Thankfulness #132: Fan Message

Today I am thankful for the super amazing fan message I got on Facebook. I won’t lie, I’ve been feeling kind of down. A sort of postpartum always happens after a book release but it’s worse this time. Maybe because it’s the end of the series (though no the universe or characters), maybe because it was so rushed that I didn’t have any preparation time, maybe because I haven’t engaged in a whole lot of fanfare; no blog hops, or tours, just the one Facebook party (because, you know, everything was so rushed I was out of time). Or maybe it’s the lower sales numbers. I’ll usually sell about 85 the first week (including pre-orders) but my total so far after twelve days is still sitting at 61. There are a ton of factors that could contribute to this: It’s the last book so some people have admitted to putting off buying and reading it because it’s the end – my brother actually owns series where he’s never read the final book for that exact reason. There’s also that lack of fanfare, the different season –  I usually release in March when it’s still crappy out, but now it’s warming up, people are outdoors more, not reading as much as they do in colder months. It’s also graduation/end of the school year and people are busy. The market has been trending down for all authors since 2014 and keeps going lower and lower thanks to a glut of free books caused by KDP Select and then the Amazon Unlimited subscription service – which my books aren’t in because I refuse to go exclusive. On and on.

Anyway, the whys are not important, what is important is the funk is real, so the fan letter really made my day and reminded me why I started writing the books in the first place. When I published book three I had 12 fans and knew each by name. So, downward trend from book eight or not, that 61 is still a huge improvement on those 12. That’s the kind of thing I need to tape to my wall somewhere – If I had an office wall, that is. Mostly I have walls that need the wallpaper stripped off of them so we can paint.

And now I need to get the Turtles page done for the night.

Have a fan mail kinda day!

Jo 🙂

Song going through my head STILL: Closer by Saliva – Repeat #362. Literally.