SURVIVOR!!

I'm almost ready to begin writing what I hope will become a really exciting serial, Survivor. Plotting is well underway, with the nine-part high-concept storyline packed with twists and turns that will keep readers very much on their toes.

Each "Volume" will be released on the second week of each month, with the first being a free title provided I can ensure that Amazon will price-match effectively. However, should there be any issues I will be making sure that Volume 1 will be available to download for free from my website.

This is the first time I have attempted a serial of novellas. Each will be approximately 30,000 words long, far bigger than most serialised stories available on Amazon, and with nine volumes in total it represents the equivalent of a large trilogy of full-length works. Each volume ( after the first ) will be very low priced to attract readers and keep them hooked.

Here's the final artwork - can't wait to get stuck into it and make the first episode available for my readers...



2014!!

Happy New Year!!

I hope that you all had a fabulous Christmas and New Year. Mine was fairly quiet, mostly spent with my family and dodging power cuts! I also wanted to take some time out before beginning 2014, which will be my biggest year yet as far as writing novels is concerned.

The total count is yet to be confirmed, but I am hoping to produce no less than five different titles this year. Two of them are for my literary agent, which will hopefully be picked up by major publishers. Two are sequels to Eden and Holo Sapiens, both of which will be released later this year. The fifth is a bit special, as it's not actually a single title. Instead, it will be nine novellas released as a series, hopefully starting in May and then being published one per month for the rest of the year.

I like to tease readers, so I won't tell you anything about the storyline - instead, I'll leave you with this concept artwork for the series.

I hope all my followers have a fabulous 2014!

 

 

 

 

Brand new newsletter!

I've wanted for some time to provide readers of my novels with a way of receiving updates via e-mail when new books are released or when special offers and promotions occur, but it's been hard to find a decent provider of this service that doesn't send annoying spam mails at the same time. Let's face it, nobody likes spam e-mails!

However, I've done it. My news letter will only be sent when a new book is about to be released or when something special happens like a "free" book offer on Amazon ( one is in the pipeline for next year, bargain hunters! )

If you'd like to sign up, then just click the link below. It takes only seconds, and it means you won't have to monitor my blog, Twitter feed or Facebook page to keep up to date with new releases.

http://eepurl.com/KoP8T

Merry Christmas to all my followers! :)

REVOLUTION!!

One of the greatest things about the incredible rise of e-publishing is that it allows authors to publish books that otherwise would probably never have seen the light of day. Since the enormous success of Eden I've decided to edit and release other titles that were unable to attract offers from traditional publishers, as there is no good reason not to do so as long as the content is up to standard.

So, this month, I will be releasing my thriller Revolution to Amazon for Kindle. This book was the last that I wrote before beginning work on the manuscript that became Covenant, the debut in the Ethan Warner series.

When a journalist goes missing in the wilderness of the war-torn former-Soviet state of Mordania, friend and former colleague Megan Mitchell is compelled to search for her. Thrown into the conflict between the democratic Mordanian Government and an uprising led by the ruthless General Mikhail Rameron, Megan must strive to locate her lost friend and avoid becoming a pawn in a dangerous game.

As American diplomats struggle to strike lucrative oil-deals with the Mordanian government while it remains in power, and the United Nations tries to protect the capital city Thessalia's safe-haven, a lone reporter reveals footage of the carnage within the country. In a rush to avoid American intervention, rebel forces start protecting villages and citizens inside the war zone, and a revolution begins: now, the news is not just reporting on the conflict, it is actually controlling it. With every report, the conflicting forces attempt to gain favour in the eyes of the world watching on their televisions in their millions.

Megan pushes herself to the limit in order to rescue her friend, but she is captured by rebel forces and abducted deep behind enemy lines, and there she discovers the horrific truth behind the conflict, and that nothing reported on television is ever as it seems...

Revolution will be released for publication around December 19th, 2013.

Marketing "Holo Sapiens"

So, once again I find myself about to start a promotional run for a new independent novel, and I couldn't have hoped to have been in a better position. Checking Amazon UK's stats this morning, Holo Sapiens is already #14 in the Post Apocalyptic category, with Eden just ahead of it at #7.

