Posts on Pricing

Finished reading Kristine Kathryn Rusch's posts on pricing (parts 1 and 2) this morning, and decided to take a look at my own plan for pricing in light of that information. Certainly, I've been guilty of giving my books away for free, like I've been doing with Seeker for the last 6-7 months. But has that helped as much as I would have liked? Certainly, when I first started the giveaway, numbers were good (such as the 407 copies it gave away in the first month) and it seemed to boost up sales of my other titles. But as time went on, the number of free copies dwindled, and carry-over to the other titles shrank. So, perhaps there's something to the information that Rusch conveys in her posts...

One of the other bits from those posts is the idea of pricing your titles so low that people start wondering what's wrong with them (with the added bonus of not being differentiated from all the other low-priced material out there). I've done that same thing, all in the name of increasing sales. For example, I've been pricing my novels at $2.99 and anything shorter at $0.99. But honestly, it hasn't really helped all that terribly much (except for some reason, people flock to The Cure on Barnes and Noble when I drop the price to $0.99). So, perhaps there's something to be said for higher prices. Personally, I hate paying $6 or more for an e-book, but I've found that I still do it for a book that I want to read (I still don't find myself trying an author for that much without a recommendation or a really convincing sample). So, maybe everyone else out there is the same way, and I've been doing it wrong all this time.

So, taking Rusch's comments into consideration, I've decided to increase the prices on most of my work, to see if there's something to the "price means value" concept. For my novel-length work, I've increased the price to $2.99 for my entire backlist, and $5.99 for my newest novel. I still don't see anyone paying more than $0.99 for a three-pack of short stories, so I've kept the Triple-Shots where they were.

For the time being, I haven't updated the prices of my print books. I want to try out her statements about bookstores now being able to stock POD books first. If that's true, then I'll need to go out and pound the pavement this year. But feel free to try that out for my titles as well, the next time you're in a Barnes and Noble or independent bookstore.

And I'll check back in a few months to see whether this pricing change has made a difference or not.

Trying New (and Free) Things

So, one of the interesting (I hesitate to call it exciting, because that insinuates a pleasantness that doesn't often occur with the publishing business) parts of publishing is that when you're in charge of your own promotional efforts, you get to try a lot of new ideas. Toss in the added benefits of self-publishing (which I've described previously on my blog) and the complete autonomy behind setting prices and other aspects of the bookselling side of the business, and you have a vast smorgasbord of interesting.

I've toyed with varying pricing of e-books in the past, but there really wasn't a lot of stability in the numbers to draw from. So, earlier this year (late March or April), I set my novella Seeker as a free e-book through Smashwords.

The distribution of this title reaches out to Barnes and Noble and Kobo, among others, so the title was free through those outlets as well. Amazon eventually price-matched, but it took them until late May to do so. The earlier sites report back to Smashwords, so the numbers of free giveaways off sites beyond Smashwords has a lot of lag (more so than titles sold for a price), so for the purposes of this discussion, I'll stick just with the last month's worth of information from Amazon (which has instantaneous numbers for both free giveaways and sales both).

In the past month (May 25 through June 22), Seeker has given away 407 copies for free. This is a tiny amount compared to some of the numbers I've seen for KDP Select authors (who can offer their books for 5 days every 90, but a program I've previously denounced as ineffective for my purposes). However, as a comparison, over the past 2+ years that Seeker has been available for sale, it has sold less than 100 copies. So, I'd venture to say that we can confirm from this statistic that readers love free stuff.

But giving away books for free doesn't make authors any money, right?

That's where most people (in my opinion) get it wrong. Because most people are thinking in the moment, and that moment is limited to the book they're giving away free. But for those (such as myself) who have multiple titles out there, a free giveaway is a means to an end, namely to sell as many books out of the entire stable as possible.

So, let's look at my other books, shall we? First, we'll look at the next step up, the two Triple-Shot titles I have. Both are priced at 99 cents, and have had mediocre sales since their releases (less than one a month, based on the stats from my latest sales update). How'd they do this month? Each sold 4 copies. Still not as high as I'd like, but it proves to me at least that the free giveaway of one title gives a full sample of your work to a reader. If they like it, they're more willing to spend (at least a tiny amount of) money for more of your work.

