my parents house using their Internet when I saw this and quickly wrote a blog post talking about how close JIMMY was to breaking the five thousand mark: (JIMMY Sales Rank Almost Breaks 5,000). Once the short piece was posted I went to dinner with my family and when I came home the book had broken the five thousand sales ranking mark. It didn’t stay there, but did hover near the five thousand ranking for the rest of the month, its ranking dipping into the four thousand ranking every couple of days when the novel did really well -- about twenty to twenty five sales a day -- and then, during Halloween, it nearly broke the four thousand ranking.
October did have one downside; that being my failure to release the novel TEXT MESSAGE which I had promised would be out the week before Halloween. The reason for this failure was because the book cover I commissioned and was told would be ready by the final week of October never showed up, thus I couldn’t put the book up for sale. Hopefully the delay won’t last much longer. Many of the readers who liked JIMMY have been asking me over and over again when another novel would be release and I really don’t want to keep them waiting. I also really want to see what people think about the events that unfold in the novel TEXT MESSAGE, especially those who claimed I was too frightened to push the envelope with the novel JIMMY. Personally, I felt the things Jimmy did in the novel JIMMY were pretty horrific, but now, having re-read the novel TEXT MESSAGE several times, realize they were pretty tame when compared to my Mr. Campbell character. Now I just hope I didn’t go too far with it. The lady who edited this one thinks I may have, but we shall see. Only time will tell.
2 comments:
Yay for the sale and the hopes for hard cover. I can't wait to review the next one and as far as going to far, no such thing, it's all in the taste of the reader, some will like and some will be amazed, it's all a personal reality when it comes to reading, I for one have read many books that steps over the bounds and because of that, they won, because they did not censor what wanted to be said.
As you know I as a fan wish you all the luck.
I'm glad you are looking forward to the next one and will be sure to send you a copy as soon as it is finally uploaded -- hopefully not much longer. I have to agree with you on the 'going to far' possibility. It all depends on the reader. I'm also the type that lets the story guide what happens and never throw anything in for shock value, so hopefully readers will understand that with the next book. What really surprises me is that some thought JIMMY was too soft. Some went so far as to say they were upset that I noted the girls in the story were over 18, almost as if I was afraid to put a minor into such a setting. I'm not afraid, I just remember most senior girls in high school being over 18.
Post a Comment