The Ups and Down of Sales Watching

I still haven't gotten over the urge to look at he sales ranking for African Firestorm a few times a day. And I'm finding the experience humbling and a learning moment which can be summed up as: Do not obsessed over the sales ranking!

African Firestorm has been as high as #51,512 then drop to #153, 437, then back up at #55,450, all in a space of a few days. And as time has gone on, the lows dip and the high peaks has been exactly like a roller coaster. One can get really dizzy watching their book go up and down the chart.

Right now, it's on a down trend. I could be depressed, but after talking to Rick Chesler, I found out that the other two books in the series, Game of Drones and The Poseidon Initiative, have picked up some. We're thinking that people want to start with the first book in the series (Games of Drones), even though the books can be read in any order. It's natural people start with the first book and if they like it, read the second book and so on. I figure that later on, I will see an up-sweep in the rankings for African Firestorm.

So, what do I do now? Simple. Continue working on Red Ice, the next Outcast Ops novel I'm working on. Watching African Firestorm bounce up and down the ratings is wasting time. Will I ignore it? No, I'll check in on it a couple of times a day, and that will fade with one a day, then once every couple of days, until I check on it once in a while. Once Red Ice is written and up on Amazon, then I'll watch that for a while and so on. One novel does not win the war; while it would be great, I never expected African Firestorm to become a mega bestseller. But I did it once, I can do it again and again and again. That's the secret, going for a career of solid novels people want to read instead of trying for a one-hit wonder. That's a mindset that any author must have.

Now I need to get back to outline Red Ice.

Craig

The Kindle version of African Firestorm is here: African Firestorm for the Kindle
For the Nook version, go here: African Firestorm for the Nook.