Book Sales Totals for April
Added 2017-05-03 15:14:27 +0000 UTCWow, so, here's the whole spreadsheet. (I don't think I've ever released all my numbers quite this openly before. It feels weird. Hold me. >.> ) For people who don't want to peer at it (you'll have to open the image in a new tab to see it clearly), I'll summarize:
Free downloads of Earthrise halved again in April (which is our second month out from the Bookbub promotion, which was in early February). All the follow-ons suffered accordingly--sales of the rest of the series fell from around 600 to just under half that. Same with the Dreamhealers books (going from about 70 sales in March to around 30). Princes' Game and the Alysha books didn't come close to either of those series in sales (also in keeping with their trends), though interestingly because there are more books in those series they're not far in parity, in terms of total units moved, from Dreamhealers. But you can see now why I think 'Dreamhealers needs a new volume' or 'I need a second Earthrise trilogy.'
The good news about all this is that generally people who buy Book 2 tend to read to the end of any given series. This is good--it means I'm doing okay with my storytelling. (It might also be my habit of cliffhangers. Sorry, people who hate them... but when other folks say cliffhangers sell stories in every medium, they're right.) (I should add this is NOT why I do cliffhangers! That's a more complex post there. I can write it if you want to read it.)
Moving on! For the first time I've pasted in the "non-Peltedverse" side of the spreadsheet so fans of the Jokka, Kherishdar, and Spots series can see why I don't spend much time working on those books. When I look at those numbers I often ask myself "is it because I don't push them as hard? Or because there's not as many books in each series?" but honestly I don't think so. Those books are just more challenging to market, and their audiences are limited by their subject matter. The two series that do fairly well outside the Peltedverse do so because they can be easily explained (Morgan's trilogy is "an epic fantasy with elves and demons" and the romance novels are romance novels; even so, notice that for romance novels their sales are positively anemic, because I insisted on writing weirdo romances with multiple human sexes, cross-culture problems, and talking sea serpents).
By now I am resigned to the Bookbub ad not creating a sustainable sales high for me. My question now is whether it's going to trickle back down to pre-promotional levels (which you can see in the January numbers there) or if it will plateau slightly higher. I've talked to several more successful authors who've read my work and picked at my marketing strategy, and they're puzzled at my inability to make better money; one of them said, "Honestly, you should be making bank." (Yay?) But given the fact that I'm not, Imma just going to keep doing what I'm doing, which is 'experiment wildly and leap on any possible opportunities as I have the energy.'
If you want to take anything away from that paragraph, it's this: luck is a bigger part of this business, and caprice, than most of us like to admit.
Meanwhile, I observe that my sales to other retailers remain stickier than my Amazon sales, as I mentioned in my previous sales total post (check the business tag). My Amazon income is deflating faster than my payouts from Apple and B&N particularly (with Kobo, strangely, a distant third? What?). But Amazon continues to do voodoo stuff I don't understand--when I reset the price on Morgan 1 to 99 cents to prepare for the Bargain Booksy promotion this week, Amazon discovered the price on its own and within an hour had gotten 20-ish people to buy it. And then abruptly people stopped buying it (because I guess some random algorithm stopped promoting it as a 'suddenly changed price' book or something? Lord knows).
Anyway. My personal prediction is that by May we're going to see pre-promotional sales levels, which will spike briefly when the 50-60 fans of the Princes' Game series buy In Extremis at the end of the month. A lot of authors confess they live from book to book, and I might be one of those authors. Which means I'd better get back to writing...
Questions welcome! Suggestions too, actually. Comments, always. :)
Comments
As a reader I prefer the series that leaves somethings hanging but not critical. The Mind Touch two books are really one book split. Noone could not buy the second half. But I preferred the Dresden files, which did leave some things unresolved, but our hero out of danger to another series where there were cliffhangers.
Godel Fishbreath
2017-05-05 14:41:00 +0000 UTCAll he had to do to not get raped was to abandon the quest, to leave the pelted slaves as slaves, to leave the queen as slave, and to go home. The only thing holding him to that rape was his own sense of honor. While, yes, there is some compulsion there, there is a consent to the price needed to pay to get the job done.
Godel Fishbreath
2017-05-05 14:38:39 +0000 UTC"a second Earthrise series" yes please ;D I just bonded so much with those characters. I need to check out the rest of the Pelted verse, I know. Also, I would be interested in a post on cliffhangers!
2017-05-04 13:54:28 +0000 UTCUm, agreement due to coercion is not consent. Not to mention all the other characters who put themselves in harms way to save someone else or who just had awful things happen to them. Consent is one party checking to see whether the other party(s) is enjoying themselves and then caring about the answer.
