Sales of my novel have ceratinly slowed — only 307 copies this year — but that still allows me to donate $100, which my employeer (Dell Technologies) again generously matched. So the total is $200 for the year, which brings the total to $2,500. 

If your’re curious, the other half of the money I collect goes to marketing, advertising to be precise. I have a very modest spend of about about $6 or $7 a month for pay per click advertising with Amazon. 

Not a huge donation, but more than I thought my little book would ever do, and happy to help. 

The post $200 Donation from Sales of Youth in Asia in 2019 appeared first on Writing Lives...lots of them...all the time...day and night...awake and asleep...I can't control it....

This morning, after rolling out of bed on this 4th of July, I saw that my first novel had gotten its 100th review on Goodreads and its 66th review on Amazon. From the same person, and only 4 stars, nonetheless it was exciting to hit 100 on Goodreads. That is just one of many metrics that can describe my book’s success in the market.

So I thought I’d put together a quick summary of the various metrics my novel has hit. For those that have been following along for a while, it is taking what seems like forever to get my second novel out. It is an exciting time in our lives with kids going off to college, two kids starting high school, a new house, and a cool job. So my time to write in the last two years has been very limited.

In any event, here is a quick tally, which I found interesting…

*The #1 in the UK was exciting because that was a competitive market. The #1 in France not so much. That was more of a one-hit wonder because there are so few sales in that market.

More exciting to me was how long my novel stayed on the first page of Amazon’s Kindle page in response to searches for “Vietnam War”. It hung in there for almost a year. That is not a small market, and a year is a hell of a run. Though it rarely was #1 during that time, that it lasted so long on that page was very exciting. Screenshot below of one such instance…

That’s it… Now time to get to work on the family favorite: Chicken Nerds — cream cheese and peppercorni wrapped in marinated chicken tenderloins and then wrapped in bacon all held together with a few toothpicks and then thrown on the grill. Makes for an inferno, but damn good…

Enjoy your 4th!

The post 100 Goodreads Reviews appeared first on Writing Lives...lots of them...all the time...day and night...awake and asleep...I can't control it....

Sales of my novella of been good. The story is about young men in combat during the Vietnam War, and how they live with themselves and each other years later. As I promised, I am donating half of what I collect from sales to organizations that help our veterans.

With a match from my employer, today I’ve been able to donate another $500. Last time I donated $150 to the Wounded Warrior Project. This time I have donated to the Veterans of Foreign Wars Foundation.

I have now donated a total of $650.

Without the match, that is $400 from my book sales. And if I say so myself, that is pretty damn good for a first book priced at $1.49, of which I only get ~$.52 a copy.

For a detailed explanation as to why I’m doing this, read what you can see at the “Look Inside” feature of the book on Amazon.

The reviews have been strong (4.6 “stars” after 37 reviews), and it has made it into the top 10 of four of Amazon’s bestseller lists worldwide (two of which are pretty obscure, I have to admit), and the top 100 of about ten bestseller lists.

Separately, my book has also been #1 out of more than 5,000 titles when you search on “Kindle Store: Vietnam War” for many weeks. It is still in the top 20 on that list a year after I published it.

When you search on “Books: Vietnam War” at Amazon, over 81,000 titles come up. My little book is hanging on in the top 10 of this list as well.

More importantly: $650. That helps. But let’s not stop here.

You can help me raise more money for veterans organizations by buying and reviewing a copy of Youth In Asia. The review part is especially important. If you buy a copy I’ll continue to pass on about $.26 to an org that helps veterans. But a review of the book can help drive more sales because it will inspire other people to buy a copy and raise even more money.

You can also give a copy as a gift to someone who would enjoy it. When you go to the Amazon sales page, on the right-hand side you’ll see the option to do so as highlighted below. It is easy to do.

This has been a heck of a year in many ways for me and my family, many of which have nothing to do with writing. However, writing and publishing my first novel has been a life-long dream, and extremely scary.

I was terrified that it was not going to be well received. I feared that the story would be ridiculed or the writing would be criticized. Neither happened. In fact, the opposite has been true. I owe my wife and editor and my anonymous reviewers at WWW.CritiqueCircle.COM a huge thank you for all the help getting the story to where it is.

And thank you to everyone who has purchased a copy and reviewed it. The fact that this little story is generating money for veterans in need is also exciting and rewarding because it is important that we give back, and we did that together.

Separately, next week I’ll post a blog about what I learned from a publishing perspective. It has been an amazing education, and I’ve done more than a few things wrong…

The post Keeping my promise: Donating another $500 to help our Veterans appeared first on Writing Lives...lots of them...all the time...day and night...awake and asleep...I can't control it....

When I published my short novel about combat in the Vietnam War and how it affected the participants, I promised to donate half of the proceeds to organizations that help our injured veterans. At the time I published it, I was hoping to sell 1 copy a day at a price of $.99. It was my first publication, so I wanted to keep my expectations in check.

When you sell through Amazon, if you price below $2.99 you only get to keep 35% of the sales price. Borrows through Kindle Unlimited and sales of my paperback are at different rates. So there are a variety of formulas in play, and I’ve changed the price of my book a few times. But in short, I was expecting to only collect about $125 dollars for the year, of which I’d give half to such organizations.

The great news is that my book has sold far better than expected — actually cracking the top 10 of several of Amazon’s Bestseller lists — and I’ve stabilized on a price of $1.49.

In short, I’ve now collected over $500 in revenue in less than 9 months. Though my total production costs (editing, some modest advertising, etc.) are close to $600, I’m keeping my promise and sending half of all I collect to organizations that benefit our Vietnam War veterans. Above is a screenshot of the first check.

In the grand scheme of things it is not a fortune, but I’m sure every dollar helps, and there will be more coming. When I hit a total of $600 collected, I’ll send another $150 check.

If you want to help me raise more money for our Vietnam veterans, please buy a copy of my book — which is dedicated to our veterans — and forward this link to those who care because there are soldiers who still need our help. This check went to the WWP, but that is not the only veterans group I’ll donate to over time.

Thank you, and thank them.

The post Donating proceeds from my novel to the Wounded Warrior Project appeared first on Writing Lives...lots of them...all the time...day and night...awake and asleep...I can't control it....