Making a tough business decision in order to survive

Back in 2014, I wrote a blog post at the advent of Kindle Unlimited, the then-new program by Amazon. And I'll be honest: I was skeptical. I was skeptical about it. I didn't think it would work, but then again, it's Amazon. Bezos had struck gold with Kindle, and I must admit that lightning struck pretty hard with KU.

Suffice it to say, I balked. Even though I had trumpeted ebooks and Kindle in particular since 2010, I personally felt that I had no right to tell readers that they needed a Kindle or a Kindle app in order to read my books. Seriously, who was I to tell anyone who read ebooks how they should read them? I felt that if you had a Nook, a Kobo reader, or an iPad with Apple iBooks already downloaded, you had enough to read me.

How wrong I was!

Over the next few years, like Mark Coker had predicted, my sales and the sales of other authors not in KU started to slip, and slip hard. I went from 4,000-plus books sold in 2012 to 336 last year; shit, I only sold 193 in 2019. I really didn't understand it: I had  all these new books, from Travel Agent to Scouring Agent and the Ricky Madison books, books with even better writing than books like Model Agent and Rogue Agent that sold really, really well, and I couldn't get a sniff of a sale, or reach the numbers that I once had before KDP Select and Kindle Unlimited entered the fray. Are readers by-passing my books because they aren't in KU? Quite possible; I've never received a single piece of email telling me to get into KU or else, though. But even though I had plenty of evidence to the contrary, I steadfastly -- read: stubbornly -- refused to go narrow... until as late as December 2020, when I considered putting Incoming Private Show into KU.

That refusal has come to an end.

As of this morning, I have started the process of de-listing all of my books on Nook, Kobo, iBooks, and all the small ebook sites. While I'm sure that Kobo, Nook, and iBooks will be instantaneous, it will take a while for Hoopla and OverDrive, etc, to de-list me and take me off their sites. Once that happens...

Once that happens, I can put all 30-something of my books and short stories into KDP Select and Kindle Unlimited.

As I've said before, I crave the success that my friends have. And when I look at the stats they post in certain Facebook groups, all from KU, and I see the amount of money they are making -- life-changing money -- and the amount of books they are pushing out the door, it makes me wonder why I can't get that.

But alas, I can get that. I can get that by succumbing to KU and finally embracing all it does for authors. My writing skills are superior to what they were. I'm doing everything right, and yet I feel that I'm losing because I'm not selling, because I'm not in KU. As a wide author, I'm not making enough to make fiction writing a full-time profession any longer, I'm not making enough from it to put food on the table, to pay my mortgage, to pay my bills; I've scaled back since 2017, and my hope is that I can make enough through my fiction by going narrow with KU to grow my audience and get back to a full-time status.

Time to do just that. Hopefully lightning will strike for me like it has so many others.

KU, here I come. See you there.

www.seansweeneyauthor.com

Re-focusing, Re-writing, and Reviewing My Outdated Business Plan

Over the last two weeks or so, I have taken some time to do something I've intended for the last three years: re-work my business plan in order to reclaim my audience. The last three years, it has been rather difficult to do that, whether it be taking on jobs that break up the writing week or ones that prevent me from writing, period, or not having enough money to adequately strengthen my reach via advertising on Facebook or Amazon.

That ends now. But I also end it with a mea culpa.

For most of my writing career, I've made many mistakes -- but I can safely say that I've learned from them and now want to put what I've learned into action. I've learned that some of my books, mainly my earlier ones, suffered from poor writing. I feel that I've grown as a writer, with my more recent books showing that my writing now is crisp, clear, concise. It's my intention to strengthen those books by any means possible and re-release them in 2021.

I've already done that with one book, Turning Back The Clock, one of my John Fitch V novels. When I started a deep edit on that book last week, the original novel was over 101,000 words. When I finished earlier this week, I had removed over 18,000 words, or the equivalent of 33 pages. I fixed the voice, I eliminated the head-hopping, and I just removed prose that simply didn't work for me not as the author, but as a reader. It's an 11-year-old book, but it reads so much better now with what I've done to it, and I hope the readers feel the same way. In all honesty, I fell in love with the story all over again!

The next book to strengthen is TBTC's follow-up -- but under my name -- Royal Switch. Again, something I messed up on, even though I've said that I did it for momentum reasons: I published Royal two months or so after I published Model Agent, and I wanted to take advantage of that momentum. Suffice it to say, that didn't happen.

I've known there were problems with Royal for some time -- in fairness, I thought way back then that I needed an info dump right at the beginning of the story; I've since changed my mind and earlier this year made the decision to re-tool that section. But not only that... in starting to re-read the book this morning, I've found amateurish, crap writing that is, to be sure, thoroughly embarrassing to me as a writer. No wonder the book foundered and has barely sold (11 copies since January 2015!).

What to do about that? Well, I'm going to completely re-write the book, all 75,000-plus words, almost from scratch. The story is sound, but the way I executed the book... I failed at that. My intention is to make the book better with stronger writing than I showed in 2011.

I also want to do something similar with another JFV novel, A Galaxy At War -- a book just as old as Turning Back The Clock. I have yet to print out and read the story, but I'm sure I will encounter the same problems that I have with TBTC, Royal Switch, and the Obloeron novels. It's another book that barely sells (5 copies since January 2014), and that could also be due to the mistake I made with the cover: it's relatively bland and doesn't scream sci-fi. I want to invest in this book not only with the writing, but with the cover art. I'll be talking to fellow author Daniel Arenson about his cover artist for his Earthrise sci-fi novels and Matt Verish for his stuff, as I'd like to improve that incredibly important facet. It will cost me a pretty penny, but as I've said, I can't be afraid of the cost.

What else do I need to do to regain the audience? A new cover for Scollay Love, new Obloeron covers -- Terry C. Simpson is working on those for me -- plus paperbacks for all of the above. I also want to pen a new 30,000-word novella that I'll give away as an enticement to join my mailing list, something I've failed at doing over the last five years; my hope is to get that taken care of by Christmas. My whole focus was on writing stuff that will inevitably sell, when I should have taken a longer look at the bigger picture. If I'm going to continue doing this, I need to do this correctly, and I need to grasp the bigger picture. I need to give something away to my fans. I need to spend money to gain my audience back. I need to do this. I need to do that.

In time, I will get that done. It won't be overnight. This is a marathon, not a sprint -- but I can't let years pass without doing anything, like I have since I first recognized the problem. If you want a problem to go away, you have to do something about it. You can't just ignore it.

The time is, as they say, now.

