Elizabeth Otto: Self-Publishing Report, Week One

Self-Publishing Reality: WEEK ONE

I promised that I’d track my self-publishing progress and share it. Why? Because I love when others do the same, and are honest about their results.

Some facts about the book:

It’s contemporary romance with erotic elements. A hot market, reportedly.

It’s 90,000 words, emotional and features a dominant male lead.

I has been professionally edited and has a professionally made cover.

It went through 14 beta readers (yes, 14) before it went to copyediting.

I had a promo budget.

I had a cover reveal.

I had a release-day blast.

I gave away 85 copies of the book between the 2 weeks leading up to release day, and two days after.

My street team, blogging group and writer’s group all worked hard to pimp me out and spread the word.

I hosted a Facebook release day party.

Week One Results:

I sold 24 preorders.

To date, I’ve sold 92 copies, including preorders. 86 copies were in the US and 7 in the UK.

I’ve sold one copy yesterday and none so far today.

Royalty profit: $172.00 and some change.

Out of the 85 copies I gave away, I've received 13 reviews.

My investment was relatively small considering my editor and cover designer are part of my writing group:

Editing plus a promo package was $475.00

Facebook ads: $150

Outside advertising: $50

Swag: $255.00

As you can see, I’m nowhere near making back my investment. Not. Even. Close.

The hard reality:

I’m not even a midlist author, so my chances of having a hit based on reader anticipation alone was non-existent. Small authors like me, truthfully, rely on getting our books into the hands of people who will read them and then talk about them.

Word of mouth is EVERYTHING for selling a book and getting some numbers (and profit) behind it. Sadly, I tend to write the kind of books that people love in the moment, but promptly forget. While some do, the majority of my readers don’t talk about my books to others or recommend them on book clubs and reader groups. How do I know this? Simply, my sales don’t reflect it. As well, I’m involved in many, many of the same groups my reader and fan base are a part of, and I don’t find my name mentioned very often.

This is something I need to work on—to start writing books that they might rave about and shout from the rooftops. Until that happens, though, I’ll keep plucking along.

Let’s see what next week brings, shall we?