four years, quarter of a million books, and a free DEMONSOULED novella coming soon
I started self-publishing four years ago, and in that time I have sold over a quarter of a million copies of my books. Thanks, everyone!
I had no idea this would work so well! When I started in April of 2011, I thought I would publish DEMONSOULED & SOUL OF TYRANTS, write a third DEMONSOULED book, and call it good. I would then focus on blog posts about Ubuntu Linux, and maybe sell one or two copies of my fantasy trilogy every fiscal quarter.
This was one of those times in life when it was good that things didn’t go according to plan! Or God’s plan for my life included selling a lot of ebooks. I don’t know why, but I’m definitely not going to complain.
If you will forgive a brief personal note, I really like self-publishing, especially compared to traditional publishing. Traditional publishing is a grim and joyless place that regularly erupts into nonsensical Internet flame wars, particularly SF/F traditional publishing. I do not miss that at all, and regard it as a stupendous blessing that I never got another book contract after DEMONSOULED & THE TOWER OF ENDLESS WORLDS, since that meant my books were free of legal encumbrances once self-publishing came along. Self-publishing is a thousand times better than traditional publishing in every possible way.
I am very grateful for it, and for all of you who have bought my books over the last four years.
On a related note, next month is May, and that marks the 10th anniversary of the first time DEMONSOULED was published. (In the DRESDEN FILES book SKIN GAME, there is a line where Harry Dresden wonders how he became a guy that things happened to ten years ago, and I know exactly what Harry means!) After I wrote SOUL OF TYRANTS in 2005 and couldn’t get the publisher interested in it, I was pretty sure the DEMONSOULED series was done and dead. So it was amusing to look back from ten years later with a grand total of eight DEMONSOULED books written and tens of thousands of copies sold.
Anyway, as a way of saying thanks, next month I’m going to give away a new DEMONSOULED novella for free to my newsletter subscribers via Smashwords coupon code. Watch for it in the third or fourth week of May! (If you haven’t subscribed to my new-release newsletter, you can do so here.)
-JM