I thought I would do a few short blogs on my fantasy series and what happens after you’ve pressed the all important ‘publish my book’ button. ((Glad you said short, Peachy. I’m ready to settle down to xmas movies and mulled wine!))
I’m not an expert at promoting my books as once I’ve finished them, my tendency is to be delighted and relieved it’s done and dusted and then my next thought – what should i write next. Which isn’t the greatest idea when I actually need to sell copies to try and recoup some of the costs of publishing. Here are the very approximate numbers with many things not included, like my time to write them, the copies I’ve previously ordered which have now been replaced with the new covers etc.
Basically, I need to sell approx. 200 copies in order to break even! Considering I once read an article which said a self-published author can be lucky to sell 100 copies over the ‘lifetime’ of the book, I knew this would be a tall order. Of course this does all depend how much time you have to promote your books and your following on social to spread the word.
One of the hard things about being an author is that it doesn’t automatically make you an expert at marketing. When put on the spot and people ask me what the fantasy series is about, I naturally default to “It has dragons and magic in it” ((Well, if people don’t buy it after that expert elevator pitch then I don’t know what else you can do Peachy!)) I know right, Brackets. It is NOT easy trying to sell a concept – well, i don’t find it easy no matter how passionate I am about the series.
Anyway, it’s been a busy few weeks since I published book 3 in my fantasy series on the 27th November and the final book in the trilogy. I want to thank everyone who has bought a copy(ies) – the support, as always, has been amazing. My grand total of sales so far… drum roll please… ((I cannot take the excitement – hurry up though my mulled wine is going to boil over)) I’ve now sold 67 copies! Pretty amazing if I do say so myself but still a long way to go.
So, ((oh here comes the sales pitch people – lock up your credit card and switch off your wi-fi)) I’ve just checked and you can still buy copies from Amazon which will be delivered in time for Christmas so if you haven’t bought a copy(ies) and love fantasy or know someone who does, here is a link and a bit of blurb which says it better than I can..
The series is a story of friendship, magic, dragons, danger, battles, heartache, deception, love, lies and perilous journeys. My inspiration for this series comes from my lifelong love of fantasy, which includes; The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, the world of Narnia, Dragonlance series and Fighting Fantasy, and many games of Dungeons and Dragons and everything in between and beyond!
P.S. Sorry if you find any errors in the blogs this week. I’m currently on holiday and enjoying having some down time seeing friends, family and of course reading and writing, so i don’t have time to do a full scan and edit of my blogs. I just wanted to share the news and hopefully help anyone looking to publish – more tomorrow 🙂
C.L. Peache 