New Book Art as THE END Unwinds on Kindle Unlimited
Count down to THE END OF THE WORLD's Ebook Going Wide
It’s been awhile, folks! I’ve been spending every moment of my free time trying to finalize Book 2: SEPARATE WORLDS, so my attention to social media has reduced accordingly. I had a few updates I wanted to share (and some new art, of course!)
THE END : Kindle Unlimited Subscribers Download Now!
If you have a Kindle Unlimited (KU) subscription, time is running out to download THE END OF THE WORLD (Book 1 of my Primordial Engine series). My contract runs out on August 2nd. The ebook will still available for purchase on Amazon, just not available through the Kindle Unlimited subscription service.
Why?
I’ve chosen not to renew because, frankly, the sales have been lackluster (a few thousand pages read in total). I don’t want to dump money into Amazon ads (Amazon doesn’t promote KU any more than it promotes other products). I also want to take a stab at making the ebook available to other distributors (KU restricts ebook sales to Amazon only). Signing up for KU was a bit of an experiment to see whether it was worthwhile (for me, it wasn’t).
Book 1: THE END OF THE WORLD Sales
I know the writers following this blog really want the dirt on sales—you’ve seen the work I’ve put into promoting my book.
I have sold 85 books in total. My goal is to sell 100 by February. Slightly better than expected (again, very niche market, debut author, first book in series all work against me). I tried a few weeks of Amazon ads. As I was advised, this was a waste of money for a single book. I probably picked up about 5-10 sales, but spent around $500.00 in ads. As far as I can estimate, about 25% of sales came from people I know, maybe 10% through ads, another 10-20% through social media, and the rest from ARC reviewers (Netgalley) who liked my book enough to buy a hard copy for themselves or their libraries/schools—the latter almost always buy hard cover copies.
Book 2: SEPARATE WORLDS Update
For those of you who subscribe to my author newsletter , you’re already aware I am on my final draft of SEPARATE WORLDS (Subscribe here! to get updates and occasional cool artwork before anyone else). The final edit going far slower than I’d like, mostly because I’ve overrun my desired page limit and need to do some trimming (oops!). Afterward, I will need to format the book, do a final proofread, then get my cover artist to trim the covers to match the page sizes. Still looking at a release date of year end.
Even with the tight deadline, I’m having an absolute blast writing Book Two. It’s still dark and dystopian, but there’s a bit of humor shining through as new characters are introduced and the battle to save a dying Earth picks up.
Art Work
The coolest part of today’s blog! Along with neglecting social media, I haven’t had time to do my own artwork. So, I took a chance on hiring an artist to portray a couple of scenes from Book 1: THE END OF THE WORLD. Presenting two digital pieces by Piotr Tekien.
Reid and Mica Overlooking Upper-Alpha
Animkii’s Final Battle with the Collector