Sometimes, all it takes is one week to turn everything around.
I knew that making THE DAYDREAMER DETECTIVE free for a limited time would have an impact on my visibility and possibly my sales of the second book in the series. At least, that's what I hoped for. I hoped that a few hundred downloads would give me a much needed boost and I would make back some of my investment. I had no idea that my hopes were shooting so low. Lol.
THE DAYDREAMER DETECTIVE has been free since June 27 and I've already given away over 5000 copies! Holy smokes! Just yesterday I gave away 2800 copies alone and the book made it to #42 in the free store and it got new 5-star review. I can't even describe how happy I am and how relieved too. I have ideas for five books in this series, but the first book performed so poorly out of the gate and the second one had only 4 preorders for months, I thought this series was doomed. Now, I feel like it has a chance, and I'm more determined than ever to write the next book in the series.
I spent most of this past week watching my numbers, working on my short story, and writing blog posts for the upcoming THE DAYDREAMER DETECTIVE BRAVES THE WINTER blog tour. I dictated while walking on the treadmill and I wrote on my Alphasmart while at the pool. On Monday, I went and got my first mammogram. I went to the gym. I took the kids to the pool in the afternoons when the weather was nice. It was a pretty good week. We even had some wicked thunderstorms! Which is my favorite part of summer.
But most of all, I feel energized to keep going with this writing thing. The first part of the year was so tough, both in my business and personal life. Now, the business is picking up a little, and my personal life is less chaotic now that the kitchen is done with renovations. And I have a busy July and August ahead, full of writing and traveling. I'm so looking forward to it!
What else happened this week?
Like I said, I got my first mammogram now that I'm over 40. Remember to get the tatas checked, ladies!
My Alphasmart 3000 came! I got this puppy for $17 on ebay, so it was quite a steal. I've been writing on it at the pool which is a lot better than bringing my laptop, and my oldest daughter has been writing on it too. I plan to bring it with me to Japan!
We visited the new children's room at our town library and it looks great!
My husband surprised me with Star Wars: The Force Awakens on Blu-ray! I'm gonna watch it this coming week while he's gone to Switzerland and the UK.
We had some crazy thunderstorms roll through this week. They caused a bit of a mess.
I thought this fortune was pretty prophetic.
I enjoyed some iced tea outside yesterday after going to see Finding Dory with the kids.
And here are the stats I woke up to this morning! These are for THE DAYDREAMER DETECTIVE on Amazon! I'm quite pleased. :)
A light week coming up on the blog: Teaser Tuesday for THE DAYDREAMER DETECTIVE BRAVES THE WINTER, then THE DAYDREAMER DETECTIVE BRAVES THE WINTER releases on Thursday, Friday is another installment of How Not To Give A F*ck, and maybe I'll throw in a discussion post or a Say Anything Saturday. We'll see!
Gah, I am so happy for you with how well The Daydreamer Detective book is doing! That’s amazing you gave away so many free copies and I hope this means you’ll see some sell through on your other books as well. And I hope everyone enjoys the book!
And I am glad to hear you’re getting more enthusiastic to write the next book now :). It’s great how a good week like that can revive your spirits.
That alphasmart sounds handy, what is it exactly? You can only write on it?
I hope you’ll have a good week and the Daydreamer Detective continues to do well!
I think I’ve given away almost 10k copies at this point and I’m not even close to being done. I need to check my numbers! I’m excited to keep going with this series now!
The Alphasmart is just for text. It’s a word processor and you type plain text into it and then transfer it to your computer when you’re done. It’s mostly for people learning to type but it works great for authors!
Congrats on how well The Daydreamer Detective is doing! And holy cow, 2800 in one day is nuts! And just a reminder, a lot of people like to wait for series to be completed before starting them (I’ve actually started getting more leery of incomplete series lately as
I’ve been coming across a lot that were abandoned after a book or two), so even if sales don’t do that well as you’re writing the series, you’ll still be able to promote and sell once it’s complete :-)
What is that alphasmart thing though? I’ve never seen that before. I’m glad things have been going well for you this week and that you’ve been enjoying time by the pool and everything :-) Have a great week!
Most cozy mystery series like this one are a series of standalone novels, which is one reason why I’m writing them. No cliffhangers but I do continue the story of the characters lives along the way. My Scifi series is more what you’re describing and that’s why I wrote and got them all out within two years. And yeah, I’m edging near having given away almost 10k copies!
The Alphasmart is just a word processor. All you can do is type plain text into it. It has a lot of memory! When you’re done, you plug it in and it transfers the typing, via keyboard emulation, into your computer’s text program. Easy peasy!
Congratulations on the book doing so well. Thanks for commenting on my guest post at lilybloombooks; I am adding you to my RSS feed.
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