While pulling some data at the end of 2017, Goodreads uncovered a star title: Silent Child, a self-published novel by Sarah A. Denzil. Silent Child claimed the most five-star reviews of any thriller released in 2017.
Denzil is based in the UK. Goodreads did a short interview with her in November, when her novel was nominated for the Goodreads Choice Awards; her book was one of five self-published titles nominated in 2017.
While Silent Child is a standout success, it’s not the first of Denzil’s books to perform well; Denzil has been self-publishing well-reviewed YA novels since 2011 under the name Sarah Dalton. When we asked if her latest thriller performed differently right out of the gate, Denzil told us that it exhibited the same sales pattern as her previous thriller, The Broken Ones, only it never stopped its climb up the charts: “When it got into the top twenty I realized this was special. The reviews also came in faster, so I knew that people were reading it very quickly. … It was a huge surprise to see its progress up the charts. I’d wake up, see the chart position, and be sure it couldn’t possibly go any higher. Then it did.”
When we talk to authors like Denzil, they are often just as curious about how they broke out as we are—they can’t really point to any specific marketing formula or secret technique they used to achieve bestsellerdom. Rather, they chalk their success up to a confluence of factors, or “the right book at the right time.” Denzil echoed this sentiment, saying, “I’m honestly the worst author to ask for advice when it comes to a release because I’m incredibly disorganized. I don’t even set a release date until I have the book almost completely polished because I’m always worried about breaking a deadline. … I did actually set up a few reviews this time around, but it was less than twenty, and I don’t think they made a huge difference on release day. I had a miniscule mailing list at the time.”
Denzil believes that Silent Child’s cover, blurb, and story were the key factors in her success. She didn’t spend much on advertising, though she believes her Facebook advertisements did help a lot. When she worked on the book’s blurb with her author friends, they all told her that they’d one-click immediately.
So what’s the blurb? It starts like this: “In the summer of 2006, Emma Price watched helplessly as her six-year-old son’s red coat was fished out of the River Ouse. It was the tragic story of the year—a little boy, Aiden, wandered away from school during a terrible flood, fell into the river, and drowned. His body was never recovered. Ten years later, Emma has finally rediscovered the joy in life. She’s married, pregnant, and in control again … until Aiden returns.”
Denzil says, “I was more nervous about this release than any of my previous books because I was worried that the story wouldn’t live up to the expectations from the blurb, but luckily, it did.”
Bottom line: A few nuts-and-bolts tips Denzil shared: One of the most successful ads she’s ever created was a short, animated GIF of a boy fading away from the edge of a river. She finds that video or animated GIF ads perform better than images, and the one for Silent Child had an emotional aspect that attracted attention. Not long after she started the ad, she noticed readers tagging their friends to tell them about how much they enjoyed the book. Those ads became a place for readers and potential readers to talk to each other. Furthermore, Denzil says the release price was important; she kept it at 99p/99¢ until the book began to drop back down the charts. She’s noticed in the UK that it’s rare for an ebook priced above £1.99 to make it into the top ten, but the price doesn’t matter to her in terms of income because the ebook is enrolled in Kindle Unlimited—where she earns most of her money. Even though Denzil has been approached by agents and publishers to pick up the work, she’s sticking with indie publishing for now, with an agent for audio and foreign rights.
Jane Friedman has spent her entire career working in the publishing industry, with a focus on business reporting and author education. Established in 2015, her newsletter The Bottom Line provides nuanced market intelligence to thousands of authors and industry professionals; in 2023, she was named Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World.
Jane’s expertise regularly features in major media outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, The Today Show, Wired, The Guardian, Fox News, and BBC. Her book, The Business of Being a Writer, Second Edition (The University of Chicago Press), is used as a classroom text by many writing and publishing degree programs. She reaches thousands through speaking engagements and workshops at diverse venues worldwide, including NYU’s Advanced Publishing Institute, Frankfurt Book Fair, and numerous MFA programs.
