About Last Month

So as many of you know I did a few special free promotions last month, utilizing Amazon's Kindle Select Program. Well, I got my statement today, and while I knew I had sold a lot of ebooks, it turns out I sold a lot more than I had first thought. To give you an idea, November and December of 2011 were my best two months of the year in terms of sales, mostly because it was the holiday season. Well, in January I made about the same amount of money that I did in November and December combined, if not a little bit more. Sounds great, right? Well, it is, but we have to keep in mind that this past holiday season was the biggest so far for ereaders, so ebooks were being bought up like crazy.

My best seller for the past several months has been The Calling, which usually maintains the same sales ranking, bouncing back and forth between the 2,500-4,000 area. Typically that means I'm selling 20-30 copies a day in the US Kindle Store (in the UK Kindle Store, it bounces back and forth between 1,500-2,500 and sells maybe 10-15 copies a day). In January, it kept the same ranking, but I was selling a lot more. In fact, for the month of January alone, between the US and UK Kindle Stores, I sold 1,379 units of The Calling alone. To put that in perspective, that number is more than all of the ebooks I sold in October combined. I'll talk more about The Calling next month, when we come up on its one-year anniversary (hard to believe, really, it's only been a year), and it should be interesting. But for now, let's look at the promotions, shall we?

In the first week of January, I made The Dishonored Dead and No Shelter a Kindle exclusive and free for several days. My reason for doing this? Well, they weren't strong sellers to begin with. In December The Dishonored Dead sold only 45 copies, while No Shelter sold only 30 copies. They definitely needed a boost, so I thought I'd see what a few days free might do for them. Well, here's what happened for these two titles in the month of January:

The Dishonored Dead 

  • Free Units: 2098
  • Units Sold: 93
  • Units Borrowed: 45

No Shelter 

  • Free Units: 14,735
  • Units Sold: 894
  • Units Borrowed: 130

As you can see, there was quite an increase, especially with No Shelter.

The next week, I did another special promotion, making Man of Wax and Phantom Energy free for a few days in the Kindle Store. In December, Man of Wax had only sold 127 copies, while Phantom Energy (which has always ever been a labor of love) brought in a whooping 3 copies. Here's what happened for those two titles in the month of January:

Man of Wax 

  • Free Units: 25,520
  • Units Sold: 1055
  • Units Borrowed: 112

Phantom Energy 

  • Free Units: 374
  • Units Sold: 7
  • Units Borrowed: 2

As you can see, Man of Wax had an incredible increase, though it should be noted that, unlike No Shelter which I didn't mess with the price, after the promotion I made Man of Wax 99 cents for a few days, to try to propel it back up the charts. My hope was that it might breeze its way into the Top 100, where then I could change it back to $2.99 and it would, in theory, stay for a few days, as most readers browse the Top 100 constantly. As for Phantom Energy, well, again it has always been a labor of love and I never expected it to make much money to begin with. But I'm proud of that little book. Oh yes I am.

Anyway, the main question at hand is was all of this worth it?

I believe so. I definitely made more than I would have on Barnes & Noble and Smashwords, and I even gained a bunch of new readers (I received some emails, a lot of readers signed up for my newsletter, etc), though of course the downside is that, as is the case with free books, readers who normally don't read dark violent thrillers downloaded Man of Wax, tried it, and hated it so much they posted one-star reviews. Three one-star reviews out of eighteen ain't bad, I guess, considering that eleven of those reviews are five-star, but it still doesn't help the algorithm. Yet despite that, Man of Wax is selling better this month than No Shelter, which has thirteen reviews, most of which are five-star. So that's surprising.

After all, a promotion like this is a short-term boost. In the month of January alone, I sold nearly 4,800 ebooks. That's quite a lot, compared to what I had been selling (it helps, too, that I have a lot of ebooks available). But what is the lasting effect? Well, currently here are my sales for those titles which I'd run the special promotion on last month:

The Dishonored Dead 

  • Units Sold: 41
  • Units Borrowed: 6

No Shelter 

  • Units Sold: 57
  • Units Borrowed: 3

Man of Wax 

  • Units Sold: 98
  • Units Borrowed: 6

Phantom Energy 

  • Units Sold: 4
  • Units Borrowed: 1

Obviously the sales haven't stayed the same, but I never thought they would. The purpose of the promotion was simply to give those books a boost, and it looks like, for the most part, it has, considering that we've just entered the second half of the month. Will those sales increase as the year progresses? It's impossible to say. Unfortunately, much of it has to do with Amazon's algorithm, which can be unpredictable. As I mentioned before, one bad review can suddenly make your book stop selling, or at least slow down quite a bit. Which is scary, really, when you've started to depend on the money coming in.

