> for a first-time self-published launch I recognize that my situation is a bit of an outlier. I attribute this to having a large Twitter following (101,000 followers) and as such having a group to market to.<p>I’d atribute it to the same reason. Time and again I observe that the size of one’s audience matters more than the quality of the output. It’s irrelevant how mediocre your product is as long as you have followers to market it to—and the more they already like you, the crappier your offering can be.<p>Which makes these “what I did” posts useless to most. It was <i>what you had</i> (an established audience) that had the biggest influence in your success.