I decided to write these month-in-review reports for my own sake, so I could easily look back and recap the year. This may or may not be of interest to you, so read on if you like. Caveat: I'm not boasting, just stating facts. And yes, I'm happy!
May's been a pretty good month for me. In the New Year I made a career decision to change genres to cozy historical mystery. It was a risk, because I basically had to start from scratch to find a new audience and build a fan base. I spent months researching (it's ongoing) and developing the characters and plotting out story lines. I created a new business plan. It was a big risk – time and energy spent writing something new that I couldn't be sure would hit the right notes.
May 8th was the release of the first book, a novella prequel, and quite honestly, my expectations weren't too high. I knew, and still know, it takes time to gain momentum, both on Amazon and with readers. I couldn't be happier with the response to MURDER ON THE SS ROSA. Since it's release it's been ranking on Amazon in the #1000 neighbourhood, and has pushed me into the #2000s for author rank (that's for the whole Amazon book store!) Believe me, I've never hung out there before unless I had a Bookbub promotion and even with that, there's usually a pretty immediate drop off.
Murder on the SS Rosa
Amazon Author Rank
Not only that, Book 2 – MURDER AT HARTIGAN HOUSE is on preorder and selling well, too. I've run preorders before without much hurrah, but already this book is outselling my best preorder by 5Â times!
I'm seriously stunned and humbled. And excited!
My strategy was to go out with a low price to make it easy for readers to give me a try, and it's working. Once Murder at Hartigan House is launched, I'll up the prices to a normal range.
Most of May was spent finishing Hartigan House and getting it ready for its June 6 release. I started work on Book 3, Murder at Bray Manor with a planned mid-summer launch. Â I know these are still early days for this series, but I'm looking to the future with cautious optimism.
On a personal note, my time in Germany is quickly coming to a close and I'll be heading home with a short stop in New York for Book Expo of America. I'll report on that in the June review.
If you haven't yet gotten your copies of Books 1 and 2 of The Ginger Gold Mystery series, make sure to grab them while they're still 99 cents (link).
Murder at Hartigan House is part of a Headtalker campaign. I'd love your help on spreading the word – Thanks a bunch!