Thanks for not giving up on me.

www.seansweeneyauthor.com

Looking back at 2017, my hopes for 2018

Over the last few years, I've resolved to do this, or set out to do that, as the calendar turns from the old year to the new one. You can look back at my archives for them.

As we enter 2018, I resolve to do none of that. Instead, I look toward hope.

I'll be honest: 2017 was a rather mixed bag for this author. I was successful in several ways. I achieved my resolution of publishing two books during the course of the calendar year, which is usually an assurance from me; accomplishment, sure, but when I'm doing two and sometimes three books a year, it gets to be old hat. I had a successful Plastic City Comic Con at the end of July, where I sold 20 books, many to local friends who had never bought a book of mine before. And I think I prepared well for it. I found several new readers, all of whom I hope I'll keep as 2018 winds it way toward 2019, and so on.

Where did I fail?

How much time do you have?

Many of my failings occurred due to my financial situation. As a freelancer sportswriter, my income is dependent on the amount of stories I write, as well as the newspaper's budget. If the weather sucks--hello, potential Snowicane later this week--and games get cancelled, I'm out X amount for that day. If the paper doesn't have anything for me, then I don't work. And I only work for one paper now exclusively, plus two one-hour appearances on the local radio station. The radio money helps, but it's not enough to devote extra funds toward making my publishing business as successful as it can be.


I'm also responsible for a certain amount of the bills/expenses here. Let's just say that with our expenses, none of which we can really cut, coupled with a limited amount of sports stories and subpar book sales (only 400 this past year, down from 2016 by about a third), I wasn't able to do everything I set out to do publishing-wise last year.

Buy artwork for covers in order to freshen up the backlist? Couldn't do it. The Obloeron Saga, Royal Switch, Scollay Love, and the Furball and Feathers children's series remain ebook only for the time being, and Furball and Feathers are on the shelf until I can get the money for new covers.

Advertise more? Couldn't do it. Reclaim my audience? You're having a laugh.

With certain entities such as Kindle Unlimited/KDP Select limiting single copy ebook sales (I refuse to go narrow and exclusive, as I have fans that use Nook, Kobo, and Apple), as well as Facebook limiting organic reach on my posts (and with Facebook doing more to limit organic reach in 2018) and Twitter sending me emails every day to spend money to advertise with them, sometimes I feel like I'm pretty much yelling into a funnel cloud when it comes to everything marketing-related. You have to spend money to make money, yes, that's a given... but you can't spend what you don't have. Without large amounts of money coming in the door, I'm just treading water.

So...

I hope to get what I didn't get done in 2017 done in 2018. This isn't a resolution, per se. If I get it done, fantastic. If I can't, well... there's nothing else I can say except for people reading this to buy books, review them, tell people about them, buy them as gifts, and keep buying them, since my outside fiction writing income isn't growing by any stretch of the imagination.

But there's plenty more that I hope to accomplish in the next 364 days and some change roll on.

* I'm in the midst of a new men's adventure/historical romance series--the Glorious series--which I'm planning on releasing under the D.L. Boyd pen name. It's Outlander-esque, but not as long-winded, I hope. I'm about 17,000 words or so into the story, and I suspect the first book will take me until the end of March to write. Of course, I'm trying not to rush the story, so I'm writing about a page or so a day (because the early portion of the series is slow-going, too, and I want to make sure it's right; plus my time has not really been my own, between re-learning how to balance my time after this past fall, as well as dental issues which kept me away from my manuscript). I'm also trying to be careful of minutiae, while utilizing a different voice for the story. If all goes well, book one's first draft, like I said, will be done by the end of March. That's three more months. Book two will take me until the end of July/early August, while the third book should take me through the end of the year. Again, if everything goes right. The release schedule is a little more complicated, but we'll see how everything falls into place. Of course, I could get all three written rather quickly, but I doubt that will happen. Just going by the last couple of years.

* If there's time, I hope to get a few other projects revised and out for human consumption, such as a currently not published princess piece I wrote a few years ago involving my cousin's daughters. They are a little older now, so I want to give them something a little older, and possibly edgier. I need a solid cover for it, too... which involves money.

* With that type of schedule planned, plus all of my other commitments between sportswriting and radio commentary (planning the garden, actually carrying out the garden, taking up a great deal of time and preparation, I may be biting off more than I can chew when I say that I want to do other things writing-wise. I would like to plan out the third Ricky Madison novel, and I'd like to write an erotic thriller, like the old Skinemax late-night flicks of the 1990s (don't lie, you watched them, too). Those two thoughts may get pushed to 2019, dependent on how I do with the Glorious series and other projects.

Definitely on the writing/publishing agenda in 2018:

** Write the first Glorious novel, finishing the first draft in late March
** Publish Scouring Agent: A Thriller in mid-to-late February

** Write the second Glorious novel
** Publish the first Glorious novel (fall)
** Write the third Glorious novel
** Possibly publish the second one by the end of the year

Anything outside of that plan, I'm going to consider gravy.

It's a lot, and I hope I and come out of 2018 happy and accomplished.

Happy New Year, 2018.

www.seansweeneyauthor.com

1,000 MODELs

Earlier this week, I hit an important milestone.

MODEL AGENT: A THRILLER, the first Jaclyn Johnson novel, finally made it to 1,000 sales.

Of course, it's not really a big deal (internal monologue: of course it is). I've hit 1,000 books sold on three previous occasions: my first 1,000, as well as for ROGUE AGENT and DOUBLE AGENT. The fact it finally happened for a six-and-a-half-year-old book.... one that I gave away well over 105,000 Kindle and iBook copies of it to get eyes on the series... well, I'm happy to finally hit it.

Backhanded compliment time: I'm happy because--and I believe I've said it before--I don't believe the writing in MODEL is as strong as the rest of the series (my opinion; you may have a differing opinion). Yes, it's a good story and there are parts where I'm using my fastball, but it's not the way it could have been. It could have been better. Remember that I published it one month after I finished writing the first draft, doing so on a dare. I didn't give the book the requisite three months that I usually give my work. Now here we are, six and a half years later, with the book in print and the audiobook already done, I'm not going back and making wholesale changes like I did with OBLOERON.

I did, however, strengthen the start of the book last year. To go through the entirety of the book would have sent me to the hospital with alcohol poisoning. True story.

Still, MODEL is a good first book. It introduces the protagonist and what she can do. Yes, some scenes are comic book-ish--and that's okay, because she is a comic book character within the realm of a fast-paced thriller novel. The readers who understand that love the story. The ones who don't, don't. I'm not going to twist their arms and convince them otherwise.

