Holy cow!
I've just totalled up and double checked my numbers to make sure, and as of this lunchtime I've sold over 250,000 copies of the Knight trilogy.
Book one launched on Nov 26th 2012, so that makes it fourteen months plus a week or two, which believe me has gone by in a blink.
I read over THIS BLOG POST from back in January last year when I hit 20, 000 sales, and although life has changed quite a bit since then, I still have those exact feelings of 'oh my god' every morning when I wake up.
Things that have changed:
1) I can do spreadsheets! I really can! My heart will always belong to sparkly gel-pens, but Excel no longer scares me quite so much. Stats have become a part of my daily routine. I'm learning to love number crunching.
2) I've become more confident in myself. Book one felt like a fluke, but three books in and I now feel more settled and secure that I can write books that offer readers a pleasurable escape from every day life for a few hours.
I'll never write a booker prize winner. I'm cool with that. There's room and requirement for all of us.
3) When someone asks me what I do I can now say 'I'm a writer,' without mumbling into my collarbone or blushing. That didn't come easy.
4) I have an agent these days, which has been great for things I wouldn't have a prayer of doing myself, especially foreign rights deals and stuff like that.
5) Other good things happened too, like St.Martins press invited me to be part of their holidays program, and my books are all out now as audio books and paperbacks, as well as being available from lots of e-retailers besides amazon.
6) I've learned SO much about the ever-changing business of self publishing, most of which has been gleaned from other generous self publishers sharing their stats and knowledge in places like the kindle cafe. I'm continually in awe of the way that the indie community supports each other.
Knowledge is power, and the indie writing community becomes more powerful every day by dint of its willingness to share.
7) I've officially become a 'hybrid author'.
Self publishing has helped to further my career as a traditionally published author too.
I had a romantic comedy novel e-published by Authonomy at HarperCollins in 2012, and adding the link to it in the back of each of my Knight Trilogy books has helped to push sales. Those encouraging sales figures and reviews have resulted in a three book paperback deal with Avon at HarperCollins, which warms my heart more than I can say.
I feel very lucky to be able to straddle the publishing fence - please don't let it ever cut me in half!
8) I hit the USA Today best selling list! Jeez, this was exciting. It happened during launch week of book two in May 2013, and I still stroke it when I see it on my business card.
8a) I have business cards.
Things that haven't changed so much over the last year:
1) I still don't sleep so much, but when I do, I go to sleep thinking 'what can I do tomorrow to help spread the word?'
2) The oldest cat in the world is on course to become the actual oldest cat in the world. She's nineteen going on twenty, deaf as a post, cantankerous and yowls like a screech-owl, but she's still with us.
3) I remain indebted and in love with FB and twitter as my way to stay in touch with the most important people of all - the readers.
4) Formatting still makes me want to stick my head in the oven.
5) I still work around the needs of my kids, but my husband doesn't have to do that job that was half killing him anymore. He now gets to spend all day being bossed around by me and has become intimately acquainted with the washing machine, the cooker and the school run.
6) There's still Lego on the floor and hotwheels cars on the stairs. Life with kids is perilous, I'm just glad when we all make it to bed unscathed.
7) Excel is all well and good, but I'll always be a sparkly gel-pen girl at heart.
8) That kitchen tap doesn't leak anymore. It just needed a new washer. All that torture for 50p! I can still see the sky through that little hole in the roof though...
9) I still worry that this will all end tomorrow.
My plans for 2014 are taking shape now with the paperback launch of my first HarperCollins book in June, and a new duo of erotic titles in the self publishing pipe line.
So yeah. A quarter of a million sales. Thank you to every last person who has bought, read or recommended the books. I'd love to buy you all a drink.
I won't because I''d go broke, but know that I'd love to.
Kitty x
I've just totalled up and double checked my numbers to make sure, and as of this lunchtime I've sold over 250,000 copies of the Knight trilogy.
Book one launched on Nov 26th 2012, so that makes it fourteen months plus a week or two, which believe me has gone by in a blink.
I read over THIS BLOG POST from back in January last year when I hit 20, 000 sales, and although life has changed quite a bit since then, I still have those exact feelings of 'oh my god' every morning when I wake up.
Things that have changed:
1) I can do spreadsheets! I really can! My heart will always belong to sparkly gel-pens, but Excel no longer scares me quite so much. Stats have become a part of my daily routine. I'm learning to love number crunching.
2) I've become more confident in myself. Book one felt like a fluke, but three books in and I now feel more settled and secure that I can write books that offer readers a pleasurable escape from every day life for a few hours.
I'll never write a booker prize winner. I'm cool with that. There's room and requirement for all of us.
3) When someone asks me what I do I can now say 'I'm a writer,' without mumbling into my collarbone or blushing. That didn't come easy.
4) I have an agent these days, which has been great for things I wouldn't have a prayer of doing myself, especially foreign rights deals and stuff like that.
5) Other good things happened too, like St.Martins press invited me to be part of their holidays program, and my books are all out now as audio books and paperbacks, as well as being available from lots of e-retailers besides amazon.
6) I've learned SO much about the ever-changing business of self publishing, most of which has been gleaned from other generous self publishers sharing their stats and knowledge in places like the kindle cafe. I'm continually in awe of the way that the indie community supports each other.
Knowledge is power, and the indie writing community becomes more powerful every day by dint of its willingness to share.
7) I've officially become a 'hybrid author'.
Self publishing has helped to further my career as a traditionally published author too.
I had a romantic comedy novel e-published by Authonomy at HarperCollins in 2012, and adding the link to it in the back of each of my Knight Trilogy books has helped to push sales. Those encouraging sales figures and reviews have resulted in a three book paperback deal with Avon at HarperCollins, which warms my heart more than I can say.
I feel very lucky to be able to straddle the publishing fence - please don't let it ever cut me in half!
8) I hit the USA Today best selling list! Jeez, this was exciting. It happened during launch week of book two in May 2013, and I still stroke it when I see it on my business card.
8a) I have business cards.
Things that haven't changed so much over the last year:
1) I still don't sleep so much, but when I do, I go to sleep thinking 'what can I do tomorrow to help spread the word?'
2) The oldest cat in the world is on course to become the actual oldest cat in the world. She's nineteen going on twenty, deaf as a post, cantankerous and yowls like a screech-owl, but she's still with us.
4) Formatting still makes me want to stick my head in the oven.
5) I still work around the needs of my kids, but my husband doesn't have to do that job that was half killing him anymore. He now gets to spend all day being bossed around by me and has become intimately acquainted with the washing machine, the cooker and the school run.
6) There's still Lego on the floor and hotwheels cars on the stairs. Life with kids is perilous, I'm just glad when we all make it to bed unscathed.
7) Excel is all well and good, but I'll always be a sparkly gel-pen girl at heart.
8) That kitchen tap doesn't leak anymore. It just needed a new washer. All that torture for 50p! I can still see the sky through that little hole in the roof though...
9) I still worry that this will all end tomorrow.
My plans for 2014 are taking shape now with the paperback launch of my first HarperCollins book in June, and a new duo of erotic titles in the self publishing pipe line.
So yeah. A quarter of a million sales. Thank you to every last person who has bought, read or recommended the books. I'd love to buy you all a drink.
I won't because I''d go broke, but know that I'd love to.
Kitty x
