# ...And then I started selling 50 units a day!



## heavycat (Feb 14, 2011)

Okay we've all seen these stories now, and they are just as confusing for most e-book authors now as they were two years ago when the "e-pub revolution" began. Here's the basic sequence of events:

1. Author self-publishes e-book on Amazon. 
2. It doesn't sell 
3. 
4. "Now I'm selling 50 units a day!"

Speaking as someone with over 15 years of experience in Internet marketing, absent a solid block of cash five feet on a side I don't see how an individual author can go from zero a day to 50 a day in weeks or even months. I know, I know, they blogged and tweeted. We get it.

But you know what? Blogging and tweeting doesn't generate 50 sales a day unless you have six million followers. Updating your cover and blurb doesn't help either. If nobody ever sees your cover or blurb, it can't help you, and nobody will see your cover or blurb unless you have steady traffic in the thousands of uniques a day landing on your book page. Thousands of uniques a day = cash. Period.

From our experience, even having a lot of traffic doesn't help. We've driven over 250,000 uniques to the feature site for our characters in the last four years. Didn't sell a thing: no merchandise, no comic donations, no books, no posters. What did help was the handful of good reviews: the result of introducing the book to over 400 review sites. Did it sell some books? Sure. Sustainable sales? Nope.

I'm fairly certain I speak for a number of authors when I ask the question: "*EXACTLY* what did you do to catapult your book from obscurity to daily sales?" Here are the answers that are not acceptable:

1. "I put on my suit of awesome and walked down Main Street winking at passers-by while sipping champagne."
2. "I has a Facebook" 
3. "I blogged and tweeted." 
4. "I changed my cover and blurb and that by itself caused people (thousands of whom were presumably refreshing your book page every 12 minutes waiting for the new cover and blurb) to buy a book they formerly ignored entirely."
5. "I write a new book every 36 hours, and the gravitational pull of eight hundred obscure books = one chart-topper." 
6. "My book is so good, it telepathically called to customers who bought computers so they could find it." 
7. "I gave away eleventy-thousand books and suddenly everyone else decided to buy it for no apparent reason other than for six hours it appeared on a top 100 list that nobody sees unless they are looking for a free book."

Now I have my theories. Among them is the theory that only very narrow audiences have Kindles, and that in order to achieve sustainable sales, you must write to those audiences, i.e. romance for women and detective dramas/political thrillers for their husbands. For the rest of us, we're just outta luck.

Please discuss.


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## Cher Carson (Mar 27, 2012)

I enrolled in Select. I know it doesn't work for everyone, but getting my books into the hands of 10,000 readers over the past six weeks made all the difference. Unfortunately, almost 9,000 of those were free, but I'm still up to 50 sales a day, post free, so I'm not complaining!


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## heavycat (Feb 14, 2011)

Ok (even though this answer breaks rule #7 above), I'll bite.  Here's what I don't get about Select:  

"Persons A, B, and C get Book One for free.  Persons D through T then decide to buy Book One?"

Or perhaps it is this:  

"Author gives away book A.  Suddenly sales of book B take off because book A is electronic awesome."

Or is it something else?


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## Victorine (Apr 23, 2010)

1. Visibility. People have to know you exist. The *best* visibility comes from Amazon itself. (Or B&N if you are selling on the Nook and are lucky enough to have B&N push your book.)

2. Popular genre. (Yeah, it sucks, but niche genres just don't appeal to the masses. 50 sales a day puts your book around #1,000. That means only 1,000 books out of the many many books on Amazon sell 50 books a day or more. Those are going to be the popular books. The genres like thrillers and mysteries and yes, romance.)

3. Presentation. (Cover, blurb, writing.) Your book needs to look good or you won't get sustainable sales.

4. Sell-through rate. Amazon knows how many people click on your book. They know what percentage of them carry through and buy it. You can drive traffic to your book on Amazon, but if all those people leave without buying, it ruins your sell-through rate. If you have a low sell-through rate, Amazon assumes something on your book page is turning people away. They're not going to waste time promoting books that don't have a good sell-through rate. Moral of the story: Don't send random people to your book page. Market to those most likely to buy.

Hope that helps.


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## Herc- The Reluctant Geek (Feb 10, 2010)

The thing is, there are books of all genres in the Amazon top 100 that have been selling 1000+ books per day for months on end. It's true that there are certain genres that sell better on the kindle than others, but, because the internet is darned big, it doesn't mean that you can't sell anything outside those genres. Unless it's lit fiction. 
'
Another consideration is that ebooks are still new and the market is growing. It probably wont mature for a few more years yet, and in that time I'm sure we'll see growth in ebook sales across all genres. Except lit fiction.


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## AndreSanThomas (Jan 31, 2012)

The way Select works (when it works, it doesn't work for everyone or for every book), is thus:

1.  Your book does go up on the lists.  It sits there side by side on the free list next door to the corresponding paid books.  When my book was number 69 on the free US erotica list (no, I didn't make that up), it was sitting next door to Anne Rice's paid book.  Someone browsing those lists sees it.

2.  Your book may generate reviews, "likes" and additional/agreement with tags.  Those all help your book sell.

3.  Your book generates "also boughts".  People looking for a similar (say a big name book), see, other people also bought Andre's book.  Wonder what that's about, let's click and see...

4.  If you have a series of books and say even 10% of the millions of free downloaders gets around to reading your book, they may be so engrossed they go on and read the next and the next.


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## Victorine (Apr 23, 2010)

heavycat said:


> Ok (even though this answer breaks rule #7 above), I'll bite. Here's what I don't get about Select:
> 
> "Persons A, B, and C get Book One for free. Persons D through T then decide to buy Book One?"
> 
> ...


It's visibility. If you give away a TON of books, Amazon's algorithms notice. "Hey, this must be a good book! Everyone is clamoring to get it!" So Amazon starts putting YOUR book up on other people's "I totally recommend this awesome book for you" pages.

How do I know this? When I gave away 49,000 copies of my book, two days later it was in the top 100 paid and people were sending me screen shots of my book on the front page of Amazon, and on recommendation lists.


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## David Adams (Jan 2, 2012)

heavycat said:


> Ok (even though this answer breaks rule #7 above), I'll bite. Here's what I don't get about Select:
> 
> "Persons A, B, and C get Book One for free. Persons D through T then decide to buy Book One?"
> 
> ...


It's something else.

