My Publishing Journey: 2 Week Update!

Wow what a journey this has been. For those of you who have not been following my progress you can take a look at the work I have done over the last year to prepare for publishing here.

Today I wanted to go over what’s happened in the last two weeks since I launched In The End, my fast paced apocalyptic thriller and debut novel.

Here goes:

  • Sales Figures – Sold 64 books (70% Kindle), with the addition of another 31 books worth read on Kindle Unlimited.
  • Reviews – I’ve not been actively asking for reviews yet as I want to give people chance to read, but still I have got 4 UK and 1 US review on Amazon, giving me an average of 4 stars in the UK and 5 stars in the US. It’s very odd that the reviews don’t join together no matter where the marketplace is. It’s just one of the idiosyncrasies I come across in the last few days. Below are five of the reviews. You can click on a review if you want to read it. A big thank you to those guys for taking the time.
  • Goodreads – I grabbed my Goodreads author page about a week after release and found 7 people had added the book by the time I grabbed the account and had left two reviews! I now have 3 and an average of 4 1/2 stars, with 9 people adding the book to one of their shelves. I’ve synced my blog to Goodreads too, which was a handy feature I didn’t know about before. Goodreads has become another site I keep checking on to see how the reviews progress.
  • Author Central – This is where I can check my current sales rating for the paperback and the Kindle, view and respond to reviews and update my bio. I’ve just found out I need an author central account for each marketplace so I’ve hastily put the US one together. You get so much more information on the .com site! Again, why can’t there just be one which covers all marketplaces? If you’re interested what the sales charts look like from author central, I’ve added some screen shots at the end of this post.
  • Amazon Support – I had to email Amazon support to get my Kindle and Paperbacks to appear on the same product page.
  • Advertising Course – I signed up the for the Ads for Authors course, which is going really well and I’m hoping to start experimenting with Amazon ads soon and there’ll be plenty of posts coming out of that process, I’m sure!
  • Audiobook – I’ve found out about producing an audiobook through amazon company ACX and I’ve commissioned the production of my book and it should be ready in the first half of next year. I’ve already reviewed the first 15 minutes and have 20 chapters ready for me to run through at the weekend.
  • AllAuthor Competition – I’ve entered my cover in the AllAuthor cover competition and it’s through to the second round. You can help me get through to the next round by voting for it here.
  • Interviewing Authors – I’m upping the anti on my interviews and getting more ballsy on who I ask for an interview. I’m also trying to target authors in a similar area to me to see if I can cross-pollenate my readers and theirs.
  • Being Interviewed – I’ve been doing more interviews with other blogs which should come out soon.
  • More ARC reviews – The book is still out for two reviewers. One is due to publish on Sunday.
  • Free Copies – I’ve sent copies of my book to the British Libary, my two local papers and my old secondary school. We’ll see what comes of those! I will also be sending one to my libary.
  • Admin – I completed my CIP record. I had to email them to find out the link. If you need it it’s here https://www.bdslive.com/page/cip/
  • Promos – I haven’t done any promo pricing or offers yet as I need to sync these with my ads
  • Book 2 – Plus and most importantly, I’m back editing the follow up!

When I get a few moments I’ll dive into some of the topics mentioned above in some more detail, plus I’ll update my long publishing journey post so everything is in one place again. The next adventure will be ramping up the marketing. I always knew it would be the hard part!

Once again thank you so much for all your support, and of course, if you haven’t bought the book yet……here’s the link…..

GJ Stevens

I am a Writer. I love to write fast-paced action and adventure thrillers! Subscribe to my mailing list to get FREE books!

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