The Road to Publishing: A Week On

I wasn't supposed to be blogging here today, but my actual blog host for today is missing in action and I didn't really want to miss a day, so I thought a recap post could be good.

Can you believe it's been a week already?

A week since my little 'baby', with all its flaws and imperfections, took its first tentative steps into the big bad world. My nerves were jangling and I was as giddy as a child on Christmas morning all day on release day, which was spent with my laptop in easy reach, hitting refresh and watching my rank rise and fall on both Amazon and Amazon UK. It was utterly surreal seeing people add the book to their Goodreads bookshelves and watching the reviews trickle in on both Amazon and Goodreads - but more on that later.

I must confess that I still check my rankings a couple of times a day - seeing as it will all be over soon, I'm not berating myself too much - and the overall picture looks a lot like a rollercoaster, with peaks and troughs, dips and swerves. My lowest ranking on both sites was on Christmas Day, but I'd expected as much with the majority of people offline; it's not as if I was online much during the day either.

I was elated when I broke into the top 1,500 contemporary romance novels on Amazon (top 25,000 of all books on Amazon!), so at least I'm easily pleased. I expect sales will start tailing off now, as the Christmas season draws to a close. There are still a couple of review sites yet to post, including Harlequin Junkie, but whether the new reviews will trigger one final rush is something I will have to wait and see. They're good to have in the bag for next Christmas anyway, especially as I will have a print version out one way or another.

So, speaking of reviews...

I'm overjoyed by the response to my debut book - from readers and professional reviewers alike - and even my 'bad' review was good, in so much she absolutely loved the first half of the book, describing it as, "Great. Seriously great." I'm not quite sure what went so hideously wrong but at least she found some merit in my writing even if she then slated the rest of the story. I've added a widget so that you can read some of the reviews left on Goodreads so far.

I would like to say a huge thank you to everyone that has bought Christmas is Cancelled - and an extra special thank you to those who have rated and/or reviewed it on Amazon or Goodreads, as without those reviews, I'm sure I wouldn't keep seeing as rise in my rank and reaching so many readers.

If you haven't bought it yet but want to, here are the links you will need...

Breathless Press
Amazon
Amazon UK
All Romance Books
Bookstrand
Goodreads
Barnes & Noble – coming soon
iTunes – coming soon

Goodreads reviews for Christmas is Cancelled

Reviews from Goodreads.com