[robin_hart]

So what's weird for a first week or ten days?  I know romance is a bit of a different genre, but how much is an anomaly for an unknown debut indie author with no social media presence and no freebies or ads?  One of the books is 99 cents.  So what would be weird? 10? 100? 500? 1000?  Anyone know?

 

[robin_hart]

Assuming KB is a typical model of the indie publishing world, a debut week for a romance author should look something like this:

Publish.
Make some sales.
Experience ecstasy.
Have a return.
Experience a moment of crippling self-doubt.
Get pirated.
Hate all of humanity with a burning misanthropic rage.
Sell more books.
Get a good review.
Forgive humanity.
Get a bad review on Goodreads.
Heavy drinking.
Late-night angst online.
Self-medication with chocolate and/or bacon and/or ice cream.
Commiseration with others who've been there, done that.
Get more good reviews.
Sell more books.
Experience yet another bout of crippling self-doubt, hurriedly revise your blurb, your cover, and possibly even the title of your book.
Consult the Internet for advice, be told to suck it up and write another book.
Self-medicate some more with chocolate and/or bacon and/or ice cream.
Start writing the next book...

Bwa ha ha ha ha ha George. My husband laughed for minutes at this post.

 

[robin_hart]

Yes to everything George said.

I released something under a "virgin" pen name, a 99cent short romance, and was getting 5 sales a day initially. (I fluked out with keywords and title.)

That's one of these, daily people:

Ain't nuthin' wrong with that!

Ooh la la....

 

[robin_hart]

Nice. But how many romance writers will get the reference?

(No offense to you gross genre folks.)

Anomalies? Aberrations?

I've seen things you wouldn't believe. Fan fiction erotica on fire off the shoulder of Walmart's shelves. I watched vampires glitter in the dark near the Publisher's gate. All so many moments...

See? I didn't get it. Enlightenment plz.

On fire? Were they really on fire?

 

[robin_hart]

Congrats on your book doing so well...I admit I have it on my kindle and it is spicy!

 

[robin_hart]

It's a little known fact, but most romance authors can't even read.

True story.

Get ousta here!

 

[robin_hart]

I don't write romance but I am going to ask for the insight of some of you folks that have been around here longer than me. I publihsed oon Nov 28, my first book and it has maintained a rank of 500-800ish for over a month now. Since I used a pulisher I cannot track sales, can anyone tell me, kinda, maybe a little, what this could mean for sales? I have no idea and it is driving me nuts. I know that rank is pretty good, but how good?

Sorry to step into the thread, but I would really, really appreciate some help.

I have no idea, because I don't know how amazon does rankings, if it's just sales, or if it's also ratings and reviews, newness, etc. Also, a lot of sales one day might get up in the ratings, but not stay there.

 

[robin_hart]

yep, not normal. enjoy!!! i have over 30 books out, have been writing for 30 years, and i've never had a book (traditional or self-pubbed) debut with that kind of ranking. nice!!!!!!

editing to say that this is one of the things that is so cool about writing. the X factor.

Yes well your writing is crushingly beautiful, so that's my kind of X factor.