Woot! Woot! Woot!

So I was at work this morning, and I decided to check the sales ranking for The Rake's Reward.  The page loaded and I saw:  #100 in the Kindle store.  I let out a whoop and started doing the Snoopy dance, which made my co-worker jump.  This happened at the circulation desk, mind you.  So much for a quiet library.

What a day.  I kept checking my rankings throughout the day, and whenever I was out on the floor, getting books from the stacks and pretty certain that no one was looking, I did fist pumps.  As of today I've sold over 17,000 books for August.  I'm projecting I'll hit over 22,000 by the end of the month.  That's more than I sold in the first 6 month royalty period for some of my print books.  I'm stunned.  I hoped I'd have success, but I never expected this.

In my first month of publishing, I sold 5, count 'em, 5 books.  Gradually my numbers grew, if not quickly, at least steadily.  In May I was selling over 8 books per day, which I thought was respectable.  I figured the numbers would only rise.  But in June, I sold only about 7 books a day.  Something was wrong.  True, I didn't promote, and maybe that would help, but I really didn't want to do it.  If producing ebooks makes you part of a crowd, so do some avenues of self-promotion.  Everyone tweets, uses Facebook, and writes blogs, thus becoming part of another crowd.   I decided I didn't want to go that way.  Still, I had to do something.  I'd produce more books, of course, but that would take time.  I had to boost my sales somehow.

So, at the end of June, I lowered all my book prices from $2.99 and $3.99, which, by the way, I thought and still think to be reasonable, to .99.  Nothing happened at first, but in the beginning of July I began seeing something.  I sold 16 books in a day.  Wow!  Then 12.  Oh, I hoped I'd sell 14, to keep the average.  I didn't.  I sold 20.  And on, and on, until I hit 75.  Over 100.  Over, now, 800 and rising.  I now make many times more money from my books per day than I do in my day job.

As I've said elsewhere,quitting writing 3 years ago was the right decision.  Returning to writing now is the right decision, too.  It's feeling good again.  I'm doing the research and still writing notes, but I can feel the day when I write that first line coming closer.  Yesterday one of the patrons at the library told me I'm losing money by working there, that I should be home writing.  Hmmm.  Is another decision on the way?  Stay tuned.