Spring 2025: The Way of the Wielder Turns One!

My, my. It seems I skipped over the winter edition of this newsletter, and am now onto the spring edition! Honestly, that’s fine by me. Anyway, let’s get caught up on a few things, before diving into the focus of this newsletter.

General Updates

On my blog earlier this week, I offered a few updates on my ongoing projects, as well as something new, inspired by a recent trip to Ireland. You can read more about all of that on my website, but at a high level:

• Convergence of Connection (The Way of the Wielder, book three) is on track for publishing in July.

• The Way of the Wielder, book four is my current work in progress (WIP), and is about 15% complete.

• Mission Aboard the Longfin is the middle grade (ages 9-12) story I wrote for my nephew. (If you haven’t heard about this project, check out my blog post from February 1. Note the name has changed, which I mention in March 10th’s blog post.) It’s also on track for publishing in July.

Now, onto the main event…

The Way of the Wielder Turns One! 🎂

It’s hard to believe that a year has passed since I published The Way of the Wielder. In some ways, it feels like just yesterday; in other ways, it feels like a lifetime ago. There’s been joy and heartache, peace and anxiety, confidence in myself and bouts of imposter syndrome. But through it all, I’ve been proud of my story, and I’m proud of it’s performance in its first year in our world.

Sales

There are multiple sources online that discuss the number of sales a self-published author can expect for their debut novel. As you can imagine, it varies wildly. Genre, the author’s social media presence, how much is spent on marketing, the quality of the story, even the cover all have an impact on how well a book sells.

What I’ve seen most frequently is, a self-published book can reasonably expect 100-250 sales in its first year, and 250-500 in its lifetime. Again, this varies, but the numbers are easy to remember, and make it easy to compare with my own experiences.

In its first year, The Way of the Wielder has had 231 sales. I joked with my husband that it would be nice to hit 250, but I’m pleased with 231! It’s the first book in a series, so I expect the numbers to increase as each book releases. If you haven’t bought your copy yet, what are you waiting for? 😇

Here are some stats on sales:

• 165 are ebook sales, while 66 are print sales.

• According to Amazon, it has sold in seven countries, although I know it’s at least eight: USA, UK, Germany, Australia, Canada, Japan, Brazil, and Spain.

• Its best performing month was last March (when it was released), followed by September (when it was recommended on another author’s blog) and November (the month Mysteries of the Material was published).

Pages Read

Another aspect to consider is pages read. This is a number specific to being exclusive with Amazon. I wrote a whole blog post about this a few weeks ago, but I’ll briefly explain here.

When authors sell ebooks, they can choose to either sell wide (utilizing platforms like Amazon, Kobo, Smashwords, etc.), or be exclusive to Amazon. As you can infer, being exclusive to Amazon means the book is only available there. There are benefits and drawbacks to exclusivity, but one of the biggest benefits is Kindle Unlimited (KU).

KU is a subscription-style service through Amazon, where readers pay a monthly fee to access over four million ebooks. Many readers enjoy KU because they can read as many books as they want without having to pay more than their $11.99 monthly fee. In turn, authors get royalties based on the number of pages read, which can add up quickly.

But not all books are created equal on KU. Genre plays a big role in success, with romance, mystery/crime, and fantasy titles being the most successful.

Given that The Way of the Wielder is romantic fantasy, I enrolled it in KU back in May. Since then, it has had almost 140,000 pages read. If you do the quick math (based on that book being 824 pages in KU), that’s almost 170 equivalent books read. That’s a lot of reading!

Here are some stats on KU pages read:

• September had a big spike, with over 23,000 pages read.

• It dipped during the holidays, while sales increased.

• January and February of this year were my biggest months yet, with just shy of 25,000 pages read each month.

Reviews

Sales and pages read are great ways to determine the performance of a novel, but those aren’t the only indicators. Because if there’s one thing authors like more than sales, it’s reviews.

To date, The Way of the Wielder has an overall 4.4 star rating on Amazon and Goodreads. The former has 46 ratings and 22 reviews, while the latter has 43 ratings and 15 reviews. Most reviews have been positive, for which I am eternally grateful. I read all of them (because there are so few right now); many have made me smile, and some have truly warmed my heart.

Reviews help self-published indie authors so much, but they’re not for authors. The more ratings and reviews a book has, the more likely it is someone will take an interest in it—and Amazon is more likely to recommend it to other readers who like similar books. So, if you’ve read The Way of the Wielder and haven’t left a rating and/or review, please consider doing so.

Looking Forward

The first year as a published author has been quite a journey. I’ve felt all of the emotions (good and bad), learned so many things, and have grown so much as both a person and a writer. All of you have been a major part of that, so thank you for your encouragement and support.

I’m looking forward to what the next year brings. Not just for The Way of the Wielder, but the series as whole. Mysteries of the Material is performing well (a little light on reviews, though… hint, hint), Convergence of Connection is releasing in less than four months, and I’m 15% through drafting book four (which, if all goes well, will be published next March).

It’s bittersweet knowing that book four is the last in this series, but as I’ve told some readers, it will have a happy ending. So stick around—I promise you, the best is yet to come.

Stay tuned to my website for updates on my projects, upcoming releases, and other insights into my creative process. Good things are on the way, and you won’t want to miss any of it.

Until next time, be well, and stay creative.

~Sarah