Monday, October 4, 2010

AMAZON BEST SELLER!

#24 on Amazon Top 100
Best Seller Regency Romance

Amazon Best Seller. Wow, I love saying that. And it sneaked up on me from behind, and as my friend Trish Morey in Australia would say, gobsmacked me.

HIS MAJESTY, THE PRINCE OF TOADS, a re-published e-book, which I admit was very popular in its first round of publication with Awe-Struck E-Books, is suddenly on Amazon's 100 Top Regency Best Seller list.

But wait! Not just one book! THE MUDLARK and FIRE DANCE are dancing right along, with LOKI'S DAUGHTERS looming right behind them. What the heck happened? Kind of funny, really, so being one to laugh at myself frequently, I thought I'd let you laugh with me. Especially considering it's still going on, and I haven't been suddenly kicked back to the gutter.lers. That's all Regencies, not just Kindle e-books. Wow. Best Seller. Right up there with the big guys.


#1 Kindle Regency Free Read
 #2 Amazon Best Selling Romances
Historical Romance Free Read
I went off to the Emerald City Writers Conference this weekend, as usual having a wonderful time, since this is one of the best regional writers' conferences anywhere, and I know so many of the people there. But if you know me, you're probably not surprised that my stamina failed me early Friday night. Happens all the time. So I headed off to my room, and quickly reached the pj stage, where I check my stats before crashing. Pulled out my beloved MSI Wind baby laptop and pulled up my Kindle report.

First day of the month. I'm expecting single digits because my sales always seem to look better later in the month. Two look normal, if a little high. The other two look like historical dates. Come on, there's no way self-published e-books would sell 1933 and 1840 copies in one day. You know my eyes, which are complete screwballs as much as they are eyeballs. I never believe what they think they see. If I tell anybody, they'll think I'm lying. Or that I'm nuts, or maybe lost in LaLaLand. About half dressed, I rundown the hall (and am fortunate to have a room on the same floor as the main activities because running is also not something I do well anymore, and find my roommate, Sarah Rapslee. Poor Sarah almost has to carry me back.  And carrying people is not Sarah's best sport. And now the numbers look like futuristic dates. And Sarah's sitting there watching the numbers climb, cheerily announcing each incrementic jump.

#1 Amazon Best Selling Romances
#3 Kindle all genres
What we soon discovered- what my eyes actually did not spot, but friend Marianne Nicoletto Strnad did, was that Kindle had put the two books up as Free Reads. Oh, well, I figured no money in that, but free reads are great promo. That was why I'd priced them so low in the first place. And there it was. The higher the numbers went on those two, he more sales I was seeing on the other two. The Free Reads were drawing attention to my other two books, and those sales were jumping into the best seller lists for both Kindle  e-books and Amazon Books, which was throwing them into direct competition with print books.

I'm sure I was unbearable for some people. Saw a bit of eye-rolling, but most people caught on that this was not some silly e-book author (okay, so they were right on that first part) ecstatic over selling one or two books. These are Amazon Best Seller lists. That's the big time for any book. My sales numbers are right up there with the top Regency authors.

So yes, I'm still sort of sorry that yes, I'm still unbearable. For those people who still say they will never read an e-book because they aren't any good, I have to say I understand. I love my "real" books too, and I completely sympathize. With both of you.

7 comments:

  1. Congrats! Awesome news!
    Do you really know two who won't read ebooks - ever? Wow. I guess they are still out there.

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  2. That's awesome! Are they available free in places other than Amazon? A Kindle author I know noticed Amazon definitely zeroes the price of books that are free from other distributers, which I think is in A's contract? Just curious.

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  3. Writer and Cat, I'm not sure about that last, but I wouldn't be surprised, and it's fine with me. I do have these two books free at Smashwords. One thing for sure about Amazon, they learn very quickly from the competition.

    Interestingly, it looks like while they can reduce the price and only pay royalties on that lower price, I think it's a different matter when they pass out thousands of copies of an authors' books for free. They do get an enormous promotional benefit, possibly out of proportion to the benefit to the author. So it looks like they will be paying the regular royalty to those authors. I don't know for sure.

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  4. Congratulations! I'm sure it feels awesome!

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  5. Congratulations! You're well deserving of this success. HIS MAJESTY, THE PRINCE OF TOADS is probably my most favorite of all your books so I'm not surprised it's a bestseller given that it won the coveted Golden Heart Award.

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  6. Congrats on your successes! I actually picked up Firedance while it was a free read and put it into my TBR pile. I haven't had a chance to pick it up yet but after reading your blog (which I found through the 'meet an author blog hop') and loving your writing voice, I think it just jumped to the top of the pile. Congratulations once again!

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  7. Wow, Sondrae, Thanks! I hope you enjoy it. I loved writing that book.

    That's the way good promo is supposed to work. And Amazon's Free Reads is promo no money can buy. With ebooks, visibility is of top importance. But it's really tough because the competition is so fierce and too many authors are desperate enough to do anything to get attention. I've been at this ebook business for ten years and I've learned a lot. Probably living a long, long life and never giving up is the best way to finally achieve success!

    I like this blog hop stuff! Really interesting, don't you think?

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