First, a big thanks to the last week of blog tour volunteers:
And here are the final numbers for August. Not a full month out, but we’ll see what happened with The Compass Key:
Sales- 506 (met my debut month goal of 500!) Borrows- 162 Returns- 6
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,722 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
- #81 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy > Sword & Sorcery
- #90 in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy > Sword & Sorcery
The best for this book is #57 on the Sword & Sorcery eBook list. Beginning of a Hero even got into the 80’s on that list too. I haven’t seen much of a change with the other books, so I don’t know much about the theory that Book 5 starts something off. Then again, it’s still summer and next month can change things. I’m hoping the marketing that crops up in the next 2 months helps. I haven’t been able to do much during August beyond the tweets and FB posts. Hopefully I can find some ways to boost everything . . . I’m really out of ideas and just want to write.
Legends of Windemere 
Those numbers look great to me, Charles. Congratulations!
Ellespeth
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Thanks. 🙂
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Looks awesome from where I’m sitting! Congrats – and best of luck as you move forward and hope to raise the numbers! 🙂
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Thanks. Really hoping the books get a post-summer boot now. I’ll admit that I’m a little down that it hasn’t hit the same ranking area as the other books, but I guess that had to happen at some point.
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Great to see the book selling 🙂 I suck. I don’t know if I just missed the email or got lost in my own crap, but I don’t recall doing a blog tour post this time. I’m so sorry. It wasn’t intentional. I missed you this time, somehow. Please forgive me.
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No problem. I did a post in mid-August and took volunteers off that. It was very basic and simple. Honestly, I thought you were on a vacation at the time because you had been very quiet on WordPress.
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It might have been one of my moments of withdrawal to get things done. But I would have posted anyway. In fact, I thought I signed up when I started seeing the posts elsewhere, but never checked. Sorry I missed it.
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That was the Cover Reveal, I think. No problem though. You can still make a post about the book if you want. 😉 I don’t have the HTML file though. Do you have a release date/period for your next book?
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Oh no. I plan to get three or four written before I release. It may be a couple of years. I have two betas about done and seven more lined up though. So I’m getting some good feedback. I’ll have to work hard to get more interest when I actually publish the series.
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Interesting tactic. So you’re going to try to release them every 3-4 months or one a year?
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Probably every three or four months. maybe sooner to keep up the momentum. I’d like to have four ready to go before I release one. Funny, my husband likes to find series or collections by one detective and then read them all one right after the other until they are all done.
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I do that with any series. The previous books are fresh in my mind, so I pick up on foreshadowing and clues.
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It may be out of the normal practice…but I have had thoughts of releasing the first four books all at one time. Those are the ones I have roughly outlined or have at various stages of completion.
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I wouldn’t do it all at once. The benefit of a series is that you can use the release of a new book to boost the others and extend the longevity. Withe every new release, you get to do a hype period and a first month promo period, which does effect the previous books. That’s just my personal experience.
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It all looks great.
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Yup. Though the ranking is spiraling into the depths today even with sales. Not sure what’s going on.
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Others are selling as well. More sales in other books might mean a rank slip
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Probably. Guess I should focus on the fact that I’m still selling.
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August feels like a survival month for authors. Those are great numbers to see at the end of the month. 🙂
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I wonder what it is about August that makes it so difficult.
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Awesome!
I feel extremely bad for missing out on you calling for blog tour participants. Sorry!
Hopefully you get your time to sit down and just WRITE soon. 🙂
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No problem. It was a brief, last minute call. I had just enough people to cover the last two weeks. With any luck, I’ll be back to my books tomorrow. Depends on how smoothly the first day of school goes for the little guy.
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To let you know in advance, if you ever want/need any help with posting things, just shoot me an email if I miss it on here. I’d love to help whenever, and I do check my email even when I’m absent from everywhere else.
Are you breathing a sigh of relief about getting back to work? Or are you saving it for tomorrow? XD
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You got it. I’m probably only going to do Cover Reveals for now on. The blog tours seem to take too much time and effort with not much payoff. At least not the last 2 times.
