After a couple of week’s I tried a free promo day. It wasn’t the best planned of things, rushing it out with barely 24 hours notice but buoyed up sales and kept it ticking along. Generally speaking I’ve been having a monthly peak and a corresponding dip. During September and October they dipped a lot, flat-lining to virtually nothing. Again, possibly with not enough planning, I organised another free promo this time across Thursday and Friday to celebrate the first six months of publication. In just 24 hours the book was downloaded just short of 3,000 times and rocketed me into the number one spot (if of free books) in a couple of genres…

I did look at those 3,000 downloads and think ‘if only they were paid downloads I’d be looking at more money that I get paid doing the day job in three months’ – I couldn’t help myself – but in truth I shouldn’t feel like that because those people wouldn’t have known about the book had it not been on free promo. And it doesn’t matter anyway, the promo lifted me back up the rankings, increased my visibility, and kept me bobbing along (often in the Top 100 of the Fairytales/Myths and Fairytales genres) with on average one sale every day, ever since. I’m also pretty certain that the book has now gone beyond my own sphere of influence to be bought by persons completely unknown to me.

It’s both a scary and exciting thought that something that I created now has its own (if modest) momentum. Long may it continue!

Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #11,654 Paid in Kindle Store
#49 in Kindle Store > Books > Fiction > Fairy Tales
#76 in Books > Fiction > Myths & Fairy Tales

Heading over to the reports I can see I’ve sold two more copies overnight, and I’m fairly sure that these are to people I don’t know.

I’m also pretty stoked by an email I had last night from a reviewer I sent my book to. I’ve not seen the review yet, but I’m told its coming soon. In the email they said that they ‘loved it. It was a fantastic read, and you’re a very wonderful writer. If you get any other books ready, send them my way, I’d love to do more reviews for you. Also if you’re interested, I’d love to do an author interview with you when you have time’. I can’t help it but be pretty high and chipper that my little story might be starting to go places.

Might…

Maybe…

With these two, and the one that I have done tonight of Nelly’s bar in Reykjavik (in the story, it is in the basement of a bar like this where Hanna Katla rehearses with her band mates), I have completed 25 illustrations now, with just 11 more to go. I think that’s the total anyway – need to double check precisely how many chapters are (there may actually be 38…), and I’m done.

I’m having fun illustrating my novel. Can you tell?

Does it work for you?

But what to call the beast? I’ve lived with Blood & Fire for going on a decade but its not right (partly because there are loads of books out there already called Blood & Fire…) and I’ve come up with some alternatives for you to vote on.

In a ‘buy one poll get one free’ offer, I have another question for you. It’s actually something I was going to mention in yesterday’s post. Once again a new writer bursts onto the scene with newspaper headlines declaring ‘former barmaid wins literary prize’ and burying the details that she actually works in publishing further down. It does seem that getting published these days is all about hooks and the‐story‐behind‐the‐author. I do disagree with this approach; novels should stand by themselves without these back stories and hooks, but that’s not the business we’re in. So, should I put aside my principles and join the throng. I only have very mild aspergers, but I do have aspergers. It’s not an excuse for the way I am but it has made me (in part) who I am, so should I use it in my letter to go to the agent/editor/publisher to get them to read my synopsis and opening chapters…?

Should I declare (and use) my aspergers to get published?Yup!Nope!