Depending on your results on Select, your book is reordered in the Kindle Lender's Library, the first thing people see when they turn on their Kindles. If you do well (1,000+ -> 10,000+ sales depending on genre) your book may be #5, #4, etc, even #1 in your category for a period of time determined by how well you did vs how well incoming books are doing.

Obviously, being the first thing seen when people click on, say, "Science Fiction" gives you a huge publicity boost and that's what they call the "three day bump"... because slowly your book drops rating till eventually it disappears.

David Dalglish gave me wise words once. He said, "There's no secret formula to success. What worked a year ago no longer works, and what works now will not work in a year."

I'll extrapolate on that a bit further.

"It's all luck. But you have to make your self_ able to take advantage of luck_ when it comes."

In short, you need:

- A kick-arse book.
- A kick-arse cover.
- A kick-arse blurb.
- Multiple books out so readers become your "followers".
- Notifications for sequels and the like.
- As large a web presence as you can manage.
- Anything else you can think of.

So that when your luck comes, you take advantage of it.

But you know what? There's _no formula to success_. You can do all the above and more and never make it... you can do nothing but hit "submit", run a free day, have POI pick you up and Felicia Day get hold of it and give it 5 stars on her blog.

It's luck... but there is a certain amount of truth in the saying that "(wo)men make their own luck".


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## Victorine (Apr 23, 2010)

Herc- The Reluctant Geek said:


> The thing is, there are books of all genres in the Amazon top 100 that have been selling 1000+ books per day for months on end. It's true that there are certain genres that sell better on the kindle than others, but, because the internet is darned big, it doesn't mean that you can't sell anything outside those genres. Unless it's lit fiction.
> '
> Another consideration is that ebooks are still new and the market is growing. It probably wont mature for a few more years yet, and in that time I'm sure we'll see growth in ebook sales across all genres. Except lit fiction.


I would *love* to take the time to create a pie chart of the top 1,000 books on Amazon and categorize them according to genre. Sure, you have outliers, but I'm sure the large percentages are going to be thrillers, mysteries, romance, and the like. The smaller pieces will show you which genres are harder to sell.


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## dalya (Jul 26, 2011)

There's the accepted/hard way: Find customers one at a time and literally hand-sell them by creating a relationship through blogs or twitter. This is better than nothing, but the return on your time is quite low if you have to always hand-sell every copy.

Eventually, your hand-sold copies might turn your readers into spokespeople, who influence others to buy your books. Note: these "influential" people are few and far between. They're people with high Klout scores or whatever. Euch. The thought makes me feel gross.

There's the algorithm way: Somehow become popular for long enough to *get seen*. Get visibility. Get on lists. People will think the book *must* be good if it's on whatever top 100 list and will keep buying it. Somehow stay up on these lists.

*I'm going to say something scandalous!*

Being a "great writer" doesn't seem to make *much *difference to success as an Indie:
- I've seen PLENTY of popular ebooks for $2.99 that make me cringe for their (totally subjective, I know) badness.
- I've seen incredible work languishing at the bottom of the heap.

When I analyze my own career, I think I've made the following mistakes:
- Not putting limp girls and purple swirls on my covers
- Not writing paranormal romance
- Not having 10 books ready to roll during the Gold Rush of December 2011.


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## heavycat (Feb 14, 2011)

> If you give away a TON of books, Amazon's algorithms notice.


Ok, so the entire equation boils down to this: either Amazon promotes your book, or you're sunk. It doesn't even help if you drive a ton of traffic to your book page (something I find both shocking and tremendously discouraging, as it flies in the face of everything I've ever learned about marketing).

All you can do is pull the Amazon Select handle, slap "FREE" on the book and hope you climb high enough on the charts to get you sustainable. If it fails, that book is done and you move on to the next one.

Is that close? I really truly hope it isn't just luck. I'd really REALLY rather spend my time doing something productive instead of spamming the Interwebs hoping the book will get featured on Really Big Audience dot com(tm).


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## jnfr (Mar 26, 2011)

For me, at least, it doesn't matter what categories sell best. I can only write what I have to write. Float them out onto the vast ocean of books, and they have to find their own way.


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## Ian Marks (Jan 22, 2012)

Well, I think you're onto something with your comment about narrow audiences. At the end of the day you have to be selling something that people want to buy, right?

So what do they want to buy?

They want to read what they've enjoyed before, in a slightly different package. Wasn't it Louis B. Mayer who said, "Give me the same thing, only different?" He was talking about motion pictures, of course, but the principle's the same.

If you're pushing something that doesn't fit conveniently into one of those nice neat bento boxes, you're going to have a harder time finding an audience. I believe it can be done, though. Your product has to outstanding, of course, and it has to have some kind of hook, something that makes a prospective reader say, _"gee, I didn't realize that I wanted to read a book about an Arizona rodeo clown turned time-traveling detective set during the Spanish Inquisition." _

But I've already said too much...


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## dalya (Jul 26, 2011)

heavycat said:


> Ok, so the entire equation boils down to this: either Amazon promotes your book, or you're sunk.


Yes. Pretty much, though, like I said earlier, you could do it the hard way and hand-sell copies through "relationships."



heavycat said:


> All you can do is pull the Amazon Select handle, slap "FREE" on the book and hope you climb high enough on the charts to get you sustainable. If it fails, that book is done and you move on to the next one.


Yes. Although, before it fails, you should have already moved on to the next one.

Anyways.

It still beats the heck out of putting the manuscript in the drawer, or endlessly collecting rejection letters.

We're still lucky to have e-publishing.

Some days I think I can get by on a sale or two a day, and that'll keep me writing. Other days, not so much.

P.S. Have you considered putting a limp girl and some purple swirls on your cover?


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## heavycat (Feb 14, 2011)

> a book about an Arizona rodeo clown turned time-traveling detective set during the Spanish Inquisition


Now you've done it. You've given away the next big thing. Now someone's going to get rich.


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## Victorine (Apr 23, 2010)

heavycat said:


> Ok, so the entire equation boils down to this: either Amazon promotes your book, or you're sunk. It doesn't even help if you drive a ton of traffic to your book page (something I find both shocking and tremendously discouraging, as it flies in the face of everything I've ever learned about marketing).
> 
> All you can do is pull the Amazon Select handle, slap "FREE" on the book and hope you climb high enough on the charts to get you sustainable. If it fails, that book is done and you move on to the next one.
> 
> Is that close? I really truly hope it isn't just luck. I'd really REALLY rather spend my time doing something productive instead of spamming the Interwebs hoping the book will get featured on Really Big Audience dot com(tm).


