I have been self-publishing my work for a little over a year. In the beginning it was a VERY slow process. The first distribution outlet I uploaded my book - A Chance for Charity (The Immortal Ones) - to was Amazon.
You see I had written a book. It had been sitting on my computer for months... finished... and I hadn't done anything with it. In March of last year my Hubby decided to buy himself a Kindle (his dad had bought the first Kindle model as soon as it was released and told everybody he knew about it). When I saw my Hubby with that second edition Kindle, it just struck me... this eReader thing is simply going to explode. I was poking around the Amazon site in April and saw a note about self-publishing and by May I had made the decision to upload to Kindle. I played with the book file and got it ready... then in the first week of June 2010... I hit the publish button!
June - 7 copies
July - 14 copies
August - 11 copies
Sept - 28 copies
As you can see I was going nowhere... fast! I had published, but how could I get the word out? I had dumped a few hundred dollars into Google Ads, Yahoo Ads, and building my website... and that had done very little. Blogs, Facebook, Message Boards, Twitter, finding a great group of Author & Reader Friends (Al's Place)... that is what helped me. That and more places to upload. When B&N announced their PubIt platform (for self-publishers to upload for Nook), I uploaded there. Soon my books were selling over 100 copies a month. Then I uploaded to Smashwords.
I released the sequel - My Link in Time (The Immortal Ones - Book Two) - at the end of March 2011. During March, April, & May of this year I was selling well over 1000 copies a month. Then at the very end of June... My books were placed into the Smashwords Premium Distribution catalog, which added Kobo, Sony, & iTunes (I sold a few extra copies in June even though it was almost the end of the month when my books showed up those websites - I'm still waiting on July numbers)... also Diesel and Scrollmotion.
While summer months and Amazon's BIG SALES on Traditionally Published Kindle books have slowed my Kindle sales numbers... my Nook sales numbers are on the rise... and I have high hopes for the Smashwords Premium catalog. So I continue to play the game.
I keep trying to get the name S.L. Baum out there... to make The Immortal Ones a recognized series... and to produce more work. There is a novella coming out soon, that will be an addition to The Immortal Ones series... Of Fire and Brimstone (The Immortal Ones - Novella). Look for it near the end of this month.
And wish me luck... because as we all know the distribution and sales game requires so much luck!!
