Cheryl Bolen: A Stunning Anniversary

This morning I welcome my friend Cheryl Bolen to SlingWords. Cheryl is celebrating her 1 year anniversary as an Indie Author. Take it away, Cheryl!

A Stunning Anniversary
by Cheryl Bolen

I started my awesome ebook journey the last week of May, 2011, with four full-length Regency historical novels for which I had gotten my rights back after they went out of print. During this first year I have indie published 16 books, have sold 200,000 copies, and have made more money than I made in the past 14 years publishing ten books with New York publishers.

Things Change

Recently I had a long talk with my fabulous agent. Though she wanted very much to sell my humorous Regency romance mystery trilogy, she told me with great honesty she couldn't get me the kind of money I'm making indie publishing. She also said few of her authors can get their publishers to release more than two books a year, and she pointed out the $15,000 advance (per book) she could expect to get me would be split into several payments.

It was a sad decision to make, but most of my books from now on won't be available in book stores — if book stores manage to still be around. (Probably my last New York-published book, Marriage of Inconvenience, will come out in October.)

Ebook Journey

My initial strategy when I went indie was to price one book (A Lady by Chance) at $.99 and the other three (Brides of Bath series) at $3.49 each. My first month I sold a modest 1,000 books. At Joan Reeves' urging, I added my World War II love story, It Had to be You, during that first month.

Things didn't heat up for me until the three-month mark when I published three original Regency historicals, one of which was a novella. My pricing philosophy on these was that since they had — for one reason or another — failed to garner a publishing contract, I would offer them for just $.99. That's when the sales really took off.

One of those ebook originals, My Lord Wicked, went to number 2 in Regency romance on Amazon (of about 6,000 titles), and The Earl's Bargain skyrocketed to number 1 its first week and was my first book to break into the Top 100 sellers in the Kindle Store. The Earl's Bargain stayed at number 1 in Regency (at Amazon) for weeks and in the Top 20 for months. It is still in the Top 40. To date, it has sold 40,000 copies.

Sales & Royalties

Since ebook royalties for indie books at $.99 are only about $.35 a book, you can see I have earned just $14,000 on Earl's Bargain, but these books will stay in cyberspace — and hopefully sell — in perpetuity. Also, having books in the Top 20 gets an author awesome exposure. Between four and five months into my indie publishing I had seven different books in the Regency Top 20. When readers like one of your books, often they will buy all of them. There has not been a single day since August that I haven't had a book in the Top 20 Regency.

I have had two more $.99 titles — ebook originals — capture the number 1 spot on Amazon's Regency bestsellers, my novella Christmas at Farley Manor (which also broke into the Top 100 sellers in the Kindle Store) and my March release, His Lordship's Vow.

Ironically, those three books which hit number 1 were "traditional" Regencies, shorter books with no consummated sex scenes. This is a genre New York abandoned a decade ago, but which my readers love. The best reviews I have ever gotten in my life have been for His Lordship's Vow. Even though it wasn't "hot," readers thanked me for writing a satisfying love story.

My best month I sold 38,000 books. I'm tapering off now between 14,000 and 18,000 sales a month. Half of my 16 indie books are priced $2.99 or above, and on books $2.99 or more, I make a gratifying 70 percent royalty. My New York published books netted me just 6 percent royalties — or less if they was sold through a book club or other distribution channels.

All the previously mentioned bestsellers are from Amazon. While I sell fairly well at the iTunes store and have had several bestsellers there, I have yet to figure out why my books aren't selling like that on Barnes & Noble.

What I've Learned


• Though the $.99 books won't make you rich, they bring you readers, as do free books. I've done very few free days on my books, though I recently moved one of my Regency novellas to free to attract new readers. I'm also going to offer one of my contemporaries free permanently to attract readers to that four-book contemporary series, Texas Heroines in Peril.

• Inventory is important. I've got 11 books in the same genre, the genre which accounts for most of my sales. It's extremely difficult for a person with just one or two books to have the number of sales I've experienced. It's the kiss of death to jump genres with each book.

• It's not easy to get readers to switch genres. More than ninety percent of my sales are in Regency romance, the genre for which I was already established when I began indie publishing. Eleven of my 16 indie books are Regencies (and Harlequin offers a couple more of my Regencies as ebooks). Though my World War II love story has sold steadily, it only accounts for 1 percent of my sales (2,000 copies). Ditto for my four-book romantic suspense series, Texas Heroines in Peril. Most of those who are buying my Heroines in Peril "also bought" my Regencies; so, they followed me. But romantic suspense readers are not finding me.

• I have done almost no promotion and no advertising. I rarely Facebook, rarely visit Goodreads, and I'm not on Twitter. I blog occasionally and maintain a simple website. I do believe social networking can be helpful, but I'm just too busy writing. It took me almost five months to finish Marriage of Inconvenience to fulfill my last New York contract, and I've written several novellas this past year and am finishing up the second book in my Regency mystery series.

• Because of the proliferation of indie authors and indie books, it's almost impossible to get an indie book reviewed through traditional channels.

• Even though I have a degree in English and have massive editing experience, I can't proofread my own books. I pay eBook Editor, run by my journalist son, to find my errors.

Today on Amazon I was pleased to see that first book I put up one year ago, A Lady by Chance, is still in the Top 20 Regency bestsellers. Is this a great business model, or what?

Takeaway Truth

Many of my friends have embraced indie publishing, just as I have, and it's given all of us a new lease on the writing life.