My sigh of relief will happen soon after I get my son on the bus tomorrow. 🙂 Seriously, I’m expecting a fight for the next few mornings. I have to get back into my morning biking too.
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I’ve thought about doing blog tours, but I’ve heard they don’t do much of anything. (Though you can’t really complain about getting your name out there in general.) But yeah, the time/effort/payoff thing is something to consider. They can also get pretty expensive when you’re not organizing them yourself. (Then you get back to the time/effort thing.)
I guess that regardless of whether or not a fight occurs, he’ll be getting on the bus and you’ll be getting your sigh of relief. 😉
I for sure need to get back to the gym, but with the anxiety I can only go between 2-4 in the morning. (Prime working hours . . .)
I would probably do better to just get a stationary bike and not worry about people. ha
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Blog tours used to be very helpful, but something changed this year. I’m not sure what happened. Maybe everyone was doing them, so they lost their novelty. When you see 3 blog tours going on at once, you kind of turn off the concept. At least Cover Reveals still work because pre-release hype is always good.
Just found out I have to drive him to school on his first day because of a 30 minute orientation. So I might not be doing much writing until Thursday. Maybe I’ll start in on the second book tonight if I can retain any energy.
I got the bike because I feel too self-conscious at a gym. Even if nobody is paying attention to me, I feel like I’m being watched or judged.
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Hm. I HAVE noticed more blog tours going on this year than there seemed to be last year. Maybe that’s what it is, everyone just getting sort of overloaded by them. That’s a shame though, when something that works starts not-working. (Again, I’ve never done one, but I’ve seen some people say that they DO work. Then again . . . that was a while ago. Or maybe I’m just confused because everyone always contradicts what everyone else says. Have you noticed that?)
HOW HAS YOUR WRITING BEEN GOING DURING THE WEEK?!
I guess the way I feel at the gym would be comparable. I’ve noticed that my anxiety is off the charts there at all times. But I’ve always been uncomfortable doing anything even remotely physical around other people. I wouldn’t even let my husband see me run (which I sort of can’t do anyway) for years.
I have issues. lol
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Not sure why that question is in caps. The writing is going insanely slow as I fix Prodigy of Rainbow Tower. Might take me into next week at this rate.
I hate working out around my wife. Mostly because she’s a chatterbox and I like listening to music.
I wonder if the indie author bubble popping last year and into this year has something to do with it. I’ve seen a lot of authors quit, switch genres, get into flame wars, and do some odd marketing. There was an article a few months ago about how Romance indie authors are still raking in the money. Suddenly several authors I watched began writing romance and/or erotica stories. One person even asked why I wasn’t doing it. So we might be seeing a little panic as the game changes.
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So I had about half of this comment responded to, then I went to eat, came back out here, totally spaced and closed out of it. Kind of frustrated with myself for that. Anyway, trying again . . .
The question was in caps because I know you hadn’t gotten much done recently and was excited for you thinking that you might have. I can’t help myself sometimes . . .
But progress is progress and progress is always good. Right? >.>
I think I missed out on something seriously massive with what you were talking about at the end there. What popped last year? Have people really been dropping off? (I also don’t know what you’re talking about with flame wars.)
Are that many people really switching genres for that reason? I mean . . . I’m sure there are a lot of people that write for ‘what’s selling’. I just (personally) can’t imagine writing a story strictly for that reason. It kind of makes me sad thinking about it. I’m sorry if I sort of took that the wrong way and you meant something totally different.
LoL Do you have any interest in writing romance and/or erotica stories?
Is the game changing?
So lost . . .
I don’t know. I feel like it’s kind of impossible to really get a handle on it at all. I’m not too worried about it. (At least not today. Can’t speak for tomorrow or yesterday.) I’m just going to write what feels right and keep chugging along.
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Guess progress is progress. Just hard to put a big positive spin when I have so little time and my day basically ends at 3:30 in the afternoon.
