Happy 1st Anniversary

A year ago today I hit the publish button and sat back waiting with bated breath. Oh don’t get me wrong I didn’t expect the world and his sister to rush out and buy it, but I did know that I was putting myself our there. Opening myself up to criticism, allowing anyone to put their opinions of my work on the net.

It has been an interesting year, a learning curve that opened my slightly innocent eyes.

I started with a cover that I made myself using a photograph taken from my sister-in-law (with her permission of course). I have to admit I was pleased as punch with it at first. The picture is lovely but as a cover put together by me didn’t work. It said nothing about the book and what you can expect when you open the cover. Eventually, I asked for advice from fellow authors on good cover designers who were reasonably priced. I was introduced to J.C Clarke from The Graphics Shed, who designed a beautiful cover and extras.

In that year, I have made some amazing friendships with other authors and also discovered their incredible stories. Amazon would have it that it is biased because I have spoken to them on social media but any reviews I put online are honest. If I didn’t enjoy reading them, I wouldn’t leave a review it’s as simple as that.

In one year I have sold 70 copies of this book for cold hard cash, one person has picked it up and read it through Kindle Unlimited which equates to cold hard cash, and I have given away about 60 copies for free. So there are about 130 copies floating around the world from England to America, South Africa, Canada and Australia, and those are the ones I know about. So I haven’t taken the world by storm, I haven’t even given it a tiny tremble, but there are people out there who are enjoying my work. (Maybe not enjoying too but I won’t focus on them haha)

Getting people who tell you that they have enjoyed your book to take a few minutes out of their hectic schedules to leave a review is the bane of an authors’ life. Reviews generate more sales or so they say. There is a magic figure; the actual amount seems to be in doubt, that activates the Amazon algorithms which in turn makes your book a product that they will market. Some say that 50 is the magic number. What makes it harder is that each Amazon is a different marketplace, so my reviews on Amazon.co.uk and those on Amazon.com and anywhere else don’t link up. When I leave a review for a fellow author I post it in .co.uk, .com and .ca the three biggest marketplaces, I also post it in Goodreads, write a post on my website and share in on Twitter and Facebook. It makes me incredibly happy when I see a direct link between a book review I have left and a sale for that author. At the moment I get emails from Amazon recommending my books to me, I can only hope these emails go to other people too. The more review I can get the more promotion, this will generate.
So onto my reviews, some of these are duplicated by authors who do the same as I do, but most are unique reviews.

The first one is from Amazon.co.uk, the one with the picture below is from Goodreads, the third is from Amazon.com, and the final one is from Amazon.ca

I am inordinately pleased with these. Writing can be a lonely business but seeing the pleasure that people get from my writing gives me the strength to carry on when I feel that there isn’t a point to slogging my guts for so little return.