In case you hadn’t noticed, we reached the end of June two weeks ago.
I promised myself a review of the year so far, so here are the statistics, remembering that I moved and relaunched this blog at the start of the year, set the first Princeling book free in May (with Amazon price-matching on 13th), and launched book 6, Bravo Victor on May 6th.
Books at 30 June
Since Amazon pricematched the Smashwords, iBookstore, B&N etc price of FREE, I have only missed five days without any downloads – and they were all Fridays for some reason! More importantly, Princelings of the East went into the top 10,000 and hasn’t been out of it in June, roaming around the 8,000-9,700 mark.
This promotion has yet to show any real pick-up in sales of the other books, though it looks as though I have a solid and regular core of people who get my books as soon as they come out – the numbers for the first day of the last two books were too similar for coincidence.
- Free downloads of Princelings of the East: 801
- Free downloads of Bravo Victor: 226
- Book sales: 47 (inc. coupons and paperbacks)
- New unique reviews: 5 (reviews by the same person may be in more than one place, e.g. blog, Amazon, Goodreads)
Social networking at 30 June
- Number of email and WordPress followers (from 0): 122
- Number of post views (excludes spam): 8,890
- Average post views per day: 50
- Twitter followers: 2,271
- Princelings Facebook page likes: 959, but very few get the notifications
- Pinterest followers: 46
Reading Challenge progress at 30 June
- Goodreads: 30 out of 60 – on schedule
- Mad Reviewer Challenge: 29 books reviewed out of target 52 – well on target
- Safari Small Fry Kids Challenge: 5 books linked in 4 out of 6 categories
Writing
- Bravo Victor published on schedule
- Viridian System #1 – was largely stalled at 10,756 words, but I’m completing the first draft at Camp NaNoWriMo (now over 30,000 words with a real target of 75,000)
- Short stories/flash fiction – 25 entries published totalling 26,965 words of a target 50,000
How do I feel about these numbers?
OK on the whole. Of course I’d like more sales and reviews, but I really believe that blogging is the way to make people decide whether to read my books or not. I was a teeny bit jealous when I saw on Goodreads how many people Julie Grasso has signed up to review her new book! But then, I don’t think you can judge later books in a series with stand-alones or first books in a series. Maybe people would prefer me to write more books like my flash fiction? Well, we’ll see.
Back to the reading and writing then. I’ll leave the arithmetic for later!
Hi Jemima, wow 6 months already, its crazy. Well, I have to say, that think you are spot on in all that you are doing. Creating an audience takes time, and I think you blogging is the best and most fantastic to keep showing readers your voice. I am a big fan of your books, and I also enjoy your blog posts, so keep it up. I also had to chuckle about the goodreads sign ups, ( pst, pay no attention to them, I had 329 people add Return To Cardamom, and hardly any reviews at all LOL) I think it is mostly people that add the book through rafflecopter giveaways. So here is to another 6 months, lead on Victor, Bravo!!!!, or Bravo Jemima I should say!
Thanks, Julie! It’s true about goodreads sign ups – my books do have a good many people adding them to their lists. And of course, I have so many books on my list to get around to.You’ll notice your new book is now on my ‘am-reading’ list. The fifth on the list, I should add. I decided after my ‘series’ post the other week to read more of the series I have and get through them 🙂
Impressive, Jemima. Data can be very helpful, and blogging had proven to be a good way to get a book out there. Best of luck with all your books! How’s camp?
Thanks, Noelle. Camp is good, I’m writing steadily – and reaching the point where I just want to do a few hundred words more before I go to bed. I usually write for 2 hours in the morning then go and do something involving movement!
The plot is holding up at present, which is even better news!
Good on you for sticking with it!
I adore that you share all of this. Six months in, is crazy. This year is flying by. I think you are doing the right stuff. As Julie says, it takes time to grow a following. Way to go, Jemima!
Thanks, Christine. The most important parts are the friendships we’ve made with our journey on the published authors front!
Since drafting this post (I delayed it for other timely Monday posts) the sales are picking up of the second book, which is exactly what I hoped for. 🙂