But it could have been better!

(Maybe not. Who knows?)

And looking ahead, there are a few milestones approaching. ROGUE AGENT is 53 copies from 3,000 sold. DOUBLE AGENT is approaching 2,300 copies sold (32 copies away). FEDERAL AGENT, the fourth novel, still has a ways to go before hitting 1,000 (188 copies away). And it goes from there. Yes, I am ecstatic with those numbers, and I cherish each reader who has paid upward of $3 of their hard-earned dollars for the digital copy/$13 for the print.

Would I love for the readers who downloaded MODEL for free to continue on with the series? Of course I do. The series is eight books long, with the ninth coming in early 2018. If readers can get by the first book and enjoy the second, I'm sure they will love the remainder of the series.

Because it only gets better from there.

www.seansweeneyauthor.com

A few loosey-goosey updates

Since I don't have much time to spare this weekend--today is an errands-and-laundry day, and tomorrow is the first day of the Clark High School Basketball Tournament and I'm working it all day; and Monday is a travel day--I wanted to go over a few things with you that I haven't mentioned here recently.

First off, Persuaded By The Reflections is finished. The first draft is, anyway. The MS clocked in at a little over 135,000 words, and let me tell you: I'm overjoyed by that total. At it stands, its first draft total is slightly less than what I wrote for Redeemed, but I published that book at 132,000 and some change. I don't expect to make any cuts to Persuaded; if anything, I'm going to enhance the story and add to it. Since I finished it on Feb. 6--the day after my Patriots won the Super Bowl--I'll give it a respectful three months to June 6 before I start editing.

If everything goes correctly, and if the pre-readers I have lined up give me the feedback I need and do so by the end of August/middle of September, I see no reason why this book can't be in your hands by the end of November. The pessimistic side of me says January or February of next year, which would mean nearly a year between releases.

And maybe in hardcover? We'll see about that.

Secondly, the launch of Ticket Agent went fairly well. There was one day this week where I didn't sell a copy, but so far, so good. Would love more eyes on it. I'd actually like more eyes on the entirety of the now-eight book series: I think I've said this before, that if half the people who downloaded Model Agent for free liked it and moved on with the series--it's $2.99 for each digital book, people--I would be a happy miser indeed, and I wouldn't have to cover high school sports again (although there's a part of me feels that I'm being pushed out of that profession right now, but that's another story). That's the ultimate goal, to get out of sportswriting on my own terms. Getting solid sell-through in the Agent series will aid in me achieving that goal.

Third, I have an outline for the ninth Agent novel, Scouring Agent, printed up. I've been thinking about what I'm going to do in Scouring Agent since November--actually, I had an inkling of one scene back in February or March of 2016, and it just built from there--and I've finally put it all together. I made the outline linear yesterday; before, the file was just a jumbled, out-of-order series of notes. Now it's a four-page treatment of awesome, and today I can see the book clearer than I did last year. This novel will have a different feel to it--at least that's how I intend it--and I'm planning on starting it next Thursday, after I get back from Cape Cod. What I may do is similar to what I did for Ticket: write a short story leading into it that I'll give away here on the blog, one that doesn't have the pop of the novel proper but gives the reader insight to what's happening, then start the novel proper.

Fourth, I've already started doing some brainstorming on my next series, which I plan to release under the D.L. Boyd name. Can't say much more on that right now.

And finally... I've lowered the price on The Peg-Legged Privateer's digital version, i.e. Kindle, Nook, Kobo, iBooks. I had it listed at $4.99 from its December 12 release until earlier this week, and at that price, I only sold 15 copies. While I am grateful for those who bought it at $4.99, I hadn't sold a single copy in about a month, and let's admit it, folks: this is a volume business. I've expressed misgivings in the past about being able to command a price higher than $2.99 and do so with regular volume, and I think this experiment proves that I can't command a higher price. I feel this book--my return to the fantasy genre--is better than anything in The Obloeron Saga, and should have a chance to perform well, especially if I want to write a second book using these characters. At $2.99, I'm hoping to do volume sales. If you haven't taken Paulina and the Good Queen Bess out for a spin yet, you can do so at this link. A good price for a good book.

Enjoy your weekend, and by all means, pick up a solid read.

www.seansweeneyauthor.com

An Author's Resolutions, 2017

Over the last few days (hell, the last month), I’ve begun thinking about not only the 2017 business plan, but also my resolutions for the new year.

I have to be honest: I didn’t do well with my 2016 resolutions—I will blog more in 2016? Blogs were down from 41 to 29, not including this post. Significantly reduce my time on social media? You’re having a laugh—and I wondered if I would even do a list of resolutions because of this. Besides, I already did a post in early August about my goals for the next 12 months. I didn’t really need to do one.

But the great thing about setting goals and resolutions is that you have the ability to re-evaluate them at certain intervals, adjust things, and move on. And that’s what I’m doing today. Away we go:

I will write 250,000 words in 2017

I wrote approximately 219,000 words in 2016 over the course of two-plus books (the last 17,000 or so in The Peg-Legged Privateer, plus 101,437 in Ticket Agent, and the first 100,000 in Persuaded By The Reflections). I expect I’ll get another 25,000 words in Persuaded written before I wrap it up, but at 70,000 words I thought I would need only 50,000 more to finish; we can re-evaluate that when we get closer. It’s quite possible that Persuaded will surpass Redeemed in published words (132,000+), and maybe even Redeemed’s first draft total (140,177); I think it might. I don’t really know where the count will end up, and I’m hoping the first draft will be done by the end of February. That’s not a drop dead deadline for the book, but that’s my hopeful ending point. The end of February will mean a late summer edit, i.e. July or August, and a late December release. For March through June, I’m planning on writing the ninth Jaclyn Johnson novel, and I’m still up in the air about what I want to do in the second half of the year. Quite possibly the new series I mentioned this past August.

I want to publish two books, along with freshening up some of the back list, in 2017

Ticket Agent is currently with Kim—it’s her birthday, by the way, so happy birthday to Kim!—and I’ve given her until the end of January to get back notes and corrections to me so we can have a February release, much like we have had for Chemical (mid-February 2016) and Ticket (late January 2015) in recent years. Persuaded won’t be ready until late 2017, but I’m not going to publish it until it’s absolutely perfect. I’m also not going to go up against the holiday season. My hope is that the book will be published before the year is out, though. It could need some work after I do the editing, or it could be one of the greatest things I’ve ever written (after taking seven months to write the first draft, it might be). But not only that, I want to take some time to freshen up some of my older work; I may give Royal Switch a pass-through, mainly to see if I can fix the opening to the story and move that sluggish info dump somewhere else. I want to go back through two of my old John Fitch V titles and see if they can be fixed up and brought into my current writing level; I also want to freshen up the cover for A Galaxy At War, and possibly re-title it. And I want to get Furball & Feathers re-issued by the summer, too. I’ve done a sketch of potential cover art for it, but is it good enough to be published? I’m not too sure.

