Reddit reviews Spirits Rising (Spirit Caller Series Book 1)

Ok let's talk Spirit Caller. Why didn't this series sell?

Spirits Rising came out in Jan 2012. It's a 23,000 word novella. This was before Select, Prime lending, and KU. There was no market for novellas in fantasy.

The series isn't a romance, so I didn't want to promote it as one. I have a distinct style for them, inspired by the Fever series cover (the old ones).

Spirits Rising didn't make back my money. I wrote Dark Whispers. It didn't make back my money. I was in the hole by a grand at that stage. If I had my time back, I would have gotten 1 cover, different colours, numbers and the titles on it, as opposed to individuals covers at $200 USD a pop. I love those covers, but...I love eating, too.

Kobo opened up to direct selfpublishing and I went with them, as opposed to using Smashwords. The series did significantly better on Kobo and the series finally broke even. I made Spirits Rising free, in hopes of bringing readers to the series. That failed on Amazon. Wow. Just...wow. It didn't fail on Kobo. I made enough money to pay for Knight Shift.

By this stage, I'm putting one out a year. I realized this was bad business for a novella serial, but it wasn't making any money. Grief started making me a bunch of money; I needed to finish Fury to capitalize on that! First Wrong Impressions was winding down at this stage, but it was still making me $100-200ish a month.

I wrote Mystery Night knowing it would take a year to break even. Then I put it aside, because I had to get everything else done.

I decided to wrap up the series at 6 books like I'd planned. I decided to combine what was going to be a surprise novella into Book 6, and move Book 6 into Book 5 (Dead Living). Dead Living is what I'm working on now.

I decided to repackage the entire series as paranormal romance because, and let's be super fucking open here, people weren't buying the series as urban fantasy. I had resisted the romance label for a long time because I was afraid it would end up labeling me or pigeon holing me, and reduce my readership potential further. But somewhere along the way, I just said fuck this fucking shit, I have a Jeep to pay for.

So the slow rebrand as HEA-ending, PNR reader safe began. I was asked to open the box set for Spells and Spirits, with Charles de Lint. Then Janny Wurts posted here for everyone to go read it. Then, de Lint reviewed the first 3 books in Fantasy and Science Fiction magazine. Then all of a sudden, people were freaking picking up the series in all different ways possible.

And I'm so confused. I'd given up completely on the series. I was writing it for the love by the end, and as a "thanks" to the few readers the series had who were crazy loyal, even though I could only put one out a year (because they were such losses).

I open my sales report and I'm just staring at it. I can tell which readers came from the box set (because they pick up #3 in the series). But what about all of these Books 1-3 bundle sales? Where are they coming from? What about all of the Book 2 sales? (so clearly they are reading Book 1 for free). How did this happen?

I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that I'd said good bye to this series ever earning me money. I'd made peace with it. I'd decided I was going to keep my promise to my readers and give me 6 books. And now...I got nothing.

Book selling is basically magic. It makes no fucking sense sometimes.

> (Or your books, I'm game for that)

The first books of two or her series are free on Kindle. And I've heard nothing but good things about her newest series (I'll get to reading it eventually). Good variety, too.