Who says February is too late for a yearly reflection? I want to make sure I remember what an exciting year this was for the Rachel brand and track my growth.
Because wow what a year it was.
I'm going to add in here my thoughts on Haunt's release as well, even though that was in December 2022, because I didn't have a website to talk about the release at the time.
Book releases from December 2022 - December 2023:
Wow, that was a lot of novellas, and totals over 100K words between them.
Haunt was my first release under the Rachel name and the hype for it grew immediately. I get the most consistent sales with Haunt and readers often find me from reels about this book.
For the Haunt preorder campaign, I custom-designed a tarot card, which was such a nice experience. I splurged and ordered it with gold foiled edges and my first batch of readers loved them. I plan to create more tarot cards for the books this year. Based on how much the readers liked Haunt's, I commissioned one for the Bite's Kickstarter as well.
Haunt outsold my books from my fantasy pen name, R. K. Sampson, in less than a year, when my first fantasy book was out for over three years. Quick success that ended up being the norm for the Creature Cravings series. I'm excited about how much people love this series and can't wait to add more installments.
My goal for Only was to get 10,000 free downloads in one year and I ended up with 17,372!
To know my full numbers, including paid units and how much I sold from each of my three brands, read this post in my patreon community.
Only is meant to be an introduction to the series, to give new readers an idea of my style and the world before they buy the other three. This was the best move I made of the year, because the series has new readers finding it organically every month, simply because people are searching around the Amazon free categories. It's a strong marketing technique that I hope to include in all of my long series books.
Only hit the top 500 charts on Amazon multiple times, but also hit the top 100 free charts twice, and the #1 spot in three categories multiple times.
Only had been part of multiple promotions in 2023, including Stuff Your Kindle Day. I plan to do even more of these promos this year.
Bite was also in a Kickstarter in August (just finishing fulfillment now in February) and we met our goal in under three hours. At the end of the campaign, the Kickstarter generated almost $2,000 for a limited edition version of the book.
The Kickstarter helped me reach new readers, with a limited edition book that has a bonus scene. I loved creating this project and sourcing stickers, tarot cards, adn crystals for the tiers. I learned a lot from the Kickstarter and can't wait to run another one soon with this knowledge.
I can't finish this reflection post without sharing that Blaze was featured on Bookbub, making its sales quadruple. Now Blaze is my best seller of all three of the paid books, even surpassing Haunt. The plot in Blaze has been harder for me to share in bite-sized pitches, so I'm ecstatic that the Bookbub team saw the potential in the book.
These first four books in the Creature Cravings series are themed as humanoid beings and conclude volume one. I plan on working on volume two this year with at least one release, following less-human beings. Our first book involves werewolves and we'll get more monstrous from there.
I also started rebranding the books to include mentions of the central town they are in, called Lily Hills, to further anchor the books together.
2024 Author Goals
My plans for 2024 will likely change and evolve, as my Patrons know, because they get the inside sneak peek into a lot of my ideas.
But as of now, I have five main goals for the Rachel brand in 2024.
Re-release Only v2, with more content and character development, and apply to share the book on Bookbub and other newsletter promotions. Goal completion: April.
Run my second Kickstarter, for the Creature Cravings Volume 1 set, around May.
Publish an alien romance, this summer. Patrons are getting the chapters as they are written until then.
Publish CC # 5, Oath, in Fall/Winter.
Tripple my author income, through promoting these books and projects, with social media and newsletter advertising.
Let's see how well we do!
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