This is fabulous news - less than 2 weeks after its launch and Holo Sapiens is already featuring prominently on the store ( and at the 3,300 position in Kindle UK overall ). Once again, this is with no publicity other than here on the blog and on Facebook and Twitter, and a single industry blogger's review ( featured in my previous post ).

The story in the USA is different, however. With a launch at a different time of year, the remarkable set of circumstances that saw Eden rise to the top 1,000 position in just a few weeks no longer exist. Holo Sapiens moves between the 70,000 and 200,000 positions, which obviously means that the novel cannot be seen by many potential readers yet.

Fortunately, this time around I'm more savvy with the marketing and have already pre-booked my advertising campaign. This falls on the 11th, 12th and 13th of December. The first day is a one-day banner with popular e-book forum KBoards. The second and third are both one-day promotions on Kindle Nation Daily, for the Kindle Fire and ordinary Kindle respectively.

The idea of this campaign is not to propel Holo Sapiens into the Amazon Top 100 or anything ( although that would be nice! ) but merely to sell enough copies of the book to rise sufficiently in the rankings to get some visibility. From there, I'm hoping that the book's professional look and intriguing subject matter will sustain a decent ranking, generate regular sales and start the ball rolling.

Just like Eden, there's a long way to go, but I'm confident that the book is good enough to succeed even against the huge competition created by the Christmas season. I'm planning advertising for 2014 also, but I recently learned an interesting and valuable lesson over at KBoards: summer is, by and large, a low-selling period for most independent authors. This contradicts what I would have instinctively thought, that the holiday season would be a good time for people to be buying books to read on the beach etc. My only conclusion is that people do read books at the beach, but not so much on their Kindles - they buy paperbacks for their holidays.

The BIGGEST selling periods for independent authors seems to be post-Christmas, with many saying their sales spike during Boxing Day ( presumably as Kindles are received by countless people as gifts ). January and February are also big months for many self-published authors.

With this in mind, Eden's success was even more surprising during the summer of 2013, so I'm hoping that the more favourable marketing conditions of winter will help Holo Sapiens rise in the ranks over the next few months...

Awesome review for Holo Sapiens.

I was hugely excited to read this review of Holo Sapiens by respected industry blogger Kate Atherton on her blog "For Winter Nights". It really encapsulates so well the atmosphere of the novel.


For Winter Nights

EARLY RELEASE! "Holo Sapiens"

I decided over the weekend that, with the manuscript ready and the conversion complete, there seemed little point in waiting any longer. With industry bloggers keen to get hold of the book, I uploaded "Holo Sapiens" to Amazon a few days earlier than advertised.

You can get it here in the USA:

Holo Sapiens

And here in the UK:

Holo Sapiens


Although I haven't advertised the novel yet it's already pushed up into the best-seller charts for Post-Apocalyptic in the UK. Really hoping that this book takes off like Eden did before it.

Grab it fast! The book is on a promotional price for a short time only of $0.99 in the USA and £0.99 in the UK. Just like Eden, this is for a full-length, 100,000 word novel - a real bargain by any standards.

I hope that all my readers enjoy the book!!

Building a brand: Holo Sapiens

I've been hard at work ( as ever ) working on my latest novel, which is now being read by beta readers for editorial feedback. So far, one has commented that the novel is at least as good as Eden, perhaps even better. Editorials have been fairly light, with no major structural issues and the work limited to typos, clarity and general polishing of the manuscript.

I've also been busy enhancing the HTML coding for the book, ready for publication, by learning how to insert my company logo in the front in the manner of major publishers, how to remove the Table of Contents ( who uses these in fiction anyway? ) and generally sharpening up the presentation.

So far, everything's looking grand and the presentation of the e-book looks as professional now as a publication by one of the big traditional houses. I'll be updating Eden's file with the same logo and adjustments to maintain the brand appearance as soon as I can.

I'm also hard at work on the screenplay for Holo Sapiens. This may seem a bit premature, but the story concept is so unique that I want to put my stamp on it as early as possible. Having a full screenplay in place will help me to do that, and with the Knight-Hall Agency potentially able to put it in front of the Hollywood studios I'd be insane not to put it together.

