One-Year Book Anniversary (Sort-Of)

January marks my one-year anniversary of when I started my journey as a novelist. It’s around this time that I started working on my first two releases: Shattered Love and First Visions. I have to say I didn’t know jack back then about publishing, blogging and book marketing. After a year, I’ve learned so much, a lot that has been taught to me by fellow bloggers and writers.

The main thing I’ve taken away from this experience is that you can’t just write a book. This is what I did with Shattered Love. Although I’m glad I wrote this novel before my Second Sight series, my inexperience is one of the reasons I pulled the book from publication. I go back and forth on whether I want to revise the book and put it back out there, but I’m not sure. Although I liked the premise when I wrote it, I’ve lost my faith in the book and I’m uncertain whether it’s worth a revisit. With First Visions, I invested the money in editing and marketing because of my belief in Kate and her story. Without putting up initial money to get my book out there, I don’t believe it would’ve done as well as how it has done.

I’m extremely pleased with how well the Second Sight series has turned out. I don’t judge my success by only sales numbers, but also by reader comments. This is one of the reasons I like the free days on Amazon, I feel it gets my book in the hands of readers that end up loving the books after stumbling upon them. If you’re a writer and you’re unsure about the KDP program, I recommend giving it a go. It has been especially helpful in increasing sales for my sequel New Revelations.

I give props to all of my fellow writers out there. This is a tough business! It has been a year of ups and downs, failures and successes. I appreciate the support and that’s why I’m always open to returning the favor, whether it is a guest spot on my blog or requesting a book review.

I’m glad that I’ve met so many wonderful people through the blogger community because I’ve had almost as much fun book blogging as I’ve had writing. It’s been a crazy year for sure, but not one I’ll ever regret.