The journey of the publication of The Valley of Candles

When I first wrote The Valley Of Candles, I never thought I would honestly finish it. It was ten years of holding onto "my baby" and not wanting to let go. Finally it began to grow on me to self-publish as I began to see the boom in ereaders and the ebook technology. More then anything I wanted to share my story with others. I wanted to entertain as I have been entertained by countless hours of reading.
I came to the conclusion that it was time to publish this past summer but was clueless on how to go about taking on such an project. Once I published on Barnes and Noble and Amazon I announced it on my Facebook page and was able to sell a total of five copies. This was in November. And then all I heard was crickets. Nothing, no sales, no feedback, nada.
I gave up at that point and just set the novel aside saying to myself at least I tried. We had a baby coming at the end of the year and I had a new job so my plate was filling up fast. But in my mind I wanted my book to get out there more, to get into the readers hands, to really give the book a shot.
Well the baby came, job was fine and then I decided to give the book another try. I hadn't done any marketing on it besides post to Facebook. I went to Amazon earlier this month and dropped the price to free for a five day promotion and woo-hoo! I woke up the next day and saw 17 people had downloaded The Valley of Candles.
I was so ecstatic it was beyond comprehension for me. I don't think I will ever be able to truly describe that first rush of awe and excitement. I decides then to take to Twitter to market my novel.
That was an amazing experience as more and more fellow authors, people I didn't even know started to help by retweeting my tweets. It was the beginning of building a marketing department for my novel, that suddenly saw over 100 downloads. It was then that I knew I had not given by book a chance to be successful before.
I wrote the novel by taking time and focusing on it, I have to do the same with marketing it. If I want it to be successful. Since the posting of The Valley of Candles on Amazon there has been over 250 downloads and it has received 3 five-star reviews.
I look forward to the future of writing, more then I ever have before. If there is one thing I have learned from this experience is the same lesson as in my novel. If you have no faith in what you are doing or believe in the slightest wind of doubt can blow out your candle as if your in a valley, but if your faith is strong your candle will stay lit and shine bright for all to see. Keep the faith in yourselves and what you believe in cause you are doing it for a reason. Even if that reason isn't quite clear yet, it will be. Funny how that works.
I just wanted to add a quick thank you to all my fellow writers on twitter. Thank you for helping me market and reach an audience and I look forward to helping you a well in any way I can.