No, you're not sunk. Niche genres do sell, you just have to find your niche audience. The more people that buy Book A of Same Genre as they do of your book, the more you will get associated with Book A of Same Genre. And if they buy Book C of Same Genre as well, all three books get associated and Amazon can pitch your book to buyers of Book A and Book C.

The best way to grow a niche audience is to have a slow build. And market appropriately. To people already buying Book A and Book C.

Let your book grow organically over time. That's much better than pulling the slot machine and hoping for a win. Niche books most likely won't win.


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## Ian Marks (Jan 22, 2012)

heavycat said:


> It doesn't even help if you drive a ton of traffic to your book page (something I find both shocking and tremendously discouraging, as it flies in the face of everything I've ever learned about marketing).


You did say that you were involved in Internet Marketing, right? Because this is a common fallacy in that twisted world.

Dude, you gotta have a product that people want. If I could get a million people to view my sales page for my book on penile implants for yaks, I still wouldn't get a lot of sales. That's because there's no freakin' market for books about penile implants for yaks. Even the yaks aren't interested in them (I've asked).

But if I could get 100,000 people to view a sales page for a romance novel about an English missionary's daughter who is taken captive by a rogue pirate with a rippling six-pack, I bet I'd sell a bunch of them, because - even though I don't understand the appeal - there is a market for those.


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## heavycat (Feb 14, 2011)

> P.S. Have you considered putting a limp girl and some purple swirls on your cover?


Well, there's a girl. She's not limp and she's not purple. Tell me what you think:

http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,111580.msg1672666.html#msg1672666


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## heavycat (Feb 14, 2011)

> Dude, you gotta have a product that people want.





> you just have to find your niche audience.


With all due respect, it's this kind of advice that isn't helpful. Of course you have to find your audience and have a book people want. But this kind of advice leads to people digging holes by the dozens hoping to find buried treasure. "If you just keep digging, someday you'll find your audience!" This is really no different than "If you just keep sending query letters, someday an agent will read one!"



> But if I could get 100,000 people to view a sales page for a romance novel about an English missionary's daughter who is taken captive by a rogue pirate with a rippling six-pack, I bet I'd sell a bunch of them, because


... women buy Kindles so they can read romance novels without covers?


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## skyrunner (Dec 28, 2010)

Really appreciate this thread - valuable insightful - _call it as it is _- comments


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## valeriec80 (Feb 24, 2011)

heavycat said:


> Ok, so the entire equation boils down to this: either Amazon promotes your book, or you're sunk. It doesn't even help if you drive a ton of traffic to your book page (something I find both shocking and tremendously discouraging, as it flies in the face of everything I've ever learned about marketing).


Yep. Victorine said it twice, but I'll say it again. Visibility. That's why big publishers pay for placement tables in the front of book stores. Visibility sells books.

As for driving people to your book page, this could theoretically work if a bunch of people bought your book from the visit. The way I understand it, Amazon has a conversion rate. This is some number they figure out based on how many people look at your book page and then go on to buy your book. If your conversion rate is high, they show you to more people, (which tends to help you sell books). When your conversion rate is low, they lower your visibility. (This conversion rate theory comes from the amazing and rarely-around-these-days Debora Geary, who knows all the secrets of the almighty Amazon.)

Look, I feel your pain. It's not fair. There should be something you could DO to be SURE you'd succeed. But, if you really think about it, if success were that easy, if it were just following a certain set of steps and getting there, like putting together Ikea furniture or something, it would kind of not mean the same thing. Being successful means being special. It means fortune smiled upon you. And as much as I think my kindergarten teacher might have disagreed, if everyone is special, being special isn't nearly as special anymore. So...

I guess I'm saying write another book.  That's what I always do. (But I'm considering offering a sacrifice to the free book site gods and dancing around a bonfire intoning Latin. It MIGHT get me an ENT mention. You never know...)


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## IB (Jan 31, 2012)

David Adams said:


> It's something else.
> 
> Depending on your results on Select, your book is reordered in the Kindle Lender's Library, the first thing people see when they turn on their Kindles. If you do well (1,000+ -> 10,000+ sales depending on genre) your book may be #5, #4, etc, even #1 in your category for a period of time determined by how well you did vs how well incoming books are doing.
> 
> ...


Yep. "Luck is the residue of design." -- Branch Rickey


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## heavycat (Feb 14, 2011)

> When your conversion rate is low, they lower your visibility.


So by sending people to our book page, something we've been doing for over two years now, we are actually penalizing ourselves.

That's astonishing.


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## jimkukral (Oct 31, 2011)

Heavycat, I see how you're thinking. I've got a 16-year career in Internet marketing as well. So I think the same way. You're trying to come up with the "secrets to ranking well on amazon and selling a ton of books." I don't mean that in a bad way at all. It's how I think as well. If I could only figure out the Amazon algo I'd be able to sell books. 

So here's what I've learned since I started publishing books in this game. It's a TON of luck, and a TON of writing a book that the masses want. 

Sure, everything else matters a lot too. Cover, great book, blurbs, reviews... All of it matters a lot. But trying to figure out the algo to Amazon isn't the same as Google. With Google we had a lot of clues. They told us enough to make us learn how it works. Amazon isn't making the same mistake. They're not telling us diddly. And frankly, I don't think they really know/care. As long as they keep selling books, why should they care about the authors that aren't selling? They don't, and they shouldn't because they are in the business of sales. Google is in the business of ads, and relevancy. They are forced to make concessions to us to give us hints at how to rank better. It's the ultimate carrot and stick.

Amazon... not so much.


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## skyrunner (Dec 28, 2010)

I would also suggest another cover for your book - just try it as an experiment

not saying the Art is not good - it is - it fits a certain genre though - people who love Manga

Try another style of cover just to see if it makes a difference.


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## heavycat (Feb 14, 2011)

> If I could only figure out the Amazon algo I'd be able to sell books.


Truly I'm not trying to figure out the Amazon algorithm. I'm not entirely convinced an algorithm is the problem. What I have gathered so far is:

1. A book must be visible on Amazon in order to sell. 
2. See Item One.

From where I'm sitting, because I have zero control over my book page, and I cannot market my book on the web lest my conversion rate drop, the only means of becoming visible on Amazon where one formerly was not visible is:

1. Enroll in Select
2. Make the book free
3. Give away ?? number of copies (presuming anyone actually takes the offer)
4. Make the book unfree
5. Hope it sells afterwards.

