Numbers

Many of us authors worry about their numbers. When Walmart decided not to distribute Virtually His, my numbers dropped by at least 35,000. Which was, you know, a big bomb in my career's living room.

I can name you a few authors who aren't worry about theirs, though. From PUBLISHERS WEEKLY:

Hardcover Bestsellers from 2009:

1. The Lost Symbol: A Novel. Dan Brown. Doubleday (5,543,643).

4. I, Alex Cross. James Patterson. Little, Brown (1,040,976).

7. Finger Lickin' Fifteen. Janet Evanovich. St. Martin's (977,178).

12. U Is for Undertow. Sue Grafton. Putnam (706,154).

13. The Scarpetta Factor. Patricia Cornwell. Putnam (705,000).

25. Dead and Gone: A Sookie Stackhouse Novel. Charlaine Harris. Ace (500,135).
26. Southern Lights: A Novel. Danielle Steel. Delacorte (497,140).

37. Kindred in Death. J.D. Robb. Putnam (315,000).

65. The Perfect Christmas. Debbie Macomber. Harlequin (200,227).

77. Sizzle: A Novel. Julie Garwood. Ballantine (182,010).

83. Divine Misdemeanors: A Novel. Laurell K. Hamilton. Ballantine (166,102).

106. Ice: A Novel. Linda Howard. Ballantine (138,126).

116. Lover Avenged: A Novel of the Black Dagger Brotherhood. J.R. Ward. NAL (125,126).

121. Dark Slayer. Christine Feehan. Berkley (121,082).

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Mass Market (Paperback) sales 2009 II'm just picking a few, so these below aren't ranked):

Tribute. Nora Roberts. Rep. Jove. (1,250,361).

From Dead to Worse: A Sookie Stackhouse Novel. Charlaine Harris. Rep. Ace (877,000).

The Choice. Nicholas Sparks. Grand Central. (870,116).

Promises in Death. J.D. Robb. Rep. Berkley (635,372).

Salvation in Death. J.D. Robb. Rep. Berkley (631,019).

Dream Warrior. Sherrilyn Kenyon. Orig. St. Martin's (575,000).

Fearless Fourteen. Janet Evanovich. Rep. St. Martin's (1,200,000).

Nope, no Gennita Low, dammit ;-). The Dan Brown numbers boggle the brain, dudes. How many copies of The Da Vinci Code do you have in your home and puter?!!! I mean, it still sold 700,000+ in 2009!

There were multiple repeats of names, of course. Just look at all the Nora Roberts that hit the lists, both in hardcover, mass market, and trade paperbacks. It's like...Whoa. That's a one-woman powerhouse there.

The usual big names are all there: King, Koontz, Johansson, Macomber. Over and over. I think Charlaine Harris is on there with ten Sookie books. I'm sure the Stephanie Meyer Twilight series is on there somewhere, even though I couldn't see them.

I feel so lucky that I could actually talk to some of the above names at conferences and ask for advice; yes, they're friendly humans! And don't forget, Linda Howard told me last year that she loves my books :-D. I shall cherish that line and my "inability to speak anything other than gasp out a thank you" moment forever and ever and ever.

Go hop over to the link and see how many of the books you've bought/read. Are there any that surprised you?

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Numbers & Intentions

It never fails to amuse me. All I have to do is post sexy vege pictures and a Gerard Butler video and my site numbers spike up by hundreds. Many people from all over the world (Indonesia, I'm looking at you) are in love with Gerard Butler. I'm not sure what people have in mind when they google for sexy veges, LOL.

I know writers don't share sales numbers because of...I don't know...because of some unspoken professional rule, but since Big Bad Wolf was a self-pubbed experiment, I'll do so on my blog for those who are interested in whether this option is viable for you.

At the end of 2009, one year after BIG BAD WOLF came out, I've sold 700 copies, mostly through Amazon. Those that I sold from Createspace are mainly orders from overseas, especially from wonderful Australian booksellers who keep my Aussie readers Glow-happy and to whom I'm eternally grateful.

Overseas sales are about 100 copies, ordered by readers from Australia, Malaysia (yo, homies!), Singapore, Thailand, England, and France. I'm sure I missed a few international readers, especially Canadians, who ordered through Amazon, which I must seriously thank because I know the shipping charges got to be painful to the wallet.

When I started this project, my research said I could expect about 250 sales at most because, other than family and friends, self-published books aren't going to catch much attention. So that was my target. I figure I could possibly get 250 sales at 12 or 13 books a month.