I've let Eden slip down in the USA charts over the last couple of weeks, shifting my focus to Holo Sapiens in full. From all I've researched about self-publishing, the best advert for one novel is often another by the same author. I'm hoping that the release of Holo Sapiens, if all goes to plan, will push Eden back up the charts by association. That said, Eden is still in the top 1,000 or so in the UK so it's doing very well all by itself. In the USA it's around the 6,000 mark in Kindle Paid, still not bad considering the competition.

My next work will be for my literary agent, a crime-thriller with a twist that should take me until the early new year to complete. After that, it's a full year of writing for me, completing the following titles:

EDEN: Redemption.

Holo Sapiens: Homo Immortalis

Soul Seekers: Ghost Ship  ( Young adult series )

2014 is going to be as busy as 2013!

"Holo Sapiens" promotional video

My new video for "Holo Sapiens"! Just 26 days to go until publication :)

I'm also delighted to report that "Eden" has now sold over 10,000 copies and is still going strong! Very much looking forward to seeing how my growing list of titles affect each other in terms of sales and 'reach' to new potential readers...

My first book video!

Since first self-publishing a novel, I've been thinking a lot about how to further spread the word of my work. I knew a lot of authors had used videos to do so, so I decided to give it a whirl. With my company's logo sorted, I wanted to produce something that looks very professional so that I can advertise my work in the manner of a traditional publishing house.

The idea is to keep all of my self-published works under a highly visible banner, which will feature in all of them rather like a cover, so that hopefully readers will start to associate good quality books with both my name as an author and also with Fictum, my company.

The video is for "Eden", which is still selling a hundred copies a day months after it was first published. It will soon be joined by "Holo Sapiens" at the end of November.

My new company logo! :)

I've recently designed a logo for my company. As I'm self-publishing as well now, it seemed appropriate to place those publications beneath a recognisable banner. As I'm also planning to produce short videos to advertise my books it helps to create product recognition, a bit like film studios.

I had a great deal of fun creating them, and hopefully in the future they'll appear on reading devices at the start of my books  :)

For those of you wondering - the company name is Latin for fiction.

Here's the static logo:

And here's the animation:

 

 



Guest Post: Traditional versus self-publishing

I was fortunate enough recently to be offered the chance to guest post on book reviewer Jera's Jamboree blog, talking about the my experiences with both traditional and self-publishing. The link below will take you to the post.

http://jerasjamboree.com/2013/10/21/jeras-jamboree-guest-author-dean-crawford-published-vs-self-published/


In other news, Holo-Sapiens is nearing its beta-reader stage. Structural edits are almost complete and I'm now working on dialogue, character, prose and narrative, ironing out smaller errors and generally polishing the novel.

Eden remains high in Kindle's Paid rankings, despite the efforts of a "sock-puppet" reviewer in the USA ( a sock-puppet is a reviewer account operated by a rival author or somebody close to them ) who placed a negative review of Eden, false accusations and repeated links to said rival author's novels in an attempt to derail my sales and promote their own. I've reported their activity and evidence proving their link to the rival author to Amazon. In a quirk of fate and what I like to think of as justice, Eden shot up over a thousand places into the Top 700 after the review appeared, which just goes to show that crime doesn't pay.

I hadn't encountered this kind of behaviour before, and as the 'review' contained some quite offensive remarks I felt compelled to reply to it as well as report it. This led to the 'reviewer' hastily altering their comments and removing their links in an attempt to avoid any action by Amazon. If there's a next time, I'll know better.

( UPDATE: Amazon have removed the offending review as it was indeed in breach of their rules. )

HOLO SAPIENS publication date!

I've finally got a date set-in-stone for HOLO SAPIENS. It will be published direct to Kindle on Thursday November 28th, 2013. Pre-orders won't be available. I'm hard at work on my edits, and the novel is shaping up to be perhaps my favourite so far!

EDEN is still doing fabulously. It has sold close to 10,000 copies and is maintaining strong positions in the Kindle Paid charts on both sides of the Atlantic. I'm hugely excited to see what happens when HOLO SAPIENS hits the digital shelves, and how it affects EDEN's position.

