Self-Publishing Success Stories: Saffina Desforges

Excerpt from their blog: http://saffinadesforgesblog.com/2011/12/21/official-annoucement-publishing-deal-for-sugar-spice-by-saffina-desforges/

So the latest agent seemed the answer to our dreams. At the time we would probably have signed anything she sent to us without even looking at it.  But the agent was slow. Very slow.  She loved the synopsis and openings and asked for the full script for her in-house reader. The in-house reader loved it. A glowing report came back. The agent asked for a further read.

Weeks became months. March became May. We became a lot more worldly-wise. When the final decision came, we realized just how crazy the old system was. The agent wanted us to take the ebook down so she could start touting to publishers. Three months earlier we would have done so. We were selling nothing. But this was three months later.

The week we sent our first rejection letter to an agent was the week Sugar & Spice broke the 50,000 sales barrier in the tiny UK market, and was the second biggest selling ebook in the country, competing – and beating – names we used to idolize.

Sugar & Spice went on to break the 100,000 sales barrier in late summer, and despite an Amazon glitch with the buying links that saw the book literally disappear from Amazon for almost a month, the book continues to sell well today, a year on.

Read the whole blog post here: http://saffinadesforgesblog.com/2011/12/21/official-annoucement-publishing-deal-for-sugar-spice-by-saffina-desforges/
It's very informative.

Commentary:  What's interesting about this success story is that they were struggling to sell at first (0 sales in the first month and only made "double figure" in their third month).  If the traditional publishers were interested before the book took off, Saffina Desforges would have signed.  They came calling when the book was a qualified success, when such a deal no longer made sense to the author.


Highlighting some of the author's books:






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