Ghost in the Flames – 1,000 copies
This past week GHOST IN THE FLAMES, the second book in THE GHOSTS series, reached the milestone of 1,000 copies sold.
Thank you, everyone! Since GHOST IN THE FLAMES got rejected around thirty-five or forty times, this is especially sweet.
And, of course, if you want to help GHOST IN THE FLAMES get to 2,000 copies sold, you know where to go:
Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, iTunes, Smashwords, Amazon.co.uk.
-JM
Good show Jon! 🙂
“Since GHOST IN THE FLAMES got rejected around thirty-five or forty times, this is especially sweet.”
Indeed! But was that a bit of hyperbole, or was it really rejected 35 or 40 times?! Which brings up another question, seeing as how this was a sequel, does that mean you tried to have the original Ghost published?
With all the succes you are having, I wonder if you could show it to a publisher as proof that your books sell? Maybe it would help convice them to give you a second chance?
Thanks!
“Indeed! But was that a bit of hyperbole, or was it really rejected 35 or 40 times?!”
I just checked my spreadsheet, and it was actually 33 times. So there was a wee bit of hyperbole there.
“Which brings up another question, seeing as how this was a sequel, does that mean you tried to have the original Ghost published?”
I wrote GHOST IN THE FLAMES in 2008, and CHILD OF THE GHOSTS in 2010. So CHILD OF THE GHOSTS is technically a prequel. I can’t remember if I ever submitted CHILD OF THE GHOSTS anywhere, since by that time I had discovered the Kindle and was rapidly losing interest in pursuing traditional publishing.
‘With all the succes you are having, I wonder if you could show it to a publisher as proof that your books sell? Maybe it would help convice them to give you a second chance?”
In all candor, no. And that’s not “you guys rejected me!” sour grapes, but simple math. I frankly think I can sell more books over the long-run self-publishing than with a traditional publisher, and I’ll also have vastly more freedom to do what I want.
“In all candor, no. And that’s not “you guys rejected me!” sour grapes, but simple math. I frankly think I can sell more books over the long-run self-publishing than with a traditional publisher, and I’ll also have vastly more freedom to do what I want.”
I think I phrase that wrong! I understand that you like self publishing better than traditional (for yourself anyway), I meant did you think (if indeed you did try traditional publishing again) showing them your success with ebooks would help your chances of being printed? Or does it not work like that?
“I think I phrase that wrong! I understand that you like self publishing better than traditional (for yourself anyway), I meant did you think (if indeed you did try traditional publishing again) showing them your success with ebooks would help your chances of being printed? Or does it not work like that?”
From the examples I’ve seen, I think I would have to sell many more books to get the attention of a print publisher. Like, the ebook self-publishers who have gotten print deals tend to have sold hundreds of thousands of books. Both DEMONSOULED and THE GHOSTS combined have so far sold, I think, 6,500 books. Great numbers for a self-publisher, but not for a print publisher – print publishing is vastly more expensive in terms of overhead (employees, warehouses, printing, etc.), so I’d have to sell many more books to get their attention.
I like reading indie, or self published, authors a more these days. 🙂