About a year ago, in January 2018, I published my first novel. At the time, as an indie author with an offbeat crime novel, I wondered how to define success. Reaching readers who thoroughly enjoyed the book? Yes. Maybe 500 sales? Yes again. I learned plenty in my publishing adventure. Some of the things I learned I already knew. It’s hard to be a publisher! Plenty of others had warned me but I still managed to be both surprised and overwhelmed at the demands, which came on top of my new writing and job in international development. Another thing I wasn’t prepared for were negative reviews. Again, I knew these were inevitable but didn’t truly understand how painful they would be. I’ve employed various coping strategies. One surprisingly effective (if not super constructive) tactic was to stop visiting Goodreads.
On the bright side, in late August 2018, my book briefly hit the best seller lists on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Kobo. During this period, I ran multiple promotions. But the big one, without question, was BookBub. I am immensely grateful to BookBub for accepting my book and helping catapult it up multiple lists, gaining me new readers and some lovely feedback.
This nearly gave me a heart attack but in the best possible way
I had no reviews on Kobo yet still saw substantial sales
The BookBub promo that put Angela over the top
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