Unfortunately, for my two small press Aston West novels, Heroes Die Young and Friends in Deed, I don't have instantaneous sales numbers to compare. But I have been keeping an eye on the sales rankings through Author Central, and can attest that sales for these two spiked once the giveaway started on Amazon. Whether they checked those out after checking out Seeker, and then the Triple-Shots, or just Seeker, is anyone's guess. But I'd venture to theorize that sales happened on these because of the same sampling process I mentioned before.

Only time will tell if a continued giveaway (I'm planning on leaving Seeker free until after the year's end, and then we'll see how things go) continues to yield the same results, but I plan on riding this out until I find out. And of course, I'll have to remember to come back and present an update along the way.

In the meantime, don't be afraid to try new things, even if it defies convention...

Piling on the Projects

So, how many projects should a writer take on at one time? A writer could write on a project until it's completely finished, and then move on to the next project. But how long will it take to complete? If it takes you three years to write and finish a novel, that's a lot of time between releases. Readers forget, publishing trends change, and what you may have been successful with back then may not work now.

But what if you work multiple projects...how many can you write on at once, and still expect to complete in a timely fashion? On the flip side, if you can finish projects on a staggered schedule, you can release intermediate projects while readers wait for your next novel.

As an example, my first novella Heroes Die Young came out in 2008, after being accepted the year before. In that year between signing the contract and release, I began writing short stories and getting them published. In the span of that year, I had two short stories published in Ray Gun Revival, giving readers a glimpse of what they'd see with the upcoming novella.

But at the same time, I was also finishing up my second novel Friends in Deed. That one was accepted and then published in 2010. In the meantime, I continued writing short stories, and had several of them published along the way. At the same time, I was also working on two other projects, my novella Seeker and my novel The Cure. And somewhere in there, I also started and finished the third Aston novel Death Brings Victory.

And so on and so forth...I always have at least two or three projects going on at the same time. Currently, I'm working on the fourth Aston novel Resurrection, another novella Fallen, and a screenplay for Heroes Die Young. In my opinion, multiple projects at the same time are the only way to keep your brand fresh in the minds of readers and fans. If not, people will read your work, and most likely forget about you by the time you have another novel come out (assuming you can't write a complete novel from start to finish in the course of 3-6 months).

But what do all of you think?

Supercritical

A friend of mine today in writer's group made a comment that got me thinking (which is never a good thing, ask anyone), along the lines of the fact that I'm always critical of items that end up in front of my editing pen. Now, this friend happens to be a full-time writer, multi-published, with publishers that have distributed her books far and wide, and we've been friends a long time. She has also been a big fan of my books (and vice versa) ever since she first saw them, so I'm not so sure about her taste, but hey...

The author in question...I do love her books, so go give them a read.

The comment struck me today for some reason. I've given comments and critiques to folks for many years, and I'm no different (in my mind, at least) with her than I am with any author. I have this built-in need to do my best for anyone, because that's how I'm wired. Writers always see things in another author's work that the other author may never see (and I'm not immune to that issue). That leads me to always give every thought that comes into my head when commenting or critiquing to the fullest extent, when another author asks (and when I have time to do it). The way I figure, I'm trying to give another author a tool to use for the next time they're editing their own work, to help them improve.

I've noticed, too, that I tend to get odd reactions from my direct employees (where my job puts me in a place where I need to comment and critique on their work), in that they almost seem fearful of my critiques. My assumed duty is the same thing there. I'm not trying to be mean or supercritical, just to help them improve so that they'll have the tools they need for the next time they're doing the same work.

My guess? This is why the comment hit me today...that maybe my mindset has been off-kilter this entire time. Perhaps all of those who've received writing critiques view me in the same vein as my employees (presumably) do...that I'm mean and supercritical. Perhaps my perception of what the feedback should be is not the same as those who are looking for my feedback.

So, then the question is...is being supercritical an issue?

I'd love to hear your thoughts...because at the moment, I have a chapter from Nancy that needs a critique.

The Usefulness of Smashwords

Something that has been weighing on my mind recently is the usefulness of using Smashwords for distribution of my self-published works. With Barnes and Noble and Kobo (two of the major distribution channels for Smashwords) both setting up their own avenues for authors to put up their titles, it's something to seriously consider. So, for the past year, I've been tracking the number of sales directly through Smashwords.

