For years, my first Jenny Parker novel struggled to get reviews. There were a fair number of sales, but reviews were hard to come by. Then I wrote the blog previous to this one.
Unbeknown to me, my publishers had created a big promotion for the Jenny Parker series around the same time.
Normally, my sales are communicated to me with my royalty statement on a six monthly basis. A very good half-year might involve a thousand sales. I'd not had a good one for quite a long time. We're talking a few dozen sales.
I went to an old friend's farm to give him my rescue chickens. This isn't a digression, though it might sound like me going off at a tangent, because his partner and her friend have been keen readers of my books for years. A socially distanced chat revealed that she hadn't read the latest Jenny Parker book and she rang her friend to tell her there was another treat coming her way. I offered to send her a copy but she said she was happy to buy one.
OK, I'm getting to the point. Be patient.
If I want to see how my books are doing, I go to my Amazon author's page and look at the charts. One sale makes a big difference when you're selling very few books. You can soar from number 1,000,000 to number 50,000 in an instant before gradually decaying back down to earth.
On a promise of a sale, I checked my Amazon page. All my books were doing ridiculously well. Due Diligence was second overall in the UK and 3rd overall in the US. Obviously there was a glitch with the figures so I checked with my publishers. No glitch, more than 30,000 downloads, they said.
I was gobsmacked and happy. Then the sales persisted. Then the reviews and ratings began to accumulate. DD has well over a hundred positive reviews now.
So, I'm telling you that writers should never give up. Success can come at any time. And when it does, I have to remind myself to taste the sweetness instead of wishing for even more.
One sale is enough to make me happy. One positive review increases that happiness tenfold.
Despite the pandemic, there's a big smile on my face most of the time now.
