Self-Publishing Observations #1: First Book's first week

One of my main strategies, especially in artistic projects, is creating a plan that involves a lot of improvisation. I enjoy painting myself into a corner, then figuring out how to write my way out of it.

Solving these puzzles for myself is not merely entertaining and satisfying. Learning things "the hard way" gives a broader experience and a deeper understanding of the situation, giving me new and different ways to solve future problems.

In short, Failing is part of my path to Success.

While dozens of people have given me publishing advice, whether I wanted it or not, very few of them actually had any experience in writing or self-publishing. I looked at other self-publishing bloggers for general tips, but I'm still interested in doing thing my own stubborn way just to see what happens, and find out what I can learn from it.

So, before completing my first novel, I hastily put together a short ebook compiling three of my published articled as a test run, to work the kinks out before my first novel is ready for publication.

Page Views for my eBook after release on 7th.

Pre-Release Promotion for new ebooks is highly recommended by several successful self-publishers. So, I didn't. You can imagine my surprise when I learned my ebook got over 1,200 page views the first day it was published. While that only translated to 6 downloads, it was interesting to learn that as a first-time self-publisher, with no social media promotion, and with a quick-and-dirty  home-made book cover, I still got over a thousand people to click on my bookshelf. That was a valuable lesson.

Downloads per day for my eBook after release on 7th.

While not very many of those 1,200 page-clicks ended up downloading my free ebook, it gives me a benchmark to improve upon. Since I consider this first compilation ebook as a "loss leader," and a way to promote the books spawning from those articles, the information I learn from it is more valuable than mere downloads. And as I launch different promotional campaigns for this book, as well as later books, it will be interesting to see how downloads are effected.