Good News / Bad News

Last night, for the first time in a couple of months, I decided to jump online and check the sales figures for my book.

I’ll admit it, I giggled like a schoolgirl. There’s been a bit of a run over the last month or so… I’m not going to talk actual figures, but I sold more copies yesterday that I did over the entire first month it was available.

To be completely honest, I’m still not even approaching anything close to ‘best seller’ figures…but the book is performing way beyond my expectations, especially considering Restless Dead is an independently published book that had a marketing budget of zero.

Of course, with the good comes a bit of bad. I was wondering what had caused the sudden spike in interest, so I googled myself to see if I’d been mentioned somewhere.

I found a very nice review on Amazon, another good one on Goodreads.com and a couple of other good mentions on various sites and forums.

On the other hand, I also found out that the PDF copy has found its way to a couple of illegal download sites.

To be completely honest, I’m not really all that concerned about the illegal copies. In fact, I can probably thank the illegal downloads for the sudden interest and extra sales.

Don’t get me wrong, the illegal downloads certainly don’t have my ‘blessing’… I spent hundreds of hours writing The Restless Dead and, weirdly, I’d much prefer that people, you know, pay me for my work…but I’m pragmatic enough to know there’s very little I can do about it, so I might as well sit back and enjoy the free marketing.

However, the part I really wasn’t happy about was when I discovered a homebrew website that was offering a slew of independent books (including mine) for ridiculously inflated prices. For example, my book was on sale there for $29.99….$17 higher than the list price.

In case you don’t see the scam, this guy has basically set himself up as an unauthorized middle man. You order a copy of my book from him, he then orders it from Amazon or Createspace and sends it to you…pocketing the $17 difference. I still only get my regular royalty payment and you pay over twice the list price.

Douchbag.

Long story short, Amazon and Createspace are the only authorized retailers for The Restless Dead. If you buy it from anywhere else (apart from legitimate used book sites), you’re getting ripped off.

Anyway, I’d just like to thank anyone who’s bought a copy for their continued support…and if you really liked it, do me a favor and tell a friend or stop by Amazon.com and leave a rating or a review. I’d really appreciate it.