Okay, this might be of interest to some of you. The novel was downloaded about 400 times, of those a bit over 300 from the main site Amazon.com, over fifty from Amazon uk and a few times from others, exceptions being Amazon br, it. and es. I have no idea whether that is good or bad for a beginner. From what I have seen some of the better established writers, especially those who can also get on the Amazon bestseller lists with actual sales, can get several thousand downloads when they put their books on the free promos, but I haven’t been able to find any figures for first timers like myself (the short stories have been available since last fall, but Fourth Sword and The Demons of Khemas are my first novels, I have never had anything published through any of the traditional channels and I haven’t done anything like write for any fan fiction sites. All I have written have, until now, stayed in the drawer and hard drive. So nobody knows I exist.).
I got, so far, two four star reviews, very nice ones except one complained that I don’t know how to use commas (true enough, I have no bloody idea what would be the correct grammatical way to use them in this language so I mostly just place them on those spots where it feels, or would feel natural to pause if I were to speak the sentence) and the other that there had been a couple of grammatical errors which had momentarily dropped him/her out of the story. Well, considering I am not a native speaker I suppose that’s not too bad.
Best place on the free downloads lists (that I noticed, I checked about three or four times each day) was 1881, and at that point it was the 31 most downloaded in the category ‘Sword and Sorcery’ and 38 in ‘Epic Fantasy’. It got on higher spots on those two fantasy lists two days earlier, 29 for ‘Sword and Sorcery’ and 34 for ‘Epic Fantasy, but then it was a bit lower on the general list, number 1962. Again, no idea if that is good or bad or average performance.
Okay, interesting. From what I have read I might start getting some noticeable sales once I either have several more novels out, or with time, of course providing my writing is entertaining enough that enough of those people who do read them like them enough to recommend them, or mention them from time to time to others. At this point I have no exposure so no matter what the quality of my stories, even if they are good people won’t come to buy because they simply don’t know that I exist, and pretty much the only way they will find me is if they stumble on my stories accidentally. More material might remedy that, or time, and it probably will need both lots more material and a lot more time. Or, if I’m unlucky, it may not happen no matter what I do. This whole thing does seem to be something of a lottery, only with the provision that if your material actually is good – or entertaining, which is not necessarily the same thing, and with this entertaining is presumably the more important quality – your chances are a lot better. 🙂
So, time will tell.
Northern dreaming 
Hello,
I am one of those numbers! As with the reviewer, I noticed several typos and such that would occasionally distract (had to reread to understand sentence), but seems most of those were minor. They should easily be caught by an editor. However, typos don’t generally bother me so I thoroughly enjoyed the book. My only disappointment was realizing that the Fourth Sword was just released. Meaning, I have to wait awhile for the next book. Sigh, such is life. Thanks for the great read can’t wait for the next one!
Thanks!
I started by publishing the stories which were already done or at least half done, and I still have two, science fiction, so right now I’m working mostly on the first one of them. I hope I’ll get started with Fourth Sword’s sequel by early fall, and hopefully I can publish that sometime next year. As for the editing, right now I can’t afford an editor so I’ll just have to do the best I can, which undoubtedly will leave at least some typos and grammatical errors in the text – you tend to become a bit blind to your own stuff, and seem to be at times prone to read what you intended rather than the exact words on the screen – but if I start getting any money from this that is going to be one of the first things it will be used on. 🙂
You’re welcome. It’s not often I go hunting for an author after reading their free book from Amazon: means I was impressed. I also am pretty good at predicting endings; I almost always can, movies and books. However, Fourth Sword actually surprised me. That is part of why I imediately started looking for a second book; all set to pay for that one.
I am not big on horror, but I will certainly follow your science fiction….editor or no. XD
Heh. Mission accomplished then. So now that the important tasks of the Midsummer holiday (one of the biggies here) have been taken care of – grilling sausages and drinking white wine, which is perhaps a bit odd combination but beer doesn’t agree with my stomach and red wine can trigger migraines so if I drink something mildly alcoholic it’s going to be either cider or white wine – I can go back to plotting and practicing my evil laugh.