Social Media is All

Facebook has been almost solely responsible for all of my book sales. I paid for a press release and tons of people looked at my book, but not one sale. I sent free copies to family and I sold like 3 books from their recommendations. I sent out free books to Facebook friends and thanks to their raves on Facebook I've sold books. I am not even sure how many books were sold thanks to the reviews written on Amazon.com, but it wasn't very many at all.

Fact 1- people don't have much money at all.
Fact 2- people are not forking out $20 bucks for a book unless it is an impulse buy at the store, or unless a person they trust recommends it. And then, they won't always go through the hassle of ordering it online and waiting for it in the mail.
Fact 3- Publishers who have exclusive rights to bookstore shelves (unless you jump through fire laden hoops) generally only want friend's family and famous people to work with.
Fact 4- The only reason anyone is buying my book is because it is actually good. PRODUCT FIRST! You must create an amazing product!

PS, this blog has resulted in zero sales. I did however send a book to reader in Australia, cuz you can buy the book there I swear, thank you, thank you, thank you!

Promotion is Crazy

So I spend most of my day trying to get people to read my book and seeing what type of assets have magically showed up. You can now buy my book in three online stores in Australia. I have no idea how to get anyone in Australia to even try my book, but it is still cool. I've sold most of my books through the Kindle store which wasn't even part of the whole LuLu publishing package, but I don't believe I would be selling most any of them without such a great looking cover. Every single one of my meager sales is due in total to a recommendation from someone else and a cool cover. I spent money to make a press release and I gave Facebook money to advertise my book resulting in absolutely no sales. People are friends of the book and will click that they like it, but no sales. One person puts that they loved the book on Kindle's facebook and WAM.

Moral of the story:
Write a great story that gives the reader what they want and give away your book so that you too can sell a few books.

The real moral:
Get a real job. Food good.