I'm also guest-posting on the Fiction Addiction blog soon, writing about my experiences with digital publishing and traditional publishing and how the market place has changed so much over the past two years. I'll place links here when the post goes live..

New novel due for e-publication, November 2013: HOLO SAPIENS!

It's here! The artwork is finally done, the edits are well on their way and I can confirm that my latest novel, HOLO SAPIENS, will be published in November 2013! The exact date it will appear is to be confirmed and I'll share it here and in the usual places as soon as I can!

New First Draft completed!!

I've been hard at work for the past couple of weeks, writing to a self-imposed regime of about 4,000 words per day in order to complete the first draft of my next novel. This is an entirely new work, based upon a high-concept idea I came up with during the summer that I really felt strongly about. Sometimes, as an author, I get really excited about a new plot and start tearing along for days as ideas and storylines rush out almost as fast as I can write them down. This burst of creativity is then followed by a few weeks of developing the plot details and adding depth to the story before actually sitting down and writing it.

With the Ethan Warner series, I used to plot almost every single possible detail before writing, but I changed that approach with EDEN in order to let the characters develop more. The new approach worked well, and with the new WIP I've done something in-between, plotting about 50% of the story using key points and scenes that I knew I wanted to see, and then letting the characters kind of build themselves as the story went along.

This approach has produced some great characters who have come alive as I've written the draft, but they have changed over the course of the story in their motives etc as their characters have developed, so now I've got to go through the first structural edit and make sure that those characters become a little more consistent in their story journey, along with all the other essential plot lines being ironed out and polished. In general I'm really very happy with my new method, as it allows new ideas to pop up throughout the story, often changing it ways I hadn't imagined before writing it.

In other news, EDEN remains high in the UK Amazon Kindle chart ( in the 300s ) and in the USA chart ( 1,100 ish ), and is selling anything between 130 and 200 copies per day. I did some minor further advertising in the USA, but all in all the book seems to be selling itself without any further input from me. Given its high star-rating, especially in the UK, I'm assuming that the good sales are based on the book's merits alone - gaining sales traction as its reputation gets better as a "good read". I'm keeping an eye on it and also plotting the sequel, EDEN: REDEMPTION, which I'll publish sometime early in 2014, as for now I'm focusing on my two current WIPs.

More news as it comes in, and I'll post cover-art for the new high-concept novel soon if it becomes a self-published work instead of traditionally published.

Increasing workload and general publishing news.

I'm finally back into my routine after a week and a half spent reading the final proofs for two of my traditionally published novels. APOCALYPSE is now ready for printing in the USA, although I have not yet seen any cover artwork, while here in the UK the next Ethan Warner novel, now titled THE ETERNITY PROJECT, is also ready for printing and I've been sent the wonderful cover art, which is below:

The completion of these two proof read-throughs means that I'm now back at my desk and writing to a strict self-imposed regime. I aim to write no less than 4,000 words per day, and am working on three different projects. The first is an epic sci-fi novel that I've been plotting and writing now for over a month, the story built around a central idea that is entirely unique and immensely compelling. The novel could be a real hit if I can get it right, so it's my priority right now ( before somebody else comes up with the idea! ). The second project is a crime novel for my agent, Luigi Bonomi, which we're hoping will go to traditional publishers later this year. The third project is the sequel to EDEN, which is doing so incredibly well right now across Amazon's various sites. I'm in the basic plotting stage at the moment, but as EDEN was always planned to be the first in a trilogy of stories the basic elements are in place. It's more an issue of how to tell the story in a satisfying way for the reader that's my focus at the moment, as I don't want the sequel to be just a repeat of the debut.

EDEN remains high in the UK chart, and seems to climb by about a hundred places each passing week. Next week marks two months since the novel was launched exclusively to Amazon, during which I've sold more than 4,000 copies. The title has slipped slightly over in the USA, but this is largely due to the big leap in sales when I bought advertising there, the tail-off in sales afterward accounting for the decrease. A new price and some more advertising is in the pipeline so hopefully I'll be able to continue the book's upward climb soon.

