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My second book, THE QUEEN OF THE ENCHANTED FOREST, is coming out on Wednesday! It's a romantasy about a forced marriage between a disinherited fae crown princess and a werewolf king who is a political prisoner in her father's prison. Despite the rather gloomy setting, ARC readers called it a fun and interesting book. It's easy to read, so if you're in the mood for some lighthearted silliness, this might be just the book for you. https://www.amazon.com/Queen-Enchanted-Forest-Marriage-Romantasy-ebook/dp/B0H2F89R71 available on KU $0.99 on Kindle $9.99 paperback It's my second book. One thing I managed to do right accidentally was a rapid-release strategy. So, I've been writing for a long time now, never publishing anything, and as a result of my reluctance to do anything with my work, I can now release the second one about a month and a half after the first one (a month proved undoable). It wasn't so much a conscious decision to follow that strategy from the start, but I spent a great deal of time hesitating over whether I should publish at all, which in the end proved helpful. In the back matter of the first, I've included the first chapter of the second, hoping it would entice people to keep reading. Both books are also somewhat vaguely thematically linked (in the first one, the couple reads my second book, so I've added an "If you were wondering what the book they're reading is like, you can always have a look yourself..."). It's difficult to judge the success of the first one (The Last Viking in London, amazon.com/Last-Viking-London-paranormal-romance-ebook/dp/B0GZKJPNQW, should you be interested). Obviously, it's not a great success, but I'm really pleased with how it's done. In the end, I've sold more copies than I ever expected, and though I've had little feedback, nobody has returned their copy (so far), and my one review is very good. If you're interested in the exact numbers: I've sold 44 copies and had some KU reads (about seven people reading cover to cover, though I don't know whether they all really did, or whether more people started and stopped). That's without any friends or family being aware of my writing, so they're all strangers, basically. When I released the first book, I didn't do a thing to promote it beforehand (I know...), and rather predictably, nobody found it or read it at first. I've spent every single day since it came out doing some form of marketing, both free and paid, and that led to this result. I have one review on Amazon and two ratings on Goodreads. All three are positive. The impact of the free marketing endeavors is difficult to judge: the 16 silly reels and carousel posts I did on Instagram might have landed me one single sale, although I'm not 100% sure that single sale was related to my posts. Posting on Reddit about my books is proving remarkably successful, though it's mostly people sympathizing with me or taking pity on me, so as a long-term marketing strategy, I'm not sure it's a sustainable one... Amazon ads have led to four sales so far. As a tool for discoverability, it works, but it's not a smashing success either and definitely isn't sustainable. I'm still at the stage where I might as well light money on fire. Anyhow, I've set a budget, and I treat the whole thing like a night out at the casino. For my second book, I've done things completely differently. I have an ARC team. I have a Goodreads author profile, and the ARC readers have already posted ratings for the book. I've created a website (a stupid one; I'm planning to make it better, but still, it's there...). I've had my books included on and tagged appropriately at romance.io, and I've even taken out an ad on the platform this week. I've created an author profile on BookBub (not sure whether that one will make a difference, since organic discoverability on that site is close to impossible, but still, I'm on it). I've also tried to make a newsletter list with MailerLite, as I've read it's terribly important, but the website's interface was too much for me. I couldn't figure it out. BookBub offers a free author website with some form of mailing list included. They market it as a website/newsletter for dummies. I have a feeling I might be able to manage that one, so that's my next project to tackle. Finally, I've made a list of all the Reddit communities I can post about my book in this week. Each one has different dates when you can post your own work, as well as different expectations and guidelines. I've listed everything I have to do this week to get the word out about the book (e.g. r/selfpublish only allows promotion posts in the weekly self-promo thread, which is on Monday; r/romantasy only allows self-promo on Sunday...). The fun thing is... even if nothing happens, I already know the release of the second one will be a bigger success than the first, because I already have one single pre-order for the book. Thank you for all the help in this sub. It's proven invaluable! Best of luck with your own work!