A strange thing happened on Wednesday and Thursday. My YA
novel shot through the ranks at Amazon. I found out what it’s like to ride the
crest of the wave.
Ever since I first published Screwing Up Time, I’ve been trying to market it on a shoestring
budget. When other authors said, “My budget for this novel is $5,000,” I said,
“My budget for this novel is 5 bucks.” And I was okay with that.
But it’s very hard to get the word out when you don’t have a
megaphone. Still, my efforts paid off and I broke small sales barriers. And I
was/still am very thankful. Then, I found E-Reader News Today. And they were
willing to advertise my novel (given it had enough good reviews and I was
willing to sell it at a bargain rate—99 cents) for a part of the royalties. I
figured it would be a win-win situation. If the book did well, I’d get a lot of
exposure. If not, I wouldn’t have lost a big investment. So I submitted my
book.
I hoped and prayed for the best, but kept my expectations
very low. The site warned me that YA books aren’t the biggest sellers in the
e-book biz. (I already knew that.)
Wednesday came around. I had a couple of sales. Good. By
afternoon, I had a few more sales. By evening, I was pretty excited. The sales
were really coming in. And by Thursday morning, Screwing Up Time was ranked #6 in Amazon Kindle’s Teen Literature
and Fiction. It was only two spots below The Hobbit!
