A Rough Few Weeks

Preface: I’ve debated for a few days whether to post this, but decided I should, in case I find success, I’d want other writers to see the lows I hit and was able to overcome.

With Bane War Fury released, I’ve had a total of 3 sales in August, and I’m sure they were all family or friends. Needless to say, there’s nowhere to go but up from here (I think). Explains why I get so many damn ads explaining this exact scenario and how I can pay a bunch of money for someone to fix it (yeah right). I’ve already paid several thousand dollars for Ukrainian artists, beta readers, and an editor. I’m happy to employ these women who’ve helped me get my first book to the finish line, but right now it looks like a tax write off and nothing more.

My health has been challenging of late with a massive flare-up of depression, thrown on the bonfire of my tinnitus, brain zaps, and vertigo. I envy people who don’t deal with this 24-7. After pouring my soul into this first book for one year and seeing such little results, it’s been a struggle to say the least. At least I have IPBan and IPBan Pro, which I’ve continued to work on while writing.

With my book invisible, I’m reminded of the show Halt and Catch Fire. One of my favorite scenes is when Cameron and Joe realize Yahoo has put someone else on the toolbar for the directory to the web. “We don’t exist.” Joe says. The video portrays how I feel perfectly–my book doesn’t exist, for all intents and purposes.

And no, I haven’t thrown any chairs through glass panes, although I shall consider this since it looks like much fun.

Yes, I’ve played with my keywords, used kdspy, publisher rocket, the works. I’ve tried all the standard advertising with A/B experiments and variants I can think of. Optimized my book description too many times. Amazon ads are insanely difficult to get impressions with, let alone cliks or conversions, of which I’ve had none. I’ve got another cover variant to try, perhaps it will perform better.

Maybe nobody in the world cares about a story with powerful anti-hero women who fight for freedom against tyranny, inspired by Ukraine’s symbols and slavic mythology … or a mavka fighting tanks with her sword and rage. Dark fantasy romance is clearly an incredibly difficult market to enter, especially as a guy writing romance into the story. I’m at a huge disadvantage. The popular romantasy novels of today are ALL by female authors, and for good reason–they know best what a woman wants to read and feel, and are better at writing romance and tension. My stuff is likely cringy in comparison, though I’ve tried to put a unique spin on it. Hopefully I get better with more writing.

How do I pick myself up and stay motivated? I’m asking myself a lot of hard questions lately. Book two didn’t see any progress last week. Now I have to ask myself one more question: “Is it still worth writing this series if I’m the only one who reads it?”

Until I can answer this with a surety one way or the other, I’m stuck in limbo.