I want to learn how to do wrap-around covers for paperbacks in 2017

You’ll recall in August I declared that all of my work needs to be in paperback following my successful appearance at the Plastic City Comic Con on July 31. The second one is coming on July 30, 2017, in my hometown of Fitchburg. So far, 12 of my titles, including the entirety of the AGENT series, are in paperback, and I wanted to have the entire catalogue out in paperback by Thanksgiving in order to sell for the Christmas holiday. That didn’t happen, and that’s my fault. Honestly, I should know how to do a wrap-around; I can do a flat cover easily, and do it on the cheap, but not making it look cheap. So what I need to do is look for a tutorial in my spare time—what’s that?—and learn this important book creating tool.

I want to have The Obloeron Saga out in single copies for ebook and paperback in 2017

Pretty easy to do. I need covers for those, and I need the money to buy the artwork. That will happen when I can afford it.

I want to do better convention prep in time for PCCC in 2017

This will be some of the things I do in the first half of the year: get the Square credit card reader, get book stands, and, little by little, buy product for the event, i.e. ordering 10-15 copies of Zombie Showdown by the end of January and having them on-hand and ready, buying X of Ticket Agent and all the others, etc. In order to have an even more successful con, I need to have all of these things ready to go.

I want to get the rest of the AGENT series out in audiobook in 2017

Not exactly something in my control: this is akin to wanting 10,000 or more book sales in a year, because that’s something I can’t control. Laura Jennings has done a marvelous job on the first five audiobooks in the series, and I’m hoping she’ll continue in 2017.

I want to advertise more in 2017

I’m still here. I’m not going away any time soon. But still—my sales numbers do not reflect the numbers a full-time author should make, but again, that’s something that’s partially out of my control; I can’t rip people’s arms out of their sockets and make them buy my books. While I can turn a phrase with the best of them, my marketing skills are dreadful. I’ve relied mainly on word of mouth, Facebook links, Twitter, and—before 2012 and meeting my wife—ebook advertisers in eReader News Today and Kindle Nation Daily to varying degrees of success. I heard recently that one author got a BookBub ad without the pre-requisite review numbers, and I’m hoping I can do the same this coming year. Also some Facebook ads to encourage mailing list signups, Amazon ads, Twitter ads, and ENT/KND/BookGoodies/etc. I desperately need to re-claim my audience!

We’ll re-evaluate as the year goes on.

www.seansweeneyauthor.com

Cleaning off the desk, 2016 style

Earlier this afternoon, I hit the 100,000-word mark in my current WIP, Persuaded By The Reflections; Persuaded is the follow-up to The Long Crimson Line. Tallying that count up with the first draft count of the forthcoming Jaclyn Johnson novel Ticket Agent, plus the estimated ending of The Peg-Legged Privateer that I wrote in January, I end 2016 with about 218,596 words of fiction written. Rounding it up to a cool 219,000 sounds pretty snazzy, if I do say so myself.

Now, with only a few days remaining in the calendar year, I'm taking the time to recharge--in lieu of IBC Root Beer, I'm celebrating the 100K-word plateau with some reading and no fiction until at least January 2.

But in the meantime, it's not bad to look back on what I did this year, and also raise a beer in celebration:

In addition to 219K words written, I published three books. Yup, I released the seventh Jaclyn Johnson novel Chemical Agent, along with the third (and more than likely final) Alex Bourque mystery, Beach Blanket Bloodshed. Not only that, I also re-launched the two other books in that particular series with new cover art, as well as a bundle of those three books.

Earlier this month, The Peg-Legged Privateer launched.

And if you missed it, I had an awesome Plastic City Comic Con back in July. I've also had Jaclyn Johnson optioned for TV and film.

To say that I hit writing and publishing goals is an understatement. When I plot out my goals, I work my ass off to hit them. That has been my mantra since I started writing. I had a good year.

Sales goals, of course, is a different story. I took a loss this year, and I'll be re-assessing my sales goals--or deciding whether or not having them is a good thing to begin with--within the coming days.

I'll be sure to let you all know as the business plan comes into clearer focus--2017 is on the horizon.

www.seansweeneyauthor.com

The goals for the year ahead

Usually around this time of year, I take a moment to breathe: I’ve cleared my desk of certain projects that have lingered for the time being, and I’m doing a bit of a cleanse, shall we say. I also take a moment to take stock in what I have accomplished in the year, and I also re-assess the goals I have set for the next 12 months or so.

(You can take a look at what I’ve said I would do in past years here and here. Some of it, I've followed through. Other stuff, not so much.)

We are slightly halfway through 2016. I’ve attended my first convention, and I’ve released two books so far. Through seven months, I’ve sold 459 books. Sixty-six books a month is a decent average, but not outstanding; to compare, my friend Daniel Arenson announced this morning that he sold “tens of thousands” of books in July. While I am incredibly happy for Daniel’s success, I want to have that success, too. I am desperate for that success.

In addition, my mailing list, after a thorough cull of spam accounts earlier today, is at 37 subscribers. In all, those are not great numbers.

The crazy thing about this: I know I can do better.

I am determined to do better.

That said, here’s what I’m planning to do over the next year:

First, everything I’ve written needs to be in print, via the old fashioned ink-and-paper delivery system.

As I explained Sunday, I had hesitated in bringing a great variety of physical product to the convention, not knowing how much I would sell, for starters: I didn’t want to be burdened with loads of stock, and I didn’t want to feel like the old “self-publisher selling books out of the trunk of his car” adage. But when I was asked, “Where’s the rest?” by several attendees on realizing I have 24 novels out, it makes me look inward and say, “maybe I really should have had more of a variety with me.”

The problem is this: the first four AGENT novels have the old covers on them, not the newer covers from two years ago. Also, The Lone Bostonian and several other books are not in ink-and-paper. Why? For me, my thinking over time is that I’d make them available if there’s a demand for them. I’ve only sold 180ish ink-and-paper books, and only 16 ink-and-paper books in 2016; most of my sales come via ebook. Suffice to say, there hasn’t been much call for ink-and-paper books.

