Then follow me.
2
Abby
Maybe for the fifth time in the hour I refresh my screen.
I don't really know what I'm hoping for.
Somehow maybe the large groups of readers that roam the marketplace will realize that oh hey, Abby Cleveland has just released a book, we need to buy it?
Yeah, that can only happen if the people are made aware that I released a book. And right now, honestly, I'm having trouble believing that I wrote a book—and I'm the author.
I know I should trust my publisher, but I just can't help but second guess myself and wonder if maybe my publisher even cares.
I mean, I know the book is good. And honestly, if it isn't good, I'm okay with reviewers telling me it's crap. I'm not one of those authors who's getting their panties in a twist because they got a 1 star review. Some of my favorite authors are gonna get 1 stars because not everyone is gonna like everything. And that's okay.
But it seems that no one else is being given the opportunity to even give me a 1 star review. Because no one is reading.
And you want to know the worst thing, hun?
This isn't even the first time this is happening. This is probably around the third flop I've got. This entire series has just flopped. Hard.
Like a limp fucking dick.
Sorry. You just met me and I'm more worried about my declining book sales than anything else.
Let me take a moment to introduce myself.
My name is Abby Cleveland and I'm a 23-year-old single woman who lives in New York City. I graduated from NYU about a year ago with an English degree and a boyfriend. I kept the boyfriend but really didn't use the English degree as much. That's because my boyfriend went right to work for Bad Boy Publishing—one of the largest book publishers to come out of the carnage of the publishing world, and he got me a contract with them to be an author.
And for like about the first year, everything went super. I was writing a book a month and people were liking what I was writing.
I write primarily contemporary romance. I focus on bad boys. The badder the better and the more the merrier is what I've always said.
Sure, what I write is sexy. I mean, there isn't a lot of sex in my books. Not as much as some of the people I look up to. And there's no way I'm as good a writer as some of my heroes and role models that got me into the game—like Eddie Cleveland and Alexis Angel. But yeah, I enjoy what I do and the weird part is that I was so young and got a publishing contract.
So yeah, I'm traditionally published, getting advances and making enough money to live in a one-bedroom apartment in New York City.
Except until the last three months.
Where I had flop after flop after flop.
I swear it was like everyone who ever wanted to read my book decided that they were done reading about my bad boys. That they wanted, for some reason, to move on. I honestly
don't understand it and I can't quite place my finger on it.
Every other indie author I've talked to has been telling me that it's not me; it's my publisher. But I can't just leave my publisher because they're the reason I'm even here in the first place.
So instead, I've been hoping for the best.
It doesn't help that last month in an effort to actually get more work done I rented an office here in Midtown. I know it was a bit of an extravagance, but rather than write at home, I wanted to commute form the Upper East Side to Times Square. The hope was that I'd be able to focus.
Well, that was the hope.
In reality, all that's happened is I'm paying for an office in a serviced office setting while my book is bombing.
But there's nothing I can do by looking at the Rainforest.com store ranking right now. I need to find out why nothing is being done to promote my book.