S.A.H: One Month Later...
- Hew J La France
- Aug 1, 2016
- 2 min read
It has been roughly a month since Straight Arrow Heart has hit the shelves, and I must say, I am impressed. A total of 27 copies have been sold: 17 paper-backs and 10 Kindle editions. Of those 10 Kindle editions, two of them were bought in the UK. Straight Arrow Heart is listed on Barnesandnoble.com, as well as on five other user's book-selling accounts on Amazon.
In short, it's been a fairly interesting experience.
That said, I don't anticipate numbers to be anywhere near this well in August. Word of mouth is a powerful tool, and the fact that two U.K. readers bought it is... optimistic (maybe), but I don't know that Straight Arrow Heart has the strength to sell on just word of mouth alone.
The solution, ultimately, lies in marketing. I have a Twitter account, a Goodreads account, a Facebook page, a Wattpad account, and, obviously, this website. However, these alone, according to my research, are not sufficient enough to act as suitable advertising. They'll help, but the are not enough.
This is going to be my focus going forward: advertising my book through whatever means necessary. I have some plans in place, some contacts I need to make, but I think I've a solid idea of what I'm going to do. Will it be enough to continue driving sales? I haven't the faintest idea.
At the end of it all, though, I really don't mind if sales plummet. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see this thing take-off and get listed on the top 100 best selling books on Amazon for a month, but... I never published Straight Arrow Heart to make money. It's a nice benefit, sure, but... All I wanted to do was tell a story. And I did. Whether or not people read said story has little to no impact on my endeavors to tell other stories.
I will keep on writing. I will keep on publishing. If people buy my books; great. Could not be happier. If they don't? That's ok. Because I'm not writing to make money. I'm writing to share some of the chaos that goes on in my head with anyone willing to look at it. It's crazy, and not all of it is going to be stuff people are wanting to read, but they're stories I want to tell.
So, to the twenty seven of you who bought a copy of Straight Arrow Heart: Thank you. You've made July 2016 a month that will truly stick with me for the rest of my life. In a fictional reality where I get married and have kids, I'll tell them the story of this month, with a certain glimmer in my eyes that longs for times gone by.
And that is my sappy emotional paragraph for this post.
August is here, and now, I need to focus on publicizing 'Straight Arrow Heart' more, getting 'End Turn' edited and ready to publish, and continuing writing my first draft of 'Calagray'. I'll be doing a 'State of the Union' post in a few weeks, updating on where I am with all of these undertakings.
Thanks again for the support. Hope this is the start of something incredible.
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