The charts below display the trends of Smashwords sales (red lines) compared to the number of Smashwords sample downloads (blue lines) for my three major works.



One thing I notice is that Smashwords users tend to do a lot of downloading, but not a lot of buying. My free download "Entrapment" (only available through Smashwords) just recently passed the 1000-download mark. My hope had been that the free sample would drive users to buy a copy of my other works. That really hasn't panned out as I'd hoped.

Now, for a comparison of sales via Smashwords to the sales made through B&N and Kobo:

For Seeker, the only "sales" made via Smashwords were free giveaways using coupon codes. Kobo sold half as many (but as full price), while no sales were made over at B&N.

For The Cure, the only "sales" made via Smashwords were free givewaways. Kobo didn't sell a copy, but B&N still made seven times as many sales over Smashwords, and all of them were for money.

For Death Brings Victory, Smashwords was the only spot that sold copies, and 80% of the sales were for full price. I will point out that it took several months for this title to show up over on B&N, which may be skewing the numbers a bit.

That said, it certainly does look like most Smashwords users are out for free stuff only. So, perhaps the thing to do would be to use them only for the sites where I can't distribute books myself, but go directly through Kobo and B&N myself for each title.

In fact, I've recently posted up Death Brings Victory over at B&N using the PubIt feature...so we'll see how it does in a head-to-head competition. Someday soon, maybe I'll do the same thing over at Kobo.

Pricing of E-Books

So, I figured I'd had enough books around and at multiple prices over the last few years, so figured it was about time to get together some statistics for general consumption. So here goes:

First, I'll be separating these out by both year (2011 and 2012), and by distributor (Amazon and Smashwords...although the Smashwords numbers will be compiled from B&N, Kobo, etc.). Also, this will only include my self-published titles, where I have complete visibility on which books sold when, and at what price.

For all of 2011 on Smashwords, I had one short novel (Seeker), and for about five months, I had one full-length novel (The Cure). For the short, it was priced at 99 cents for the entire year, and sold 15 copies. Of the five months the novel was available, it was priced at 99 cents for about two months, and $2.99 for the remaining three. It sold 3 copies during that 99-cent month, and 5 copies in the remaining time.

For all of 2011 on Amazon, the prices for each title were set at the same levels. I sold 22 copies of Seeker, 2 copies of The Cure at 99 cents and 1 copy at $2.99.

For the year-to-date of 2012, I added a few more titles. Namely, two additional short story collections (one for the entire year and the other since July, though this was solely on Amazon until the past few weeks) and an extra novel (since March). I tended to keep the prices of the shorts the same across the board, and the prices of the novels the same as the other, even when I changed things up. In this year, I decided to do a little more experimentation, and raised the prices of my shorter works to $1.99 for two months (out of ten), and 99 cents for the remaining eight. For the novels, I limited the 99-cent promotion to a month or so, but had two months at a $3.99 price point (right around the release of , and three months at a $4.99 price point. The remaining months were at a $2.99 price.

For all of 2012 on Smashwords, I sold 6 shorts at 99 cents, and nothing at the $1.99 price point. For the novels, I sold 16 copies at the 99 price point, 11 copies at $2.99, 4 copies at $3.99 and 0 copies at $4.99.

For all of 2012 on Amazon, I sold 3 copies at 99 cents, 5 copies at $2.99, 16 copies at $3.99 (to be fair, many of these were at the release of Death Brings Victory), and 2 copies at $4.99.

Now for the analysis, which will be tricky for many reasons. As mentioned, I had a huge spike of sales at the release of my latest novel, so the price I selected then may not have acted as a deterrent as it may have later down the road.

That said, I see the following trends:

E-books have gained in popularity, year over year. I see this more in the case of my novels (which may also be because I have been growing my backlog, and with each new release, more readers can buy more of my past titles). However, when 2012 had four times as many sales than 2011 on Smashwords, and over eight times on Amazon, you can definitely see the trend is turning digital.

