They’re going well.
The ironic thing is that at this very moment if you click that link, you won’t see Alex on the page anywhere. But it spent a good chunk of this week there, and in two places, no less.
First: It was the 2nd highest-rated horror novel on Kindle, and then the third. (And now, apparently, the fourth, causing it to fall off the front page – if you loved Alex and haven’t written a glowing Amazon review for me, help me out!)
Second: It hit the Kindle Horror bestseller list this week! My peak was at #88, and yes, I took a screen shot. Check out my company:
That was pretty thrilling.
The Amazon bestseller list is a fickle mistress, however, and I must have done something to displease her, because she has booted me from her sight. For now. Mistress, I will visit you again. Oh yes.
Ahem.
All this didn’t just happen, though. By employing the fine logic of a post hoc erego propter hoc fallacy, I have deduced that listing Alex for free for a day and a half last weekend made these big bumps possible. Before the free listing, I was selling 3-7 books a day; after it, I’ve been selling at least 20, sometimes over 30 (today, so far, I’ve sold or had borrowed a total of 30). On the free day, I had 1900 downloads, hit #12 on the Free Horror list, and even hit #169 on the overall most-downloaded Free books list. I think that did a few things for me. It netted me four new Amazon reviews (all five stars), it landed me on several “People Who Bought This Also Bought….” lists for very popular novels, and even got me a few new Facebook fans. The reviews got me on to the Kindle Horror Bestseller page as one of the best-rated books in Kindle Horror, and the cross-listings, I think, contributed heavily to the extra sales.
It’s all very exciting. But I will admit all of the reasoning above is just me shooting in the dark. I feel a bit like Kai Ryssdal, blithely explaining why the stock market performed the way it did today even when I have no real clue.
(I think the trick is to note what happened today, and then observe what the stock market did. If good things happened today, and the stock market went up, you say, “Due to [good thing] the stock market went up.” If bad things happened, and the stock market went up, you say, “Despite [bad thing] the stock market went up”. And vice versa.)
Anyway, I’m nervous as hell. I love that people are enjoying my book. I have readers in Australia, Nova Scotia, and Great Britain! Alex was on the Kindle Horror bestseller list, and has fought its way back on to it each time it’s fallen off! I am up to 51 reviews! I’m selling 20-30 books a day! But the whole thing feels so fragile. I can never get rid of that voice that says, “Yeah, ain’t it great? Enjoy it while it lasts. All sales stop tomorrow.”
Gah.