Hit my 20,000th sale!

Woo hoo, I reached my 20,000th milestone in 4 months, 4 days! Thank you to all of you who have given me advice and helped me along the way. Dec has been particularly good to me, and for those who are still on the fence on self-publishing, don't contemplate any further. Do it!

To recap, this is my journey since self-publishing on Aug 24th:

Aug (1 week): 14 (1 novel)
Sept:             44 (Added 2 novels at the end of Sept and a short story)
Oct:               977 (Started writing erotica shorts around Oct 8th. Uploaded 3 erotica shorts)
Nov:              4311 (added several more erotica shorts)
Dec: (as of 12 midnight 29th Dec)   : 14,753

Over 90% of my sales are Amazon. I have around 11 erotica shorts, novelettes and novellas altogether, and they form 95% of my sales. All except 2 are priced at $2.99.

So don't give up! Keep on writing! There is no better time to put out stuff than now!

My Xmas blog at Saffina Desforges!

Saffina Desforges

Ok, just 3 days left until the big day! Now, this next post isn’t what you’d call creative and not isn’t particularly cheery, but what it is, is the PERFECT epitome of this blog’s theme AND absolutely true.
Read it and take heed. Over to Artemis Hunt.

Merry Xmas. It’s been a tumultous month for me since we last chatted on this blog. My beloved mother-in-law died of lung cancer, only to be followed by my husband’s aunt 10 days later from pancreatic cancer. This serves to remind me how fleeting life is, and how we should seize the moment.
Haven’t decided to independently publish? Do it now before it’s too late.
I haven’t regretted a moment of it.
These are my monthly sales:
Aug (1 week)             14
Sept                          44
Oct                           977
Nov                           4311
Dec (as of Dec 8th 6 am)      2700 (Update 26 Dec: sales now stand at 12,378)

My top selling work (a short story) is in the Top 3 Erotica of Amazon US. I’ve been on the Movers and Shakers list periodically. As of today, I have 5 or 6 works in Amazon US’s Top 100 erotica, mostly priced at $2.99. My works have been on Bookstrand’s Top 30, and I stick out like a sore thumb amidst Bookstrand’s own well-promoted Siren writers, who fill up almost the entire list. 7 of my works have earned the All Romance Ebook bestseller crown. My works have occupied the Top 1,2,3 and 4 spots of Amazon Germany‘s Top 100 English erotica list.
Erotica writers have written to me and hailed me a success.
How did I do it? Was it marketing? Pure luck?
Actually, I didn’t do a single shred of marketing for my erotica shorts/novellas other than to cite every title down on each of their Amazon pages. It’s actually pure luck.
It’s true!
I know people don’t like to hear about luck. But I made my own luck. I wrote stories in a series, and released them quickly, sometimes days after the other. I was determined to do what Joe Konrath said we must do – write until you get lucky. I wasn’t even aiming for Amazon’s Top 1000. I was just writing and writing and hoping to make a decent living without hitting a ball out of the park.
So, give yourself a gift this Xmas, and celebrate being alive. Do what you want to do. Don’t look back. This past couple of weeks have taught me that life is really too short to spend regretting things you haven’t done. If you are in doubts about self-publishing, just try it. Then you won’t be in doubts anymore!
Aphrodite/Artemis Hunt

Thanks, Artemis. A very simple message.
Tomorrow, Leonard Hilley.
Saffi

My friend's post about me, heh heh

My friend, a very successful horror writer who lives in Australia, wrote this about me today. Thanks, TH! You never mentioned my greatest successes are from being Aphrodite Hunt rather than the more vanilla Artemis Hunt, however :)

http://tunkuhalim.wordpress.com/2011/12/12/who-is-artemis-hunt/

Who is Artemis Hunt?

It appears that “Artemis Hunt has a husband who thinks all fiction is nonsense and all writers of fiction should get their heads checked for situational delusions.”
That seems to be all we know about this mysterious author – although there’s a rumour that she’s got Malaysian links. I really doubt this though as her writing seems far too Californian!
But, if she is Malaysian, then Malaysia-boleh! because she’s certainly one of the nation’s most prolific and successful.

Great cover, huh?

Recently, Artemis unloaded on us six e-books entitled:

The Body Snatcher Wears Lipstick
The Hunt For The Catalyst
The Ether World Chronicles: Beginnings
The Body Snatcher Wears Lipstick
Snow White And The Alien
Psychotic – A Thriller Short (by A.R Hunt)
You can get a rush from her books on her blog.
I’m in the middle of Snow White and the Alien and the writing’s just great. There’s no limit to this Californian’s imagination and its Kindle-clicking good!
I’m going to give Artemis’s husband a call soon, as I continue to type out my own novel, just to check on my own “situational delusion”!