On December 2, 2025, I reached a milestone I’ve been dreaming about for a while: 1,000 lifetime sales. As 9 Years Yearning released June 26, 2024, this means that in less than a year and a half, I beat out 90% of self-published authors, ten times over.

See, 90% of self-published authors never sell more than 100 copies throughout their entire career. The odds are stacked so badly against selfpub that it’s almost impossible to conceive.

But I beat those odds – without a deluge of reviews, without a huge marketing team, and without millions of dollars. Here’s what I learned along the way.

ROI doesn’t matter at first. Exposure does.

Here’s a problem I see with self-published authors all the time, which I rail against quite frequently: they price way too high because they want to make their money back as soon as possible. As they are an unknown author, no one wants to spend $7 a book without a lot of reviews and with an ugly cover.

But here’s another problem: they don’t want to do freebie promos, even though these are the most guaranteed ways to make money down the line. They are aghast at the idea of joining the Smashwords End of Year sale or will only reduce their pricing by like 25% because they have this rigid idea that books = moneymaker.

Your books are very unlikely to make money. This is a fact. Assuming you’ll retire on a private island via book money, especially as a self-published author, is a bit delusional.

As such, any opportunity to make any sale is valuable because it shows algorithms that people want your books. The algorithm simply does not care if those sales came from giveaways; it only looks at units sold. The more sales, the higher numbers, and the more likely that other people will see your books.

Give stuff away. It will get you somewhere down the line.

And, as long as you are not going into debt, don’t be afraid to spend money. Set a monthly budget for your books without considering any ROI. That can come later.

Assume you will not make any money back from any ad spend or any other purchase for your books, just like you wouldn’t assume making money back when you’re gambling. Imagine the money goes poof.

Are you spending money because you want to make a great project? Are you spending in hopes of sharing your book with others – regardless of whether you recoup your losses? Great. You’re golden.

Audience is less about demographic and more about specific reader preferences.

There’s a serious issue with how authors conceptualize audiences. In general, they think like this:

My audience is mid-twenties to early thirties white straight Western women who like this other author and enjoy this specific genre.

Not only is this too restrictive, but it also doesn’t get at what readers actually enjoy about a book. It takes the mindset that readers who fit into this narrow definition will automatically flock to your book because they are of a certain age and background.

Readers don’t like always like books because it aligns with their own self-concept. Rather, they like books because of the experience. These include:

Prose style. Every writer has a unique voice, and that voice won’t always resonate with everyone. Some have a sharp, sarcastic style; others are more flowery. If you have comps, don’t think just about themes but also about prose.

Cognitive requirement. I write deep stuff that focuses on overall themes and human experiences. Others write intricate stuff that requires readers to remember a lot of moving parts. Others write popcorn books that don’t make you think. Someone who wants a cutesy popcorn read isn’t going to like my book.

Themes (or lack thereof). Not every book has deep themes. Some are just “here’s a story!” and that’s fine. If a reader doesn’t want to think much, they won’t want a book that discusses themes and symbology.

Character tropes. You don’t need to have super tropey characters to fit them in somewhere. In fact, more complex characters will draw more people in because each reader will see a glimpse of a trope they like. Whether that’s the cold assassin, the suave spy, or the sassy princess, keeping characters front and center will bring more success.

POV. I don’t typically like first-person POV and will avoid books that have them. Others love first-person POV because they feel it’s more immediate and intimate. This is hard to share in a blurb, but those who are interested will take a look at the preview.

Plot elements. Again, we’ve got tropes, which you should carefully integrate into your blurbs. Do you have slow burn romance? Hurt/comfort? Epic quests? Misunderstandings? People are drawn to these common elements; they want to read this stuff over and over again. I’m a sucker for hurt/comfort personally.

Draw this out in your blurbs by thinking like an SEO writer. Come up with a list of keywords and fit them into your plot description where they make sense. I personally love doing this puzzle; it’s why I have my day job. You might find you enjoy the challenge too.

As for prose style and cognitive level, writing in the same style for your blurb will highlight this without you having to say it. People will sense that if your blurb sounds a certain way, your prose likely has those same fingerprints, and they’ll know whether they’re interested in reading more of that.

