Wednesday, March 23, 2022
another success
Celebrating tonight because one of my books, A Dozen Crime Stories from a well-known, big-box, discount retail chain, broke the top 500 in U.S. short stories. Sure, it did it only for a few hours today - maybe it happened in the afternoon and is gone now - ok, but still. Top 500.
Crime Stories is actually a few years old, maybe eight or nine, from the years my story-writing was inspired. I would like it to be so inspired today. After various go-rounds of relentless marketing and selling of all nine story volumes, Crime Stories stands out as the easiest to market, the most popular, the one that just kind of ended up a winner. And people keep taking it up and reading it.
I believe I was living in Lubbock when I published it, though I may have written several of the stories back in Illinois. At one point I took a copy to the local bookstore and talked them into putting it on the "local author" shelf. But when I checked on it later, someone had stolen it. That's crime stories for you.
It says something for my relentless style of marketing, to have a book in the top 500, any book, any list. Even for a few hours on a Wednesday. I'm celebrating tonight. But I'm not changing my tactics any. If I'm being read, limited audience that it may be, that's better than what was happening for what, about seven years. My luck has changed.
Crime Stories is actually a few years old, maybe eight or nine, from the years my story-writing was inspired. I would like it to be so inspired today. After various go-rounds of relentless marketing and selling of all nine story volumes, Crime Stories stands out as the easiest to market, the most popular, the one that just kind of ended up a winner. And people keep taking it up and reading it.
I believe I was living in Lubbock when I published it, though I may have written several of the stories back in Illinois. At one point I took a copy to the local bookstore and talked them into putting it on the "local author" shelf. But when I checked on it later, someone had stolen it. That's crime stories for you.
It says something for my relentless style of marketing, to have a book in the top 500, any book, any list. Even for a few hours on a Wednesday. I'm celebrating tonight. But I'm not changing my tactics any. If I'm being read, limited audience that it may be, that's better than what was happening for what, about seven years. My luck has changed.
Wednesday, March 16, 2022
success
I was sick when I woke up yesterday morning, Monday. things were spinning and I threw up - nausea goes with vertigo. How the two are related I don't know, but because I was asleep, I was unable to see it coming and do one of several things that might have prevented it. In any case, I woke up dizzy several hours later, and several times, and didn't quite shake it until about 2 30 pm. Fortunately I'm retired and people were able to work around the day I just apparently lost.
But when I tended to my Amazon chart, I found an amazing thing - I'd gotten almost a thousand reads in a single day. this was very unusual; I rarely get more than a couple hundred. Upon closer inspection I noticed that someone had been going through my stories - I have nine volumes of which they'd read maybe seven in a row, all on one day - well, I assume it was the same person. They seemed to be going through them in order.
I checked and checked again, but the ratings didn't seem to reflect it. Since it's only Tuesday night, maybe I should be a little cautious, but what that says to me is that they downloaded them all maybe a month ago, and only now read them, or only now came back to where there was internet, and all 900-some pages could be recorded. In these cases - when the download and the reads are separated by time if not geography - amazon often fails or hopefully just takes a while.
Today, Tuesday, someone read my book, the entire 295 pages, and I got credit for every one, and a ratings boost. It's like I'm finally getting a spin of luck. But I keep checking the ratings for my short stories, and nothing yet.
I fling off a lot of Twitter ads these days. there's a good possibility that someone from Twitter found me, someone who likes KU & likes a good read on a cold spring night.
But whoever it was, it seems their download and their read were too far separated, and it doesn't show in my ratings. I'm not sure why or how that happens, or how it levels out in the end. Do you get better ratings as a result, just on account of having more total reads? The great Zon has its own formula, and I know I try to read soon after I download, for the benefit of my fellow authors, but I don't know how soon or what makes their sensor turn off and just say, these were reads that happened later, and don't necessarily make the book hot.
But when I tended to my Amazon chart, I found an amazing thing - I'd gotten almost a thousand reads in a single day. this was very unusual; I rarely get more than a couple hundred. Upon closer inspection I noticed that someone had been going through my stories - I have nine volumes of which they'd read maybe seven in a row, all on one day - well, I assume it was the same person. They seemed to be going through them in order.
I checked and checked again, but the ratings didn't seem to reflect it. Since it's only Tuesday night, maybe I should be a little cautious, but what that says to me is that they downloaded them all maybe a month ago, and only now read them, or only now came back to where there was internet, and all 900-some pages could be recorded. In these cases - when the download and the reads are separated by time if not geography - amazon often fails or hopefully just takes a while.
Today, Tuesday, someone read my book, the entire 295 pages, and I got credit for every one, and a ratings boost. It's like I'm finally getting a spin of luck. But I keep checking the ratings for my short stories, and nothing yet.
I fling off a lot of Twitter ads these days. there's a good possibility that someone from Twitter found me, someone who likes KU & likes a good read on a cold spring night.
But whoever it was, it seems their download and their read were too far separated, and it doesn't show in my ratings. I'm not sure why or how that happens, or how it levels out in the end. Do you get better ratings as a result, just on account of having more total reads? The great Zon has its own formula, and I know I try to read soon after I download, for the benefit of my fellow authors, but I don't know how soon or what makes their sensor turn off and just say, these were reads that happened later, and don't necessarily make the book hot.
Tuesday, March 01, 2022
monthly report
Did my stats tonight, as it's the first, and I'm surprised to find most of the blogs are up. First ten, eight are up. Second ten, eight are up. But of the commercial six, only three are up. I'm flagging on the commercialism.
It goes against my grain, beating my own drum all the time; it takes the best pop art I can muster. I've had some success beating my own drum amongst my friends, other authors, who are a prickly crowd, but who by and large like my writing. You have to take readers where you can get them. They talk about "building an audience." And how is that done, begging?
Yet, if having a wide variety of blogs, in my case 28 + 6, or something like that, is casting a wide net, that's what I'm doing. I have some curious statistical anomalies, but overall I can say people are visiting my visual sites, while cruising on the web, or looking for something else. It's "browsing," the modern version of window shopping.
I have so many plans for the blogs - I encounter them every month, after a month of doing barely anything. I do however manage to post on twelve of them every month, this month thirteen. It helps, it gets me by, it gets me what I have. I'll keep you posted. By now the system needs an overhaul, and I might need an "author's blog." If my commercial blood is running so cold though, maybe that would be a waste of a blog.
It goes against my grain, beating my own drum all the time; it takes the best pop art I can muster. I've had some success beating my own drum amongst my friends, other authors, who are a prickly crowd, but who by and large like my writing. You have to take readers where you can get them. They talk about "building an audience." And how is that done, begging?
Yet, if having a wide variety of blogs, in my case 28 + 6, or something like that, is casting a wide net, that's what I'm doing. I have some curious statistical anomalies, but overall I can say people are visiting my visual sites, while cruising on the web, or looking for something else. It's "browsing," the modern version of window shopping.
I have so many plans for the blogs - I encounter them every month, after a month of doing barely anything. I do however manage to post on twelve of them every month, this month thirteen. It helps, it gets me by, it gets me what I have. I'll keep you posted. By now the system needs an overhaul, and I might need an "author's blog." If my commercial blood is running so cold though, maybe that would be a waste of a blog.
