The test is a success
Both books are selling well
Feeding one another
Telling me a series works
Both have wandered on the lists
Fresh blood in the older sib
As the youngster cuts her teeth
Carving paths among their genre
Now a cold snap has begun
They are slowing side by side
Yet small bursts on one
Jumping to the other
Luke and Nyx battle on
Waiting for Sari
All of us are curious about
The effect of number three
I have dubbed Tuesday a day of poetry, which makes it difficult to write anything else. I typically save the night for special things, but I might have a bigger surprise for everyone. This means I tell my publishing news in poem form. Summary:
Legends of Windemere Volume 1 and Volume 2 are definitely helping each other. Having two books that are connected help and create a synergy. People will buy both or plan to buy the second. I can only guess that it will happen again and be stronger when the third book debuts. Promotion is still key and I’ve been pushing the second book a lot. Yet, I have also pushed the first book with a few daily tweets and a midday Facebook post. If I find a new advertising venue, I try to get both books on, which has helped out a few times. I will admit that it’s hitting a cold patch and the books are falling off the list, but I could jump back up if I have a hot day. The 20’s are
Take heart fellow series writers! There is power in the sequels.
Legends of Windemere 
Congratulations Charles! Book 3 will cement your status as “The Man” and drive sales into overdrive.
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I hope so. It’s been a tough day so far. Got another 1-star on Beginning of a Hero and I’m not having any luck figuring out new marketing venues.
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1 star? Are you being trolled? I think you have hit all of the marketing avenues, now it is just time to finish the next book and wait patiently for the millions to roll in.
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Not trolled, but I have noticed people are more inclined to leave a negative review than a positive review. The comment spoke of how the book has every tired fantasy cliche. I’m over it, but I’m finding it curious how so many people point at a book yelling cliche while holding another book that has cliches. I hate to say it about my own genre, but the entire thing is a cliche. The moment an author uses magic, dragons, European-style castles, or so many other things in a fantasy book, they’re hitting a cliche.
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Well, since books have been around for about 2,000 years, at some point everything has already been said and done. Now it is a matter of rearranging the words in a new way. Why are people so jaded and have to be jagoffs?
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It’s strange. I’ve had people call my books cliche and others say that they should be more like another book series. It’s like readers want new stuff done in a way that they’re already used to, but not so used to that it’s been done before.
Honestly, I don’t like the Amazon rating system for books. Negative reviews do a lot more damage than positive reviews can fix. I saw it one that it took 3-4 5-Star reviews to recover half of what a 1-star review did to the overall rating. People that only look at the overall miss the real picture.
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So they are weighted differently then. Just like on GoodReads. That just gives angry people a weapon to use against hard working Authors trying to make a living.
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Not so much differently, but it’s an average. The problem with averages is that it goes for the middle. I noticed this in college, but lower numbers have a more drastic effect on averages than higher numbers. A single ‘F’ can undo the work of an entire semester of A’s. This is the inherent problem by buying things by average without reading reviews. I have 25 5-star reviews and 5 1-star reviews with 21 other reviews scattered about (mostly in the 4-star reviews), but I have an overall average of 3.9. Various marketing sites won’t touch me now because of that overall average not being 4.0+.
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That’s a good point about the problem with averages. When you don’t have a normal distribution of numbers, the average can be very deceiving (like with income distribution). The median is the number you want, especially if it is very different from the average. Even the mode (the frequency) would be better. Why should one 1-star review drag you down when you have so many 4 and 5 stars?
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I guess it’s easier for Amazon to program it to be an average instead of something else.
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If they can program for averages, then they can program for medians and modes. Just laziness on their part.
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Might be more beneficial for the them to go for averages. They’re in it for the business and not the art, so they’re going to do what helps them sell more.
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Thanks as ever for sharing this Charles. It is a tough old world out there and I am sorry that you are hitting negative reviews – that’s the only good thing about having a book that’s not selling, no one is reading it so no one is reviewing it! Chin up and keep on going! 🙂
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That’s true, but I really hope I get a few positives soon.
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I hope so too – and I am sure that you will.
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Your determination is sexy. So is Fizzle.
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Nothing is sexier than the apple-loving Drite. 😉
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True. Except the dwarf
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Duggan is a love machine.
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Hmmmm
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The really sexy beast shows up in book 4. Well, he kind of showed up in book 2, but wasn’t named. 😉
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Congrats.>KB
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Thanks. 🙂
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Your series seems to be packed with good ideas. (Not very far along yet, but making at least a snail’s progress…) 🙂
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One say I hope to upgrade to tortoise pace.
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