Why I Am Thankful For Kindle Unlimited

When I released Medusa's Desire, it was with the eagerness and excitement of a newly published author. I wanted to try every marketing trick because it was all new and shiny.

Book Tour? YES!

Offering a free copy of my novel to any book blogger or reader who wanted to review it? YES!

Contests on my blog? OF COURSE!

Author Interviews? THROW THEM AT ME!

Guest Posts? ANYWHERE I CAN!

And the evidence of this is available when you google "Medusa's Desire" and get several pages of blog posts related to my book.

A short time later, I released Pandora's Mistake. I wanted a free book to do my advertising for me and I have to admit that it gave me pretty good results, so I thought,"Hey! I don't need to market anymore. My free book will do my marketing for me."

I gave all that extra effort up and my days went like this:

Social Media. Social Media. Write. Rewrite.

I thought that all I needed to do was get to know people on social media and then maybe if they enjoyed my posts online, they might try reading my book.

Soon, it turned into a routine. Social Media is fun, so I go on there and call it "work" even though I'm usually just using it to entertain myself. I checked my downloads and sales on Amazon. They were pretty much the same every month. I grew complacent because I knew what to expect.

Then Kindle Unlimited was released and the days kept rolling by with zero sales. I was in denial. The sales are just slow right now. They'll speed up eventually. They always speed up.

But they didn't speed up and near the end of the month, I only had one sale. I realized in horror that things weren't going to pick up.

I thought,"Oh my God! This is the end. I tried to be a self-published author and failed. Kindle Unlimited has defeated me."

It felt like my heart was being crushed. This was my dream. I honestly don't know who I am to some degree without it.

So I mentally slapped myself and said,"Hell, no! You get up and you fix this!"

So I googled everything I could about Kindle Unlimited. I wasn't selling many books on Barnes and Noble, Itunes, etc., so I decided it was worth a try. Nothing can hurt when your sales are basically zero.

And so far, it's brought me back to the sales that I had before. That should be great, right?

Except it's not good enough for me anymore. Kindle Unlimited showed me that everything could be taken away from me with one simple change. I have to work hard to finish my manuscripts, but also work hard to promote each book I release.

Everything's new and shiny again! It's time to have fun promoting my books!