Reflections on My First Self-Published Book

On December 3, 2023, I entered the world of self-publishing through Amazon with the release of my debut book, The Accidental Poet: Poetry Collection. The purpose of this piece is to celebrate that fact.

Okay, so that means it is the book's one-year and five-month anniversary. I know, I know. That's not a real anniversary, Paul! But who’s to say it isn’t?

Who decided milestones should be things like 6 months, 1, 10, 15, 25, 50, 75 years?

Really, those numbers are arbitrary unless we set them aside as important.

What does it matter? I’ve decided to celebrate that over a year ago, I released my first book.

This would-be lowlife-who-became-a-poet released a book.

It’s worth celebrating.

I’ve spoken about it before—that while it’s not the Holy Grail for a writer (a published book through a publisher)—it’s still an achievement. And I am proud of myself, and proud of anyone else—many of my friends here on Vocal—who have self-published a book.

By the Numbers

I have always shied away from talking numbers whenever I’ve mentioned my book. My thoughts on that changed when I read Stephen A. Roddewig’s incredibly open and insightful look at the progress of the three self-published books he has out at the moment, and the benefits of having more than one for sale at the same time.

As a way of celebrating—and also hopefully inspiring and showing what is possible—I have taken some screenshots of my Reports page from KDP. This is not really a boast, just more a “look, this is possible.”

The following screenshots show the Lifetime sales, and the Lifetime breakdown of those sales between Print and eBook copies of the book, as well as 2025’s sales so far and their breakdown between Print and eBook. I find it interesting—and maybe not that surprising, really—that more printed copies have been bought than digital editions. Reassuring.

It’s also not surprising to note that there was a steady decline from December 2023, where the most were sold in that month (16), to the present day. I would have expected that, and as a lot of my friends on Vocal and family members bought it, it makes sense that it would not continue to enjoy the same level of sales.

29 copies of my book have sold to date. So, it won’t give the bestsellers a run for their money. But I never imagined that it would. Somewhere in my brain I did think, “Wouldn’t it be nice...” but genuinely, the fact that anyone bought it—and that I have had three sales this year—is a win for me.

So, anyone reading this who is one of those 29 people who bought the book—I sincerely thank you.

Oh, to be completely transparent...

Marketing & Effort

It’s also worth noting that, aside from promoting it through Vocal and telling friends and family about it, I did little to no actual marketing. I didn’t really have the budget and didn’t really feel confident. This was always a “once in a lifetime” but also “test the waters” project. So 29 books, with little to no promotion aside from Vocal posts and nudges to relatives, sounds about right.

If anyone is reading this and still does not have my book, I am not going to urge you to buy it right away. I don’t like that hard-sell crap. Though it would be nice to hit 30 copies sold.

What I will say is that if you want a book of poetry—something to read when you have spare moments or need to dip into someone else’s brain for a moment—you might just enjoy The Accidental Poet: Poetry Collection by yours truly.

The Importance of Reviews

I also wanted to take the opportunity to talk about reviews. Reviews are important. As established, I am highly unlikely to be a problem for the big hitters in the publishing world at this point.

That being said, reviews not only tell me that I’ve done a good job with the book (or a bad one—that’s fine), but they can also be the deciding factor between someone browsing the book and actually buying it.

With that in mind, given that there are 12 global ratings and 10 reviews on Amazon—that includes all the marketplaces the book is available in—there is clearly a discrepancy. 29 sales, 12 ratings, 10 reviews.

This is not really shocking. Most self-publishing authors report similar sales-to-reviews ratios for their first book. When you factor in that I did little to nothing to really promote it outside Vocal, it makes even more sense.

I wanted to take this opportunity—because I know sometimes we forget to write reviews for all our purchases—if you are reading this and bought the book but have yet to review it, could you do so, please?

Another reason I know some have cited for not leaving reviews is because they don’t know what to say. You don’t need to write a review worthy of inclusion in The Guardian or The New Yorker.

It can even just be a few sentences saying what you liked, loved, or hated about the book. While highlighting your favourite poems (as you might with characters in a novel) is always nice, it’s not necessary.

Looking Ahead

So, yay for my first book being 1 year and 5 months old, and for it selling 29 copies so far.

It is still available and will be available until Amazon stops it being available. It is available in paperback, eBook, and also through Kindle Unlimited.

Over the next few months, I have some exciting new releases coming—a brand new poetry collection called Streams and Scratches in My Mind, and at least one horror anthology.

As well as the Vocal Deep Cuts collection, featuring poems from you, the lovely writers of Vocal, that I am curating and self-publishing.

So look out.

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Thanks for reading!