Well, I’m not sure if I’m violating any “marketing rule” of publishing by talking about my news on this blog, since it has to do with an entirely different genre of writing, under a pen name I used a few years ago, but I have to say something.

It’s not GREAT news as in ‘I just won Publisher’s Clearing House’ or ‘My book just made it to the top of the New York Times Bestseller List’ but – to me at least – it’s a pretty big goal I’ve been trying to reach.

Bottom line is: I sold my first Amazon Kindle book this month. Yeah, I told you it wasn’t the biggest news in the world. But, to a writer, it’s pretty significant I think. It doesn’t change how I write or when I write or make or break whether I will write – but it does provide an immense amount of motivation to persevere.

It IS possible! It IS possible to sell your work in this day and age. I think many writers (maybe most) wrestle with this question all the time. Am I good enough. Will I make any money? Will my books take off?

I made $1.95 royalty on the sale of one copy at the beginning fo this month. Now, this is a non-fiction title that I wrote several years ago. I think I sold maybe two copies in print when I first self-published it way back when. But, shortly after starting this blog, I went digging through my work to see what there was and I resurrected this title because I thought it was pretty good. The others I left in their shallow graves. But this one I thought had some merit. I cleaned it up a little, converted it to kindle format and uploaded it under my pen name. Then nothing. I checked the site every day; nothing. I finally gave up looking and forgot about it until recently. Today, when working on some notes I stumbled across the link to my Amazon account.

Needless to say, I was floored when I checked on sales for the month and saw 1 unit sold for $2.99. Then I went over and checked royalties and it was $1.95. No, it’s not much. But in perspective, it’s a gold mine. Think of the potential here in this tiny transaction. If I could make $1 from each book sold and I sold 200,000 copies, I could retire for the rest of my life off of the interest and never have to write for money again. Sure, that would be a big feat. Hocking did it in less than two years. Yeah, lots of luck involved here. I don’t write in her genre. In fact, I really don’t have any interest in vampires at all. 😉 Well, accept for Buffy and Willow (hey, don’t get me started about Willow).

Anything can happen, though. This is what writers do. They dream. And what better dream is there than making a splash in the pond of life? There are people I’ve read about who sell 45,000 copies a month – who I’ve never even heard of! This is a big world spinning here. I don’t have to sell a book to every person on it. No. Just 200,000. And this is a glory in the sky kind of dream. I am more than satisfied with selling 500 copies a month. Who am I kidding? I’m overjoyed about selling ONE copy! I can’t believe someone bought my book!

It might be peanuts and it might be insignificant in the grand scheme of things. But, to me, it’s the world.

I’ll be living off this emotional high for months. Imagine what would happen if I sold 50,000 copies in a month?