When your expectation and reality spectacularly collide – I think I learned my lesson.
We, or rather I, have high expectations from the Winter Dragon release. Sometimes you feel the book is fantastic, and you wait for everyone else to appreciate your ‘baby’. The problem is no matter how great the book is, without good marketing strategy, it will sink down, especially in a hot period. I am a dilettante in marketing. I’m doing my best, but the brief chat with my author’s friend made me realize I have much to learn. They have everything planned for a year ahead, releasing dates, promo schedule, and contractors and I, with my chaotic nature, just throw myself in the deep end, hoping for the best.
I wish I knew the Christmas release is only good for established authors and all indies got a dip in sales because big publishing houses push money in the adverts. I also keep forgetting people have a life, and during the heat of Christmas, few will remember to review your book, and almost none will treat it as a priority.
There is, of course, Amazon and them holding the reviews for no apparent reason. Finally, I set the book at the lowest reasonable £2.99 a cup of coffee price, which also seems to be a barrier.
The fact is that although my pre-orders doubled up, I sold books well upon release, and the few reviews I got so far are glowing with compliments compared to what I was hoping to achieve, I can say this book tanked.
But hey, such is life, the endless fight between expectation and reality, especially for indie authors. Maybe one day, I will go viral on TikTok and sell a thousand books overnight, but right now, I will sit down and write the 4th one planning how to release the third one in a better and less chaotic way.