My main worry was the price. Amazon takes a big chunk of the $11.55 price I put on the book, almost 80 percent. I needed to make back some money to:

1) prove that it's a business venture that can bring in profit
2) pay a bit of taxes (I didn't have a contract with Samhain when I started so I needed to show income for my GLow entity)
3) pay for the odds and ends, like the cover art and shipping charges

Most trade paperbacks are $14 and above. Most self-published books are set at incredibly self-delusional prices (some at US$40). I really tried to get it as close to $10 as I could, but couldn't do it at that time. I think, at this point, after a year, I can lower the price to $10.55.

My only problem was that I didn't know how to set my .pdf file into Amazon's .css requirement. Someone mentioned that Word would automatically do this but maybe it's a newer Word since my version (2003) doesn't seem to have this function. I just didn't have the time to sit down to learn. I'd love to be able to get on Kindle and sell it for $4 or whatever it was the wise and funny J.A. Konrath was teaching at his blog. Maybe that would be my 2010 goal...learn Kindle-ese.

Okay, that's my self-pub numbers in a few paragraphs. I'm not an expert. I mostly muddled through the process and did very little publicity except blog about it. The numbers stand on their own, with no big stores selling the book, no big push from anyone, a couple of wonderful reviews from Mrs. Giggles and Riley Merrick (sadly, I'm heartbroken, I couldn't get Harriet Klausner to give me five stars, heh), and no advertisement. All I had were my readers and I'm eternally grateful to everyone who ordered the book because you trusted my writing enough to know that I'd try my best to give you a worthy book. Thank you.

I think I'd try another self-pub book this year, so that I can LOWER Big Bad Wolf's price. Just to see whether Amazon would do a 2-for-1 sale or something like that. I'm curious at how they recommend their Createspace books. Besides, the income from those 700 books was enough to pay for most of my health insurance. So, yay. That was much, much more than my original 2 bks a month expectations, yes?

***********

Last year I also went epubbed for the first time. My New Year's resolution was to sell Virtually Hers by-hook-or-by-crook and I accomplished that in May, when the wonderful Angela James, then Samhain editor, bought my book.

Virtually Hers has been out three months and has done okay. Again, with a two-year lapse between Book 1 and Book 2, I wasn't expecting much, so was pleasantly surprised at the first month's sales number (in the hundreds). I'm looking forward to the print version of Virtually Hers coming out this August because I know many of my readers are waiting for the print format to read Jed's and Hell's continuing story.

Many readers are still not familiar with the e-book world. Or they don't hear much news about it. I get a number of emails a month asking where they could find Virtually Hers, after they googled the item and found that it was out in 2007. That's OLD news, of course, and I have to explain that THAT book never came out, and that it is now available through Samhain. Two out of three would then re-email me, confused about how to order the print book from Samhain, even though I've earlier explained that VHers was an electronic book first.

So, as an e-author, I've to learn how to communicate clearer about book formats and how the e-book world works (first e-format, then months later, print format). Most of my readers are looking for the print format and although some are willing to download the e-book, many opted to wait. I adore their patience. I adore their wonderful steadfastness. I adore that they keep looking for Gennita Low's books.

Many of my emails often ask about Alex's and T's story. I cannot tell you how popular these two are to readers and how many times I've to explain to them that although my agent is shopping their story around (with my proposal), she hasn't been able to sell it. And you know I love Alex and T as much as you do. I wrote their story in series-contemporary format years ago and even then they were special. I posted their original meeting a while back as a Christmas gift and I still get readers asking for a repeat after I've taken it off. I'll probably have to do it again.

So, anyway, I guess I should be bold and announce that my 2010 resolution is to get Alex's and T's story published by-hook-and-by-crook, eh? But I do have two projects that I need to get to:

1) For my agent, a new proposal about treasure hunters, with a spec. ops. flavor

2) For the self-pub, the Viking Dude urban-fantasy/alternative first POV story. It's not doing too well as a proposal, so I'm going to get it done (because I love my story) and put the first five chapters out for you to read free to see whether you'd like to continue. If there are enough thumbs-up, I'll self-publish it on Amazon.

Enough about boring numbers and intentions. Thought I'd share with you my 2010 writing plans after Virtually One (Samhain, hopefully late Spring 2010). I should be doing my first e-book signing at Romantic Times Booklovers Convention! Another first, and not sure what that entails. And yes, I'll be giving away free copies of Big Bad Wolf ;-).

For those who have requested, I'll put up the first chapter of T's and Alex's story again this afternoontomorrow (sorry, had to take off to measure a roof. In the cold, argh! And after that, I was so frozen, I was tempted into putting liqueur in my hot chocolate....) some time and put the link here. Stay tune.

