Monday, August 19, 2013

Amazon’s Best Seller List


I’m a list girl. I like lists. I make lists. And now, I like BEING ON lists! I have always made lists because I often forget the things I need to do and therefore need to refer to the lists often. When I joined Goodreads.com, I discovered LISTS on there on topics from “favorite Holiday story” to “Best M/M tearjerker”, etc… So I voted on some of them. And then people voted for MY BOOKS on some of them. (I love that.) And then I discovered rating lists when My Roommate's a Jock? Well, Crap! (Jock) became popular enough to hit the Best Seller lists on Amazon and ARe. That was just cool! But it also becomes addicting as an author to “re check” the lists to see where my book was.

Friday, August 16, 2013, marked the day that the long awaited, much anticipated SEQUEL to When Love Is Not Enough (Unconditional Love, #1)  (WLINE) came out. The Cost of Loving (TCOL) took forever to get published. I am ever grateful for Elizabeth North who took a chance on me. :) She is awesome. WLINE was not a huge seller at first. Not really. Suicide, and more specifically GAY suicide, is not the topic someone thinks about when looking on Amazon for their next ROMANCE book purchase. BUT I am not the normal writer and I was very down and depressed when I wrote it. It meant something TO ME and therefore I was not looking to write popular just to sell a book. Lucky for me, Ms. North must have seen potential.

THEN Jock came around and I discovered the Best Seller List. I think it was #1 on Amazon for best gay romance for 12 days. What an awesome 12 days! That is only possible because of my wonderful readers!!! THANK YOU. You saw it, liked it, rated it, and recommended it. Jock got my name out there! Jock made me consider being honest about who I am and why I write on a different level. Jock’s popularity helped me “come out” so to say. I never desired to hide who I was from my fans, as much as hide from people I knew in real life. But hiding who you are is a painful thing and I saw the need to BE MYSELF, and like who I am. So I started telling people.

NOW, I am “OUT” to the Internet world, to my friends and family (for the most part) and little by little to the community I was once afraid of. I am embracing being ME. Not to mention embracing being WADE.

I stuck it out and TCOL finally got published. It is another personal story like WLINE. More of why I felt I needed to keep trying to get it into the hands of the fans. I am discovering that readers like to KNOW the authors. My writing comes from within me. I feel these feelings. The characters take on aspects of MY personality and some of their circumstances actually happened to me.

TCOL came out Friday. That was three days ago. Because of my wonderful fans who have not given up on me, and even ones who say “Write anything you want and I will buy it,”  The Cost of Loving is climbing the charts at an alarming rate. (At least in my unbelieving mind.) You fans are amazing. You really are truly gracious and forgiving. I know my writing takes forever and that has to be frustrating. I also whine a lot and that can’t be fun to hear all the time. I also bitch and complain. Yet still, here you are! My fans are there buying my book like crazy. So THANK YOU. Thank you deeply.

I am often checking the Amazon page to see where it lands next. Amazon changes hourly. It was #15 on the Best Seller List for Gay Romance on Sunday at one point, then it dropped. Today it is ranked #17. I am thrilled to pieces. And because people are noticing that one, When Love Is Not Enough is appearing on the charts again too! YAY!!!!!! #70 was not so shabby when WLINE sold 1/6th of the amount that Jock did. Then it rose to #44 before I went to bed. Now it sits at # 55. I think that is awesome!!!

As far as Dreamspinner’s Best Seller List goes, it hit #19 Sunday but has slid back to #22. I’m okay with that. I didn’t expect it to appear at all this quickly. People have to BUY it from Dreamspinner to get it on that list and most people buy off of Amazon anyway.

So thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

I will continue to write. I am trying to be more consistent so I can get something submitted by October. (Names Can Never Hurt ME.) After that, I think I will try and write the rest of book 3 of the Unconditional Love series. If I can just write consistently, the books will get written. Right? Right!

I also have some reading promised to people so I need to squeeze that in there.

I think Friday I will draw a winner for the blog challenge of leaving comments. Back a couple weeks when I listed a 25 question contest that epically failed I decided that I need to make things easier and also start them BEFORE books are up for pre-order. So the winner of the “comment” contest will win a copy of the next book I publish. Leave a comment here, or in the past like 3-4 blogs. I’ll do a random drawing.

Ciao for now,

Wade



By all means, follow me on Twitter, "follow" my BLOG, "like" me on Facebookadd me to your "circles" on Google+, check out my pins on Pinterest, review my books on Goodreads and Amazon, become a “FAN” on Goodreads.com; and check out my webpage often for changes. And spread the name of Wade Kelly like wildfire. *winks*

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