But if I want to do more conventions, if I want to get out and meet more people—more potential readers—I need to have the books on hand, and in order to do that, I need to dedicate time and energy to making sure the books are formatted for ink-and-paper, and are formatted properly. I also need to release single versions of the books in The Obloeron Saga in both digital and ink-and-paper, and those need covers. I also need second-edition AGENT paperbacks for the first four books, a second-edition for Zombie Showdown, and I need to put the novella in print, too. I need all of this done by November, in time for Christmas.

Secondly, I need more ebook bundles.

I’m seeing loads of authors having success with ebook bundles. Right now, the only ebook bundle I have is for The Obloeron Saga, and that is six novels with three short stories woven into the prose. I need to get the Small Town PI mystery series into an ebook bundle, as well as the first seven Jaclyn novels into an ebook bundle. That needs to be done ASAP.

Third, I need to write a new series.

At present, I just don’t know what that new series will be. My next book is a follow-up to a book I released last year, The Long Crimson Line (ebook and ink-and-paper, and hopefully we’ll be in audio soon), and I plan on starting to write that book next week or the week after. That will make TLCL a duology instead of just a standalone. I’m going to try and stay away from writing standalones for the foreseeable future; they just don’t sell, at least not for me. That gives me a few months to come up with something, another series, before I start plotting out JJ9.

I’m also considering writing that new series under a pen name. I did it with Jaclyn under my real name after sales under the John Fitch V name slumped.

Fourth, I need to get Furball and Feathers back out, with new cover art.

This one isn’t as imperative as the others, but one I need to exercise patience.

I’m not the best artist in the world. I admit that. I did sketch out and color the horse cover for the third book in that series, but it needs a massive overhaul, art-wise. I bought a sketch pad a few weeks ago, and I’m hoping to ferret some time away to design a whole new set of colorful covers. I miss that children’s world!

And finally, do better convention prep.

Better signage, a Square credit card reader, book stands… and more product. Yes. My next convention will be better.

Simply put, I as an author need to be better.

You as my readers deserve better.

www.seansweeneyauthor.com

Final sales numbers 2015: a comparison

Well, Smashwords has updated the December Apple sales numbers in our dashboards and, as I catch my breath from a breakneck week of fiction and sportswriting, time to filter through everything. In addition, I'm going to do some comparisons to prior years. Break out your notepads, gang.

For reference: I am a professional writer from Massachusetts. I've been a sportswriter since high school, and I started writing my first novel in 2003. I have self-published my work since October 2009; since then, I've self-published 23 novels, plus short stories and novellas. To date, I've sold well over 10,300 copies of my novels and have given away in excess of 105,000 free copies of my first thriller, Model Agent, on various electronic platforms. My titles are available in all electronic forms, on many non-exclusive platforms, along with audiobook and trade paperback. I would call myself a "midlist indie author." Anyway...

All told in 2015, I sold 735 copies of my books. As I've said in recent blogs, 2015 was my worst sales year since 2010, when I sold 758 books that year.  Last year was a rather frustrating year, especially after the last few "good" years, where triple-digit sales months were the norm; in 2015, I had one triple-digit sales month (April, 119). Am I doing well? Not exactly in comparison to some authors I know, but I'm doing better than some other authors I know.

The by-platform breakdown is as follows:

Amazon properties (Kindle/trade paperbacks through CreateSpace/audiobooks): 414
Apple/Smashwords: 152
Kobo: 120
Nook: 49

As you can see, Amazon represented well over 50 percent of my total sales for 2015. I averaged a little over two sales per day.

In 2014, I sold 1,037 books (a little under three books a day), so I've dropped off a bit in my total sales. But Amazon properties, again, represented well over 50 percent of my sales (539, -125). Nook netted 127 sales for me in 2014 (-78), while Kobo resulted in 106 (+14). That means, if my math is correct, 265 books came from the Apple/Smashwords queue (-113). You can easily see where I've dropped off and where I've progressed.

Interesting, indeed. My writing has improved from book to book, but my sales are dropping. How to explain these numbers?

Honestly, I do not know the true reasoning. My hypotheses range from Facebook algorithm changes/drop in organic reach, lack of paid advertising on my part, and reader lifestyle changes, i.e. not having enough time to read due to job/family situations. It happens. Some readers may have found other authors. (I'm still here, and I'm not going away any time soon.) Those in the UK may have passed on me due to VAT rules, and some may have passed on me due to me not being in Kindle Unlimited. As I've written before, no one in my circle has Kobo for an ereader, and I've dutifully posted to Twitter and hashtagged my Kobo books; most of my Canadian sales come via Kobo.

While I've dropped, I'm not totally dismayed: My current 2016 numbers are along the same lines as last year (currently at 32 books for January, plus 14 Kindle pre-orders for Chemical Agent), but I suspect they'll rise as I revamp my business plan in 2016 and into next year.

At least that's my hope. We'll see as the year progresses.

www.seansweeneyauthor.com

State of the Author, 2015

And now, the end is near, and so I face, the final curtain.... on the year 2015.

For this author, 2015 was a roller coaster year of successes and trials, of realizations, and tough decisions.

On the publishing front:

In 2015, this author published several novels, and revised a few of his older works: Travel Agent: A Thriller, The Long Crimson Line: A Thriller, and the revised Obloeron Saga, including the previously unseen third prequel novel Krampel's Revenge, all reached readers' eyes in January, June, and November, respectively. In revisions, I took a long, hard look at several pieces, tightening Scollay Love (under my D.L. Boyd pen name), Zombie Showdown, Cold Altar, and Voir Dire, then re-published the lot in August. I feel that, on the revisions, I've made those books better on the eye.

On the writing front:

In addition to the revisions to the Saga, I wrote Chemical Agent: A Thriller (which is now available for pre-order), the first and second drafts to Beach Blanket Bloodshed: An Alex Bourque Mystery (in the same series as Cold Altar and Voir Dire), and I'm well into the first draft of a fantasy story unrelated to Obloeron. 2016 is shaping up to be a solid year, publishing-wise.

On the business front:

This was the massive trial I spoke of earlier. In 2015 (as of 7 p.m. on Dec. 30), I've sold 732 books, which doesn't include the Apple iBooks update for the month of December. That number is, by far, the worst sales year I've had since 2010, when I only had four books out and only sold 758 books that year.