Now, if only I could put a Gerard Butler original video in my ebook, you know I'm going to get some fantastic sales numbers :-).

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All These Characters In My Head

Here's some cool news--I sold #300 of Big Bad Wolf today. Woohoo! I'm going to keep saying it: thank you, thank you, thank you so much!

Bike Week is coming up and I'll be doing a signing then too, so hopefully I'll have some more good sales news to share with you by next weekend. This is really giving me the incentive to put out the anthology I told you about, of short stories of familiar characters from past books. I've already decided on two of the novellas:

1) The STAR SEALs ragging on Reed (Joker) about his wealth the night before Jazz's and Vivi's wedding. I've started writing the story, actually, but being a pantser, it's sort of veered off into bachelor party territory with some off-colored jokes. I'm trying to tone that down, heh. You can imagine how rowdy it could get for this particular group of males the night before one of their own's wedding. Poor Jazz. He really doesn't want THAT kind of wild night. Really, it's the evil roofers influencing the very bad things these SEALs are saying in my draft. So, I'm going to have to try to direct things back to my original story idea--Reed talking to his team about his background.

2) Rick and Nikki. The happy couple. Nikki is glowing because you know, she's pregnant. The timeline is during Sleeping With The Agent, when she's guiding Reed. Remember she went to Skopje to assist Reed? Well, this novella is set just before, when she's telling Rick her decision to go. Can you imagine Rick's reaction? I have a good outline started too. Let's hope I don't go too off-course.

I need two more story ideas and am looking at all the suggestions y'all have given me in the past. Some of Lady Z.'s were very good! I know you're wanting more Jed, but if I do, it'll have to be set way in the past before Hell because, as you know, anything showing Jed in action means there'd probably be a woman around. He could be in "Stefan" mode, you know. But are you, the reader, ready to read about Jed being with another woman? One thing cool about this anthology is that it's possible to do something like this, catching a glimpse of scenes in the GlowWorld "past" that you could read alone, if you aren't familiar with it, and yet, if you have read the other books, you'd know where to insert these incidences.

I think it'll be another fun project (something different to learn to craft) while struggling through Viking Dude and patiently waiting for news about my proposals on editors' desks. You do remember that I have T's and Alex's story as one of my proposals, right? Think positive thoughts for a sale when you have a few minutes to spare, 'kay? To be honest, I'd much, much prefer to work on their story ;-).

The current plan is to get this anthology out in three or four months, depending on how the writing goes and whether I'll have good news from my agent about the proposals. Yes, I wish I could write super-fast too. This is one skill I'm still learning to master.

Anyway, I hope you're as excited about my newest project/plan as I am. I think I'll post a few of pages of the SEALs get-together as soon as I wrestle back some control of the story and let these alpha dudes know who's in charge of the story. ***giving them the Clint Eastwood squint***

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So I Wrote The Uber Speech

I did it! It's done and I'm pretty pleased with it. Now, if I just don't fall on my face while staring at the audience, start mumbling incoherently like an idiot, or forget how to work my tongue, it's going to be a pretty good closing speech.

My main theme will be about a desperate woman. Since I seem to be always desperately trying to get somewhere or finish something, I deem myself an expert on the subject.

Writing the speech was tough. It took days of thinking about what I want to convey and a whole morning to finally piece all my thoughts together. I've never written one that's so long before (half an hour!!!) and of course, the sight of the pages and pages of handwritten notes is awesomely mind-boggling. I mean, I have to read all those words out loud to a captivated audience! Yikes.

Tomorrow is my guest-blogging day for Romance Readers At Heart so do please drop by and leave comment. Click on the link here, 'kay? While you're reading that, I'll be giving a workshop at the conference about The Problem Child: The Second Book.

I don't know whether I've posted this here, but I found out from my publisher that Walmart and Target hadn't picked up Virtually His. It seems they have a new policy, beginning April 2007, to just sell books written by the upper tier bestselling authors, like Nora Roberts, Linda Howard, and Elizabeth Lowell. Mid-list authors such as me and some of my friends are out of luck ;-(.

Worrisome. I told myself I can't let this get me down, but it's still a nagging disappointment. Not only do I want my first book to do well the first few weeks because Walmart sales account for a huge part of an author's numbers, but I also want readers to be able to easily get my books. Some people don't live close by an independent bookstore or a Barnes and Noble but has a Walmart down the street.

Sigh.

Another thing for new and mid-list authors to lose their sleep over. I'm trying my best to promote this book, but really, what else is there to do but to just keep writing and praying that good word-of-mouth will help generate interest?

Thanks for listening to my mini-pout. I promise to get over this hump.

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