Please Pinch Me

Since the end of February, I’ve been anxiously waiting for Amazon Encore to release the book sales figures for my novel’s debut. Since my novel was released on February 16, these figures represent only 12 selling days, so needless to say, although cautiously optimistic, I have no wild expectations. In fact, most of the promotional and marketing campaigns are still in the early stages of development, so the impact on sales would likely be minimal. It’s going to take several weeks—even months—to gain a little selling momentum. From my perspective, I anticipated that book sales would likely be in the low hundreds. And frankly, as much as I want sales to be in the millions, I have to remain realistic. A few hundred sales for the first 12 days would be modest, but respectable. 

I expected that I’d see sales figures shortly after the month ended. But as is the case with many major corporations, it takes time to crunch numbers. So, I did the most logical thing I could think of and checked my e-mail every 15 minutes since midnight of February 28th. When Friday morning hit, I couldn’t tolerate the suspense any longer, so I called my editor from Amazon, hoping that he could share some numbers with me. 

Wow! Did he ever share! 

Hoping to hear him say that the book sales hit the low hundreds, imagine my shock and amazement when he told me the sales were in the low thousands. Now this information might not dazzle James Patterson or Stephen King, but I’m here to tell you, it dazzled the stuffing out of me. I did a little quick math to calculate the amount of my first royalty check, and although I’m not going to dash out the door and buy a new Lexus IS 250, it will help ease the angst I feel regarding my April 1^st retirement. 

So, stay tuned for future updates. And keep that positive energy flowing!