IWSG - When To Let Go?

Photo courtesy of PIXABY

Howdy. New month means it's once again time for the IWSG monthly blog hop. You know, that event that takes place the first Wednesday of each month where authors from all levels open up about the ups and/or downs they are currently facing.

With so much going on in the last couple of weeks, it wasn't a matter of what I was insecure about, it was more what topic did I want to highlight. Last month I talked about the Why Bother Monster and the ratty bastard is still hanging around. More so now thanks to the latest happenings in Romancelandia. But even in the face of all the current BS, I was trying to forge ahead.

I did manage to get my long overdue WIP completed last week, so I was happy about that. And I'd made the decision in February to put two of my indie titles in Amazon's Kindle Unlimited program. Because my time in KU is an experiment, I have to do something I haven't done before which is track my sales.

It's a rather sad state of affairs to watch my numbers or lack there of.

The two indie books I have in KU are Not Broken and it's companion The Lists.

Not Broken has been my problem child for some reason. Overall, it's the one I've probably put the most effort into marketing and it's yielded me like next to nothing in return.

Malcolm and Calida's story seems to be unloved.

Now don't think I'm producing large numbers for my other books, because I'm not. But this is the worst...well I guess technically The Lists performs worse by default of it being a companion of a book no one wants to read in the first place.

And when I say no one wants to read, I'm not exaggerating. A few months back I did a second blog tour for it with a different company because the first one I used was very lack luster and I know for a fact they didn't promote it like they promote other books.

So I tried something new with a new company and the company owner basically told me no one signed up for it.

Let that sink in. 

I paid a tour company to organize something for this book and got next to no interest in it. Talk about heart shattering. The owner was very nice, she called me, and we talked through options, but it was still very disheartening.

I've done sales, Facebook takeovers, promos, ads all for very little return. The latest, trying my hand at AMS ads in conjunction with the KU experiment. I admittedly have a low budget compared to most I'm sure, but still didn't expect it to be as big of a trending flop that it's turning out to be. For a little context on that, I have a $5 per day budget, ads started running on Friday, and at the time of me writing this post I've only had enough interest in said ads to spend $2.70. Over the course of FOUR days.

So this brings me to the question that is the title for this post. At what point do I cut my losses with this book and it's companion and stop trying to find readers that will hopefully enjoy the story? When is enough, enough and I have to face reality that for whatever mysterious reason, this story doesn't interest people.

That's where I'm at now. The writing advice people say about selling more books is to write more books so you build your backlist, but when that logic isn't working out even remotely in your favor, then what?

That's it for me.

Until next time
~Meka

The Insecure Writer’s Support Group is a home for writers in all stages; from unpublished to bestsellers. Our goal is to offer assistance and guidance. We want to help writers overcome their insecurities, and by offering encouragement we are creating a community of support.

The awesome co-hosts for the April 3 posting of the IWSG are: J.H. Moncrieff, Natalie Aguirre, Patsy Collins, and Chemist Ken!