Just realized it's been two months since I blogged anything here and just thought I'd give everyone an update.
The biggest news of course is the Facebook page. Just search on Verdan Chronicles, you can't miss it. Or just go to this link Verdan Chronicles Facebook Page
It's been an interesting experience through trial and error. Of course the Facebook people are happy to help you market your page, but it's not free. So I spent a little on promoting the page and now I have 400+ followers. That's actually very cool, but I'm less sure how to maintain that. Facebook will encourage you to post more and then promote those posts. That actually does work if you're willing to continue to spend money. In the meantime though, the more you post some people will feel you're cluttering their facebook page and they may unlike or stop following you. It's all a balancing act.
So to help launch the Facebook page I used it to promote a giveaway on Goodreads. I think that worked very well with over 1600 people entering the giveaway and I now have over 1000 people on Goodreads that have added my first book to their "to read" list. The only problem there is that many people on Goodreads are avid readers (duh) and have hundreds of books on their list. They're also constantly adding more books to their list and the odds they'll actually ever get to your book are small.
I've actually been on about 500 "to read" lists for the past seven months and I think about 10 people have actually read the book (including Giveaway winners). The good news is that I have a total of 8 ratings on Goodreads with an average score of 4.5 out of 5. It's a small sampling, but it does mean that if you read my books there is an actual chance you might like them. It gives me hope.
On the Amazon front I've run a couple of Kindle giveaways over the summer. Sales are still slow (very slow), but at least some people are getting a free copy of the book. Are they reading it? Do they like it? Can't tell from absence of feedback. But to other authors out there, there is one side benefit. Since you have to purchase the books you use in the Amazon giveaway it does count as a sale and your book will move up the sales list.
The ninth book in my series was published this year and thus far has sold 1 copy on Amazon. It ranks around 3.2 million and something in sales. With all the giveaways this year my first book ranks around 1.2 million in sales. So I now know two things. First, The Fourth Age sells better than over 2 million other books on Amazon. Second, there's a whole lot of published authors out there who don't sell many books. In other words, if you're going to get into publishing your books, I wish you the best of luck. You're going to need it.
In my case it doesn't really bother me. I got into this because I had a story to tell and I had friends that wanted to read it in a published form. I did it first and foremost for me, and then for them. Everything after that, even if it is only a few dozen people is a bonus and a very positive one at that. So thank you to everyone who's given the series a chance and thank you to those who have given me positive feedback.
What's next? Between work and promotional efforts there hasn't been much time for actual writing the past couple of months and I miss that. I final got back into it last weekend. Mostly I had to reread what I wrote for volume 10 earlier in the year, get in the right frame of mind and then I actually wrote 3-4 new pages. I'm hoping there's much more of that in the coming months. I'm commited to getting the 10th book published at some point next year.
Oh yeah, Amy is very busy on the cover to the 10th book. People have responded very positively to her art (as well they should) and anyone who's a fan of Fernol on the cover of Volume 1, you should like his grandson, Rowtan, who will adorn Volume 10. Rowtan will play a very instrumental role in the future of the series. In fact, the role of dragons in the history of my universe will be unveiled and things will never be the same.
Next time I'm going to write a companion piece to Celecia and introduce readers old and new to Dakoran, the other half of an amazing team.