I don’t really understand it myself. It sounds like last year was when the indie author market became less of a sure deal and more competitive. At least that’s how people make it sound. It might be more that the market became over-saturated or readers are more leery of indie authors because of a high rate of shoddy books. Either way, it’s become harder to be successful. This has caused several authors to quit because the money isn’t there or it’s no longer fun. Others try to do whatever they can for attention like starting on-line fights with reviewers and other authors. That’s what I’ve been seeing this year.
I’m not interested in romance/erotica. I have the stories I want to tell and I hope I can keep doing it. The system has to balance out at some point as indie authors drop out. I think a big part might also be traditional publishers dropping eBook prices, which has indie authors scared that they’re going to lose sales to them.
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I understand that. I think that was a lot of my problem there for a while, just not having enough time.
I’m sure you’ll get it all figured out.
It’s DEFINITELY hard to do this, especially with the over-saturation and whatnot. Obviously the ‘money’ isn’t going to be there. It’s not a sprint (apart from the rare case), so going into it with that mindset isn’t going to do much of anything. But I think if someone was only in it for the money, they should definitely be doing something else anyway.
I can’t believe people would be starting fights on purpose. That’s just . . . (a lot of words I probably shouldn’t say on here and just . . .) no.
Do you really think a lot of them will drop out? Seems like there’s just more and more (and more and more and more). Like for every one that drops out there’s 1000 jumping into it. Twitter really puts all that into perspective, for me at least. Kind of scary.
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Yeah. The kid has to hit that ‘I don’t want daddy around stage’ at some point. I say this while his hanging from my leg pretending to be a boot.
I think media affects it somewhat. You see a lot of articles talking about indie authors who made millions, so people jump on what they think is a sure thing. They don’t realize the work or the article leaves out a few important parts like the indie author got the millions after getting a contract or that it’s still very rare. Personally I think one of the goals of being an indie author should be creating a platform that can lead to the option of traditional publishing. I’ve called it the Open Mic Night for writers before.
I think you’ll see some drop out, but there’s always going to be people who are starting up. Figure that a bunch are people who love the current book trend and want to jump into it like E.L. James kind of did with 50 Shades originating as Twilight fan fiction.
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HAHA! How do you get ANY work done with him literally hanging on you? I guess you get used to it?
He’ll definitely have to hit that stage eventually. Are you going to miss the hanging when he does? XD
I’ll agree with what you said (noticed that tends to happen) about media affecting it. I mean, you get the flukes or whatever, where someone will publish something and not really do much of anything for it to blow up. (One is coming to mind – the one you mentioned in your previous comment. Then again, I don’t know what that author actually did to make it blow up.) But it takes so much work added with a crapton of luck. I don’t really think it can work the other way around. Then again, who knows?
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I try and pray I don’t need to rewrite. Other times I take on a more low priority project like outlining something or writing up future blog posts. Thankfully I did more for Allure in the past than Prodigy, so I might be able to get some editing done tomorrow. As long as he agrees to watch ‘Frozen’ at some point.
I probably will miss the hanging on, but I’m sure it’ll switch to something else like asking for money or the car keys.
I think I mentioned E.L. James. Not really sure. It does take a lot of work and luck, so it’s so strange hearing about all these ‘sudden successes’.
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Rewriting. >.<
LoL, I've heard that Frozen is pretty good at keeping kids occupied, so hopefully it works tomorrow. Or, er, today.
I don't know that asking for money and car keys would be better than the hanging . . .
Then again, maybe it would.
Yeah, you mentioned E.L. James. Definitely a 'sudden success'. I still just don't get it, but to each their own and whatnot.
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It’ll give me two hours if I can do it. He’s on a Thomas kick though, which requires I go to open a new video every couple of minutes. You wouldn’t believe how many homemade Thomas the Train videos are on Youtube. A lot of them are in Russian though, which causes a debate between me and him. His favorite is done by someone with a British accent, so now he’s trying to imitate the voice, which is cute.
