Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Wednesday's Writing Update: The Day I Defied Gravity

 
All links open to a new page, so click away!

First off, my review of Selah Janel's Mooner is here.

*waves to new and former followers* If I haven't followed you yet, please let me know with a link to your blog. I try to follow back.

And I knew I forgot something from yesterday's post. Margo Kelly tagged me on Monday, so I picked three questions and answered them on a previously tagged post. Monday was Margo's birthday too, so please go by her blog and wish her a belated happy birthday.

Also, if you look to the left of the blog, you'll see that I am creating a newsletter. If you want to see cover art, excerpts, and writing news before I announce it elsewhere, then please sign up. I promise I won't spam you or anything like that. You'll most likely not receive an email except once a month or more. 

Before I get to the good news, I have received a few bad reviews on Defying Gravity and I wanted to address something about that. This is normal for authors, and these people were disappointed it wasn't hard science fiction. That is their right, and I respect their opinions. If I loved hard sci-fi and read my story, I would rate it lower too because it wouldn't meet my expectations. Of course, my story isn't hard sci-fi, more space opera/soft sci-fi romance/alien fantasy. I understand wanting to jump at my defense too, but please remember these people have a right to their opinions. Their lower ratings help weed out the people who really wouldn't like my book in the first place. If you disagree with them based on reading Defying Gravity, the best way you can help me is by writing a review on the book. Otherwise, it makes me look unprofessional, even though I don't have control over what my fans think or say or do. I appreciate all reviews.

Okay, on to the good news. *grins*

 

Last Thursday was my 30th birthday, but it was also the first day I put Defying Gravity for free on Amazon. The results were amazing. I definitely had the best birthday watching my space opera novelette climbing the charts. Thank you to all who downloaded a copy and/or spread the word about it.

Yes, that's my book beside of George R.R. Martin's!
When I started out free, I thought it would be great to reach the top 100 in a category or two. I would love to get over 250 downloads in a 24 hour period, but what happened defied all my expectations. Defying Gravity had over 2300 downloads in a 24 hour period (2235 US, 62 UK, 10 DE, 2 FR). It reached #129 Kindle Overall (Free) and #2 in Science Fiction (Free).

When it went off free, I wasn't expecting much, but since then I've had over 100 sales and have seen my Defying Gravity rise in the rankings.

That's taken from March 12 around 1 PM EST.
I've had borrows since then, saw my book as #3 in Popularity in the Science Fiction category on KOLL, and much more. I got my first sale in Germany! It's just been magical and makes me even more excited to finish writing Fighting Gravity and getting it out on May 1st. By the way, you can add Fighting Gravity here on Goodreads and Pull of Gravity (#3) here on Goodreads.

Thank you.

So what have you defied lately?

17 comments:

Terri Talley Venters said...

Awesome news, Cherie! I'm cheering for you and your successful self publishing adventure. I loved Defying Gravity. I think making it a non hard core sci fy helps broaden your fan base=)

Nikki said...

Thank you for your comment, I had meant to visit your blog!

Congratulations on such wonderful news! May 1st is my birthday so that's a nice aim :) I would like to read your work, I'm going to go have a little investigate on Amazon now :)

Unknown said...

So, basically, WAY MORE good news than bad news in this post :-) Congrats!

Talli Roland said...

Fantastic, Cherie! What a great way to celebrate tour birthday. I'm off to add your book right now!

Talli Roland said...

Oops - YOUR birthday!

Shallee said...

What exciting news on your book! I'm glad to hear it's doing well. :) And don't sweat the negative reviews. Like you said, a lot of the lowest ratings for any book come from people who didn't expect the story they got.

Christine Rains said...

Woo-hoo! That is awesome! Congratulations again. :) As for the bad reviews, I guess they're part of the writer's gauntlet. I think if they read your blurb, they should have had a good idea of what it was about. I just defied the Oreo cookie serving recommendation!

Unknown said...

Congrats on the success! Sucks about the bad reviews, but I suppose you gotta take the rough with the smooth. It seems to be doing hella well anyway though!

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...

Don't feel bad about that review! I've had several similar reviews of people wanting a hard core science fiction story, which my books are not. You're not writing for those people though. You're writing for a totally different crowd. So don't worry about it!

~Sia McKye~ said...

W00t! Glad to see you got a *nice* birthday climb in, Cherie. Cardio vascular is very important and I'm sure watching DG stats provided plenty of heartbeats. :-)

I haven't read it yet, but I do love Space operas, light sci-fi stories. Yes, I've read serious gadget world sort and enjoyed them. I like books set on new worlds. I loved Andre Norton's books and they weren't hard core Sci-fi.

Go, Cherie Go!

Sia McKye OVER COFFEE

M Pax said...

Cool on the free thing working out.

Don't worry about the reviews. We all get them. We can't please everybody. Some people are just sour, and then it baffles me why some people downloaded my book at all.

Unknown said...

Wow, congrats on all those stats!

I agree with you about the reviews. I know I wont have perfect reviews when my novel comes out but I will be thankful to have some. Each can have their own opinion.

Thanks for the wonderful comment on my blog.

Anonymous said...

Pretty amazing numbers!

Good to know that one of the best things any author can do for their work is to just give readers easy access to it and let them decide for themselves if it's any good.

Apparently, Defying Gravity is.

Unknown said...

Congratulations Cherie, that is really great!

Anonymous said...

Hi Cherie
Good luck with Defying Gravity
You've been lucky 7 tagged on my blog.

Nicole Zoltack said...

That's awesome, Cherie!

And bad reviews suck. I've had more than a few that torn my heart out.

Sarah Tokeley said...

Yay! I was one of the 62 :-)

And I'm not late in wishing you happy birthday, consider me early for next year :-)