I want my historical fiction novel, Tripio, to sell. And sell. And sell some more. If you have a book on Amazon, then I assume that is a goal of yours as well. To that end, I recently attended a class on just that subject. The class was called, “How to sell more books on Amazon”. Tripio was published last spring on Amazon and I had not yet formulated a coherent strategy to sell Tripio on Amazon. It was time to get to work.

   I had heard from other sources that getting reviews was the most important and powerful thing you could do to help sell your book. I have one 4 star review to date. The class reinforced that I needed more. I have since made it a priority to relentlessly badger my dear family and friends who have read Tripio to write a review. I have done this with folks who I only see occasionally as well. Most, but not all, remain friends. 

     Earlier this week, I received an email from one of the person’s mentioned above. The first paragraph told me that the email sender had indeed placed a review of Tripio on Amazon and Goodreads! Eureka! Pay dirt. I briefly considered texting work with my two weeks notice. I did not.  I quickly checked Tripio’s Amazon page to see the actual review. I forgot that it takes a few days for anything to happen on Amazon.

     Fine. I settled down to read the attached email. In it, I found the true value, the reason, the validation for having written Tripio. It was worth way, way more than a mere review.

   I am having a tough time with this post. I say that because I am only just now beginning to understand why Tripio came to be. I’m not trying to be noble, but those reasons had nothing to do with getting reviews or making money. Here in the email attached to the review, was captured why I wrote Tripio in the first place. To be transparent, I have known the person who sent the email their entire life. So the person had a proximity to Tripio that 99.9% of readers won’t have. The person understood Tripio to the last comma. Reading the attached email brought tears to my eyes. Every second I worked on Tripio was worth it. I had been validated. Tripio had helped someone. It may have inspired a friend of the email sender to begin writing. After reading the email, I thought I was done with Tripio. It has served its purpose. What could getting more reviews and selling more copies do for me now? Goodbye.

    I can’t stop though. I have no choice. I can’t stop the journey of Tripio anymore than I can snap my fingers and stop my heart from beating. If Tripio is the novel I hope it is then I have to see it through. I hope readers can “feel” what the insider felt upon reading Tripio. Only time will tell. Time will tell if I am a good enough writer to enable any and ever reader to take from Tripio what the email’s author and I know to be in there.

  I’ll pretty sure be able to tell when they leave their reviews on Amazon.

                          “May I help who’s next?”

Tags: Amazon, book reivews, book sales, Coffee and Starbucks, historical fiction, writing, writing classes, Writing novels