It would seem, if you pro-rate the short story sales based on the number of months the books were set at a higher pricing point (2 months vs. the remaining 8 months of 2012), that (at least Amazon) readers are willing to pay either 99 cents or $1.99 for their  shorter titles. I will asterisk this with the fact that the $1.99 sales were directly following my free-giveaway done as part of the KDP Select program, so it may in fact be an anomaly where people had already seen an entire work for free, and were willing to pay a little extra as a bit of 2-for-1 action. Since there were no sales via Smashwords at the higher price, this leads me to conclude that a 99-cent sales price is still the way to go for shorter works.

One thing not immediately evident from the facts and figures given already is that prices need to be kept steady for some time. Of the 16 Smashwords sales in 2012, 14 were done when the 99-cent price was kept around for multiple months, while only 2 were made when the price was only kept as a "special promotion" for a single month.

Truly, it would seem that pricing really doesn't have as much impact on novels as one would think, though the results tend to depend on which outlet readers are buying from. Discounting the boost of $3.99 sales on Amazon at the release of my third Aston novel, and pro-rating sales based on the time of a particular price, I see a general trend of staying about the same across most of the price points.

Unlike other authors, I still see a general trend of novel sales being about equal between Amazon and Smashwords. Short stories, though, Amazon definitely has an advantage. Perhaps I was too hasty in pulling myself out of the KDP Select program after all...

If you'd like to discuss the results, or let me know your thoughts, feel free in the comments!

Friends and Family

What seems like ages ago, I was signed with a (I found the truth out later) scam publisher, a story which I had detailed some time ago. Fortunately, I'd gotten free of their clutches, but one of the things I remember from those days was a constant insistence (by folks trying to convince this publishers' authors that the publisher was a scammer, which turned out to be true, but anywho...) that print-on-demand publishers such as this one would only sell 75 copies of any title, and this was only to friends in family.

Now, I've gone into details over sales figures many times, most recently in July. Some of the books are new, and still gathering steam (I hope), but I don't buy into the 75-copy ceiling...never have, never will.

One other thing they used to repeat over and over was that print-on-demand publishers would only ever be able to sell to friends and family. Now, this one hits close to home...

As you know, I've ventured into the self-publishing realm, which by and large utilizes print-on-demand as well. I do have sales (that exceed the 75-copy ceiling, but it seems like most of these have come from the dreaded friends and family category (I throw acquaintances I've met through social media into the friends category, regardless of how close a friend they may or may not be). I still have yet to find a way to expand past this group, to where the books basically sell themselves. I watch others, and this seems to happen with great easy. So, is it because their books are so much better than mine? Do they know of some miraculous promotional technique that I'm not using?

Unfortunately, finding new friends is exhausting...and finding more family usually requires a decade or more until children are old enough to read my books. So, here I sit, trying to find a way to overcome an old proclamation, by folks who were dead-on about a scam publisher, but who may be half-right on the self-publishing revolution as well. So, if you have thoughts on the matter, feel free to share them.

And in the meantime, check out my books.

A Recap of the KDP Select Experience

I've watched several authors (and some publishers) join up with Amazon's KDP Select program, which basically requires the book to be exclusive to Amazon. The promise of shared revenue and free giveaways lures them in. I never really saw the benefit, considering nearly half of my sales come from Smashwords and its affiliates (B&N, Kobo, etc.).

But I'm always open to new methods and opportunities. Maybe it really was all that and a plate of cookies...maybe I was missing out on the pot of gold?

So, I decided to toss my latest Triple-Shot into the fray, to see what all the fuss was about.

One of the stated benefits of  the KDP Select program is that you get 5 days every quarter where you can give away free copies of your title. I chose the first weekend the book was available for two days, and then set up Labor Day weekend as the final three days.

So, now for the stats:

The first weekend, the US site gave away 181 copies of the book. I do know others who have far more fans who've given away several thousand copies in a giveaway. So, maybe I just need more fans (who doesn't?). I put together a little breakdown of the stats at random points (whenever I felt like going on and checking) during that weekend. I've never really understood the way in which the Amazon rankings are calculated, but I've offered those up as well, along with the genre ranking (where I was able to get up to the #35 spot in Sci-Fi)

Time: Sales Rank = copies "sold" (genre ranking)

Saturday Start: 3271 = 47 freebies
2:00 PM:     2007 = 54 freebies (#78 in Sci-Fi)
3:30 PM:      2007 = 58 freebies (#78)
4:30 PM:     1886 = 62 freebies (#68)
7:30 PM:     1751 = 82 freebies (#62)
9:00 PM:     1784 = 92 freebies (#66)
10:00 PM:     1720 = 103 freebies (#64)