Readers can sense a writer’s passion, and it makes them passionate too.

I can tell when someone wrote a book because they want quick returns. These books are typically short because the author wants to move onto the next project as soon as possible; they realize that building a backlog is more important than making everything perfect. These are money-motivated authors who treat writing like a business.

Which is all well and good except for one thing. I almost never pick up another book of theirs, no matter how cheap it is. I can tell they haven’t thought deeply about their work and slammed it out as fast as possible. In fact, I feel a bit cheated.

If the author doesn’t care, then why should I?

As I’ve said before, self-publishing gives us a precious gift. We are totally unrestrained by editors forcing us to change things if we want to get published – people who might adjust our wording or even our plot to better fit market demands. Not every editor has the light touch necessary to make a writer’s work shine in its own unique brilliance; many are very controlling and will change everything to suit their whims.

So embrace the freedom. Let your passion and excitement show. People connect with my books so strongly and follow me through the rest of the series because they can feel how much I care about what I’m writing. They get absorbed because I got absorbed first.

The energy you pour into your writing decides how much energy you’ll get back. If you let all your joy shine, both on the page and in your supplemental content, this becomes very obvious.

Don’t take reviews personally.

If a review is going to make you cry or contemplate giving up on writing, you are not ready to publish. You need a thicker skin if you’re going to keep at this.

Reviews matter because other readers trust a book that has a large number of reviews, just like you probably buy products that have more reviews. Most people don’t leave a review on everything they purchase (I don’t), so having a lot of reviews means that there’s an invisible majority who all decided to purchase.

They’re not for you. They are for readers. And you shouldn’t take them as anything other than visibility engines.

A lot of writers will caution against reading your reviews at all. I do read my reviews, but it’s not because my self-esteem hinges upon whether people liked my books. I know that no matter what anyone says, I’m going to complete my series the way I want it to be told. If someone didn’t like it, then they’re clearly not my target audience.

Rather, I read them because I want to harvest blog ideas. A lot of my blog posts have been inspired by either reviews on my books or posts on Reddit. I see questions people have and figure out how to answer them while boosting my site’s SEO.

But as for whether they bother me? No. I get annoyed when I see a three-star rating without a review, but it’s not because I’m upset about the rating – I want to know why they gave it that. I’m curious as to what their perspective is and disappointed that they didn’t share. I could have used that to refine my blurbs and marketing so I target only those who will most appreciate my work.

And four-star reviews are still a compliment to me. These people are generally hard graders and don’t give five stars to anything for some reason, so a four star would always have been the best thing I could hope for.

Authenticity is the golden ticket.

I saw a Facebook post that laid bare what readers really want. I’ll post it here in its entirety so you don’t have to click:

Tumblr user nocryptographer:

I talked with someone who works in book publishing, and they mentioned they get a lot of AI slop these days. I asked how they know what’s human-written, and they said that there’s one thing that will reveal AI slop without error, and that’s the author not knowing their own creation.

A real author can talk about their story for hours. They love to elaborate every character, every twist, every detail. Because those existed in their head long before they ever made it to the paper. They were loved before they were written.

AI slop wasn’t. It was just vomited into existence.

Someone who generates their story with AI will never bond with their story the way real writers do. That’s why they may not know what to say when they’re asked why did the character do this, or even remember the scene in the first place. It’s something they read, not something they wrote. And to a writer, those are not the same.

There’s a unique bond between the creator and the creation. If your writing doesn’t come of you, you’ll always lack that.

I keep hearing soon we won’t be able to tell. And perhaps, in a superficial sense, that’s true. But there is a difference. It’s not em dashes or repeated words. It’s whether the story was made by someone who loves it and cares about it.

If the writer’s eyes light up when asked why did the character do that? and they start their very own Ted Talk about that specific scene…

then it’s real.

Throwing yourself headlong into your characters and plots is wonderful. Not only is it the most fun you can have as a writer, but it creates that sense of authenticity you need to sell.

You’re so tired of hearing this, but creating a website is hands down the best way to show this off. I have tons of extra content around my books now, such as explaining the purpose of the climax in What Is Cannot Be Unwritten or discussing interculturalism in the Eirenic Verses.

