Kitty at Great Minds Think Aloud posted a great interview with me on their blog. A review and giveaway should follow sometime in the future.
JJ, an Amazon top 500 reviewer, gave SZJMB a great 5-star review. Here's a quote:
"The humor was excellent as was the light horror, and I absolutely loved every second of reading it."
Last, SZJMB is currently number 75 on a Goodreads list of The Best Independent Novels. Thanks to the reviewer who nominated me (hope it's okay that I also voted for myself :-)
The Bad:
I know my blog is read by a lot of other authors, so I've made a commitment to myself to post the ups and downs of indie publishing. I've been reporting increased sales month over month, with the last two months both breaking over 200 books sold.
Recently, Amazon changed a couple things in the way they promote books and my sales tanked. I can't even giveaway books on Amazon anymore (I went from giving away 4-5,000 books a month to less than 500). It happened mid-month, so my monthly sales don't look as bad as they could have. My sales on Amazon.com were down about by about 2/3rds, but thankfully my sales on other sites were up. So for August I sold just over 170 books.
In October, my sales on Amazon are up a little, thanks mainly to my Monster Mashup Short Story Omnibus finding it's way onto several "also brought" lists. Assuming my Apple sales remain the same, I'll be between 175 and 200 sales for the month--if SZJMB gets a few Apple sales, I might get back to 200 sale in October.
The most interesting takeaway from all this: Amazon.com sales now total less than 50% of my total ebook sales.
Now for the UGLY:
My debut novel SZJMB has sold a grand total of 12 copies this month (and it's still priced at just 99 cents). It's a little hard not to get down about this. But the truth is it's getting great reviews running between 4.25 -4.5 stars on both Amazon and Goodreads. It just takes time to get the word out and I'm sure the sales will pickup thanks to everyone who's participated in my blog tour, left a review, or even just picked up a copy--Thank You!
Last, try as hard as I might, I can't seem to keep from posting on controversial topics. On top of that it seems I don't do a good job of tempering my words.
My last blog post about the toddler in China has apparently angered some living in that country. I do apologize to anyone I offended.
The message I was trying to get across is that the Chinese are, at their core, exactly like you and me--they are a good, moral people. However, by trying to control all forms of media (especially the written word) the Chinese government has fostered the profound and disturbing apathy shown in that terrible story. My words are meant as a warning, not just about censorship, but about the unintended consequences of trying to control the way a people think.
Oh, and on a lighter note: Don't forget today's the last day to enter to win the second to last Zombie Survival Kit.