Sunday 7:00 AM:    1048 = 143 freebies (#35)
1:00 PM:     1210 = 159 freebies (#41)
4:00 PM:     1344 = 166 freebies (#48)
9:00 PM:     1488 = 172 freebies (#56)
Finish:     181 freebies

 

The giveaways are across all of the Amazon sites...for simplicity, I'll just do the totals for each, where a copy was given:

UK: 28 freebies, 1208 highest ranking (#53 in Sci-Fi...which ironically wasn't even in the same day as the highest ranking)

Germany: 8 freebies

Spain: 1 freebie

 

So,  not too bad...but giveaways don't make an author money by themselves. How many sales did it generate of this title after the giveaway? 2 copies (ironically, one person bought a copy before it went up for the giveaway)

Now, it's quite possible that this giveaway acted as a entry point for folks to discover more of my work. In the time period on Amazon following this giveaway (before the next one), I sold 2 copies of Death Brings Victory and 1 copy of Seeker, but no copies of The Cure nor of my other Triple-Shot. Ironically, my Smashwords (and affiliate) sales were 1, 1, 6, and 0, respectively (I don't have a line of sight on sales of my publisher's titles during this time period, so am ignoring those for the purposes of this discussion). So, even with a free giveaway on Amazon, it looks like I did just as well elsewhere, without the freebies.

So, Labor Day weekend...I didn't have as much time to check over my stats. Truth be told, I have a feeling that a holiday weekend probably wasn't the best choice for a giveaway, since readers (and potential buyers) likely had the same issue. But I offer these stats (since I didn't hit any genre-topping stats, just quantities and sales ranking).

Saturday night:

26 US giveaways (4356)
5  UK giveaways (3189)

Sunday morning:

32 US (3651)

5 UK (3088)

Sunday afternoon:

39 US (4430)
5 UK (3656)

Sunday evening:

41 US (3703)
5 UK (2998)

Sunday night:

43 US (4294)
5 UK (4067)

Monday morning:

48 US (5034)
5 UK (4064)

Monday noon:

49 US (3989)
5 UK (3883)

Monday afternoon:

51 US (4586)
5 UK (3116)

Monday evening:

51 US (4925)
5 UK (3036)

Monday night:

55 US (4805)
5 UK (3532)

Final totals:

58 US (4591)
11 UK (3607)

So, not so good...and like I mentioned, it's possible that the holiday weekend cut down the amount of time I could devote to promoting, as well as removing potential readers from seeing the giveaway. It's also possible that all the readers who wanted to get a copy had done so during the first giveaway. But no matter the reasons for the low turnout, we'll go through the same exercise of sales stats (granted, this is only a week removed, so I may have to do a follow-up post later):

How many sales did it generate of this title after the second giveaway? 1 copy

For my other titles? In the past week, I've sold no copies of Death Brings Victory, 2 copies of Seeker, 1 copy of The Cure and 2 copies of my other Triple-Shot (this, even after I raised my prices near the end of August--another post for another time). Unfortunately, because of the delay in Smashwords reporting, I won't be able to put together numbers there just yet.

Still, I can't help but wonder whether these sales (since they're along the same lines as the first giveaway's) were just random, or if they were indeed driven by the giveaway. I did notice that at least one reviewer had posted something up on the latest Triple-Shot, and then proceeded to post reviews (verified purchases by Amazon) on DBV and HDY, so it's quite possible that the giveaways did have some effect on sales.

But is it worth it to set yourself up exclusive with Amazon? I'm still not convinced...which is why once my KDP Select contract is up at the middle of October, my book will be pulled from the program and sent off to the affiliate sites (though I'm contemplating the idea of going direct through B&N and Kobo...stay tuned). Sorry, Amazon, I just haven't seen the benefit to your program...

Exclusivity: An Author's Arrogance

I've been noticing a trend throughout the Internet that I wanted to ramble about today...it has to do with establishing exclusivity for one's books with particular online retailers. In this case, it's the big boy on the block, Amazon.