Between now and next Spring it's my aim to have at least three self-published titles available exclusively through Amazon at low prices. This longer-term goal, and the combined sales and brand-awareness, is part of a plan to achieve wider success within the self-published world to keep me writing for a living between traditional contracts with publishing houses. With things going ever more digital in publishing, I want to make my mark there and establish a permanent presence sooner rather than later. The more people who become aware that they can buy my books at truly excellent prices in digital form, the better off I'll be when the paperback market begins to follow the already collapsing hardback market.

I'll report in next week with EDEN's two-month figures, and hopefully some good news on USA advertising...

Self publishing and self promotion.

Those of you who are following my experiment in self-publishing here on my blog will know that in my last post I revealed that I would be buying some digital promotion over in the USA. Some research revealed that doing so had worked well for other authors writing in a similar genre to me, so I thought it was worth a shot as although Eden was already doing very well I wanted to give it a boost if I could.

For the frankly meagre sum of $99 I bought a one day Kindle Fire advert in a digital publication across the pond and crossed my fingers. The result was hugely impressive - I awoke the next morning to find that Eden had leaped in the Amazon.com overall chart from the 1,051 position to the 585 position, an immense leap in sales! Eden has since slipped back a little but the experiment effectively paid for itself several times over in the next few days.

Would I do it again? Yes, definitely, but only at launch day, to get the title high into the charts as quickly as possible in conjunction with other promotional efforts. The exposure definitely works well and has a bit of a "tail", in that when the promotion ends sales don't plummet back but decrease only slowly. The new exposure not only means more sales but also hopefully more reviews - if they're positive it increases the confidence of other potential readers that your book is worth a go, keeping the title's momentum going.

In the UK, things are holding steady with the book selling around 60 copies per day ( and around 130 per day in the USA ). The important thing to remember is that these sales happen seven days per week, so Eden is selling well over 1,000 copies each week, a very respectable figure at this early stage just seven weeks after publication. I'm hoping that this will gradually grow over time now as there is clearly an appetite for this kind of novel. However, all of the advice I've received tells me that there is one thing I can do that will definitely increase sales of Eden, one thing that is more effective than any amount of advertising, blogging, Tweeting etc and that's to write the sequel! Doing so is now a priority for me, to bolster the first book's sales and to build a series of full-length novels that are instantly available to readers 24/7 at reasonable prices. It's a business model that has very few flaws, and I'm eager to build upon that now that my first attempt has been so successful.

Onward and upward!

Self publishing news and revelations!

It's been another hugely exciting week for me since my last post here, with much progress in Eden's climb of the Amazon charts on both sides of the Atlantic. Firstly, the new chart positions;

In the UK Eden is now in the 600s, moving about a bit but holding steady. In the USA it's in the 1,500s and doing much the same. These new chart positions represent a huge leap on last weeks' and show continued growth in sales that is much greater than expected: i.e, sales have actually doubled again due to the continued rise with almost 2,000 copies sold and no sign of a dip ( so far ).

I have also appeared in Amazon.com's brand new Top #100 Authors list, which is based on all copies of all books sold by authors, and updated hourly.

This is immensely exciting as the Amazon site in the USA is absolutely vast, with some 2,000,000 Kindle titles available. To appear in this new chart is a huge milestone for me and I can't believe that it's happened. I'm rubbing shoulders with HUGE names from both sides of the Atlantic, and really hope that this author list is taken up by Amazon UK and becomes a permanent feature as the exposure to new audiences is potentially immense.

Further news involves my decision, based on Eden's success in the USA without any publicity, to purchase some advertising. I recently realised that due to the furore over authors buying or creating fake reviews for their books ( so-called sock puppets ) I had neglected to consider buying genuine advertising space on major websites for my books. Far from being hideously expensive as I had feared, and following in the footsteps of other self-publishing authors more experienced than myself, buying advertising space in on-line publications in the USA has proved both easy and relatively affordable. The adverts have not yet been published, but I'm eagerly awaiting the effect on Eden's chart positions on Amazon.com to see what, if any, impact they have on sales. If things go as well as they have for other authors, I may consider purchasing more, perhaps here in the UK too. I'll update here on the blog as soon as I have anything to report.

