The secret to selling books

Shhh - don't tell anyone. It's just you and me here, right? I'll bet you're like me, teetering on the brink of giving up because nobody's buying your books. I've been like that for most of the year. Maybe even the year before. You know the feeling. You tried every which-way to get your books noticed. Ads with Book Gorilla, had another go at getting BookBub to accept one of your novels, did blog tours, got into NetGalley, did guest posts on friends' blogs. Even had a series book one as a freebie.

All to not much avail. The figures went down and down until they bounced on the bottom. Some stories didn't make sales in months.

Mind you, the perma-free book (The Iron Admiral: Conspiracy) did make a difference. Sales picked up in that series, with quite a few people buying the subsequent books. Nowhere near as many as those who downloaded the free book, but many people don't actually read free books. And while we're on the subject, I've not seen any discernible reaction to my contribution to the wonderful Portals project.

Anyway, as you know, I recently girded my loins and finished a book. Eye of the Mother. That was about a week ago. Sales weren't great. After all, not too many people not on Facebook would even know about it, because I didn't do any of the things mentioned above. But what has happened is that people are buying all my books. Even stories that have sat on the shelf for the better part of a year have a '1' next to their name. Don't get me wrong, I'm not making any best seller lists, but it's a heartening trend.

So it looks to me that if you haven't published anything new for a while, and you're wondering why your sales have tanked - get on with it. Get another book out there. Go on. You can do it.