Invasion Reaches #1 on Amazon Canada

I’ve had Amazon bestsellers before, but this one feels different.

Invasion has reached #1 in Canadian Dramas on Amazon Canada, with its prequel, Ashes of Betrayal, just behind it at #2. I’m delighted, obviously. But I think this one feels particularly satisfying because it’s the first time I’ve had to build an audience almost entirely from scratch.

My previous books, published under a different name, were nonfiction. When I launched them, I already had readers, clients, subscribers, and people who knew my work. There was an audience waiting. With Invasion, none of that applied. I couldn’t even ask my existing business contacts to buy it without risking teaching Amazon that the natural audience for the book was business owners rather than thriller readers.

This was my first novel. Robert C. Hill was effectively a new author, and Canada at War was a new series with no existing readership. Every sale has meant finding somebody who likes military or geopolitical thrillers, persuading them to take a chance on an unfamiliar author, and then hoping the book was good enough that they would recommend it to somebody else.

The Amazon landscape has changed too. The old strategy of concentrating everything into a huge launch-day spike doesn’t work the way it once did, which has ironically been helpful for me as a “new” author. Rankings increasingly reward books that keep selling, so this result has come from a much steadier process of reviews, recommendations, advertising, press coverage, and word of mouth.

And then, of course, there’s the political climate. When I started developing Canada at War, the idea of a future conflict between Canada and the United States was deliberately provocative. It was supposed to feel uncomfortable but conceivable.

Current events have made parts of that premise feel rather less remote than I expected when I began writing it. That has undoubtedly helped people notice the book, but noticing a book and buying it are two different things, and buying it and recommending it are different again. So, seeing Invasion reach #1 while Ashes of Betrayal sits immediately below it suggests that readers aren’t simply responding to the premise. They’re continuing into the series. That is the bit I’m happiest about.

Thank you to everyone who has bought either book, left a review, recommended it, shared a post, or simply mentioned it to someone who might enjoy it.

For a new fiction author, every one of those things is critical.

(If you don't have Invasion yet, you can get it at robertchillbooks.com/getinvasion)