If that fails, the book is sunk, because there is literally no other way to make it visible without actually working against the algorithm. Please correct me if I'm wrong.


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## David Adams (Jan 2, 2012)

There are other ways. They're just a lot harder.

Basically, build up your web presence, as I mentioned earlier. Have Goodreads giveaways. Write _honest _reviews for other books. Use Select or price matching to set the first book in a series to free. Join tagging circles. Check out what's on your Also Boughts and review it. Be as active on the Kindleboards as time allows.

Act with integrity and professionalism at all times. Kindleboards is indexed by Google -- everything you say here is on the record. Congratulate people when they do well, help readers and writers who are struggling without expecting more than a "Thank You!", be magnanimous in success and fine spirited in failure. Keep your chin up, keep smiling. Take some pride in your work -- get it professionally edited and proofread, with the best cover you can afford.

Write, write, write.

Write some short stories set in your universe (they get their own set of Select free days) and make them $0.99/$1.49, then bundle them together into an omnibus/collection at a higher price point (which also gets its own set of free days).

Share your success if you can and study what other, successful, writers are doing. Give your honest opinion where it's called for. Don't make every thread about your own book. Don't attack other authors, but don't support people doing ludicrous things just because they're authors... be prepared to dispense The Hard Honest Truth when needed.

Write, write, _write_.

Try a different genre. Read -- it's the best way to improve your own writing, especially if you read within your genre... but even if reading without. I learned so much from _The Milestone Tapes_ about how to make grown men blubber and sob their eyes out never ever cry because I'm a manly manly man damnit, and it's Chick Lit. It not only was a fascinating read, but it improved my own writing.

Post on Goodreads. Post on Kindleboards. Do _NOT _post on KDP forums unless this is part of some kind of strange suicide attempt or cry for help.

And when your good luck finally comes... grab it and run with both hands.


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## skyrunner (Dec 28, 2010)

_" Do NOT post on KDP forums unless this is part of some kind of strange suicide attempt or cry for help "_

Ha !


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## David Adams (Jan 2, 2012)

skyrunner said:


> _" Do NOT post on KDP forums unless this is part of some kind of strange suicide attempt or cry for help "_
> 
> Ha !


Sorry, it's just yeah, I kind of picture the KDP Forums as being this terrible run-down neighbourhood where you don't go out at night because the streetlights don't work and where the only noises are the occasional barking of a dog and distant gunshots.


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## Rykymus (Dec 3, 2011)

The best thing about KDP is that you can keep tweaking things until you find a combination that sells. Try different covers, blurbs, and categories. I had to change both my cover and my category to get my first book to start selling more than a few copies a day.

It also occurred to me, (and admittedly I know nothing about manga and anime, other than my daughter goes to the conventions) but if your cover art appeals to manga fans, do they even like reading novels?

Don't get me wrong, your cover art is awesome without a doubt. But it might be sending the wrong message. Maybe send the story to a different cover artist (not yourself) and see what they come up with?

Just thinking out loud.


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## Chad Wilde Author (Mar 16, 2012)

Dear Indie Authors, Get off my lawn.  Regards, Amazon forums.  

There are other ways to sell 50 units a day without select.  No one has brought up buying a sponsorship on Pixel of Ink, Kindle Fire Department, Ereader News Today, Frugal Ereader or the like.


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## JeanneM (Mar 21, 2011)

The description sounds like this could be a popular book in the YA category. But I would take what Skyrunner said to heart about the cover. I don't think it is doing your story justice. I know I'm not your target audience, but just to give you an idea, my eyes glaze over images like that. I really dislike that style of art. And I think someone mentioned on another thread, that Japanese style Manga/Anime doesn't attract U.S. audiences in large numbers.

I'll bet a new cover would help a lot. Keeping a positive attitude (which is so hard, I know) would help as well. When you think positively about your sales, you will have more come to you. And as people have said, start working on your next project. _If you build it, they will come_ People keep saying this for a reason.

I'm in a very narrow niche. Pet Psychic experiences...oh yes, people are dying to get to this book. Most people think it is fiction. LOL But last year, I had only a handful of sales each month. This year with a new cover, and KDP Select, I'm averaging over one a day. I know it doesn't sound like much, but for me...and this book...it is an incredible difference.

So new cover, exposure, and keep writing. I hope this helps. I'm not wise like the others here and don't even look at my rankings unless I'm on a free select day. That is only because it is wicked fun! Otherwise, I don't even think about it. I'm thinking about Pet Psychic II.  Best of luck to you.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

If you only have one book, you might be doomed. Sorry to say, but it's the truth. As William Goldman always said about Hollywood, "Nobody knows anything." There is no way to tell if Book X will take off and sell a lot, none. You can do everything right- good cover, good editing, great story, great description, etc, and it might sell two copies. That's the reality of the business.

Now, you don't have to sell tons of copies on Amazon to be successful. There are lots of other venues and formats. I think any good long-term plan in publishing should have more than just one book and more than just ebooks in it. There are so many more options than just ebooks. Here's a great blog post by Dean Wesley Smith on not limiting your options and thinking long-term: http://www.deanwesleysmith.com/?p=6613

There's no magic solution. You keep writing, keep improving your craft (both your publisher craft and your writing craft), and make your books available everywhere you can, in as many formats as you can, with the best packaging you can.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

> 6. "My book is so good, it telepathically called to customers who bought computers so they could find it."


You do realize that where people find their Kindle books is on their Kindle, right?

And one might ask, how is finding a book on the Kindle DIFFERENT from finding it on the internet site.

It is, you know. Or do you? 

Have you looked for books on a Kindle? Do you know how that works? Just wondering.

A book has to be visible on the Kindle itself and that is not the same as being visible on the site. They really are quite different.


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## EC Sheedy (Feb 24, 2011)

David Adams said:


> Sorry, it's just yeah, I kind of picture the KDP Forums as being this terrible run-down neighbourhood where you don't go out at night because the streetlights don't work and where the only noises are the occasional barking of a dog and distant gunshots.


