My novel, ‘In A Right State‘, was launched in June 2014, about 18 months ago. The sales stats are pretty shocking. Sold about 30. So, what now?
I could keep the status quo and also hold fast to the principle that art costs money but, in reality, where is that going to get me? A few months ago I did a BookBub promotion giving away the ebook for free on iBooks and got a few thousand downloads. It also resulted in a few extra reviews on iBooks…literally, about 5.
Giving away my novel for free is a bit of a shitter but the main crux I have to resorting to this measure is that the USP of this book is the price; the ‘freeness‘ of it. Not the story, the writing, the plotting, the characters, the marketing, nor even the cover which I didn’t do myself, but the price. The most successful act of my writing career so far is giving something away for free.
But fuck it. It’s also a career move. I’m currently submitting ‘Blindsided‘ to agents with just the mention I’ve previously self-published a novel. But if I can successfully give away this first novel to a bunch of people, garnering more positive reviews and also drumming up some new Twitter followers then submitting to more agents with some positive numbers might help swing their opinion my way. Publishing is a business. Katie Price’s ghost written opus’s are published because they’re a guaranteed seller, not because they’re going to threaten the Man Booker shortlist.
So, my debut, self-published novel, professionally edited and designed, costing a pretty penny to launch is now a mere marketing vehicle. I had such elevated dreams for this young fellow, now it’s been relegated to walking the streets with a sandwich board over it’s shoulders.
First, I’ll list the ebook as free on iBooks, Kobo, etc and then hope that Amazon picks up that it’s free elsewhere and change their own listing to free (see – Amazon, Let Me Give My eBook Away!). Once it’s listed as free everywhere then I’ll try and do one more BookBub promotion. Hopefully that’ll really ramp the numbers up and see where that takes me.
Not to the bank, obviously 🙂