Three favorite articles about self-publishing and $

http://www.juliesjournalonline.com/?p=1280 Article about her journey through self-publishing and pricing.

http://paidcontent.org/article/419-meet-the-a-list-authors-of-self-publishing/ All about the top sellers in self-publishing.

http://blog.smashwords.com/2010/12/smashwords-author-brian-s-pratt-to-earn.html Article about one smashwords author who will make over 100,000 this year.

My ranking today...

Still learning what all of this means:

Amazon UK Product details

• Format: Kindle Edition
• File Size: 250 KB
• Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited
• Sold by: Amazon Media EU S.à r.l.
• Language English
• ASIN: B004XJ4NI4
• Average Customer Review: Be the first to review this item
• Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #14 Free in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Free in Kindle Store)
  • #3 in Kindle Store > Books > Fiction > Romance > Contemporary
  
  

  Amazon US Product Details

• Format: Kindle Edition
• File Size: 250 KB
• Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services
• Language: English
• ASIN: B004XJ4NI4
• Lending: Enabled
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• On the FREE list
  
• 

  91.

  Maid for the Billionaire (Legacy Collection)

  Ruth Cardello (Author)

  5.0 out of 5 stars (3)

  Auto-delivered wirelessly

  $0.99 (Why is this not free?) Amazon Bestsellers lists are updated hourly. Between list updates, the price of an item may change from being free to having a price and vice versa. Although the item's price changes immediately, the list and its rankings stay the same until the next hourly update.

Questions and goals

Daily downloads tally:
3533 on Smashwords.com - ^ 101 since Saturday
346 on AmazonUS ^ 184
1825 on AmazonUK ^ 925
9 on Barnes and Nobel

At this point I have more questions than I have answers:

• Is tagging via forums acceptable or not?
• How does that tagging really work?
• How does a book move up on the Amazon list? My book appears to be more visible now.
• Tweeting is working -- although I'm not entirely sure how.
• Stumbleupon is also driving visitors to my site -- and how that one is doing it really baffles my mind. You've got to check out that site. At first I thought it was silly -- now I'm somewhat addicted to it.

I'm going to do something crazy. I think I'm going to try to do an online book "signing". I really don't even know how that works yet, but half the fun is learning how to do it and then the adventure is watching it unfold. I'll post websites I find that describe how and keep a log of what I end up doing. With 5,000+ people having read my book....I should be able to find a few who have questions or would like to chat. Maybe? lol We'll see.

Also:

Just found a wonderful community for new and published authors:
http://agentqueryconnect.com/
chuck full of great information!

Downloads still on the rise

Daily downloads tally:
3442 on Smashwords.com
162 on AmazonUS - wow, this is the most downloads I've seen on Amazon
900 on AmazonUK -- until yesterday this was barely over 10 downloads
9 on Barnes and Nobel (sadly, not sure why I keep checking it...lol)

Suddenly people are downloading my book at Amazon (priced .99). After weeks of watching 10 or so downloads....it's hopping now. Over 100 since yesterday. Was it Stumbleupon? Is it the tweeting I'm doing? The blogs? I don't know, but I sure am happy!