With the hanging, I know where he is and it can work like weight lifting. At least that’s what I tell myself.
I’m not sure how sudden she was. It started as Twilight fan fiction then she altered it and moved it around. I don’t really know how it went from there, but she certainly had a decent fan base prior to being traditionally published. That’s what seems to get left out of the main reports. It’s hinted at, but the media seems obsessed with the ‘overnight success’ idea. As for why, I’m going with guilty pleasure of housewives and teenage girls that can sneak a copy into their house.
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That’s adorable, him trying to imitate the accent!
Curious what sort of debate is caused over the Russian. Did he end up watching Frozen?
Yeah, I’ve heard all that about those books and whatnot. I guess you’re probably right about the ‘sneaking the copy’ stuff. But hey, people like what they like and whatnot. Just because I don’t get it doesn’t mean no one else does. (And apparently, a LOT of people must ‘get’ the whole thing for those books. Though, you do have to wonder if it’s a ‘shock factor’ thing, at least in part.)
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He watched Frozen. The debate over the Russian is that we can never find those videos again, which gets him upset. He’s also speech development delayed, so tossing another language in might cause some issues.
I think a lot of people got the book out of curiosity or to mock it with certainty. I notice that you don’t hear much about it any more, but that’s probably more that the media has moved on. If only every author got a 15 minute shot of fame. 🙂
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Whew, I bet it’s a fight when he wants to re-watch something and you can’t find it. Who knows, maybe he’ll become fluent in Russian by age six or something?
Yeah, I haven’t heard much about those books lately, but I’d imagine that it’ll all blow up again when the movie comes out.
LoL. Ain’t that the truth? (About the fifteen minute shot of fame.)
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It’s messy, but he’s becoming more understanding about that situation.
I read yesterday that they’re doing Twilight mini-movies soon. I guess that juggernaut isn’t dying any decade soon. Does it seem like the big books to film series simply aren’t going away?
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I haven’t heard about the Twilight mini-movies. Wth is up with that? I guess I can just go look it up, if I don’t get distracted and forget. I don’t even know what they COULD do with that.
This is one of those instances where being separated by a computer screen isn’t as nice as it usually is. I’m sure the expression on my face could sum up how I feel about that better than any words. (Or as good as.)
Honestly, I don’t mind them continuing on with most of the big book-to-film things. But the thing is . . . Twilight was/is DONE. There’s nothing else there. At least with Harry Potter, the spin-off movie makes sense.
Kind of like with Star Wars. They make more movies, I get to watch more movies, and that makes me happy.
And I guess with the book-to-movie thing, I like to think those can get people reading who otherwise wouldn’t have.
But we were talking about E.L. James. Totally random here, but have you thought at all about people going to the theater to see that movie? It’s like . . .
Is it going to be COUPLES? GIRLFRIENDS? I can’t imagine going to the theater to see that movie with anyone. haha
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No idea. I actually heard about them a few minutes before I mentioned them. I would say that the spin-off of anything that reaches a conclusion is rather ridiculous. It really depends on if you’re a fan or not. I like Harry Potter, but I sometimes feel like it’s a race horse that nobody is putting out to pasture. Eventually it’ll just collapse during a race and probably in front of a school field trip. As for Twilight, I can see where they go since you can always put in a new vampire baddy. I think. Was there a plot to that series beyond get boyfriend, have demon baby, go fangy?
I try not to think about that movie. It’s easy too because my wife wouldn’t touch it or the books with a twenty foot pole. Not unless there was a chainsaw on the other end and she was destroying the only copies. I wonder how many people will bring their kids to that movie. You know somebody is going to do that because they couldn’t find a babysitter.
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I just looked up that Twilight stuff. Seems like most of the posts on it were a couple years ago, so maybe it really HAS died down. I couldn’t find anything recent, but I’ll admit I didn’t look very hard.