I wrote back in June that it's time to re-evaluate the business plan, and I'm starting to implement some of my findings as we enter the new year. I've spent a little money so far, and the plan is to spend some more in order to re-claim the fan base and my audience. It will be a slow process; my hope is that by the summer, I'll be able to focus my efforts on doing just that, mainly with Facebook and Twitter ads in order to let readers know of my improvement, and that I'm still here.

I'm not going anywhere, ladies and gentlemen. I will continue to publish great books in 2016 and beyond.

I'm glad you're with me on this tremendous ride.

www.seansweeneyauthor.com

A look back at my 2015 blogs

I'm going to come right out and say this wasn't my original idea. No, my pal Jim C. Hines came up with this idea the other day, and I thought, "If it's good for Jimmy, then it's good for me." And notice how I get all my excellent ideas from Jim?

Anyway...

In 2015, I wrote 38 blogs prior to this one. I did a hodge-podge of books and food, as well as a trip to Cape Cod. Which ones were the most popular? You'll be surprised.

10. The Obloeron Re-writes: Back at it (69 views)

We can't escape Obloeron! This blog from late June--right after the end of Chemical Agent's first draft and the release of The Long Crimson Line--tackles the start of the second stage of the Re-writes.

9. Inside Travel Agent (72 views)

I answer a few questions about the contents of the sixth full-length Jaclyn Johnson novel.

8. Recipe Wednesday: Crock pot Pork Chops (79 views)

A blog post unrelated to books! I know, it's a miracle. Getting hungry re-reading this particular piece.

7. Cape Cod pictures from Ballston Beach in Truro (84 views)

A nice little photo spread of our trip to Truro back in April.

6. Cover reveal and pre-order links for The Long Crimson Line (86 views)

Pretty self-explanatory. I revealed the cover design--which was much better than my original idea, which was a rear view of a leggings-wearing woman holding a knife--for The Long Crimson Line, and gave folks to opportunity to pre-order it.

5. Sample Sunday--Travel Agent: A Thriller, Chapter 1 (94 views)

Again, pretty self-explanatory: Chapter 1 from what was the newest Jaclyn Johnson novel, Travel Agent.

4. The Obloeron Re-writes: A snippet of change (106 views)

One of the blogs I wrote back in January--OK, a few of them I wrote in January--dealt with the first stage of my re-writes in The Obloeron Saga. This particular blog showed how I improved one particular passage in The Quest For The Chalice.

3. An author, re-assessing his business plan (121 views)

In what was my longest blog post of 2015, I rambled about the current state of affairs in book-selling, as well as how I'm going to tackle it. I really still haven't tackled it, but we're getting there.

2. Have you pre-ordered The Obloeron Saga yet? (127 views)

Our second most popular blog came in late October. And while you can't pre-order it any longer, it is still available at 99 cents... for now.

1. Coming soon--The Long Crimson Line: A Thriller (156 views)

Amazing: my most popular blog was a snippet of Chapter 1, and it came on my birthday, to boot! Happy birthday? HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

And there you have it: A look back at my 10 most popular blogs of 2015.

Will I match my blog output in 2016? Will I surpass it? You'll have to come back next year to find out. Keep reading.

www.seansweeneyauthor.com

To cut my nose off to spite my face, or no? Free book indecision.

Catchy title, is it not? It is. Oh, it is. And it can be explained in one anxiety-riddled blog post.

I've battled a demon for these last few months. The demon is a tricky one, since it has been the driving force behind my good fortune when it comes to this publishing/book sales game I've played these last few years.

Yup. It's the demon of indecision, the demon of whether or not to take Model Agent, the first book in the Jaclyn Johnson code name Snapshot/Agent series, off perma-free status and make it a paid book on Kindle and iBooks again.

Through September, readers have downloaded Model Agent in excess of 103,000 times for free, with a little less than 900 paid copies through Nook and Kobo. On iBooks, MA is still good for well over a hundred downloads a month. On Kindle, not too many. For instance, in September, MA saw 158 free downloads on Apple; in August, 197, in July, 187. Last month on Kindle, there were 79 free downloads; this month, 28. The sell-through over the last few months has not been spectacular; in September, I sold a grand total of 52 books; 26 were through Kindle, Nook, and Kobo, with another 26 through Apple. This month, I'm at 19 before the Apple numbers come through, and I'll get this month's Apple numbers in the middle of next month. I told you: not exactly great.

See my dilemma?

The theory of making a book free, especially in a series, is to sell-through the remainder of the series, and use the first book as a loss leader. The sell-through, from Model to Rogue to Double and so forth, has been decent through Double: as I've explained, I bought ENT sponsorships for the first three, and that is part in parcel of the series' draw. As I've reported, I was unable to get one for Federal Agent, which recently eclipsed the 700-copy mark; that book has been out for three years. The most recent two books, Literary (JJ5) and Travel's (JJ6) numbers aren't exceptional, and sales are down across the board. I don't know if people didn't like the first three or just don't know if there are more books since I didn't get an ad for Federal. If I'm being honest, the writing in these latter books is better than the writing in Model. Some people are buying and downloading them, yes, but are doing so in small quantities instead of the rate of purchase from a few years ago.

So what to do? It's a question that doesn't have an easy answer: If I take MA off perma-free, what will happen to my Apple sales? What will happen to my Kindle sales? They are low as it is, and if the perma-free is driving what I have for sales as it is, well... I don't want to think of what my sales would be without Model Agent being free. And if I'm being honest, I don't have another series at the moment with a first book to use as a new loss leader.

This may require a little more thought... maybe until the holiday season passes.

www.seansweeneyauthor.com

Kobo doing it again with a 50 percent off sale

I've mentioned before how we authors are a pretty obsessive bunch, especially when it comes to our book sales. I won't re-hash it, but you can find my obsessive-compulsiveness in my archives.

This weekend, coupled with the release of THE OBLOERON SAGA and the need to increase the pre-orders in the days prior to Monday's release, the good folks over at Kobo are going to have me and many other authors doing a frantic F5 every waking minute over the next six days or so: they are running another 50 percent off sale on all books published through Kobo Writing Life, and thankfully, I'm one of those authors who do this, and only use Smashwords for iBooks and other reading entities; I upload to Kindle, Nook, and Kobo separately.

This means that for you Kobo users out there--you can pre-order THE OBLOERON SAGA and get it for something like 48 cents.

Read that line again.

Really? Six books plus three short stories for only 48 cents?! Seriously? My other books from $1.50-$2 each? I have two words for that, ladies and gents, and that is LEGAL THIEVERY.

And I love it.

