Experimenting hopefully leads to sales

Experimentation is good and keeps me on my toes. So - here's what I've been up to. I decided to try self publishing. My reasons are selfish in some ways and not so selfish in other ways. I needed a way to find new readers for one and this seemed like a simple solution. I stressed over how to do this and worried over the right path. Well, there  is not right way to do anything new or experiment except to just dive in and hope for the best. That said, I asked for the rights back on 4 of my historical westerns.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not egotistical enough to think I don't need my publisher. I do. In fact, I probably need them more now than before. But I wanted this to be a win/win for both of us and I think it will be.

The reason I wanted the rights back on those 4 is pretty simple. I needed books that were already written to assist in my self publishing endeavors. I'd written a new story, Texas Forged. It had been a year since I'd had anything new released. The wheels of publishing move slowly and if I'd submitted this one, it would have probably been another year to year and a half before it would release. An author knows that he/she must keep producing to stay alive in this business. So, with that in mind, self publishing seemed the best route for this book. However, without a publisher, this book has little hope of being discovered. With so many books offered on Amazon daily, the only way to make its presence known is to offer it for free on occasion. And this is where the other books come into play. Texas Forged is my loss leader. I'm hopeful that if others read this one and like it, they will purchase Sarah's Brass Token, which will then lead to sales for my other three westerns.

Is it working? I think so. When I put Sarah's Brass Token up, she ranked around 500,000. Today, she's ranked at 53, 960 and she's showing up on pages for other westerns. That's the real goal.

How will this help my publisher? Well, if they like these books and my writing style, I'm hopeful they will try the books I've written in other genres. Do I have plans to ask for the rights back on my other books? No. Having a publisher opens doors I wouldn't have otherwise.

Now, off to finish getting Julia's Golden Eagle ready for Amazon. I've already got the rough draft of a cover done. Just need to take a better photo of the painting I did. I have about 50 more pages to edit and I'm there.