Is this number of downloads decent on Smashwords?

[Rex]

I decided to publish my first ebook on Smashwords for free, and it's a 108000 word fantasy novel. It's been up for 2 weeks, and has been downloaded 74 times and put in 7 personal libraries... I'm not familiar with Smashwords, so is this a decent amount of downloads for an unknown author and book without it being promoted at all for a fortnight?

It's still unrated, so I'm not sure how many people do reviews on Smashwords, and I'm not sure if it's sold many free copies on the other websites. I'm just wondering what other authors' experiences are in terms of self-publishing, and what do you do to promote and/or market your novel?

Thanks for your time and all answers are appreciated.
@Steven: yeah, I'm not into promoting my work as I hate feeling like I have an inflated ego and I don't want to come across as pretentious or overconfident. I didn't post a link because I thought it would be seen as spamming and I won't use Y/A to market my work or get the book noticeable. I'm just curious as to what would be a good number of downloads in the space of 2 weeks without any prior ebooks being published.

I've got a second book finished and ready to upload, and it too exceeds the 100k word count, and it's a direct sequel to my free debut novel. I thought a good strategy would be to upload the novels with a 3-4 week gap in between so people read the first novel first lol. I'm on my rough draft of a 3rd novel, and that won't be released for another 6-9 months, so maybe I should have waited a little longer before publishing any of them...

[Steven J Pemberton]

You could at least give us the link to it, so we can see for ourselves...

My first novel has been on Smashwords for a year and a half, and has had 108 downloads and is in three personal libraries. Mine is on sale, so most of those downloads are just the free sample. I have three novels on sale altogether, and I've earned about as much as my day job pays me in a day...

I'm on Facebook and Twitter, and I'm in a couple of Facebook writers' groups, where I occasionally promote one or another of my books, but I don't do much promotion. I'm not naturally the sort of person to blow my own trumpet. Nobody seems to know what really works, or even if there is something that really works.

I wouldn't make your book free if it's the only one you've got. Giving a book away can be a good way to build awareness of yourself as an author, but if there's nothing else for people to read at the moment, you're going to have to do the same again to get people to read the next one when you publish it.

Probably the best thing you can do is start writing another book. The more books you have, the more chances there are for someone to discover you.

If you decide to use social media, don't be annoying. That is, don't just post "buy my book!" all the time. Try to be someone who would be worth listening to even if you didn't have any books to buy.

EDIT: That could work - leaving book 1 free while charging for book 2. I wouldn't worry about book 3 not being ready yet. Just release the books as and when they're ready to go. That's one of the nice things about self-publishing - you're not on anyone else's schedule, so you can release the books when you think they're finished, not when the marketing department says they need them. Looking at it another way, there's no point in delaying a book that's ready to go, solely because the sequel isn't ready yet - you're missing out on potential sales and exposure.

When I published my first book (Death & Magic) in July 2011, the sequel, Plague & Poison, was "finished" but still rough. I started the third book, Dust & Water, and then put it aside to finish editing Plague & Poison so that I'd have it ready in time for Christmas 2011. I hoped to have Dust & Water ready for this Christmas, but what with one thing and another, I'm still editing it. Even if it takes another couple of months, it'll still be the quickest book I've ever written and edited...