September 2019 - Scores On The Doors

Bharathi has insisted that I keep my promise of updating you on book sales and money raised. As ever, I have to admit that my wife is right, but there is so much to do and it is easy to be distracted (even without taking into account the Ashes, a new football season and the upcoming Rugby World Cup). I feel that I should initially set the book sales scene:

· Firstly, I had a nagging doubt before the book was published that only my mum would buy the book

· My book is self-published, which is nice, but most self-published books sell less than 50 copies

· I’d like to sell at least 100 copies

· Kim, at Indie Authors World, predicted 300 to 500 books

· 1000 is a nice round number (mum, you are not allowed to buy 1000 copies – I’m limiting you to 500)

· 3000 seems to be the touted average book sales for a traditionally published book (which has a marketing team and book selling network)

An Ordinary Man’s Travels In An Extraordinary World was published on the 26th August 2019 so progress on my targets is:

Book sales

· Sell 1 book – Hooray, yes! I’ll tick that off on the 26th August – thanks mum.

· Sell 50 books – Brilliant, other people have actually bought it and remarkably passed the self-publishing average with 85 pre-orders

· Sell 100 books – I checked again on the 5th September and books sold were up to 165. Thank you to everyone that has bought it - I’m a bit humbled. I still need to do some proper marketing.

· Sell 300 books – No, I’m 110 short at the moment

· Sell 500 books – Would be amazing

· Sell 1000 books – A distant dream

Money Raised for the Meningitis Research Foundation

· Raise £500 – I think it takes 3 months to receive book royalties but, as at the 14th September, 190 books have been sold and I estimate that will take me nicely over the £500 target

· Raise £1000 – I hope to get here one day

· Raise £1500 – Still a long way off

· Raise £2000 – This is even further away

Um, I better start getting some publicity for my book ………………………