  And those dogs don't just bark--they're badass.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

AndreSanThomas said:


> The way Select works (when it works, it doesn't work for everyone or for every book), is thus:
> 
> 1. Your book does go up on the lists. It sits there side by side on the free list next door to the corresponding paid books. When my book was number 69 on the free US erotica list (no, I didn't make that up), it was sitting next door to Anne Rice's paid book. Someone browsing those lists sees it.
> 
> ...


Actually, you are leaving out (or don't know about) the most important factor.

Free giveaways count in the Popularity List calculations, unlike the Best Seller calculations. A lot of Free downloads will put you near the top of the Popularity List and that is what most people see when they look in the Kindle Store on their Kindle because it is the default list that comes up. And most people who have a Kindle use it to make purchases. Also on the Kindle it is very easy to drill down to subcategories so being at the top of a subcategory can help a lot (although you see people sneer at being at the top of subcategories all the time).

People would have a better grasp of how Kindle sales work if they would actually use a Kindle.


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## heavycat (Feb 14, 2011)

> People would have a better grasp of how Kindle sales work if they would actually use a Kindle.


Unfortunately, I don't have a Kindle. I use the Kindle software for iOS though. I rarely shop for books on the small screen.


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## ChrisVC (Mar 25, 2012)

Let me just throw this out there:  Everyone is convinced that their book is great.  Why?  Because, when you are a fiction writer, you get to choose and make up whatever you want.  You choose the topic, plot, setting, and characters specifically because it PUSHES YOUR BUTTONS.  That, however, does not mean that it pushes other people's buttons.  There was an author I knew...for years, who was a fabulous writer.  Better than 90% of the serious authors I've known.  But, for some reason, he always wanted to write about weird little quirky subjects that just didn't have any universal appeal.  Because the subject matter, settings, and characters were so odd, few people ever bothered looking at his stuff to even find out that he was a great writer.  So, what am I saying?  I think it comes down to this.  

You can study Amazon, put up thirty books, be on all kinds of web pages, blog your fingers off, and if your idea (and then your actual book and the writing) just isn't interesting to people...all those other efforts are for not.  If this sound really obvious, I think to lots and lots of want-to-be successful authors, it isn't. I think that a book based on a great idea, with average writing will always sell better than a book with an unappealing idea that is written fabulously.  I can provide a ton of examples of this, but I'm sure you can think of your own.


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## heavycat (Feb 14, 2011)

> and if your idea (and then your actual book and the writing) just isn't interesting to people...all those other efforts are for not.


Let's examine that. Is there anything particularly unappealing about teenage girls with magical weapons who fight evil monsters in a fantasy adventure story?

Recent popular titles would seem to indicate there is some demand for heroic girls fighting on the side of the good guys. (For the record, LadyStar pre-dates Hunger Games by nine years).

I can't say I believe at this point enough people have actually read the book to say one way or the other whether it is a failed idea. I can say the book has gotten its fair share of good reviews, for whatever that's worth. Perhaps the new cover will re-ignite review interest?

Here is the proposed new cover. I do have to say, real-life Jessica Hoshi is unusual after 13 years of anime Jessica Hoshi, lol :


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## skyrunner (Dec 28, 2010)

This had been a most valuable thread

a crash course in effective marketing in relation to Amazon.
Very timely for me since i hope to publish my first book in about a month

If i was to put it down to one thing - it's _sell through rate_ - i did not know about that.

So what others have said
_Amazon pays a lot of attention to the sell through rate_ - and of course they would.

And if they like the sell through rate - they'll make an effort to put your book in front
of more people.

So the Authors job is to make the first sight of their book as interesting as possible to visitors.
That would mean

1. great cover 
2. great blurb - arouses curiosity
3. if poss. and original hook, etc

No point in having 200 visitors - or 500, if no one buys.

Of course after that we would want a great product, so the returns are low -
and the reviews are glowing !

Apparently the minimum strike rate Amazon is looking for,_ is an Amazon secret _? yes ?
I sale in 100 visitors ? 10 sales in 100 visitors ?
I dont expect anyone will know - just asking.


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## skyrunner (Dec 28, 2010)

Much better cover BTW

Ill bet anything you see better sales.

It amazing how a simple concept, can be the most effective.

This cover raises curiosity about your heroine. 
With a great blurb to accompany, i suspect your on your way to better sales


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

You have access to wonderful artists, don't you? (They did a great job on my cover, for sure).  Why not see what one of them can do that is more fitting for the book and less of a Manga style?


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## heavycat (Feb 14, 2011)

> You have access to wonderful artists, don't you?


They astonish me with their talent.


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## WilliamKing.me (Jul 15, 2011)

How to sell 50 units a day? It's simple -- just write 100 books .  But seriously -- I am earning a pretty decent living from e-books (by my admittedly low standards as a long-term professional writer) and I have never had a single title sell more than 30 units a day except for a couple of days after coming of a promotion in the early days of Kindle Select. I do sell more than 75 units a day on average in aggregate over 14 titles and the majority of these are at $4.99. The books in series sell best by about a factor of 5. I've never done a Select promo with any of the series books because I have never felt the need.  As far as I can tell there is no easy magic formula. There is a bit of luck and a lot of writing involved. Good covers, good blurbs and a bit of promo don't hurt either.

All the best,

Bill


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## Herc- The Reluctant Geek (Feb 10, 2010)

There are also little things you can do to build a presence. Put a sample chapter up on Feedbooks and Scribd. If you're really keen, you could pay for some cheap pay-per-click advertising on Project Wonderful or buy a month on a modestly priced site at BuySellAds.com. Ereaders aren't quite common enough for general advertising to work, but you can get some good exposure for $20 - $30 on those sites. 

I lucked out once when I paid $30 to advertise on a facebook game that went virul a few weeks later. I was getting 500K + impressions and 10K clicks for $30 for three consecutive months. Almost cried when they changed ad companies and increased their prices tenfold.


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## B.A. Spangler (Jan 25, 2012)

heavycat said:


> Ok (even though this answer breaks rule #7 above), I'll bite. Here's what I don't get about Select:
> 
> "Persons A, B, and C get Book One for free. Persons D through T then decide to buy Book One?"
> 
> ...


I think that is it more than anything &#8230; single titles don't seem to do as well as series. Write a big big big book, break it up into four parts and sell the last three while giving away the first on Select - gets things moving.


