Not Bad for the Second Time Around

I first ran a FreeBooksy ad for Running From Herself on April 26. By that time I knew, after the novel being published for almost a month, that I wasn't going to sell any copies. I'd already taken the promo site route, which was a complete bust. And it's my fault I didn't try to get ARC readers and thus reviews, but I still believe that ARC reviews are a double-edged sword. So I finally accepted the fact that I would need to give my book away. 

My first FreeBooksy ad attracted 1,275 takers, which did really nothing except make my sales report look pretty. Still, I was glad to have readers, if any of those people actually bothered to read it.

For a second time around in a little over 30 days, my results were 594 (so far). FreeBooksy must get new subscribers all the time. Good to know.  

All authors want validation, whether they admit it or not. We crave validation. There may be a few mercenaries who publish junk, their only purpose being to trick people into spending money, but they're the outliers. Yes, I would love to make some money from my writing, but barring that, any positive attention will do. I've mentioned before that no one in my personal life knows that I've written and published, which is my choice due to deep-seated insecurity, but if any of them did know, I would never trust that their positive feedback was real. Who wants to hurt a loved one's feelings? So, the only validation I can hope for is from someone grabbing my book. I'll accept that, even if I doubt they'll even read it, and even though I will make exactly $0.00.

Today as I was scrolling Reddit, I happened upon a post from a romance writer, who announced that she'd made $1,000 in royalties from her debut novel in her first four weeks ~ get this: by only making TikTok posts. She tried to frame her post as a question, a la, "I'm just trying to find out if I'm on the right track." She got rightfully dragged for it. Then she justified it by saying she was just trying to encourage people. Weirdly, I wasn't feeling encouraged.

Bottom line, I've said this before too many times, and I promise to stop doing it: I am a good writer. My stories are original, my characters read like real people, my narratives flow, I'm meticulous about not making grammatical errors. I am a professional writer, whether anyone else knows it or not. I spent nine years constantly, consistently improving. I learned what to do and what not to do. So yes, I deserve some sort of validation, and if it's only by giving my novel away, okay. I'll take it. It's not a thousand dollars worth of validation, granted, but it's all I'm ever going to get.

To me, getting my novel into almost 2,000 Kindles is a win.