Saturday, April 30, 2016

Selling Books

Selling books, that's what I've been doing now for two weeks. When I wrote my book, 349 Days, I was just writing the book. I never knew what it would lead to. Now I'm learning how to sell books. This is a whole new experience. I remember my oldest son telling me, when I was in the early stages of writing the book, I was going to need to learn how to promote myself if I was going to sell any books. While the book was at the publisher getting tweaked and formatted properly I spent some time reading on this very idea. I had already joined Facebook and created my email distribution list and I began to send out "teasers" via both to keep the idea of my book in peoples' minds.

When the book came out, and the requests for it began to come in from my website (www.slaterdavis.com) I got lost in the busyness. This morning, two weeks after the book's release I have taken a few minutes to let everything that has happened in these two weeks sink in. I've been running to the post office every day mailing books. I've scheduled two book signings and have another in the works. I was on the local TV station for an interview. And I've started this blog.  Now, this morning, as I sit and consider all of that...I am humbled. I've been moved by the supportive reviews that some of you have posted on my book page at Amazon. I'm thankful. I am thankful for each of you who have contacted me about the book. And I'm thankful for each of you who have purchased the book. When I post on Facebook and then see that my post has been re-posted it is humbling. Then, I get an email, out of the blue, from someone I don't even know, and he is copying me on an email he sent to all of his group of Vietnam Veterans buddies promoting my book...well what can I say? It's overwhelming.

So this is selling books. It's a whole new thing I never considered. But I'm having fun, meeting new people and talking about my book and my experiences. Want to know how I'm doing? Here goes...I have mailed 76 books. Is that good? Who knows...I've never done this before. Becki says I'm doing great and I'm off to a good start. But what do I measure against? I just keep running to the post office. What about Amazon? Well, the statistics for Amazon lag a bit, especially for a new book, but I can tell you this. For the past few days my book has been in the top 100 in the Vietnam browse category in the Kindle Store. This morning it is at 70. A couple of days ago it was at 68, then 120. It bounces around and the placement is updated hourly. But, for it to be in the top 100 several days in a row is incredible.

Here is what it looks like on the Kindle version book page:
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #114,229 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

Life is good. God is better.
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)