Now, exclusivity isn't always a bad thing. Perhaps it's doing quite well for you as an author (though it hasn't seemed all that great to me, but that's another blog post I'm planning for the future).

The trouble is when you, as an author, began to exhibit signs of arrogance when it comes to your titles being exclusive, and this is the trend I've been seeing. One particular celebrity I follow on Twitter (and who, ironically enough, gave a blog review to one of my books in the far distant past) is notorious for this with his two e-book titles. I constantly see him tweeting responses to fans. They ask him if his books are available anywhere besides Amazon, and he just keeps telling them that there's a free Kindle app...get that and read the books.

Now, I don't have a business degree...but I always thought that the "customer is always right" (some examples not withstanding). If I, as someone who is trying to sell books to readers (the customer) continue to get requests for the book to be available at all of these other retail outlets, I'd think that it would behoove me greatly to start putting it up there. It's not all that difficult to do with sites like Smashwords, and apparently, there would be a ready-made market for the books on these other sites.

I personally would like to read these two titles from this celebrity, but I own a Nook. Certainly, I can get the free Kindle App on my netbook, but the entire point behind an e-reader is the convenience of downloading the book and reading it on the device. Why would I want to circumvent the device I already own, when the author could just as easily upload the book to the other stores?

Now, I did upload my latest Triple-Shot as an Amazon exclusive (through the KDP Select program), as a test to see if it made any difference in the amount of downloads I received from readers. Though I do plan a follow-up post later on the statistics involved, my personal experience has not been positive. So, come October 16, my book will be sent off to the other online stores for consumption...

And who knows? Perhaps with a celebrity, the money was just too good to pass up the exclusivity...but myself, I don't see how alienating your potential readers makes good business sense.

Sales Update - July 2012

It's been some time since my previous sales update, so I figured now would be as good a time as any to pull out some more statistics. To recap the previous figures, here are the stats from that previous post (as of October 30):

Heroes Die Young (released September 2008) had sold a total of 260 copies (print and e-book total).

Friends in Deed (released January 2010) had sold a total of 66 copies (print and e-book total).

Seeker (released December 2010) had sold around 50 copies (e-book only).

Dead or Alive (released in print, February 2011) had sold 22 print copies and 6 e-books.

The Cure (released in e-book, July 2011; in print, September 2011) had sold 29 copies (print and e-book total).

I’ve received the royalty statements from Champagne for the first quarter, but not yet for the second. ResAliens has supplied my royalty information for both quarters. In addition, two outlets I tend to sell a lot at (Kobo and Barnes & Noble) have not yet supplied any data through Smashwords for the month of June. However, I did find my initial royalty statement for my first book, so I’ve added those numbers into the total here. So, given all of those caveats, let’s get to the new stats:

Heroes Die Young has now sold a total of 390 copies (print and e-book total). As before, this includes copies that were previously sold, but not yet paid for by the vendor (such as Amazon). This also includes 100 copies of the book that were on my first royalty statement (covering about 3-4 months in 2008). Taking that into account, I’ve sold about 30 copies this past quarter compared with 29 copies in the previous three months. Taking the total number over the course of just shy of four years, that comes out to nearly 100 copies per year.

Friends in Deed has sold a total of 81 copies (print and e-book total), which means that 15 copies sold in the first quarter of 2012. So, with around 30 months under its belt, it’s roughly selling 30 copies per year. There are two main items I think could be contributing to this divergence from the first book. One could be that people are trying the first book (since it’s a series), not enjoying their purchase, and deciding to pass on the second book. One other thing is the difference in covers. The first novel has a far more enticing cover, in my opinion, and I often wonder if people even know what the image on the front of the second novel is. One never really knows for sure, though.

Seeker has now sold around 72 copies (99-cent e-book only), so about 22 copies have sold since the last update, compared to 8 copies over the previous three months. The book has been out for about 20 months, so averaging just over 3 copies a month. One interesting statistic is that I began selling copies of Seeker via a new outlet this past quarter (OmniLit), and unfortunately, have only sold 1 copy there. Amazon is still the major sales outlet, tripling the sales from Smashwords. Was it worth it to add another sales channel? Time will tell.

Dead or Alive benefited from an extended period where the e-book was on sale for 99 cents. It has sold has now sold 70 copies, so 48 copies sold over the past six months, compared to the 3 listed in my previous update.  The book has been out around 18 months, so running about 4 copies a month.

