I have done it now. I have just signed up for a class at the Indiana Writer’s Center called “How to sell more books on Amazon”. As some of you know, my historical fiction , or “Starbucks”novel, Tripio, was published on Amazon last year on April 13th. I’m sure a lot of you are asking yourselves, why did he wait so long? In order for you to lose sleep no longer, I will attempt to answer that question for you.

One part of the answer may be that I am old enough to know a world when Amazon was just a river. In fact, a good deal of the writing I plan to publish on Amazon was written before Amazon, the company, was known to all. The novel I’m revising now, Back outta the World, has it’s beginnings in the late 1980s and the first draft was written long hand on yellow ledger paper. So there is that.

There is also, I think, an effort on my part to prevent Amazon from dictating how I feel about Tripio, and when published, Back outta the World.

In the case of Tripio, I just talked to two lucky individuals who just finished reading it. In both cases, I was honored and excited to hear from them. Their responses to Tripio can each be put into one word: “Sad” for one and “Good” for the other. I will gladly take both. For I have learned as more and more people read Tripio the responses I get vary greatly. The parts of Tripio I like or am most proud of are usually not mentioned. I am realizing and understanding that everyone reads their own Tripio, and it has little or nothing to do with the one I wrote.

After these brief talks on Tripio, I was excited about the prospects of the book. My enthusiasm for it’s future had returned, having been derailed by the Holidays and a personal down period for me. So, even though I knew better, I checked my sales and author ranks on Amazon. Tripio was at possibly it’s lowest point ever. The arrow was pointing down so steeply that it had to be continued on a computer screen under my laptop. “Damn” I thought. “I suck after all. Tripio sucks.”

Wrong! So wrong! Amazon don’t got nothin’ to do with how I feel about Tripio and even Back outta the World. Both are creating and telling their own stories with me. And that is far more interesting to me at least, than what some sales graph manufactured by a logarithm somewhere has to say.

None the less I am taking the class in a week or so. I do want to sell more books on Amazon. It will make an interesting bit in the story of Tripio. But, in will NEVER be the story of Tripio.

“May I help who’s next?”

Tags: Amazon, Coffee and Starbucks, writing classes, Writing novels