Book Sales Count - Why You Should Buy Your Favorite Authors Books

Note:  I want to make it very clear that I am well aware that in this economy it is rough to buy books full price.  When I was low on funds, I bought books at Half Priced Books, or through second-hand retailers.  Later, when money was available, I bought the latest books by those authors to support them.  I will never knock anyone for borrowing a book from a library, friend, paperback swap, or for buying it from a second-hand retailer.  This post is a response to various queries made by my fans and bloggers.

I now have two books out in the AS THE WORLD DIES trilogy and the excitement is growing for SIEGE.  It's been one hell of a ride this year with the first book, THE FIRST DAYS, dropping on July 5, 2011 and the second book, FIGHTING TO SURVIVE, on November 8, 2011.  The anxiety of the first book release was pretty intense because I was very aware of the Borders fiasco (they shut down about this time) and that Tor had invested a pretty penny in the series because they believed in it.  I didn't wan to let down Tor or my fans, and that first release day was not the euphoric moment I thought it was going to be.

In fact, all day I kept thinking..."What if no one buys the book?"

By evening I settled down.  My agent's kind words helped.  My husband's support was what I needed.  A few margaritas helped me finally relax.

I let go of THE FIRST DAYS in my mind and released it to the cosmos.

The second book's release was much more fun.  I was far more relaxed and ecstatic.  It was fun seeing the reviews being posted in the blogsphere and seeing the tweets and facebook updates of fans anxiously running out to buy FIGHTING TO SURVIVE.  I noticed a lot of comments popping up all over the place from people saying, "This book is on my To Be Read list, but I haven't bought it yet."  

Over the last week or so a lot of fans, bloggers, friends and family have asked me about sales. I really don't know the numbers at this time.  I noticed on Amazon.com FIGHTING TO SURVIVE was my bestseller for most of the week followed by THE FIRST DAYS.  It seems the second book pulled up the first books sales.  This makes sense.  A lot of people hate reading the first book of a series without knowing when the second one will be out.  It's a lot easier for people to buy complete series.

Today I read an article by Alan Baxter called "While you wait for book three, authors die!"  In it he discusses the importance of investing in a series with book one.

From the article:

However, if no one buys the first book, it’s very possible that books two and three will never see the light of day. An author survives on their sales figures. If they perform poorly at the checkout, the publisher will discard them like a greasy burger wrapper and think nothing of it. That’s business. It’s fucked, but it’s business.   

A lot of the time readers have no clue how much power they posses. The simple act of buying a book is a powerful statement to the publisher.  It says, "I want to invest in this writer and continue to buy his/her books."  

I have had a lot of readers tell me they will buy the entire series when the third book comes out.  Or they tell me they will borrow it from a friend, a library, paperback swap, etc.  I am VERY grateful that they are interested in my books enough to read them, but as they wait, or option to borrow the book, that is a sale the publisher doesn't see.

So if you want to support the AS THE WORLD DIES series and hope to see more in the future, even if you read the original online serial, or the self-published books, please buy the Tor books.  If you are low on funds, maybe you and a few friends can pool money together so you can buy one book and share it.

I do promise my readers that I will always do my best to write books they will enjoy and complete the series I have started (As The World Dies Untold Tales, The Vampire Bride series, The Pretty Series).  I am eternally grateful for all your support.  Even if I didn't have a major publisher behind some my writing endeavors, I would continue to write and self-publish.

For more on how to support your favorite author, read my previous post on the topic here.