As Sylvia Day published Entwined with You this month, we caught up with her for a video interview. She shared her success story as a self-published author, offering some advice for aspiring writers as well.

Since she landed a book deal with Penguin’s Berkley Books imprint, she has sold more than 7,000,000 copies in English the last ten months. Here’s an excerpt:

I try to convey to [my readers] all the time how grateful I am. Because I know they can spend their hard earned dollars on any book. If they’re going to spend it on mine and then spend the next few hours of their life with it, the least I can say is “Thank you” … Gratitude goes a long way. Never forget that you are where you are because your readers are there for you.

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Since her traditional publisher release seven months ago, romance novelist Sylvia Day has sold more than five million copies of Bared to You and Reflected in You.

Day sold 100,000 copies of Bared to You as a self-published author, but then landed a book deal with Penguin’s Berkley Books imprint last May. Here are some key sales stats from the publisher:

After the overnight success of Bared to You, the Crossfire series firmly established itself as one of the most popular series in the nation when its second book, Reflected in You, easily took the #1 spot on The New York Times bestseller list with 389,000 trade paperbacks and ebooks sold in its first week of sales … Reflected in You, debuted as the #1 bestselling book on The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Publishers Weekly, and Canadian Booksellers Association lists. Across the Atlantic, Day’s newest stormed to #1 with over 80,000 copies sold in week one in the UK— Penguin UK’s fastest selling paperback ever. Reflected in You has sold over 1.5 million copies alone in the US and is a #1 bestseller in 3 countries—the UK, Ireland, and the US.

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For the second time, Colleen Hoover has topped our Self Published Bestsellers List with a new book. Check out our What Is New Adult Fiction? post for more about this booming genre.

To help GalleyCat readers discover self-published authors, we have compiled lists of the top eBooks in three major marketplaces for self-published digital books: Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Smashwords.

We update these lists every week, tracking how writers perform inside these booming marketplaces. You can read all the lists below, complete with links to each book. If you are an author, check out our Free Sites to Promote Your eBook post and our How To Sell Your Self-Published Book in Bookstores post and our How to Pitch Your Book to Online Outlets post.

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For the second time this year, Jessica Sorensen has topped our Self Published Bestsellers List with another new adult novel. Check out our What Is New Adult Fiction? post for more about this booming genre.

To help GalleyCat readers discover self-published authors, we have compiled lists of the top eBooks in three major marketplaces for self-published digital books: Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Smashwords.

We update these lists every week, tracking how writers perform inside these booming marketplaces. You can read all the lists below, complete with links to each book. If you are an author, check out our Free Sites to Promote Your eBook post and our How To Sell Your Self-Published Book in Bookstores post and our How to Pitch Your Book to Online Outlets post.

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For weeks, novelist Randolph Lalonde has led the Smashwords section of our Self Published Bestsellers List with the space opera series, Spinward Fringe.

To help GalleyCat readers discover self-published authors, we have compiled lists of the top eBooks in three major marketplaces for self-published digital books: Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Smashwords.

We update these lists every week, tracking how writers perform inside these booming marketplaces. You can read all the lists below, complete with links to each book. If you are an author, check out our Free Sites to Promote Your eBook post and our How To Sell Your Self-Published Book in Bookstores post and our How to Pitch Your Book to Online Outlets post.

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Amazon has revealed the bestselling books of 2012, a list led by E. L. James, Gillian Flynn and Sylvia Day.

We’ve reprinted the complete list below, but you can also check out the company’s top 100 lists of the Adult Print Books, Kids & Teens Print Books, Adult Kindle Books of 2012 and Kids & Teens Kindle Books for the year.

1. “Fifty Shades Freed: Book Three of the Fifty Shades Trilogy” by E.L. James
2/ “Gone Girl: A Novel” by Gillian Flynn
3. “Fifty Shades Trilogy: Fifty Shades of Grey, Fifty Shades Darker, Fifty Shades Freed 3-volume Boxed Set” by E.L. James

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Formerly self-published romance novelist Sylvia Day has sold 100,000 trade paperback copies of Reflected in You in a single week. The eBook was released in October and has already sold 450,000 copies.

According to Amazon’s new Author Rank feature, Day (pictured, via) is currently the fifth most popular writer on Amazon–alongside publishing giants like James Patterson, John Grisham, Nora Roberts, and Suzanne Collins.

Interestingly enough, romance novelist Jessica Sorensen is currently the sixth most popular author at Amazon.  She is the only self-published author to make the top ten most popular authors list, and her new book rocketed to the top of our Self-Published Bestsellers List this week.

Erotica novelist Sylvia Day is the most popular author on Amazon right now according to the bookseller’s “Author Rank” feature. We’ve listed the five most popular authors below–are you surprised?

With too many authors already obsessed with their Amazon Sales Rank, the site has added a dangerous new feature. Amazon’s “Author Rank” is an hour-by-hour rank that measures the bestselling writers on the online bookseller.

Check it out: “Amazon Author Rank is based on the sales of all of an author’s books on Amazon.com and is updated hourly. Explore these pages to find the best selling authors in your favorite genres. Been thinking about reading something a bit different or need some help selecting the perfect gift? Dive in and discover a host of popular authors who are delighting other readers. Make your reading choices with confidence thanks to Amazon Author Rank. Authors can find their Amazon Author Rank in Author Central.”

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Penguin’s worldwide profits totaled £441 million for the first half of 2012, dipping by £16 million compared to the same period last year. Pearson, the corporate parent of Penguin, revealed these stats in its half-year earnings report.

Here’s more from the release: “Penguin’s first half trading was affected by three factors: a lighter publishing schedule, the exceptional performance of competitor bestsellers The Hunger Games and Fifty Shades of Grey and continued pressure on physical book publishing and retailing. We expect Penguin’s publishing and its competitive performance to be stronger in the second half of the year, and we expect the structural change to continue. In the second half, Penguin will continue to take action to adapt to the rapidly-changing industry environment and will be expensing integration costs associated with its acquisition of Author Solutions.”

Penguin US counted 132 bestsellers during the first half of the year, down from 157 bestsellers in 2011. The company noted that Nora Roberts, Harlan Coben, Charlaine Harris, John Green and Jenny Lawson all scored hits. Self-published novelists Tracey Garvis Graves and Sylvia Day both inked book deals with Penguin and were cited as bestsellers during the same period.

Sylvia Day recently landed a book deal with Berkley Books for her self-published erotica novel, Bared to You. The publisher has launched a revised eBook edition and printed 500,000 copies of the novel for the June 15 trade paperback release.

So far, Vintage has sold over ten million copies of E. L. James‘ Fifty Shades of Grey, creating a booming new audience for erotica. Yesterday, Goodreads charted the spread of Fifty Shades among readers around the country, noting that Day’s novel had seen a significant spike on the social network for readers.

Here’s more from the publisher: “Shortly after its April 3rd release, Bared to You jumped into the list of top 40 bestselling eBooks at both Amazon and Barnes & Noble. The author is currently selling about 1,000 copies of Bared to You—every day! Bared to You is now a national bestseller, landing on both the New York Times and USA Today bestseller lists.”