I definitely get what you’re saying, about the race horse/pasture. I guess I’m just always happy to see more. But I DID get to that point with The Mentalist, which used to be my favorite show. They just dragged it out without anything ‘new’ in it for WAY too long. But then again, Psych ended while still popular (or as popular as I guess it was), and I’m extremely sad about that. So I’m torn on it. Part of me would rather have more to watch and the other part would rather have it left with fond memories.
Yeah, I guess you could just toss another vampire baddy in. Then you have to get into how ‘beefed up’ their ‘family’ is. It’s too massive for any one baddy to pose any sort of legitimate threat to them, so I’m not entirely sure there could be anything substantial to go on there. But I suppose substantiality is subjective, along with pretty much everything else.
As for there being more plot than that? Not really.
The lack of plot doesn’t bother me as much as the lack of character growth. Preferences and whatnot, I reckon.
Okay. The kids seeing that movie? Yeah, I hadn’t thought of that. This was my face ~~> O.O (or part of it) when reading that part of the comment.
I’d imagine you’re absolutely right about that, and it’s absolutely horrifying. Then again, it bothered me that my sister let my niece watch the later Twilight movies in theaters when she was like . . . seven or eight? (Not to mention that she started watching Walking Dead about a year ago, which is a totally different knee-jerk reaction. Not my kid, not my business, but still.) Kids seeing 50 Shades is seriously scary to me.
But I loved the chainsaw thing you said. I DID read a ‘someone reads’ for it, and that was more than enough for me.
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A lot of shows seem to be creating plots that you swear can’t go longer than a season. Hunting a single serial killer, revenge on one family, escaping a prison, etc. Yet they manage to keep going until you forget the original story or it becomes a ridiculous drinking game.
Vampire families? Is that how it worked? I never really looked into that.
My wife and I went to see a violent movie with terrible plot and that’s just about all I remember. It was halfway through that we heard a baby crying and realized it wasn’t from the movie. A couple had brought their toddler and an older child, but still younger than ten, to this movie. It was one of those moments where you really want to ask why they did what they did, but you know it’ll be an answer that kills brain cells.
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I don’t even know how long it took for Jane to find Red John in The Mentalist. I just know it went on WAAAAY too long for me. That was a hard show for me to give up. I might give it another shot one day. It’s still on, so I’m guessing there’s SOMETHING good going on in it, even though most of the original characters are gone now, I think.
Vampire families, yeah I guess. Like considering people family when they’re not, and living together like a family where the kids never grow up completely and move out. Something like that.
About the kid(s) in the violent movie? Yeah, more often than not, I’d rather not ask for the reason you said.
I try to keep hold of all my brain cells when interacting with people. Hard to manage sometimes.
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I thought he never found him. There was the fake that you found and killed at the end of one season. I think it would have worked better if Red John had more copycats or some apprentices like Jigsaw. It was so weird that they would be going after random people and then Red John would show up for an episode only to disappear. You can do that for only so long. Don’t even get me started on the romance part of it.
Guess they couldn’t call them packs since they had the pedophilia werewolves. (I will not let that silliness go.)
Most people aren’t worth the brain cell death.
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He definitely ended up finding Red John. There WAS the wrong guy at the end of a season. I think it was only a few episodes into the next season that I stopped watching. I did read that he ended up finding him though. I watched it religiously for WAY too long to not check back in.
The thing I couldn’t understand is how Red John was EVERYWHERE. All the time. It still makes no sense to me, but maybe if I’d watched all of it . . .
The romance between the two cops, or what?
You’re absolutely right. Most people aren’t worth the death of brain cells.
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I stopped the season after the fake because it seemed a little too much to me. They had to get rid of Red John at some point, but you can’t do it after people are sick of him. Seems anti-climactic. At least to me.
I believe I was talking about the male and female leads. Supporting characters seem to get into it too.
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Congrats on the numbers, Charles. As soon as I get through my horrendously jam-packed couple of weeks and I can get my act together, I’d love to have you on the blog again for an interview.
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I’ll look forward to it. Finally getting back into writing today. Starting slow with noting a few scattered ideas. Tomorrow will be diving into editing.
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