Book Release! Post-Mortem

It is a wonderful day, good and faithful readers, as we sit on the cusp of Spook Season! This time of year is where Horror authors can promote their creations and it's actually seasonally appropriate!

It's been one month since the launch of my short story collection, "Restful Sleep and Other Nightmares" (RSAON), and while the work is really just beginning, I wanted to take a moment and talk about what I've experienced over the past month as a young (in my publishing journey, not in age...) author entering the self-publishing realm for the first time.

I spent a solid several months prior to release promoting RSAON via social media and trying to learn everything I could to make the launch successful. To be honest, I didn't know what "success" would look like immediately following the release. In a perfect world I would have sold hundreds or thousands of copies and shocked the world by breaking records for a first-time self-published author. In reality, I just hoped that my sales number wouldn't sit at a big fat ZERO.

I told myself that I wasn't going to sit there on release day, refreshing my Amazon author dashboard every five minutes to see if the number was going up. Well guess what...I did exactly that...pretty much for the entire month following the release. My family became quickly exasperated with me announcing every new sale, and rightly so. I was insufferable, and I can admit it.

So, what were the results of that first month? I sold 48 copies of RSAON, in various formats, and I'm pretty darn happy with that. I've come to terms with the fact that the majority of those were family, friends and acquaintances but I do know for a fact that there are at least a couple of those readers who are unknown to me on a personal level, and that feels pretty darn good.

Aside from checking my sales numbers multiple times a day, a habit that I hope will taper off at some point, my post-release month has been focused on two things:

- How do I build a following on social media and continue to promote my book without being a nuisance

- I need to get moving on my next project, so that there isn't too much time between publications.

I love to write, I love to create, it is my passion. For many people, that is enough. Yes, one should write for the love of writing. HOWEVER, I have dreams, baby! I dream of a day when my creative efforts can pay the bills and support my family at a comfortable level. I don't expect that to come from writing alone, but I do hope that writing is a piece of that puzzle, and so I need to learn how to make it profitable.

Trying to break through the endless stream of social media content finding for everyone's attention is a daunting task, and I'll keep working at it until social media becomes obsolete which I kind of hope happens very soon (even though that is not bloody likely).

As far as new projects...I am SO excited for what is coming next. I was going to list them here, but I think I'll save those for upcoming blog posts. Stay tuned good and faithful readers, and thank you from the bottom of my heart to EVERY person who has supported the release of Restful Sleep and Other Nightmares. I want so badly to receive your feedback so that I can make my next projects even better. Leave those reviews, reach out to me and tell me what you thought privately if that suits you. Thank you, thank you, thank you, and Happy October.