A Self-publishing Journey - Part 3

A whole week has gone by since my last post. It has, as I anticipated, been long. The flurry of activity that sent Remission briefly back into ‘Hot and Trending’ petered out along with my list of as yet untapped contacts. I’m done – I have contacted everyone I can think of.

Not wishing to become a total bore, I decided to leave a gentle reminder until the 10 day mark, though judging by the stats, by day 7 everyone I know must have had a look. How often can I ask people to share the link?

As my novel crashed into 0 hours in hot and trending for two consecutive days, another offer of marketing arrived. The cynical side of me perceives a direct link here. When I look at what’s hot and trending, a book launched the same day as mine has been there 100% of the time since the beginning. It is sitting right alongside mine with its little orange ‘Hot’ tag mocking me from the screen. How is the author doing it? Did they pay for coverage?

I had a look at the excerpt. It is better written than some of the offerings, but this is of course a very subjective opinion. The cover is good and the author already published. This begs the question: why resort to a Kindle Scout campaign? It was certainly not my first option.

Then the earworm of self-doubt started up. Have I made a fundamental error in choosing not to buy marketing? I went as far as investigating options, looking at all the places the advertiser said he would place my work, but in the end I find that it is not for me. It may be misplaced pride, but if I can’t get there because the novel can stand on its own feet and people would actually like to read it, so be it.

This decision was reinforced when I read an article by an author who, despite having garnered 2500 page views, did not get a publishing deal. Of course I haven’t read their book, but 2500 page views is significant. If it is purely a numbers game, I don’t stand a chance. I have to hope that at some point a real person becomes involved and the quality of the prose and marketability are considered.

I have included here what the author sees daily. At about 5:15pm the previous 24 hours of activity are uploaded and you can see how you are doing . You can also see how many page views per day and where the traffic is mainly coming from, for example Facebook. I have become inured to the disappointment of seeing my stats flat-lining. Maybe today will be better.

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Penny’s book, Remission, is currently being considered for publication through Kindle Scout. You can read an excerpt of the book here and if you like it, you can nominate it to be published. If it gets enough nominations, it will be available for sale in the Kindle Store and you’ll receive a free copy of the book.

You can also check out more of Penny’s work at her website, www.penelopewalkerwriter.com.