A Little Pick-Me-Up

You may have noticed that I waver between hope and despair regarding my publishing efforts. I just need to take a more philosophical view. The only self-published authors I see posting on Reddit about their sales tend to be the "humble braggarts". Oh, I've only gotten thirty pre-orders! Okay, smart aleck. There are probably a million other authors like me who don't move books at all, but they don't want to look like losers by saying that. In other words, I'm in good company. According to 2023 stats, at least three million self-published books are released each year. Some interesting figures:

• The typical self-published author sells about five copies of his book. 
• The average US book now sells less than 200 copies per year and less than 1000 copies over its lifetime.

This means I'm average. But it appears that even trade published books don't fare much better, considering all the money poured into them via marketing.

Naturally, I'd prefer to be above average, but that isn't going to happen. Writing-wise, yes, but sales-wise? It's a pipe dream.

Now to the pick-me-up. The IndieView interview form I completed yesterday resulted in an acceptance, which I really don't care about, but the man handling it wrote back and engaged me in a discussion about music. (I'd answered the "about me" question with a bit about being in a band and my songwriting.) He had once lived in my city and used to write for a music magazine. It was nice to converse with an actual human, especially about something off-topic. And of course it was a guy. Sorry ladies, but men are easier to deal with than women. Women in positions they consider "important" like to lord it over people and especially love chastising someone for not following instructions to a T. His email was a nice way to start my day.

I also got a new ARC volunteer via Goodreads and two more people claimed my book from my Voracious Readers Only promotion. Realistically, I think I'm getting about all I can expect to get from this exercise. 

I kind of indulged in a pity party yesterday and penned a Goodreads blog post about no one buying my books (except I said it in a nice way), but now I find that I can't delete that post. I think at the time I was shooting for the sympathy buyer, which is never a good look. 

In another week or so I'll be ready to write again. Inn Dreams will be live on June 24, so I'll spend a bit of time indulging in marketing. Then it'll be on to the next project.