Amanda Hocking and Wanda Shipiro

http://www.kycraft.com/detail_pages/wildwood-dancing.html

http://amandahocking.blogspot.com/2010/08/epic-tale-of-how-it-all-happened.html

So here I was. February 2010. I’d been determined to make 2009 the year I would get published. And I hadn’t. I said to my roommate, “I don’t think it’s going to happen. I don’t think I’m ever going to get published. I don’t know what more I can do. I’ve worked like a factory putting out the best books I possibly can. I’ve studied trends, the industry, business models.”

…

So I had no money, and I said to my roommate, “I’m going to sell books on Amazon through Kindle, and I bet I can make at least a couple hundred bucks by the end of the summer to go to Chicago.” My roommate (who has heard my make lots of plans that I never follow-through with) said, “Yeah. Okay. I’ll see that when it happens. Have you finished the Carrie book yet?”

In March, I made My Blood Approves available in paperback on Amazon through Lulu. In April, I published it to Kindle. About a week or so later, I published the second book in the series Fate.

Here’s where the story picks up. The two books combined, I sold 45 books in about 2 weeks. I thought to myself, “Not too shabby. Let’s add another book to the mix.”

I put out Flutter at the end of May. I distinctly remember one day in May before it came out, I sold 38 books in one day. I took a screen shot. I emailed my mom and my roommate, and I knew there was no way I was ever gonna do that. I mean, I was just a me, publishing books on the internet. There’s no way I could ever really be successful with this.

In May, I sold 624 books and made $362.

Then in June, something truly magical happened. I discovered book bloggers. I had no idea such people existed. They just read books and write about them. And I don’t mean “just.” These people take times out of their busy lives to talk about books and have contests and connect with followers and writers and other readers.

These guys are honestly my heroes. I’m a little in love with all of them.

I asked several if they would be interested in reviewing my books, and most of them said yes, even if they didn’t generally review self-published work.

Then something surreal started happening. My books were selling. Like, really selling.

So, thanks in large part to book bloggers, June turned into a very good month. I sold 4258 copes of all three books combined, and I made a total of $3180.

…Also in July, I finally found an editor and sent her my books. I contacted a cover artist about doing the covers for future books. And I put in notice at my dayjob.

For those of you reading this, you’ll realize that leaving my job seems a bit premature. Probably. I am still on-call at work, but I wanted to really focus on writing. I wanted the chance to be a full-time author for awhile, even if it only ended up being a few weeks.

In July, I sold 3532 books and made $6527.

In the beginning of August, a publishing house in Hungary approached me about foreign rights for their book. I emailed 5 agents then, telling them about my book, my sales (I’d just sold over 10,000 books at the time), and that I had people asking about foreign rights.

Two agents asked me to email them a manuscript almost right away, and I sent it out, but I haven’t heard back from them. On Monday, a third agent emailed me asking for the book, and he emailed me Thursday, asking me to call to talk about things.

Also on Monday, I released the fourth book in my vampire series. It peaked #25 in the entire Kindle store. If you”re wondering how many sales it took the book to get that high: 150 in a two hour period. Also on Monday – in one 24-hour period – I made $1200. Working at my day job full time, the most I’d ever made in a month is $1000. I just made more in a day than I used to make in a month.

Coffee Time Romance – coffeetimeromance.com

Bitten By Books – bittenbybooks.com (they only review paranormal)

Romance Junkies – romancejunkies.com

PNR ParaNormal Romance – paranormalromance.org

Romance In The Back Seat – romanceinthebackseat.com

Mrs. Giggles – mrsgiggles.com (She has a special POD/SP section – I didn’t request the review from her, it just showed up one day – but she does review self-pubbed romance.)