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## Borislava Borissova (Sep 9, 2011)

About the genre, I agree the high importance of it. Literary fictions, non-fictions, drama etc. sell much less than paranormal romances or stories with magicians in our days.
Another interesting point in alluring potentioal readers is grabbed even by publishers today:
Your submission package must include the following:
1. Synopsis
2. in .doc format, 12 point Times New Roman font, double-spaced etc.
AND:
*All our authors are required to write at least one short story per publication that will be made available to readers as a free eBook download on the KRP website. Please list below some ideas for your short story (we suggest that the short story feature characters from your novel).*

I should say, I find it very reasonable because I know a few ones successful indie authors, who have a short story for free and if the reader likes their style of writing etc. supposedly he/she would pay for other books of the same author. 
And for a new, very innovative way to make your works noticeable I have just offered my support to the group of authors that would try it. If there will be considerable success I will tell you.
Blogging, twittering, FB worked in 2007; 2008... but unfortunately not anymore. People are overloaded with such messages and feel tired of paying them attention.


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## NathanWrann (May 5, 2011)

Victorine said:


> 4. Sell-through rate. Amazon knows how many people click on your book. They know what percentage of them carry through and buy it. You can drive traffic to your book on Amazon, but if all those people leave without buying, it ruins your sell-through rate. If you have a low sell-through rate, Amazon assumes something on your book page is turning people away. They're not going to waste time promoting books that don't have a good sell-through rate. Moral of the story: Don't send random people to your book page. Market to those most likely to buy.


THIS is very interesting.


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## Cher Carson (Mar 27, 2012)

heavycat said:


> Ok (even though this answer breaks rule #7 above), I'll bite. Here's what I don't get about Select:
> 
> "Persons A, B, and C get Book One for free. Persons D through T then decide to buy Book One?"
> 
> ...


So sorry about breaking your rule. It was late, and I guess I was skimming! I don't know how this works for others, I can only speak about my experience. The last free promo I did, I gave away book two in the series because book one was still available on other sites. I did okay with freeloads (3300), but didn't make the top 100 overall. I did make my category list though. Coming off free, it changed my baseline. Sales doubled and have remained there until my last promo, which ended yesterday. This time it was the first book in the series, got (8700) freeloads, and made overall and category lists. The days that it was free, sales have doubled again. I don't have if that will continue, I can only hope, but like someone else said, I don't think I would have had these results had the book not been part of a series. Of course, I'm hoping those who download the free book will come back for the other books on the series, and so far many have been. As someone else mentioned, luck and a positive attitude do help, so good luck!


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## MonkeyScribe (Jan 27, 2011)

heavycat said:


> Here is the proposed new cover. I do have to say, real-life Jessica Hoshi is unusual after 13 years of anime Jessica Hoshi, lol :


How many books have you written in the subsequent thirteen years? If you want to make a living as a professional writer, the number one thing you need to do is to regularly produce new work.


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## heavycat (Feb 14, 2011)

> How many books have you written in the subsequent thirteen years?


The first LadyStar novel was published in 2011. Prior to that, it was a game series and a webcomic.


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## JumpingShip (Jun 3, 2010)

heavycat said:


> Ok (even though this answer breaks rule #7 above), I'll bite. Here's what I don't get about Select:
> 
> "Persons A, B, and C get Book One for free. Persons D through T then decide to buy Book One?"
> 
> ...


It's the increased visibility. Nothing magical. If the free book is the first in a series then readers will naturally be interested in subsequent books if the first was good.


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## MonkeyScribe (Jan 27, 2011)

heavycat said:


> The first LadyStar novel was published in 2011. Prior to that, it was a game series and a webcomic.


Then my advice would be to read, to study, and write as much as you can manage, then take another measurement in three or four years after you have several more high-quality books for sale. This is a tough business, and there's a lot of luck involved, but there are a few things you can control and production is one of them.


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## Ernie Lindsey (Jul 6, 2010)

Wow, that sell-through rate thing is kind of an eye-opener. No wonder my rankings and sales start dropping off whenever I advertise on Google. I'm fairly handy with AdWords (another with an internet marketing background) and can get roughly $0.07-$0.12 clicks at about a 3-5% CTR using an ad similar to the following:

Great Fiction eBook
Fans of The Shack Will Love This 
eBook for Only $3.99 on Your Fire

I'm directly targeting people that were interested in a book similar to mine, they click on the ads like crazy people, and I can send 100 people to my page for about $7.00 per day over a week, yet my rankings/sales drop. I now have a flattened forehead from beating my head against the desk trying to figure out what the problem was.

Sell-through rate explains a lot, because I *know* I was selling better for the first week of April when I didn't spend a dime on advertising.


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## heavycat (Feb 14, 2011)

It makes no sense to me at all a system where if more people visit your book page, your sales drop.  Everything we've been doing for the last two years has been geared towards getting more people to visit the book page in order to sell more books.

Why discourage more traffic to a particular book page?  It's directly contradictory to the Affiliates program, where publishers are paid to send traffic to Amazon.


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## Steve Vernon (Feb 18, 2011)

A lot of good info here. I don't have much to offer beyond this.

Number one - that new cover is dynamite. I'd get that happening as soon as possible. I absolutely HATE and LOATHE "face" covers - but that new cover caught my eye. The "B" amulet is such an eye-grabber in that it looks like a "13" as well as a "B". 

Number two - write more books. Turn that series into a real series - with kickass covers like the new one - and I'll bet your sales numbers will begin to climb.


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## Herc- The Reluctant Geek (Feb 10, 2010)

Ernie Lindsey said:


> Wow, that sell-through rate thing is kind of an eye-opener. No wonder my rankings and sales start dropping off whenever I advertise on Google. I'm fairly handy with AdWords (another with an internet marketing background) and can get roughly $0.07-$0.12 clicks at about a 3-5% CTR using an ad similar to the following:
> 
> Great Fiction eBook
> Fans of The Shack Will Love This
> ...


I used a website as the landing page for my ads. If I had been really keen, I would have become an affiliate and used all Amazon's marketing tools to make it seamless and easy to navigate. The web site was important not only for the click through rates thingy (which I didn't know about until recently), but because it allowed me to include folk who didn't have a kindle but still bought ebooks.

The problem is that creating marketing campaigns from scratch is time consuming and energy sapping and nowhere near as fun as writing. And unless they are done well or you get a slice of luck (like I did) then they may not be worth the effort because of the low concentration of ereader-owning websurfers.


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## Adam Pepper (May 28, 2011)

I just wish I knew which things actually worked.  When I get a sale, I really dont know if it's from a random browser, or someone who saw my work on a review site or book blog, maybe it's someone from my mailing list.  Maybe it's my mother again!