2017-05-04 01:54:05 +0000 UTCI'd read this.
Rabbit
2017-05-03 22:16:56 +0000 UTCI shall write the post, then. :)
M.C.A. Hogarth
2017-05-03 21:49:18 +0000 UTCO_O
M.C.A. Hogarth
2017-05-03 21:48:59 +0000 UTCBoth of you are right. Unfortunately. -_-
M.C.A. Hogarth
2017-05-03 21:48:52 +0000 UTCIt seems that you had a prosperous time. Good for you, Maggy.
Godel Fishbreath
2017-05-03 21:33:53 +0000 UTCThe Jokka could use a book or series after they find the right plants. Not everyone will be happy about their discovery. Some will want to keep the old ways, they toughen people, etc. Some will want to spread the new seeds, the new money (crushing businesses that depend on the old money) and the idea that the southern continent was once a different climate and should be restored. Which will disrupt all. Both sides could have heroes. Also there might well be prejudice. The southerners have gone through a winnowing, they might conisder their genes, their heritage to be superior. There could be prejudice on breeding .
Godel Fishbreath
2017-05-03 21:31:25 +0000 UTCI went back and added to my review to try to cover this difference for you and others. He did consent in a way, it was his decision to go through it instead of failing. But there was more then a bit of knife at the throat.
Godel Fishbreath
2017-05-03 21:28:08 +0000 UTCChoke points and happy endings. I think happy endings work. I was reading a short story where the writer went for a twist ending instead of a happy one. I felt (he) took the wrong choice. So much of your writing is not happy. Your Jokka series is about a race that has a real bad problem, they lose their minds under stress. Yes it ends well, but one has to go through much to get there and there was no promise that the series would resolve that way. The two that are buddies and more is a happy situation ... until they have to go to the princes game. Sells well until they go to the princes game. [edit ok I just looked at the numbers, so that statement might be off] They are heroic, loving, good people. That sells too, in my opinion. The princes game series has a choke point. Even the Wingless tries to hit everyone's trigger points. Anyone surviving that will continue, but note that so few do. I don't have triggers. Mind rape with physical rape was yuck, deliberately so, but I suspect a put off for many. Need I quote you your words upon listening to the audio version? Something like "Did I write that?" Somehow I must be in the minority, I really dislike the magic flows downhill world. I will not buy that series again. Not sure why. Insipid characters and situation? Again just my opinion. Now a romance in the pelted universe, as I have suggested many times, might well work. Especially if it stays away from known choke points, places where you test your reader's commitment.
Godel Fishbreath
2017-05-03 19:40:16 +0000 UTCI would like to hear your thoughts on cliffhangers. I've been tying my stories up neatly and it may be costing me.
Karl Gallagher
2017-05-03 18:35:30 +0000 UTCFrom a consent standpoint, actually, Wingless does better than a LOT of romance novels b/c the non-consent is clearly bad and the characters learn better by the end. Too many novels present non-consent as normal and okay.
2017-05-03 18:01:45 +0000 UTCI wonder if a post-Wingless Earthrise series would prompt readers to circle back to Wingless? Also, I think there's a goodly bit of anti-marketing for Wingless. I didn't pick it up for the longest time b/c the cover/description/review made it seem like goriest story ever. Take a look at its Amazon page vs. Hunger Games, for example. I finally picked it up once I realized from discussions on you LJ that it would intersect with the other series, and it was only then that I'm like this is not actually out of the mainstream violence-wise at all. Do I think everyone else's books should be labeled with warnings for graphic content, yes (and I can rant for hours about how hard it is to figure out ahead of time if romance novels meet basic standards of consent), but given that they don't, Wingless stands out more than it should. Spiffy as the covers are, I think you'd get more sales if you rebranded them. Though I do think it's important to give DreamHearth readers a heads up that it's, um, not pastoral.
2017-05-03 17:59:09 +0000 UTCThis is really fascinating stuff! The hubs has been dragging his feet about any kind of publishing for his work because he says he wants to have more series with multiple sequels ready first. From your numbers it looks like he might be right and I might be wrong about just jumping right in with what he's got.
Mandy Lemmi
2017-05-03 17:55:09 +0000 UTCThis is fascinating! Thank you for posting. One of the hardest things for me to accept about life WAS that influence of luck, when we would so like everything to be the result of stuff we have control over...
2017-05-03 15:54:08 +0000 UTCIt's really interesting to see the numbers broken down like that. Wish the Jokka and Romance books sold better, as I love both of those settings. Really happy with your Pelted books though, so no real complaints. Really excited for In Extremis :D
Eric Trombly
2017-05-03 15:25:37 +0000 UTC
