The Launch Week Rollercoaster: From Crickets to Nascent Fandom Vibes (Or, My First Taste of the Snowball Effect)

This Week's Field Notes: A Launch Week in Numbers

This past week marked a significant milestone: the official launch of Book 2! I’ve been diligently documenting the ups, downs, and data points of what felt like a truly pivotal week. I learned a ton of how the process works behind the scenes. It was a fascinating dive into the real-time mechanics of a book launch, a strategic blend of scheduled promotions and reactive adjustments. Basically, me trying to herd digital cats in the hope they’d lead to readers.

Here's a snapshot of how the week unfolded:

• Monday: The Book 1 $0.99 countdown deal kicked off on Amazon. I ran a small BookBub ad, alongside an Instagram ad promoting the Book 1 discount. By 9 PM PST, Book 2 started going live, with 9 pre-orders already in hand.
• Tuesday: Official launch day for Book 2. A Facebook ad for Book 1 was active, and a newsletter (to my 4 subscribers) went out announcing both the Book 2 release and the Book 1 sale. Several Instagram posts promoted Book 2 (one of which was amplified with an ad). A second BookBub ad run proved fruitful, showing decent clicks. Initial sales for Monday/Tuesday were encouragingly higher than the previous week. Okay, things are stirring. Not quite a stampede, but a definite rustle.
• Wednesday: The eReader IQ promo for Book 1 went live, leading to a definite uptick in Kindle Edition Normalized Pages (KENP) reads and sales. This day also marked the beginning of hitting new highest rank records for each book on Amazon, a trend that continued through Saturday. My Amazon ranking started looking less like a random lottery ticket number and more like an actual progression. A small victory dance was performed.
• Thursday: Two major promos for Book 1, Bargain Booksy and ENT, went out on the same day due to scheduling quirks (I have learned lessons like booking these sooner). By the end of Thursday, the daily numbers were striking: 41 orders, 3,245 KENP, and $44.31 in royalties. Crucially, this day also brought the first 20 followers on Amazon, truly igniting those nascent fandom feelings. Twenty whole followers! I resisted the urge to send them all a personal thank you note and a virtual high-five. Just kidding, the only reason I don't is because Amazon doesn't tell me who they are.
• Friday: A quieter day on the marketing front, focused on pruning ads and consistent Instagram posting. Orders and page reads, however, continued to roll in.
• Saturday: The week rounded out with a Robin Reads Romance promo for Book 1 and a celebratory Instagram/Facebook post acknowledging the close of launch week. Time to collapse.

The final tally for the launch week was genuinely exciting:

• 144 units of Book 1 sold during the countdown deal.
• 9 pre-orders for Book 3 were secured.
• A total of 163 books sold across all titles.
• 26,732 KENP over Books 1 and 2 for the week (with reads still accumulating).
• A total of $265 in royalties for the week.

It’s also worth noting that page reads from Kindle Unlimited will continue to generate income in the coming weeks as readers delve into the books, and read-through from Book 1 to Book 2 will contribute further. Book 1's highest Amazon rank hit 6,646.

Reflections: The Emotional Arc of a Book Launch (Otherwise Known as My Weekly Existential Crisis)

This week wasn't just about numbers. It was an intense emotional rollercoaster. At the start of the week, when things felt slow, a familiar wave of doubt would creep in. It's nerve-wracking to invest in promotions without a guaranteed return, and those initial low numbers can feel deflating, like shouting into a void. I found myself battling that internal imposter syndrome, wondering if anything was truly moving.

But then, as Wednesday turned to Thursday and the numbers started climbing, a surge of excitement took over. Breaking my own daily records for orders and royalties was incredibly validating. That feeling, the relief and exhilaration when the investment began to pay off, is something I need to actively remember for future launches. It’s a powerful reminder that the early quiet doesn’t dictate the final outcome (this applies to layers here including this entire project overall). Note to self: Print out this paragraph and tape it to my monitor for the next launch.

Ethnographic Analysis: Measuring the Murmur of a Nascent Fandom (Is This Thing On?)

The most intriguing aspect of this week, from an ethnographic perspective, was the feeling of "nascent fandom" beginning to stir. What exactly does that feel like? It's the shift from simply "selling books" to "seeing actual people engaging." When those first 20 Amazon followers appeared, and when I saw people leaving lovely reviews and tagging me on Instagram, it wasn't just data points—it was evidence of burgeoning connection. It felt less like I was screaming into the internet void at 2 AM and more like, "oh, there are actual humans reading this!"

This "vision" that's starting to crystallize is about more than just sales figures. It’s about building a sustainable, engaged community. It’s about recognizing that the growing newsletter subscriber list and Amazon followers aren't just one-time customers, but individuals who are choosing to opt-in, to pay attention for the next release, and the one after that. This is where the "snowball effect" truly comes into play—not just in terms of units sold, but in terms of people who are interested and becoming part of something. Suddenly, the void felt a little less void-y.

In an academic sense, I am looking for visible signs of community: shared spaces, collective practices, and mutual recognition among fans. In these very early stages, the external validation of a full-blown fandom isn't quite there yet. The "fandom" in its mature sense doesn't truly exist. However, these initial numbers—the Amazon ranking improvements, the sales upticks, and especially the nascent reviews and social media tags—are crucial ethnographic data points. They are my early indicators, my probes into the digital ether, showing:

1. People are actually reading the books. This seems basic, but it's the fundamental step from a product existing to a narrative being consumed. We cheer.
2. People are coming back, are interested, are going to be there as a community eventually. This is the core of fandom building. The "vision" is that these individual engagements will slowly, organically coalesce into a recognized, active community over time.

This launch week has provided valuable, if preliminary, data for measuring the overall growth of this potential fandom. It’s a reminder that even in the quiet moments, the seeds are being planted, and the earliest murmurs of a community are beginning to emerge. The ethnographic journey continues, ever curious about what these small, measurable engagements will blossom into. Stay tuned, fellow nerds. The plot, like my nascent fandom, is thickening.