So it’s been almost two years since I released anything in The Steam and Steel Chronicles, but the third novella is now live on Amazon! The Quest for the Demon Disconcerter is only $2.99! Here’s the blurb:

The American West has been a new frontier for Captain Stig Rayner and Miss Isabelle Feeney Hemsworth and their joint business venture. And the fact that they can work together and yet still avoid one another is a nice bonus.

But unexpected news drives a wedge between them that just might push them apart for good. The return of am estranged family member only adds to the tension.

An attack on Isabelle’s life and livelihood may not be enough to bring them back together, though counsel from a wise elder just might be. In the end, the chance they’ve always wanted might finally come, but is the price too high?

The Quest for the Demon Disconcerter follows Stig and Isabelle through what could be the most tumultuous time in their years-long journey to find peace together.

Check it out and leave a review if you want!

It should be live on Barnes & Noble in another day or two. It will be available on Smashwords soon (I still have to do the formatting for that one).

Wow, it’s hard to believe that I’ve been self-publishing for ten months now! I hit a big milestone this month: I sold my 1,000th ebook! This is a huge deal to me, since most self-published books never sell more than a couple hundred copies. I’ve also had my best sales month to date.

As far as marketing this month, I’ve been plugging a little bit on Google+ and Twitter, which I know has generated a few sales. And I had a couple of new reviews on Amazon (if you’ve read either of the books and feel like leaving a review, I really do appreciate them!), some of which were really favorable. One of my favorite quotes from a review of The Great Healion Race:

This is not Edward and Bella, living in perfection for all eternity. These are two adults with overwhelming baggage as the ballast for their journey. I especially appreciated how Ms. Chapman allowed her protaganists to be messy, angry and human.

Seriously, that’s one of the nicest things anyone has ever said about my books. Because that’s exactly what I was going for: complicated people who have messy, screwed-up lives, and find a way to love each other anyway.

Below are my sales numbers for this month. I saw a drop in sales for the second book, but a big jump in the first book. Hopefully that will translate to more sales for the second book in the next couple of months. (more…)

There’s less than 10 hours left in November (in the EST time zone anyway), and I’m having my best sales month yet for The Steam and Steel Chronicles. I would really LOVE to break 200 sales this month, but I’m still a ways away from that. Not so far that I don’t think it’s possible, though.

But I need your help! If you haven’t bought the books yet, now’s your chance. They’re only 99¢, available for a variety of ebook reader platforms (including Kindle and Nook), and are sure to entertain you (I hope).

Here are the links to buy them:

Aboard the Unstoppable Aerostat Fenris:

Barnes & Noble | Kindle/Amazon US | Kindle/Amazon UK | Smashwords | Goodreads

The Great Healion Race:

Barnes & Noble | Kindle/Amazon US | Kindle/Amazon UK | Smashwords | Goodreads

If you’ve already purchased them, then please pass along the links to someone you think might enjoy them. Post a link on your Facebook page or on Twitter. Send out an email. Or even buy them as Christmas gifts for family members.

What am I offering in return, you might ask? My unending gratitude. And it will give me more motivation to get the third and fourth books finished (the first draft of the third book is already done, and I’m about 75% of the way through the fourth book). Nothing extraordinary. (Though I am planning some pretty awesome stuff for the release of books three and four…)

See? I’m not at all above begging for sales! I just think it would be really awesome to end this month on an even higher note than it’s already at, since winning NaNoWriMo and having great sales anyway.

NaNoWriMo 2011 starts in less than 13 hours now. I’m fairly prepared. I know my characters inside and out, because they’re Stig and Isabell from Aboard the Unstoppable Aerostat Fenris and The Great Healion Race. I have no idea yet what the next two books will be called. I do know they’ll likely be the last two books in the series (though I have an idea for a short story that I may publish for free or add to one of the other books as a bonus). I was originally planning on six books, but I feel like that might end up dragging the series out for too long, and upon looking over my original outline, I can cut and combine two of the books without taking anything of substance away from the overall story.

And, to be quite honest, I’m ready to move on to other things. I love The Steam and Steel Chronicles, I love the characters, but I also have a lot of other projects that I love and want to work on.

So, I’ll leave a few tidbits about what will be happening in the next two books:

1. A certain device from ATUAF will be making another appearance.
2. A certain character or two from TGHR will be reappearing in a fairly major role in Book 3.
3. Things will most definitely be resolved between Stig and Isabell.

I’ll also offer you this photo of how I always pictured Stig (sorry if you’ve always pictured him differently). If there’s ever a film version of the books (which I honestly hope there will be, and will consider producing myself at some point in the future), I’ll be lobbying hard for Grant Bowler.

