Getting an Amazon Best Seller or at Least in the Top Half

I spent some time this morning doing research as to how many books Amazon has for sale. Might have fit better into, messing around on the internet, but I’m going with research because it sounds like I was working. During this research phase of my day, I could not find anything from the last few months but did see that in 2015 Amazon had 17.1 million books, in English, available for sale. The same information listed more than three million, written in English, eBooks.

If this is true, an author with a book consistently listed in the top one million seven hundred thousand will make it to the top ten percent of books on Amazon. The same eBook would need to be in top 300,000 to qualify. To be in the top half of all books listed for sale on Amazon, it would take a book in the top 8,500,000 or the top million and a half eBooks. Sounds pretty good except that a book selling near the bottom of the top half of all books on Amazon would only need to sell a copy or two each month to qualify for that ranking, maybe even less than that.

My first six books - click to go to my Amazon Author's Page

Got my proof books for my two latest novels today. Will need to make a few changes to the cover of, The Ghost Dance, I didn’t like the white font. Otherwise, it looked fine. Hope that doesn’t take long. That book will be out to first readers in the next day or so – then some final edits, and it will be published. The other proof is for the third in the series of my of kids books – Yikes, My Neighbor’s a Vampire. It is fine and should be as this is the third time I have made changes. My thought is, keep doing it until I like it.

I liked how it looked on my computer, but too light here

Now I am in the final part of my first draft of a gardening, and murder in the garden, book. It is a bit different, I hope readers like it.

I also continue the painstaking research on my second nonfiction book, still hope that I will get it out before 2018, but not sure. I am also hard at work on the third of my Blade Holmes, historical fiction- mystery novels.

Pronghorn walking the foothills west of town

The days are warming, and spring cleanup has started in our backyard. We have also made a few nice drives giving me a chance to get out with my camera.

Young Bison Bull

Keep on reading and keep on writing. 

Mule Deer running the Pronghorn off

Story Idea's

Seems to me that recently I see a post or Tweet every day that starts with something like this – “Are you stuck, can’t find anything to write about?” Odd.

Are there actually writers who cannot come up with anything to write about? My problem is the opposite. I have too many ideas, too many stories, and I have to pick and choose which ones I might have time to write. 

At times, a single photo can bring on a good story

I hope no one would be serious about buying a book with ideas to write about. Might be a better idea to read more widely, travel, work and experience life, then come up with what you like to write. If you are lucky enough to make your dreams of writing turn out, and the story falls into a classification of Children’s Fiction, or Fantasy, congratulations, they are the two best-selling fiction genres.

Westerns, the old style shoot-um-ups are, for the most part, or for all parts, dead. On the other hand, historical fiction is alive and well, selling about three percent of all books. Children’s fiction is still far above all other genres selling nearly 40% of all books. Children's fiction is still riding the wave of the Harry Potter books, and the numbers may be a bit high because of J.K. Rowling. (By the way, I have read all of the Potter books and enjoyed them).

For writers at all levels, first bookers or author’s that have written several books, the key is finding an audience. Find enough readers who like what a writer is doing and the books will sell, even westerns.

I read an interesting blog recently that suggested writing in several genres instead of only one. This advice is opposite of what has normally been preached to new writers.  I was sure that I would never sell a book as I have written in so many genres. 

So far I have dabbled in Children’s, Young Adult, Historical Fiction, Short Stories, and nonfiction-historical. And have been lucky enough to sell books in all genres, not best seller sales, but enough to take a nice trip or two.

Where else would a western writer vacation? Dodge City last October

Writing to the End

Seems like my book sales always tail off in the first part of each month. I am not sure why, but there might be a reason. I am not much of a self-promoter and usually see an uptick after I do some type of live presentation. I do not have thousands of follows on Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus or all the other social media sites like many writers do. My numbers have grown the past few years slowly, as I usually hand select which one’s I want to refollow.

Six Books Down - Two More Coming Soon

It is embarrassing how slow I have been in getting new books published. I get down to the last few edit, revising and first reader steps and then start something else, or stall out on a book cover. I have always enjoyed writing the words, not so much with selecting or building book covers.

The last few weeks have been full of meetings, travel, Dr. appointments and bad weather for us. Those seem to be pretty good excuses for my slow down.

And, at times, heavy cross traffic slows me down

I read an excellent post recently about plotting or not plotting when writing a novel. It always interests me when I see how others go about putting a story together. I start with an idea, usually an event. In the two books that I am working on covers for, here are the ideas I start with. With my children's book, book three of a series, It was easy, the entire series has a theme. In my newest, my three protagonist kids meet up with a vampire. This follows the theme of the first two where they met up with a ghost and a zombie.

My historical fiction is a bit more complicated. In the first of what will be four or more novels with protagonist Blade Holmes, he gets involved in a real mystery following bad guys back and forth from Laramie City to Fort Laramie Wyoming. The second book, also partially set at Fort Laramie ends with the Ghost Dance in the Black Hills.

After I have an idea, with nothing else to go on, I write the first chapter, letting my mind take it where it may. After that, I put together a few notes on where I want the story to go. With these notes, I will often write down scenes and places I want to include. Then I start writing. I never pick an ending at the start, often half way through I know how it will end, sometimes I end in a place and with an event that surprises me.

Love to hear from others as to how you put a tale together.

Meanwhile - keep on writing and keep on writing. 

You can take a look at my Amazon page here.