So go on, Kobo readers, go on and do it. STEAL MY BOX SET. I double dare you to. Do so for half the price this weekend, using these coupon codes at checkout:

Canada users, from Oct. 28-Oct 31: CA50SALE
United States/Australia/New Zealand users, from Oct. 28-Oct 30: GET50SALE
United Kingdom users, from Oct. 30-Nov. 2 (RELEASE DAY!): UK50SALE

Here's the link to all of my books on Kobo. HAVE AT IT!

www.seansweeneyauthor.com

Summer of Edit 2015, done and dusted

Over the course of the last seven-plus weeks, when I wasn't headed to Cape Cod or busting my rear end in our vast vegetable garden, I've been at my computer doing what I call "The Summer of Edit 2015." As it is a rather big deal, allow me a few moments of your time to explain.

Earlier this summer, I wrote about how I'm in the process of reviewing my business plan and, at the same time, altering it. Starting some time this fall, I'm going to take out Facebook ads and possibly even Twitter ads. When I wrote the business plan blog, I explained that I had given away upward of 103,000 copies or thereabouts of Model Agent, but when it came to selling through the rest of the Agent series, I had only sold about 7,000 copies of the others up through the end of June. Some of the newer books, which have great writing if I do say so myself, hardly sell save to my die-hards. I've come to the conclusion that either a. Some people didn't like the story and have since abandoned me (which is completely in their purview), b. Some read it and liked it, but didn't look for more books (which is, again, in their purview, but it may be my fault, too), or c. Some people read it, liked it, but are now in a different position in their lives and don't have the same amount of time with which to read like they did a few years ago. It's an either/or situation, I think. Who am I to truly say what the situation is?

The Facebook ads, I hope, will help build my mailing list as well as reclaim some Model Agent/Rogue Agent/Double Agent readers that had liked the story, but didn't know about the other books. The ads should point people in the direction of my bookstore, where readers will find that, indeed, I have plenty more books out there, and that I haven't gone away. Now...

Some of those books, as you'll know by the painstaking edit work that I did of The Obloeron Saga earlier in the year, were supposedly edited by a grad student prior to publishing a few years ago. As I've said, they weren't. And some of the other books that I had also released, such as Scollay Love and Zombie Showdown, were also supposedly edited by this particular person. Again, they weren't. Shame on me for not checking their work, and shame on them for screwing me over.

If I'm going to alter the business plan and reclaim readers, I had to make a hard choice: There are some who think I should just let the older work stay in its older form, letting the stories speak for themselves. I'm not doing that--and I haven't. This was something that I need to do if the readers are going to take this indie seriously as an author. I'm going to be here a long time, and there are plenty more stories in me. I just need readers, keeping my fastball tuned so the readers stick with me. That meant I had to go back into my files and do some revisions to these stories and bring them in line with my current skill level. It was time-consuming, but I stress that this was needed. I've improved as a writer to the point where passive voice no longer infiltrates my writing from the get-go. Meanwhile, the older stories, the supposedly edited ones that weren't, had tons of it.

That is no longer the case.

In the past few weeks, I've worked on cleaning up Zombie Showdown, Scollay Love (under my D.L. Boyd pen name), Cold Altar, and Voir Dire. I've cleaned them up--in the case of ZS and SL, I've re-written a few parts to improve on the story and have deleted some lines to tighten the story--re-formatted, and I've now re-uploaded them to Kindle, Nook, Kobo, Smashwords (with the exception of Scollay Love), and now to Google Play. These were solid stories, but didn't really sell: that may be due to what I see as sloppy, amateurish writing/editing. And with me about to go back into the world of Alex Bourque--Cold Altar and Voir Dire are in his world--later this week, those two books needed to be sharp without any serious dilution to the story. The passive voice, which the editor should have taken out, is now gone.

The question, of course, is how much left is there to do? I will be re-reading The Obloeron Saga in October; I do not foresee any additional changes to that series, and it will be re-published on Nov. 2, 2015--two years to the day that I took it down. The Agent series continues as my best-selling series, and there are no changes to those existing books scheduled. The stories are solid, the writing crisp. The same with the recent stories of Redeemed, The Long Crimson Line, and The Lone Bostonian. Royal Switch, I may look into changing up a little (the opening is slow, but it serves a purpose), but probably not this go-around. The John Fitch V books of Turning Back The Clock, One Hero A Savior, and A Galaxy At War, no, I'm not going to change those.

It is my hope that if you do take a chance on me from this point forward, I will have gained a reader that appreciates my writing, one who knows that I have now put forth an impeccable effort--one better than I had before. I also hope that the reader will join the mailing list and keep picking up my new books.

And speaking of that, I must dash. I have a new book to write.

Take care.

www.seansweeneyauthor.com

10,000 book sales and beyond

I wrote the other day that book sales have come to a crawl for me personally; it has made me re-think my business plan moving forward. It came to such a crawl at the worst time--just as I approached 10,000 book sales lifetime.

Let me allow you access to the dusty mind of an author: We are an obsessive bunch, especially about our book sales. For those of us who hail from the indie variety, we center our lives around checking our book sales on Amazon, Nook, Smashwords, and Kobo (I throw in CreateSpace and ACX for paperbacks and audiobooks, too). Write a paragraph in the new WIP? Check the sales. Finish a page of prose? Check the sales. Wake up at 2 in the morning to use the bathroom? Bring your smartphone along and check the sales. Lather, rinse, repeat.

So it won't surprise you to learn that over the course of June I did all of this; a few months ago, while checking my spreadsheet and noticing the dip and figuring out my averages, I had figured that I would hit 10,000 by the end of June. I had ended May at 9,938 sales before the Apple iBooks update came through on Smashwords--when it finally came, I was at 9,945, which I believe came down to my bookstore site 404ing earlier in the month. Add in June's sales coming into the last week, I neared 9,990 (I was at 9,986 when I penned my change of business plan blog on June 25). That weekend, I was away from my laptop for a majority of it, so posting book links on Twitter was out, but I still sold a few books--just not enough to eclipse 10,000.

Then Monday, with me at 9,991 and one sale already in the tally books after writing the release blog for The Long Crimson Line, I took a nap. I woke up at about noon to a message from a high school classmate of mine who said that she had bought nine books.

"I love your writing," she said.

Thanks, Jess!

So there you have it. I've crossed 10,000 book sales, doing so in slightly less than six years. There are so many different reasons why it took me so long. I'm not going to analyze them here. I can tell you that there were no tears this time, unlike when I crossed 1,000 back in February 2011. I just gave a bit of a fist pump and went on with my day.