It's tough to know where to focus your energies when you dont know what's working.  But in the end, my approach is just keep doing a little of everything and seeing what sticks.


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## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

Heavycat, Your new cover is so much better, swap it out now.

I think the most important thing to do is to understand your reader and market and what they want and write a great story with a great cover and blurb. Marketing ideas will come and go and change, what worked 6 months ago won't work as well now. What your reader wants is far more enduring.


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## S Jaffe (Jul 3, 2011)

Just to give this all a little perspective -- remember that even the biggest of the big publishers is just as clueless as all of us.  They can't make a book a bestseller any more than you can.  It just happens.  They through tons of money into Book X only to find Book Y is the hit.  They win out by publishing lots of books, knowing that if just a few of them are a hit, it'll cover the misses.  This is why it is so important to keep producing books.  With only one book out, you either hit or miss.  With three books out you have 3 times the chances. Not to mention that with more and more books out, you require each one to perform less in order to do well overall for you.  50 sales a day on one book is hard. 50 sales a day on 10 books is easier.


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## tensen (May 17, 2011)

Note if the conversion rate theory exists, a good number of authors are hurting their own rates by continually checking their rankings by going to the Amazon site instead of using one of the services for it.

Also consider if Amazon doesn't want all the authors to stop sending customers to their books and advertising for them, then the conversion rate is just one more portion of the overall algorithim. And as such we should never know how much weight it really has.


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## teashopgirl (Dec 8, 2011)

Because of this thread, I just made one of my books free via Select tomorrow. I had been losing enthusiasm for it, but y'all are correct...it's really the only thing that has worked for me so far. I just hope the positive effects of having free days doesn't completely peter out.


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## Jan Hurst-Nicholson (Aug 25, 2010)

Victorine said:


> 1. Visibility. People have to know you exist. The *best* visibility comes from Amazon itself. (Or B&N if you are selling on the Nook and are lucky enough to have B&N push your book.)
> 
> 2. Popular genre. (Yeah, it sucks, but niche genres just don't appeal to the masses. 50 sales a day puts your book around #1,000. That means only 1,000 books out of the many many books on Amazon sell 50 books a day or more. Those are going to be the popular books. The genres like thrillers and mysteries and yes, romance.)
> 
> ...


well put


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## SentientSurfer (Sep 20, 2011)

tensen said:


> Note if the conversion rate theory exists, a good number of authors are hurting their own rates by continually checking their rankings by going to the Amazon site instead of using one of the services for it.


Wouldn't Amazon realize it's from one IP address? Example: You can't make your book more relevant to an Amazon search by repeatedly clicking on it after a key-word search (though I've discovered other ways to do this *maniacal laugh*).

This thread is full of good advice. My two cents would be that Select hasn't worked well for me unless I've been picked up by a major blog or freebie listing site, and it's difficult to get multiple bites at those apples. Also note that you don't need Select to make the book free - you can price match and then set it back to non-free elsewhere.

Publishing more books increases the chances that one will take off and the others will ride its coattails.

Otherwise, hard work, a good book, and luck. Yep.


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## Jeremy Brown (Apr 9, 2012)

heavycat said:


> It makes no sense to me at all a system where if more people visit your book page, your sales drop. Everything we've been doing for the last two years has been geared towards getting more people to visit the book page in order to sell more books.
> 
> Why discourage more traffic to a particular book page? It's directly contradictory to the Affiliates program, where publishers are paid to send traffic to Amazon.


I agree with you on this, but it makes some sense when I think of it in terms of "bounce rate."

A bounce, for those unfamiliar: "A bounce occurs when a web site visitor only views a single page on a website, that is, the visitor leaves a site without visiting any other pages before a specified session-timeout occurs." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bounce_rate

If I'm working my butt off to get _everyone_ to visit my Amazon book page, and when they get there most of them realize they've been duped or have no interest in what I'm selling, I can see why Amazon would punish me. I'm messing with their customers.



tensen said:


> Note if the conversion rate theory exists, a good number of authors are hurting their own rates by continually checking their rankings by going to the Amazon site instead of using one of the services for it.


Yikes. Good point.


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## 56139 (Jan 21, 2012)

heavycat said:


> With all due respect, it's this kind of advice that isn't helpful. Of course you have to find your audience and have a book people want. But this kind of advice leads to people digging holes by the dozens hoping to find buried treasure. "If you just keep digging, someday you'll find your audience!" This is really no different than "If you just keep sending query letters, someday an agent will read one!"


I feel your frustration, and the quick answer is there is no overnight success - it's well timed payoff for a lot of years of hard work. Internet marketing is SLOW, but you can and should start that way. Why? Because it is the most organic way to create FANS. You begin this journey the same way in every instance - give it away and get your fan base first. People, especially fiction writers for whatever reason, have a hard time giving stuff away. But it works if you do it right.

How to do it right? Well, I could tell you what I would do, or you can ask successful people what they did, but the bottom line is - YOU have to come up with a unique idea, then listen carefully, you have to *give it away* to get people interested. People like free. But just listing your book on Amazon as free isn't enough. You gotta have something else FIRST.

Let me repeat that, FIRST. BEFORE you go free on Amazon. Get your FANS interested, then you have something to work with.

This doesn't mean you have to give your BOOK away free. You can, but you don't have to. You could give lots of stuff away free that helps draw people who might want to read your book TO YOU.

I feel very fortunate that I began my writing career in internet marketing, then non-fiction publishing using internet marketing techniques. It's helped immensely, and I feel for authors that don't have that background, because it's not a mystery and it's not luck - it's well planned techniques used over a long period of time.


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## heavycat (Feb 14, 2011)

> YOU have to come up with a unique idea, then listen carefully, you have to give it away to get people interested. People like free. But just listing your book on Amazon as free isn't enough. You gotta have something else FIRST.


We had a webcomic. In fact, we still have a webcomic.  89 color pages. The cost was, well.. you really don't want to know. We drove over 250,000 people to our site with a combination of promotions over four years.

Now one might think that with all those thousands of people we might have sold quite a few books. We didn't. We didn't get any e-mail either, or comments, or much of anything really other than a bandwidth bill.

We still get several thousand web site visits a month. Every page of our site advertises the book. We go weeks and weeks with no sales.