Now, as for NaNoWriMo itself, I may stay up until midnight tonight to try to knock out a thousand words or so before bed. If you’re new to NaNo, you might want to check out My Guide to Surviving NaNoWriMo (which was also republished on Publetariat).

I’m going to aim for 2,000 words a day so that I can take days off around Thanksgiving if I need to. And for those days when I’m just not feeling it and only manage a few hundred words. It’s always a challenge to manage a full-time writing/editing/copywriting job, plus a college-level class, plus writing at that rate, but I’ve done it before and I’m 99% sure I can do it again (you just might see me a lot less on Twitter/Google+/Facebook until December).

Also, if you want to “Buddy” me on the NaNoWriMo site, feel free to do so here.

So this is a few days late because I’ve been dealing with some family stuff for the past 10 days or so (father in law ended up in the hospital and had to have emergency surgery last week, but he’s coming home today). I’ve also decided that I’m only going to do these posts through the 12-month mark, though I may do occasional sales updates after that. This is partially because I see next year being very, very busy for me, and also because I’m trying to be less obsessed with my sales numbers. (more…)

So, here we are at the end of month seven! Not much in the way of promotion this month, other than discounting the second novella in The Steam and Steel Chronicles to $.99 through Labor Day. I’m honestly considering leaving it at that price, though I haven’t made up my mind for sure yet. (more…)

Wow, so I’ve been selling my novellas online for six calendar months now! Holy cow!

Sales went up in July, but only just barely. This tells me that I need to get my butt in gear and finish up book 3 and get it out there. Also, I’m starting on it today, as part of Camp NaNoWriMo!

So, without further ado, here are the numbers for this month: (more…)

This summer is turning out to be really busy for me! Way busier than I’d expected. In fact, I was planning on taking a week off this summer and taking a real vacation, but at this point it’s probably not going to happen until late fall. I wanted to give some updates, though, both on my fiction writing, my other writing, and my other projects. I’ve got a lot going on, but that’s how I like it, honestly. So, without further ado, here it is: (more…)

Wow, hard to believe it’s already June! The spring has just flown by for me, partly because I’ve been so busy working on The Smashing Idea Book. That’s just about wrapped up now (still some permissions to be worked out and proofs, of course), and I’m looking forward to new projects. Book 3 of The Steam and Steel Chronicles has unfortunately been on the back burner for awhile now, though hopefully I won’t be too terribly late getting that out. I know I promised late June/early July, but at this point I think late summer is more realistic. I’d rather not rush it and turn out a book that people love, rather than try to hurry to meet my self-imposed deadline and put out a book readers don’t enjoy.

Anyway, on to the sales figures for May! (more…)

It’s been just about three months since I first published Aboard the Unstoppable Aerostat Fenris, and a little over a month since The Great Healion Race was released (both are novellas in The Steam and Steel Chronicles, which has six novellas planned in total). And this is the first month that I’ve exceeded my (admittedly low) sales goals.

I had a minor freakout earlier in the month when it looked like someone on Goodreads had given The Great Healion Race a 1-star rating, but then found out that was actually a glitch in their system which has since been fixed. So the lowest rating for either book has remained as 3 stars (out of 5). I’m okay with that, and I’m happy that a few people have given it 5-star ratings. My average is holding steadily at around 4 stars on each book.

As far as marketing this month, I’ve done next to nothing. A few tweets, a few updates on the Facebook page, and that’s about it. I gave away five copies of ATUAF through Smashwords on my birthday. I sent out no review requests, I had no new reviews, and I was generally slacking the whole month. So the fact that my sales increased despite all that makes me really happy, and gives me hope that when I can start actively promoting again I’ll see a bigger jump in sales.

I reached a high of around 75 on the Historical Fantasy list on the Kindle US site (with ATUAF), which was pretty cool. I’m also showing up around the 3rd page of results if you search for “steampunk” in the Kindle Store (again with ATUAF). So my rankings are steadily increasing on Amazon. Sales on Barnes & Noble went up a little bit, and Smashwords stayed exactly the same as last month.

So, here are the numbers for this month:

Aboard the Unstoppable Aerostat Fenris

• Amazon US: 32
• Amazon UK: 5
• Barnes & Noble: 9
• Smashwords: 3
• TOTAL: 49

The Great Healion Race

• Amazon US: 15
• Amazon UK: 1
• Barnes & Noble: 3
• Smashwords: 0
• TOTAL: 19

So that means 68 books sold during the month, which is higher than my goal of 60. I had a couple of days where nothing sold, and a couple of days were I sold upwards of 7-8 books. My goal from this point on is to double my sales each month. The third book should be out by the first week in July, so hopefully I’ll see another big jump then.