Thursday, May 17, 2018

A big "Thank You!" to all my readers


Thank you very much to all my readers who've bought, and helped spread the word about, my new novel, "The Stones of Silence".




It was uploaded to Amazon.com last weekend, and officially published on Monday, May 14th.  It shot up the charts very quickly, briefly reaching a peak at #935 in the entire Kindle Store.  To crack the top 1,000 books (out of over 6½ million in the Kindle Store, both paid and free) is very hard to do, so I'm grateful to all of you for making it possible.




It's currently at #18 (out of the top 100 books) in Hot New Releases - Space Opera, and #9 in Hot New Releases - Colonization, both part of the Science Fiction and Fantasy genre.




All of those ranks will change fairly quickly, of course, depending on day-to-day sales, and the entry of newer books that will push older publications down the ranks in their turn.  Nevertheless, I'm very pleased.

If you've read and enjoyed the book (or even if you didn't enjoy it), please leave a review at the book's page on Amazon.com!  They're critically important to the ongoing success of any independent author.  I'll be very grateful.  So far there are five reviews up, four five-star and one four-star.  To those five readers, a special thank you!

Now to finish editing the second and third books in the trilogy.  Look for them next month and in July, with print editions to follow.

Peter

2 comments:

lcfulton said...

Peter,

What's the deal with Kindle Unlimited, do they pay you and make the book available, pay you so much per book read, or what? I'm wondering what the proper etiquette is for reading the Kindle Unlimited books? Or, do I just need to send you some money?

Thanks,
Lee Fulton
Rice Lake, WI

Peter said...

@Lee: KU is a subscription library. Readers pay about $10 per month to download several books at a time. When they finish reading one, they "return" it and are then able to borrow another. Authors are paid a tiny amount per page for the number of pages read. I typically make about 1/3 as much from a KU "loan" as I do from a sale.

Like it or not, streaming video, music and other "temporary" or "rental" purchase schemes are taking over a lot of modern entertainment. Books are no exception. I wish I could make the regular royalty out of KU, but that's impossible, because those using such a service can't afford to pay higher sums. One has a choice: stay out of KU and get by on sales, or accept a lower amount and earn at least something, while broadening one's reader base.

I don't know any authors who like earning less, but it's a reality in today's market. We can accept reality, or fart against thunder.