MILESTONE: 50,000 Books Sold!

Is this really happening? That's the question I ask myself every day. Am I really making a living doing what I love to do? It's the most amazing dream come true, and none of it would be possible if it wasn't for all of you out there who took a chance by picking up BEAUTIFUL DEMONS and giving the Peachville High Demons series a try.

Yesterday, I hit the huge milestone of selling my 50,000th book. It took just a hair over 15 months to reach that sales goal, and I'm really proud of that. I was looking back at the other milestones I've posted here on my blog and here is a quick breakdown of what and when:

• 1,000 books sold - January 2011. I only had the first two books in the series out at that point, but it was a big accomplishment for me. When I first decided to self-publish my books, I knew I was taking a big risk. Would I make any money? Would anyone like my books? Would I ever sell a thousand books? Thankfully, the answer was yes to all of those questions!!
• 10,000 books sold - Mid-March 2011. This is when my books really started to take off. After book three, BITTER DEMONS, released in late February, I had a huge boost in all sales of my books with Beautiful Demons reaching an all-time high ranking in the Kindle store of #363.
• 25,000 books sold - Late June 2011. Just about a week before Book 4, SHADOW DEMONS, was released, I hit the 25k milestone mark and set my sights on the 50k. Well, if you read the post, you'll see I actually started day-dreaming about hitting the million book mark, but that's still years away, hehe. Someday...
• 50,000 books sold - January 2, 2012!! So you can see that I sold exactly 49,000 books in a year. What a dream come true!!!
• 100,000 books sold??? This is the next big goal I have in my head. I can't even begin to predict when I might hit that. Maybe by this time next year? I hope so!! I have some lofty goals set for 2012, especially considering the fact that I'll be welcoming a sweet baby boy in June. But I have so many stories I want to tell and I love to write, so I will keep working even if my writing does slow down a little bit.

Thank you to everyone who has read the Peachville High Demons series and continues to support the books and tell your friends about the series. I appreciate it with all of my heart! Less than 18 days now until RIVAL DEMONS comes out, and I hope you're as excited about it as I am. Just to tease you a bit, here is the description for the book: (Add it to your Goodreads To-read list!)

After narrowly escaping death at the hands of the Order of Shadows, Harper finds herself thrust into the strange and beautiful world of the shadow demons. But crossing through the portal doesn't mean she is safe. The Order of Shadows is determined to bring her home and transfer the Prima line to the Harris family. They send their most vicious hunters after Harper. Hunters who will not stop until they have found their prey. 


Determined to keep her safe, Jackson takes her deep into an underground world filled with dangers of its own. Here, Harper will begin a journey that will teach her more about herself and her own path than she ever imagined possible.


Also, if you have a moment, take just a second to sign up for my brand new mailing list. You will find the sign up on the right sidebar just below the Rival Demons countdown ticker. I promise I won't send out any spam or share your email addresses with anyone. Mostly, the newsletter will be used for announcing release dates and important information about my upcoming books or contests.

MILESTONE: 25,000 Books Sold!!

I am so excited to post that I have officially sold 25,000 total copies of my ebooks since I first self-published BEAUTIFUL DEMONS back at the end of October, 2010. In less than 8 months, I have become an author with a small but growing and dedicated fanbase. It's truly a dream come true!

Back in March when I hit the 10K milestone, I made a prediction that if I was lucky, I would hit 25K sold in June or July. Here I am, right on time, and so excited I can't see straight.

This week, Amazon announced that self-published author John Locke was the eighth author ever to join the Kindle Million club. In order to get in, you have to have sold one million copies of your ebooks in the Kindle store. The names on the list were sales giants like Nora Roberts and James Patterson. Now, the list includes an Indie author (with, I might add, no intention of signing a contract with a legacy publisher). I would love to someday be a member of the Kindle million club. Hey, I figure I've only got 975,000 copies to go!

I just wanted to take a moment to say thank you to everyone who has bought the books and supported me throughout the past eight months. Your messages of support through my website, blog, twitter, goodreads, and facebook have kept me going even when I didn't feel like writing or when I doubted myself. Thank you to everyone who has read the books, then told a friend about them. A very special thank you also goes out to reviewers and book bloggers who have taken time out of their busy schedules to read a book by an unknown Indie author like me. Your reviews have helped me get where I am today, and it means the world to me.

