First, a bit of backstory
In 2010, I was lucky enough to be accepted by the ebook imprint of a traditional publisher. It was a great introduction to the industry and I remain deeply grateful for the experience. However, after four novels and one novella, I wanted more control over things like covers, pricing and release dates.
I made the leap to self-publishing in 2014, expecting the transition would be a huge learning curve. It was, but that was mostly because I didn’t want to be exclusive to one platform. These days it’s easy to go with an aggregator if you don’t want to set up accounts yourself. Back then, I wasn’t aware of aggregators, and I did it all myself. But this post isn’t about the past, it’s about where I am now and what I’ve learned along the way.
Just because you can publish something, doesn’t mean you should
I started self-publishing with a trilogy of chicklit-ish novellas. They flopped. I changed tack and published a weird paranormal novel. Which also flopped. I changed tack again and published two connected paranormal mysteries. Yep, they flopped too. If you’re counting, I’m now up to three novellas and three novels that weren’t selling. What the heck was I doing wrong? It seems obvious now, but it took me a while to realize that in order to sell books I had to write what readers wanted to read.
I’d always enjoyed reading cozy mysteries myself, but I’d never really believed I could write one. Anyway, I decided to give it a go. I spent some time studying the genre, a lot of time writing it, and even more time stressing about the results before I published my first paranormal cozy—Secrets, Spells & Murder. The good news is, it didn’t flop. In fact, it sold enough copies to encourage me to write more in the series.
Advertising or not
Around the time I published my third paranormal cozy, I started to think about promotion. Since I couldn’t afford to pay for advertising, I decided to put the first book in the series free. It was a good move that worked well to introduce more readers to the series. I’ve since experimented by putting the free book to 99c. The downloads dropped to almost nothing. Free works for me, although it might not work for everyone.Website or not
Since 2010 I’ve had a website in several different designs. I always imagined it was helping to sell my books. Recently, I accidentally conducted an experiment on the usefulness of my website.
I’d been planning to open my own store and, with that in mind, I retired my website. Things didn’t pan out as I’d expected. My store isn’t open yet and I’ve been without a website for about six months. Surprisingly, without a website, my sales remained the same.
Where am I now?
In the seven years since I published that first paranormal cozy, I’ve written six more novels in the Little Shop of Spells series as well as two novels in a non-paranormal cozy series. The self-publishing journey has been a crazy ride, but I’m so glad I climbed aboard.
After taking time out to work on the Kangaroo Cove mysteries, Janni is now at work on the seventh book in the Little Shop of Spells series.
Emeralds, Enchantments & Murder
Book 7, Little Shop of Spells
Engagements can be deadly.
Small town witch, Maddie Goodcharm, is congratulating her newly-engaged best friend, when she notices there’s magic in the antique ring. Unable to guess whether the magic is good or bad, Maddie visits the store where the ring was purchased. Next thing you know she’s found a dead body, narrowly avoided a fiery death and lost her best friend—emotionally speaking.
Maddie isn’t one to give up easily, but now she has two mysteries to solve. What kind of dangerous magic is in her best—ex-best friend’s ring? And who killed the ring’s previous owner? Solving one of those mysteries will be tricky, solving two is near impossible.
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