My writing doesn’t sound like AI, anyway, but if someone were concerned, my additional content makes it obvious that I crafted these books by myself. Someone who forced a computer to puke out a draft wouldn’t be able to tell you any of these things because they may not have even read what was generated.

Readers are starved for this type of authenticity. There are so many authors out there who write to market that the books all sound the same. It’s rare to come across a new series that tackles unique themes and can’t be shoved into a tidy marketing box.

But you can make that if you follow your heart and care to distraction about what you produce.

Progress is made one sale at a time.

This seems obvious, but you’d be amazed at how many authors forget it. They don’t get excited about a sale because they want more.

But the thing is: self-publishing is supremely crowded. There are literally billions of books out there, and selfpub is at the bottom of the heap.

Plus, I’m going to come out and say it, even though I know you won’t like it: most self-published work is trash.

Not all of it, of course. I have plenty of self-published books that are in my fave pile. Still, the assumption is that if your book is self-published, it’s utter shit and no one is going to like it.

So not only are you up against billions of other books, but readers are automatically prejudiced against you. As I pointed out, 90% of self-published books never sell more than 100 copies (because they are bad). And readers know that most of those books are bad, which is why they don’t buy them.

Your job is to convince them you are special and important and your books are not trash. You only do that a sale at a time.

Every sale is an opportunity for word-of-mouth referrals. Every sale is an opportunity for the algorithm to start matching you up with other customers. Every sale is the potential for a review, which will draw in more customers.

Paradoxically, this sale-by-sale mindset, combined with long-term thinking, is what got me to 1,000 sales. Not amazing best-seller extravaganza, but better than most.

Unfortunately, too many people fall into certain negative mindsets:

• “Ugh, one sale is nothing. I’m never going to make it if I’ve only sold ten books in two months. I suck and I give up and I’m never going to try again.”

Or,

• “I haven’t sold any books at all, so clearly I’m never going to sell any books ever. I suck and I give up and I’m never going to try again.”

OR,

• “I sold one book, so statistically I’m doing great! Now I can sit back and do nothing and wait for the sales to roll in.”

All of these are going to scuttle you because they all point in one specific direction: not doing anything.

If you hold the mindset that you have to fight for every sale and every sale is an opportunity to grow, then you will sell more. This will push you to try new things, perform market research, find different keywords, explore new platforms, and continue putting yourself out there.

Every sale matters. And every sale must be earned through hard work. And, finally, every sale is a step in the right direction that should not be discounted.

Long-haul thinking gets you to the finish line.

Continuing from the above, I’ve seen many posts by authors who complain that they barely made any sales their first month and now they’re devastated.

Here’s the thing: I made barely any sales my first month, too. And my second month. And my third.

It’s not hard to understand why. I didn’t know what I was doing – in marketing, at least. After producing two million words of fiction, I know what I’m doing writing-wise.

Plus, I didn’t have anything else for readers to jump to after they were finished with the first book. I hadn’t built a social media presence. I had nothing but this one single book to give people.

When readers like a book, they want more right away. Instant gratification is essential in today’s market. Readers demand a seamless experience where they can simply drift from one book to the next without exiting their Kindle app. If they really like your books, they might devote an entire day to reading everything you have available. They can’t do that if you only have one single book.

And the more you have available, the stickier you become in their minds. They’re more likely to follow you on Amazon and other platforms so they know exactly when you will publish next. They start to feel like they know you – especially if you have a media presence outside of your books. This is golden and will push you higher in the rankings.

But I already knew I had more books to sell because I’d already written most of them before I even published 9 Years Yearning. I had solid first drafts of Pride Before a Fall, Funeral of Hopes, What Is Cannot Be Unwritten, and two of the later books before I ever hit that button.

As such, I wasn’t concerned about the lack of sales; I knew I could make it up later. Even if I didn’t know everything about marketing (and still don’t), I understood that people tend to want to read everything in one sitting and are hesitant about reading the first of a series until more is available.

Can I guarantee you 1,000 sales if you follow these steps? Of course not. I can’t promise you anything, and I wouldn’t. I have no idea what your writing is like.

But I can promise you’ll have more of a fighting chance if you consider this advice. Mindset is everything, whether in writing or elsewhere. Fix your thinking, and you can reap wonderful rewards.