There is still a long way to go to get to that Million sales mark, but the path there is paved with one sale at a time. As for the future, SHADOW DEMONS, Book 4 of the Peachville High Demons series, is very close to being ready for publication. I am turning in my edited manuscript to my critique group tonight and we will discuss it and critique the entire thing next week. As soon as I have those final edits complete, I'll upload right away. I'm guessing an estimated upload date of July 1st, then give it at least 24 hours to actually go on sale in stores. After that, DEMONS FOREVER, the fifth and final book in the series, will be released sometime this fall. But I promise that won't be the last of me! My second series, PANDEMIC, should also begin in the fall (I'm shooting for an October release date right now).

As long as you keep reading my books, I'll keep writing them. I have never been so happy or felt so blessed as I do right now. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Milestone: 10,000 Ebooks sold!

Tonight, I hit another huge milestone in my career as an Indie author. As of midnight tonight, I have sold a total of 10,154 ebooks!!!!!!! It took me about four and half months to reach this milestone, which to be honest, was a lot faster than I ever dreamed it would happen. This is the total sales for all three of my Peachville High Demons series books.

I haven't separated them out to see how the sales break down in terms of x amount sold of book 1, etc. but I know they go in order. I've sold more of Book 1 than anything else so far, and then Book 2, with Book 3 in the rear, but so far in March, I've actually sold more of Book 3 than Book 2, which is a little strange, but I'll take it.

I feel so incredibly grateful to have this opportunity to write what I want and publish it on my own. Becoming a self-published author was a HUGE decision for me, and one that I am proud of every single day. I want to send out a big THANK YOU to everyone who has been so supportive of me. Thanks to everyone who purchased a book. Everyone who left a review or blogged about my books. Thank you to my critique partners who have gone through all three books with a fine-toothed comb to make them better. And thank you especially to my amazing husband who convinced me that I was good enough to make it on my own and who challenged me to take a chance.

I sound like a freaking oscar winner here, but I do feel like I've somehow won the lottery or something. Being an author was a lifetime dream of mine, and to see the success that has come so far makes me truly grateful. 10,000 books in less than 5 months! I can't believe it. So far, 3400 have come from this month alone. I hope that sales continue to grow and that there is no end in sight to this new career and the joy and excitement that comes along with it.

My next big milestone? Selling 500 ebooks in one day will be another huge milestone for me. So far, my best day was just after Book 3 was released and I sold 410 books in a day. Another sales number milestone I want to set for myself is selling 25,000 ebooks total. My prediction on when I might hit these goals? I am hoping to hit the 500 ebooks in a day mark by May when Book 4 comes out. I think that I might hit the 25,000 books sold total by June or July, if I'm lucky!

Milestone! 1,000 Books Sold!

Since first publishing at the very end of October 2010, I have reached my first major milestone - 1,000 books sold! As I mentioned yesterday, December sales at Barnes & Noble continue to roll in. I'm not sure why they are so far behind on their reporting, but everyday I wake up with more Dec. sales. It's like a little belated Christmas present every morning!

My true total of sales to date: 1,218 books.

Here's how it breaks down:

Beautiful Demons: Book 1 of the Peachville High Demons series has sold a total of 826 books. 124 through Amazon's Kindle store and 689 through B&N. At Smashwords, I've sold 13 copies.

Inner Demons: Book 2 of the Peachville High Demons series has sold a total of 392 books. 37 of those through Amazon and 353 through B&N. At Smashwords, I've sold only 2 copies.

As you can see, I'm barely selling anything through Kindle in comparison, and Smashwords is even worse. I have a feeling that mostly has to do with placement on the site and how many titles I'm competing with in my genre over there. Over the next few months, I am hoping to send out a ton of free books to reviewers and book bloggers in hopes that some people will enjoy the book and put out a good review on their site. Hopefully after more exposure online, word of mouth will get my sales even in both Kindle and B&N stores. We'll see! If anyone reading this has any tips on how to improve sales in the Kindle store, I'm all ears!

I never dreamed I would be able to sell 1,000 books in just a couple of months. (October doesn't totally count for me since my book was published October 30th on Kindle and not until Nov. on B&N.) I'm thrilled beyond words! Thank you so much to everyone who has purchased my books. I hope you enjoyed them!! I definitely am loving this series. It's fun to write, and I love the characters. Even I can't wait to see what happens next with some of them.

I plan to write a blog post for each major milestone. 1,000 books is my first of those milestones. The next for me would be 10,000 books sold. Then 100,000. Any chance I'll someday have sold over 1,000,000? I can't even imagine it right now! The fact that over 1,000 readers have picked up my book and that so many of them have emailed me or left positive ratings and reviews makes me so incredibly happy.

Book 3: Shadow Demons, is coming in February 2011.