The Calling, which I mentioned at the beginning, continues to sell very well. Will it continue? I certainly hope so, but I can't count on it. Do I plan on making it free anytime soon? No. Right now I don't want to do anything to jinx it, and while making it free for a few days might shoot it up the rankings even more after the promotion, there's no telling how high (or low) it might go. And once it peaked, the sales might dip and keep dipping, way below what it's selling now. So it's a gamble, like everything else in life. You have to look at the long-term, but at the same time you have to worry about the short-term, because who knows what will happen in a year (or even next month). Everybody talks doom and gloom of what will happen when Amazon becomes a monopoly and decides to screw over writers, and while that might happen, I figure it's best to take advantage of the 70% royalties right now than to be screwed over by the 25% traditional publishers offer. Besides, Amazon really isn't doing much of anything with their self-publishing program; they don't really have to lift a finger and can just sit back and continue to take 30% or 65% royalties, so why they would eventually mess with it is beyond me.

But that's something to worry about later.

For now, I'm focusing on prepping The Inner Circle for an April release. At the moment, making sure the book is the best it can be is the only thing I'm worrying about.

As it should be.

The Man Is Free

From today until Friday, The Man on the Bench will be free in the US Kindle Store and the UK Kindle Store. Why not download and help spread the word, huh? Oh, and while I'm thinking about it, you can mark the novella as "to-read" at Goodreads, too. Enjoy!

P.S. If you were signed up for my newsletter, you would have already known about this free promotion as of Monday, plus you would have gotten a special sneak peek at the first chapter of The Inner Circle. Just sayin' ...

Manipulating The Reader (And Not In A Good Way)

I wanted follow up on my post from the other week, which ended up getting a lot of traction around the Internet (when your blog has been Reddit'd, you know you've made it). Again, it's a sad and disgusting thing that happened, but it's a reality that we all have to face. After I noticed the plagiarized book and contacted Aaron, my first question was if someone was stealing his stuff or if this was a promo stunt. After all, the cover image was the exact same, and who knows, maybe Aaron was trying something different. Had Aaron said yeah, he was trying something different and please keep it quiet, I would have said sure and left it at that. But he didn't -- he apparently had no idea that someone had stolen his book, and so here we are now.

And while what happened is disturbing, here's an even disturbing thing -- some writers, apparently, do this all the time.

On purpose.

I was talking to a pretty well-known writer friend of mine about what had happened to Aaron. He said he knew some authors who purposely repackaged their ebooks with new titles and bylines and covers just to get more sales and was it possible that Aaron had done the same, and if so would he admit it? I told him how Aaron hadn't known at all, and the conversation fizzled out from there, but still that statement of his -- how he knew authors who purposely repackaged their ebooks -- has stuck with me ever since.

Don't get me wrong, I like selling ebooks. The more ebooks I sell, the more money I make.

But there comes a point, I believe, when sales aren't the most important factor.

At least not for me.

I, after all, want to build a readership. Sure, I would like to sell as many ebooks as possible, but at what point do sales become more important than readers? Surely at some point a reader who purchased Book A will purchase Book B and see they are exactly the same. Both books would be in the same genre, and many readers generally read in the same genre, so you have to figure someone would eventually stumble upon these duplicate books.

Then again, with the ease and low cost of ebooks, many readers purchase and store up ebooks on their ereaders like squirrels getting ready for winter, and a good majority of those ebooks go unread (note: this isn't an ebook vs print debate, as just as many print books are purchased and go unread).

So, in that case, it's very likely that a writer who repackaged the same ebook might get away with it for quite some time.

But, again, what good comes from manipulating the reader besides selling a few extra ebooks? What if the second book -- the fake book -- is the one that catches on and readers really like? And what kind of hell will be brought down upon the writer when readers suddenly realize that writer has been repackaging the same ebooks just to make a few extra bucks?

If this is a new part of the game, leave me out of it.

The Man Has Arrived

In the summer of 1922, nine-year-old Ethan’s only worries are chores, having fun, and keeping out of trouble.

But a shadow soon falls over the tiny backwater town of Benton, Pennsylvania that threatens to change everything.

First the cats disappear.

Then the little girls.

After that, the real horror begins.

Praise for The Man on the Bench:

“I absolutely loved The Man on the Bench. It was wondrous, intriguing, sweet, scary, surprising … everything a good story should be.”

-- David B. Silva

The Man on the Bench will be a Kindle exclusive for the next 90 days and can be purchased in the US Kindle Store and the UK Kindle Store. But for you non-Kindle owners, not to worry -- this ebook, like all my ebooks, is DRM-free and can be transferred to any device with a few easy steps found here.

Finally, there may or may not be a special "hidden" bonus story located somewhere in the ebook, just as you may or may not want to wait a few days in case this ebook becomes free as a special promotion. I mean, stranger things have happened ...