But I do hope that with the aforementioned change in my business model, and with constantly improving writing, that the second 10,000 will come much sooner than the first.

Stay tuned.

www.seansweeneyauthor.com

An author, re-assessing his business plan

Warning: Long post. For the TL,DR crowd: Author talks about changing his business plan, along with some insight on his sales figures.

Call me a real-life Sheldon Cooper. Go on. I don't mind.

Much like Jim Parsons' beloved character, I love Star Wars and Doctor Who. Trains? Eh, I could take them or leave them, but I could ride the T all day. Science? To a point. Having a special spot? Well, let's not go too far there, Charlie. The same goes for comic books.

But for the most part, I don't like change much. I like things the way they are; you can call me a champion for the status quo, if you so desire. Change doesn't send me into a tither like it does to Sheldon; my face doesn't jerk about.

However, changes to certain places in the social media landscape--which is quite possibly the poor author's best friend when it comes to promoting their books and letting potential readers know about books--has kept me up nights, has killed my organic reach, and has sent my sales spiraling into the abyss.

*Re-reads that last graph*

Huh. Not bad. Maybe I should be an author when I grow up. Moving on.

All kidding aside, it's pretty true. The number of books I've sold in recent months--shit, in just the past year--has plummeted dramatically (yes, I keep a spreadsheet). Where once I was good for triple-digit sales months, my newer books with better writing (in my humble opinion, of course) barely scrape enough together to pay the cable bill; I'm at 41 sales for June with less than a week left in the month, and a new book coming out Monday. In May, I sold 39 books, thanks in part to a website glitch that I didn't notice until it was too late. I had a fantastic, triple-digit April thanks to the Double Agent audiobook coming out (and I didn't even promote it). Before that, my last triple-digit month was August 2014.

Suffice it to say, the last ten months have not been kind to this author.

The twelve months before that, it was like a teeter-totter: there were a few months where the sales came in droves. Sure, I had a couple of zero days, but nothing like in recent months. I had triple-digit sales months dotted in with a couple of double-digit sales months. I thought everything was fine, and that there wouldn't be any changes--or that I would have to make any changes--to my business model. Then the last 13 months happen, with two triple-digit sales months. Yikes.

It has led me to believe what I initially thought was false is now indeed true: what had worked for me, and many other authors like me, back in 2011 and 2012 (two of my best years writing and selling my own books, 2,319 and 4,001 sales, respectively), doesn't work any longer. For the record, in 2013, I sold 1,545 books, and 1,037 in 2014. So far in 2015, I'm at 404... and we're barely halfway through the year. Honestly, it feels like 2010 again. The simple posting of links on your personal Facebook page may work, but some people are going to get pissed, and others that used to buy your books are at a different stage in their lives and don't have the time to read at the present. I posted the link to The Long Crimson Line the other day, and it got five shares, but nothing in the way of sales came out of those shares. You can post links to your professional "like" page, but the reach has shrunk to miniscule figures (read: Facebook wants you to buy sponsorships, and up until now, I've been rather hesitant to do that): on my Sean Sweeney, Author page, where I have 569 fans, I only reached 11 people with my most recent posting. The posting before that, 27. The one before that, 34. Before that, 16. The one before that, 97. I won't even tell you the fan total/reach on my Jaclyn Johnson page.

In addition, Facebook groups, in my recent experience, are no longer working; there are certain groups where you can promote your wares, but there are very few actual readers/non-authors there. If I'm being honest, I don't want to pitch my book(s) to just authors who are trying to scream over me and trying to plug their books to readers that aren't even there. And as for the "you buy mine, I'll buy yours" type of authors who I don't know.... sorry, guys. I know you're not going to read my book, and I'm not going to read yours. One sale isn't going to placate us; we should be honestly looking to build relationships with readers for long-term benefit. In other words, let's stop with the authorly hand jobs, OK?

And Twitter? OK.... I will admit, Twitter is successful. No one in my circle has Kobo, so those Kobo sales have to come from somewhere. I know many authors who are successful with Twitter. There are days I wonder, though, if anyone is truly paying attention to me there. Google Plus? People read my blogs there, but I'm not posting book links there. The old Kindleboards? I don't believe I've received a sale through my dealings there in many months.

Now it's time to re-assess how we're moving forward. Call it eBook Publishing 2.0, if you will. Over the past few weeks, I've given things serious consideration. No, I'm not quitting; I could never truly quit. But if I want to remain in the game... I have to ch-ch-ch-change.

Like I said, I thought the old ways would still work. I had considered starting a mailing list as early as February 2014, but at the time, I thought it too complicated (I have since learned otherwise) and never followed through. Now that I have some time, I'm concentrating on building the mailing list on various fronts: I've placed code here in the blog and on my website to take names and email addresses (which I won't sell, not even for Monopoly money). Yeah, it's generic. I have a newsletter that is coming out Monday. If you want on, by all means, register. The newsletter will have updates on drafts, as well as links for books. It'll be like my blog, but mailed to those who want it.

Now...

As I wrote earlier this week, I'm closing in on 10,000 sales (I'm actually at 9,986 right now). In addition, I've given out more than 102,500 copies of Model Agent for free. Not all of those 9,986 sales are Jaclyn books (it's actually 6,945 not including this month's sales, but that's neither here nor there).

But here's what I find interesting:

874 paid Model Agent
2,803 Rogue Agent
2,120 Double Agent

Those were the first three books, all published in 2011. All three did very well, and all three, it should be noted, were featured sponsors on Ereader News Today between March 2011 and April 2012. Altogether, those three books have accrued over 5,800 readers, and I presume a lot of those are repeat readers.

However, moving forward:

674 Federal Agent
235 Literary Agent
177 Promises Given, Promises Kept (the novella)
77 Travel Agent

Ouch. What happened? I don't have a real answer. Federal came out in 2012, the novella in 2013, Literary in 2014, and Travel in 2015. I didn't get ENT sponsorships for them. Maybe I had hoped that the readers would continue after Double. Did they find someone new? Did they think I suck? I know some do think that, and I know I'm not going to please everyone.... were the other 90,000 who downloaded Model just hoarding it and haven't read it?

So, how do I get those readers back?

Easy: Hopefully a paid Facebook ad pointing out that I'm still here, still writing a pretty darn good character? That may be what I do, along with getting names for the newsletter. You can't spend what you don't have, so the hope is that I can devote a few dollars to winning the readers back.

And if that doesn't work... then I'll have to think of something else. I can't be afraid of changing any longer.


www.seansweeneyauthor.com