I am sick of looking at my sales

Well, I think I finally did it.  They said it would happen.  I didn't think it was true.  But apparently it is!  I am officially sick of looking at my sales.  Checking sales has cured me of checking sales.

Oh I'm definitely not sick of writing.  Far from it.  I'm just sick of looking at my sales.  The emotional roller coaster of constantly checking and then being either crushed or elated.  More often than not it's that crushed feeling.

It's very liberating, actually.  I feel like I achieved an enlightened state or something.  I'm much more relaxed.  I find I enjoy writing, blogging and  forum discussions more now that I lost that edge of feeling like I need to be getting my next story out or all my books will fall off the face of the earth.

But the biggest thing in my post-sales-checking-enlightenment is the ability to see the bigger picture.  Sales checking is an evil every independent author must face.  The hourly obsession with looking at numbers keeps you grounded in the "now."  Why didn't I sell a book now?

The reality is that you should be looking at your month, not what you sold that hour.  And if you're a somewhat new writer like me you should ideally be looking at your year.  Where are you now compared to last year?  Is there a change?  If yes, then you're making progress.  Change is good.

Comments

  1. Susan Helene GottfriedJuly 24, 2011 at 7:14 AM

    I've quit looking at my sales all the time, also. Better to fret over what I *can* control, which is what I write and how I get word of it out there. Which reminds me... there's a review below this post that I'm interested in...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Alain GomezJuly 24, 2011 at 2:39 PM

    Exactly! The frustrating sense of helplessness is self-defeating at best.

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousJuly 25, 2011 at 3:22 PM

    I'm down to only checking first thing in the morning when doing my regular email/forums/etc run and ignore it the rest of the day now.

    I don't sell much for my base state is no sales is normal and if I do sell something, then that is a bonus.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Peter SalisburyJuly 26, 2011 at 2:30 AM

    I've been checking 'fairly often' for more than a year now. The actual reports of my sales are so curiously random, I confess to finding it endlessly fascinating! There was also the month Amazon 'forgot' to report my UK sales, said there weren't any but when pressed then said "Oh, yes, we did forget, sorry.".

    In all that time I have yet to discern more than the following in terms of any sort of pattern: if someone buys a book it is usually sometime after lunch; if someone downloads a freebie it could be at any time of day or night.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Alain GomezJuly 27, 2011 at 1:00 AM

    I do find myself taking mental note of patterns. I tend to sell my stories during the lunch hour or after work. Since I'm on PT, it ends up being between 9 and 12 or between 3 and 7.

    ReplyDelete

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