The trials and tribulations of a self-published steampunk writer

Friday 19 July 2013

Can I call them "Bestsellers" now?


Holy crap.

Both books in the Top 10 Kindle Steampunk books in the UK. Genuinely delighted with that.

Red Mercury has been bouncing about the Top 10 for a few weeks now, but Neptune Rising has been bubbling under, never getting out of the teens until now.

I did a three day giveaway of Red Mercury using KDP Select about a month ago. Second one I've done, but this one really seemed to work - getting a whole heap of freebie distribution, but this time translating almost immediately into a paid-for sales bounce when the promotion finished. Really pleased.

Thanks to everyone who's given the books I go. I hope you enjoy them. Feel free to give them a review on Amazon or Goodreads.

Tuesday 2 July 2013

And the reviews are in!

So Neptune Rising has been out for about a month now and sales are going pretty well. It's definitely moving faster than Red Mercury did at the same stage of launch - which is good.

The thing I hadn't expected when I launched the new book was to see a spike in the first one's sales. With hindsight I suppose I should have anticipated something like this as publishing a second will prompt a bunch of people who had previously abstained to try the first (they probably figure if you've gone to the trouble of writing a second one then the first one might not be as terrible as they assumed).

My main route for publicising Neptune Rising was through Facebook, Twitter and this blog. Once again, my Facebook friends were incredibly generous in their support and sharing. Thanks to them, Neptune Rising broke into the Top 20 in Sci-Fi on Kindle in the UK for a few days, and peaked at 30-something in the US.

The first few reviews are slowly trickling in, and I'm delighted to say they've been very positive. Here are some excerpts...

"the perfect Steampunk boys own adventure - in fact it reminds me a lot of the old Ian Fleming "James Bond" books I've been rereading recently. Impossible missions supported by fabulous gadgets and contraptions, a little bit of love interest, and a LOT of style"

"a fast-paced war-pirate steampunk mash up. The cliché "couldn't put it down" is a perfect description of this book - the story is off like a whippett and doesn't slow down"

"all the action and high jinx needed to be a great read"

"Read this through in a single sitting as it was so easy to read, clipping along at a good pace. I would recommend it to anyone"

Overall, I'm delighted with the comments. If you've read it, I'd love to hear what you thought.

If you haven't read it yet, then what are you waiting for? Get thee to Amazon...