My continuing exploits into self-publishing

I haven't looked at my sales figure yet. That's mostly because I don't want to disappoint myself. I know that I'm not going to suddenly be able to 'quit my day job' with this venture, most authors can't, but discovering that I've only made two or three sales would be really disappointing. There's a blog post written by an author named Tobias Buckell, in which he talks about some of the realities about self-publishing. Basically, he points out that most books, whether they are self-published or released by a traditional publisher, don't sell well. In other words, there's a very small number of J.K. Rowlings in the world, and a whole lot more S. Andrea Milne's.

To put it another way, I've released The Cure in the hopes of entertaining a few, spreading Nora's story as far as I can, and if I'm lucky, eventually making back the money I put into it (which thankfully, hasn't been a great deal). I'm not in it for fame or glory; I'm more likely to remain obscure and experience heartbreak.

The spreading the word about Nora is tricky. I don't have a large social network to help me get the word out about my book out, but there's been a few surprises in the past few weeks. A couple of people, who I wouldn't have expected it from, have re-shared my posts about The Cure. This is always a nice surprise. I mean, I've got some re-posts from people I would have expected it (Hi Andrew, Michelle, Emma, and Greg!), and I'm extremely grateful for that. It's the people I don't expect it from that make me feel extra special (and consequently like I'm bad friend).

Plus, The Cure is still only available on Kobo, which also limits the number of sales I might be able to make, since it's not as big a retailer of ebooks as say, Amazon (I'm hoping to get The Cure out there before Christmas, but I hit a slight snag on getting my US tax identification number).

As a further note about Kobo, I'm rather disappointed with the 'Related Titles' that appear when you search for my book on the website. Frankly, most of the titles are porn. I contacted Kobo about this matter, but it wasn't resolved with any success. They say the 'Related Titles' list is developed by a title search, and not by genre, but that doesn't explain why I'm seeing what I'm seeing. From the conversation I had, I think this might not be the case if you log in with a Kobo account, but I'm not sure. Ultimately, I have no leverage in the situation, so I just have to deal with it.

That's all for now. I hope to post some more insights into the self-publishing process, and into the characters and plot of The Cure, in the weeks to come.

Ciao,

Andrea