EDEN: week four of self-publication!

It's been a hell of a week, to say the least.

Since my last post I've learned even more about how Amazon's Kindle rankings work, and also seen Eden climb ever further up the charts. This morning it reached #796 in the overall chart, although it has slipped a little way since and at the time of writing is at #824. More amazing though is that the book is now charting on Amazon.com's Post-Apocalyptic category at #80 and is at #12,855 overall.

I know that I've already mentioned that there has been very little publicity surrounding the novel, but it seems important because so many self-published authors struggle to obtain blog reviews and such like. I have only received one industry blog-review so far, the rest being ordinary reader's reviews, but it hasn't stopped the book's rapid rise up the charts. However, there are things that I did get wrong.

Upon reflection, I think that I should have done more to create a "buzz" around the launch of the book. Many self-published authors ( and traditional publishers too ) make much fuss about the importance of this and I'm beginning to understand why: sell a hundred books on your first day and you'll shoot straight into the Kindle UK chart at the 500 mark, reach a high position in your respective categories and get seen earlier by more people, potentially hastening a book's rise. At least when I'm ready to publish Eden's sequel I'll have this knowledge at hand.

Anyway, I have no complaints about Eden's success so far. I have also learned that Kindle UK sales seem to slump at weekends. Eden dropped to the 1,100 position over the weekend, but maintained its position in the category charts. This seems to be because all other books experienced a similar slump, with the likely exception of the biggest names, and upon Monday morning all books leaped up again. Has anybody else  noticed this, or have an explanation for it?

I'll update soon with my total number of copies sold in my first month ( probably next Monday ) but already it's far higher than I expected and rising week on week. Keeping my fingers crossed that this trend continues apace...