The Cure has now sold 55 copies (print and e-book total), so 26 copies have sold since my past update, compared to 16 copies during the previous update. Like Dead or Alive, this one benefited from a price drop down to 99 cents. This book has been out around a year, so these 55 copies per year is running almost double what Friends in Deed has achieved, but about half of what Heroes Die Young has done. Sales have dropped off a bit at the now-higher price point, though.

Death Brings Victory was released back in March, meaning this will be the first status I’ve given. As of now, 26 copies have sold, putting it right on par with The Cure for this past update period (but unlike The Cure, it’s been at the higher price point the entire time. This book has a bit going for it, though, in that readers who enjoyed the first two books were (most likely, even if it’s a guess on my part) already lined up to pick up a copy. 26 sales out of nearly 400 for the first book is still a bit disappointing, but time will tell.

My first Triple-Shot collection was released in November 2011. 21 total copies have been sold, meaning 13 copies sold since my last update (which sported 8 copies). I’ve just recently come out with my second Triple-Shot, so we’ll see how that goes. One thing I’m trying with this newest selection is whether the KDP Select program is of any benefit. My next update should be right around the time my 90-day exclusivity agreement expires, so an analysis will definitely be done then.

Now for the analysis of this latest period:

As I’ve mentioned on more than one occasion, sales have drastically increased when I dropped the price from $2.99 to 99 cents. The royalties suffer, though, so it’s sort of a crap shoot. I was speaking with Lyn Perry from ResAliens press about price points, and he brought up the idea of pricing them even higher, to project the idea of the books having more value. I’m considering some plans to find out which theory holds more water. More to come…

Since my latest update (February), I've sold 202 books (not counting the extra 100 found on my missing royalty statement) for an average of just over 40 books per month. This compares to the 75 books (and 25 books per month) from the previous update. I also added an extra book in this past update period. Again, this bolsters the idea that putting out additional titles helps boost sales figures. Time will tell if my latest Triple-Shot contributes to additional sales in the next update.

I notice that most of my books (other than Friends in Deed) are selling around 20-30 copies every quarter. An interesting statistic, if I do say so...

One other thing that can’t be garnered from the raw statistics, but something I should keep in mind for myself. I often feel, when watching sales numbers and sales rankings day-by-day, that all of my efforts are for naught. It tends to lead one to get depressed about writing and publishing. However, when I pull together these statistics, it gives me hard numbers to look back and say “it was a pretty good update period,” especially since the numbers are trending upward. These aren’t stellar numbers, of course, because I’d really like to be selling hundreds or thousands of copies per month…but 40 books per month is nothing to sneeze at. I’ll take it, at least.

More Statistics for the Sadists

Because I'm an engineer as well as an author, I salivate at facts and statistics...so bear with me, both of you.

I'm sitting here staring at a check from a recent signing I held (you may have seen the post), and was finding the amount of the check interesting. So, of course, my brain is begging me: Run the numbers, fool!
(and who am I to argue with my mind?)

So, for the purposes of this exercise, we'll start with my two self-published titles in paperback, both of which sold at the event.

The Cure retails for $11.95. Through Createspace, I originally picked up copies for $4.78 each (this includes shipping costs to get them to me). The store sold them at retail price, and sent me 80% of that, taking a 20% cut for themselves (which is phenomenal, since most stores require a 60/40 (their cut being 40%) split). In a nutshell, this netted me $9.56 per copy sold, for a net profit of $4.78 per book (or, a 100% markup).

Death Brings Victory retails for $12.95. Through Createspace, I originally picked up copies for $6.35 (I had to add some rush shipping to get them in time for my trip to ConQuest in Kansas City). Again, my final take from the store (80%) was $10.36 per copy, for a net profit of $4.01 per book (a little over 60% markup).

As a comparison, let's take a look at Heroes Die Young. This book retails for $9.95. For the copies that sold at the store which I supplied, I had originally ordered direct from the publisher. My last order cost me (including shipping) $7.97 per copy. The store also had a copy left over from a previous order from the publisher, which I have no idea what they paid to the publisher...

