May 20, 2023

I ponder my publishing expectations and why I should have gratitude.

Daily Diary, Day 991: Weekly Writing Intentions

This second week after publication has been up and down. The down is simply that I am coming up against the fact that my expectations of sales for the Tides of Acerba, have been shaped by the mystery series, where even my novellas do well the first week. For example, I sold 374 copies of Mrs. Stein Solves a Crime the first week it was out compared to the fact that Tides of Acerba only sold on 43 books its first week. (And here I need to pause and offer gratitude for the fact that many authors would be delighted with those 43 books, not achieving that number of sales in a year.)

I do know that this is not about the quality of the books in my science fiction series, compared to the mysteries, because the my books in this series have some of the strongest reviews I have ever gotten and the overall ratings are certainly equal if not higher than for the books my mystery series. Between Mountain and Sea has 1,264 ratings on Amazon with a 4.4 average, Under Two Moons, has 280 ratings and a 4.5 star average, and Through Ddaera’s Touch, has 237 ratings and 4.6 average stars!

The main explanation for the difference in initial sales is most likely that the Caelestis series hasn’t been around as long nor does it have as nearly as many books out compared to the mystery series. This limits the series' ability to create an equally large fan base, a group of fans who theoretically have been panting for the newest book. If you add the fact that the last book in the Caelestis series came out nearly six years ago, I am not surprised that even some of the fans of the earlier books lost interest as those years went by.

So, I must be patient and continue to do the things I do know how to do, to reach those earlier fans, encourage them to buy the new book, at the same time look for ways to attract new fans.

One of the actions I can take is to start to write the next (and last) book in the series. The general opinion by authors is that it increases sales when you can advertise that a series is complete because readers often hesitate to buy books in a series that is on-going. Once this next book is finished, I will be able to do that.

On the up side, for the week, I got all my marketing tasks for the week done, and I made progress on my short story. I have now posted on substack 4 character biographies and the first two scenes of the story. In addition, I continued to average nearly 80 minutes of exercise a day, with five of those days averaging 60 minutes of walking.

So, what are my intentions for this week? Keep up the exercise, put out my regular monthly newsletter, and maybe experiment with a facebook ad, really the only thing on my to-do list for publishing I haven’t done yet. Mostly, I am going to try to make more progress on my short story, because I would like to have it completed by the end of May.

Meanwhile, I will continue to take photos of flowers on my walks, especially roses, since they really are in amazing abundance. Two days ago, the bush below was only showing buds, this morning it was in full bloom, and you can see by the buds it isn’t done yet! So, happy spring!

PS, a hearty welcome to the twelve new subscribers to this newsletter I got this week. I hope you are enjoying yourself.