I've been working hard on a brand new project, along with a crime novel for my agent and plotting the sequel to Eden, but have contracted a cold from nowhere despite the sunshine we've been enjoying in the UK so have been slowed down a bit ( yesterday I wrote 3,000 words, a quarter down on my usual output ). Hopefully I'll get better soon, but due to still feeling rough this is the end of my blog post for this week. Hopefully I'll have more exciting self-publishing news to add soon!

The BIG numbers - EDEN's first full month.

It's been just over one month since I self-published Eden to Kindle on Amazon, and to be entirely honest I did not think that I would be sharing such amazing sales figures as I am about to. The vast majority of my research, reading the experiences of other self-published authors, suggested to me that it would be a long haul over many months to gain sufficient recognition to achieve successful chart positions. In fact, for various reasons, in my case the reverse has been true. This is almost certainly due to my already having a reader-base through traditional publication by Simon & Schuster. However, Eden has also shot up in the charts on Amazon.com and my presence there is far smaller than in the UK. In addition I have done absolutely no publicity for the title in the USA, which suggests something else is at work.

First though, the figures. These are the sales I've achieved for Eden in its first month:

UK: 904 copies sold.

USA: 312 copies sold.

Other territories: 14 copies sold.

My highest ranking to date on Amazon UK in the paid Kindle chart so far has been #715.
My highest ranking to date on Amazon.com's paid Kindle chart is ( currently ) #2,823.

To put these chart positions into some kind of context, there are estimated to be around 750,000 Kindle books in the UK chart and some 2,000,000 in the USA.

A look back across my posts charting my self-publishing experiment reveals a series of jolts as the book climbed the charts here in the UK, and a similar picture in the USA ( although slower to start there ). Chief among the things that I have learned so far is that when a book is published to Kindle it must be featured in relevant categories that also give the book a chance to stand out, and that reaching a chart position within those categories guarantees an increase in sales as the title's visibility and exposure to new readers increases. Being seen is everything in this business, whether you're traditionally published or doing it for yourself. Eden jumped 2,000 places virtually overnight when it entered the Top 100 in the post-apocalyptic category, both here and in the USA. That got the ball rolling in each case, with sales doubling week on week.

But what has driven sales in the USA? My traditionally published books are not as well known there, I have approached no bloggers or performed any other publicity, digital or otherwise, and yet in a chart of over two million books Eden is now ranking in the top 0.1% of all titles. I've spent much of the weekend pondering this, and the only solution I can think of is that a combination of low price, professional cover design, compelling subject matter and ( so far ) very positive reviews are helping Eden stand out from an already overcrowded self-publishing market. I read again and again reviews of SP books lamenting the poor editing, the weak plotting, the rushed narrative etc etc. Only a small number of authors are patient and determined enough to produce an industry-quality book for self-publishing and those authors do seem to get noticed more quickly by readers eager to discover a new author. The lesson here is that it's worth having books professionally edited, having covers designed and really thinking about how to present your self-published novel to the public, because the only thing holding back everybody else is the fact that they didn't do those things and that's never going to change. You can't just whack out 50,000 words and expect it to sell well, but that's what the majority do. Your book's got to be good, then it's got to be made better, and better again, and then it's got to be edited, publicised and sold. I'm not going to compare Eden to self-published books that have sold hundreds of thousands, but it's on the right track so far.

While I don't think that Eden has charted so high solely because of my efforts to produce a top-quality book, in the absence of any other factors I do think that those efforts are largely responsible for the book's rise. What I'm hoping now is that the rise continues, and that charting in specific categories leads to a "snowball effect" on sales, a phenomenon noted by many other self-published authors before me. Only time will tell, but right now I think that I've achieved another major milestone in publishing, and that means that Eden's sequel is now a priority. I'd decided only to write a sequel if Eden sold well and received predominantly positive reviews, and that's definitely happened. More to the point, if any book I write is deemed unsuitable for the current publishing market in the future, it will then be self-published instead. There really is no good reason now not to.

I'll update again next week, but also include other observations about digital and self-publishing rather than sustain a blow-by-blow account of the book's position in the charts.

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...