So, taking the 80% I received on my personal copies, that ends up with me making $7.96 for each book, which (your eyes do not deceive you) means I'm throwing a penny away with each copy that sold during that event. Now, the copies that the store orders direct from the publisher, I do earn royalties on. Looking through my royalty statements, my most recent paperback royalties netted me approximately $0.80 for each copy (which doing some math in the background on my paperback royalty rate, means I've been getting paid based on the cover price? Score!), so we'll assume $0.80 was what I made from the publisher when the store's copies were paid for...

Now, of course, one might be correct in assuming that a book through a publisher is going to sell more, since readers will take that as a sign of quality over self-published works. At least in the case of this event, I sold more copies of Death Brings Victory, and the same number of The Cure as I did for Heroes Die Young.

I'm beginning to come to the realization that readers in general don't seem to notice (unless it's glaringly obvious that that the quality is poor, of course...which I've discussed at length before on my blog). Even some writers have trouble with the distinction...I discovered that one of my writer friends here in Wichita didn't realize that Death Brings Victory didn't come out with the same publisher as the previous two books in the series. That was interesting to me, personally.

So, there you have it...hope you enjoyed this trip through the facts and figures (and a little side trip into opinions)...if you have any questions or would like something broken down a bit more, feel free to ask.

Self-Publishing: Not Just For Hacks Like Me

For those who've been following me for a while, you'll know that I often times give my thoughts and statistics about self-publishing. Of course, there will always be those nay-say my posts...I don't sell astronomical amounts of books, I'm not the world's premiere authority on publishing. But heck, when most of my commentary matches up with an author who originally signed a deal for six books with HarperCollins who has now decided to go it alone herself, maybe I do have a few smarts in the noggin after all.

For comparison, my three-post series on "Why Self-Publishing?" (and so far, many of the items between the two match up):

Why Self-Publishing? (1)
Why Self-Publishing? (2)
Why Self-Publishing? (3)

So, there you have it...

Associate Yourself

I'm here to discuss some of the finer points on the business side of writing. So, if you're sitting there with your hand across your forehead saying, "I labor at writing for the artistic expression aspects" maybe you should go back and read some of my SFFS snippets from past weeks while we proceed. Otherwise, let's go!

I'm not sure how many of you out there are aware, but Amazon has this nifty program, Amazon Associates. In a nutshell, you post some extra code in your links to Amazon pages, and if someone follows your link and buys something at Amazon, you get a slight commission (based on a sliding scale based on how many sales your links lead to, on a directly proportional basis -- the more sales you get, the higher your percentage for the month).

Now, I can't guarantee this, but I can assume that most authors out there are providing links to their books on Amazon off your websites and blogs. Why are you giving up on free money? Copy and paste the code they provide in place of your original, and start earning a commission.

I can also assume that most of you help out your various author friends by plugging their books as well. Why are you giving up on free money? Copy and paste the code they provide in place of your original, and start earning a commission.

Once you're logged in, Amazon Associates also has a nifty toolbar at the top of your browser window (as opposed to those nasty toolbars that Yahoo and Google surreptitiously add to your browser menu bars, this one is only visible on Amazon pages). You can easily post a link (while on a book's page) to your Twitter or Facebook page, and promote your books (and those of your friends) the same way you have been. Except up to this point, you've likely been giving up on free money.

(Are you seeing the running theme here yet?)

And the great thing is, the link you provide is the entry point for a user. As long as they buy ANYTHING in the same shopping session after following one of your links, their purchase counts toward your commissions. I can't name the number of times I've seen commissions for books I don't even know about, simply by someone following my links and buying another product. Talk about your free money.

This isn't even counting the recent experience where someone followed one of my links and purchased a Kindle Fire. Free money...

Now I should mention here that B&N also has a version of an associates program, which I am a part of (again, free money for doing what I already was before...promoting my books and others). However, as a point of comparison, I find the Amazon Associates program a far better and easier one. B&N makes you sign up with some sort of third-party vendor, and even then, their interface isn't as intuitive (no toolbar to easily create links directly from a page). But, like I said, free money is free money, so I wouldn't discourage you from signing up...just realize that one is going to be a lot easier to use than the other. 

Writing is a business, and so is promotion. Stop giving up on free money and sign up for your own Amazon Associates account today. If anyone has any thoughts or comments on this, feel free to let me know!