But then you have to ask yourself this: if people really don't like the characters and story, why do they keep coming back? And if they do like the characters and story, why are they so consistent in their refusal to spend $3 on the book? I've been asking myself that question for three years. I still don't know the answer.

In fact, at one point I considered buying a copy of the book for anyone who would tell us truthfully why they refused to buy it on their own. I may still do that.


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## 56139 (Jan 21, 2012)

heavycat said:


> We had a webcomic. In fact, we still have a webcomic.  89 color pages. The cost was, well.. you really don't want to know. We drove over 250,000 people to our site with a combination of promotions over four years.
> 
> Now one might think that with all those thousands of people we might have sold quite a few books. We didn't. We didn't get any e-mail either, or comments, or much of anything really other than a bandwidth bill.
> 
> ...


This is AWESOME. You're almost there. 

Now, you gotta figure out what's stopping them, because you're right, people see something in that they like. I spent like 6 months making this online science course for little kids last year and it is SO great. It's easy to use, colorful, fully narrated, lots of online games and activities...and I haven't sold nearly as many as I thought I would.

It's probably the price for me, but I have so many other products I don't care. It is what it is. I'm not losing money on it and in the future I can use it as a bonus product for something else.

So, maybe you try and use your current product to drive traffic to one that is less expensive, or shorter, or ?? You know, I don't have a good grasp on what you're doing, so you gotta think that part out.

But what you have IS GOLD. You're right there, you just need to use what you're getting in the way of traffic to get them to buy, if not that product, the next one.


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## NathanWrann (May 5, 2011)

Webcomic and "real book with words*" audiences are completely different people. 

*I had a booth at the first CT WebComic-Con and this description of my novel was used over and over by people that picked it up. 

Turn your webcomic into a graphic novel and you'll get sales. See www.remindblog.com


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## MonkeyScribe (Jan 27, 2011)

That does sound frustrating and more than a little bewildering. Human nature is a strange thing, that's for certain. It reminds me a little of Konrath's post last year about Guido Henkel. Here was a guy with good covers, a solid concept, and multiple titles. He also had a web presence and some good web traffic. But no sales. I just checked his books on Amazon as I wrote this and he has a book at #135 in the free store, but his other books are languishing in the 200,000 range, so the situation hasn't changed them. Why? I have no idea, but it doesn't seem to make sense. He also seems like a decent guy, so the sort you _want _to be successful.

In your case, the only thing that seems obvious is that the current strategy doesn't seem to be working. Changing covers is a good start. I still think you need more books up--a lot more--but this will take time, and is no guarantee either.


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## NathanWrann (May 5, 2011)

Regarding the case of Guido Henkel, I think the biggest problem with his sales is that there is virtually no market for his genre. He writes really old school pulp horror books (like Hammer films). There's just no market for that style of writing these days no matter what the cover looks like. It would be like making a movie EXACTLY like the old Bonanza tv western. Not a remake or an update but identical. You'd sell about 5 tickets.


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## Pamela Kay Noble Brown (Mar 3, 2011)

Heavycat, great thread.  I have learned so much from all of the responses.  I really like the new cover too. Those eyes really stand out.

David, you are hilarious. lol

Pamela


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## heavycat (Feb 14, 2011)

> Heavycat, great thread. I have learned so much from all of the responses.


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## H. S. St. Ours (Mar 24, 2012)

My experience so far is that advertising doesn't pay and neither does spamming your friends and family. 

But assuming as a given your book is well-written and well-edited, what seems to work are single-day free promos, once a month only on Friday, with timely requests for listing on All Things Kindle and Pixel of Ink, and tweeting only on the day of the promo with the hashtags #freekindlebooks, #freeebooks and #kindle to drive traffic -- not from your followers but from those who search these hashtags. 

It seems to work. It took several months but I've seen my free numbers go up each time I run a KDP Select promo now by orders of magnitude, and sales have increased dramatically when it ends, even for the other book in the series. I don't know why. 

Be patient, and remember, time is your ally.


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## valeriec80 (Feb 24, 2011)

heavycat said:


> We had a webcomic. In fact, we still have a webcomic.  89 color pages. The cost was, well.. you really don't want to know. We drove over 250,000 people to our site with a combination of promotions over four years


Hold the phone. Is this a text book or a comic book? Is it tied directly to the look and feel of your webcomic?

LEAVE THE COVER ALONE IF SO.

Because you'll confuse your fans. And don't listen to us, go hang out in the places where people tell you how to have successful webcomics.

I originally serialized my fiction on the web. I built a teeny, tiny little audience of people who subscribe to my email list and only like free books. A few of them buy things. Sometimes. All the success I've had has been because of Amazon, and I'd wager most of the people who find my book there never come to my website and realize I serialized the book they've just read for free on the web.

Now, this works for me, because I realized that when people want to read, they do not surf the internets. Instead, they go to Amazon or B&N or whatever. So, what was the point of my trying to get people to my little website, when that wasn't where people who wanted to read went?

But with a webcomic, you're talking about a group of people who come online looking specifically for webcomics. Online. So, if you're trying to monetize your webcomic primarily, and not sell books, I'd say the book is a tiny part of your focus in terms of your overall revenue. It sells, cool. It doesn't, you're selling ads and merch and going to conventions and doing guest strips on other comics and whatever it is that webcomic people do to be successful.

I guess what I'm saying is it depends on where your joy is. Like, if what you REALLY want to do is webcomics, don't focus so much on the darned book. If they're connected, then as your webcomic gets more successful, the book will sell more. If what you really want to do is write books, then write more books and don't focus so much on the webcomic. I'm not saying you can't write books and do webcomics, but I am saying to focus more energy on the thing that you REALLY want to do. Because if you really want to write webcomics, and suddenly you're selling tons of books, you'll probably end up writing more books. But who wants to do that, if it's not your dream, right? I mean, get a desk job if you're slogging something out just for money.

***And if I'm way off base on all of this, ignore everything I said.***


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## Lady TL Jennings (Dec 8, 2011)

S Jaffe said:


> Just to give this all a little perspective -- remember that even the biggest of the big publishers is just as clueless as all of us. They can't make a book a bestseller any more than you can. It just happens. They through tons of money into Book X only to find Book Y is the hit. They win out by publishing lots of books, knowing that if just a few of them are a hit, it'll cover the misses. This is why it is so important to keep producing books. With only one book out, you either hit or miss. With three books out you have 3 times the chances. Not to mention that with more and more books out, you require each one to perform less in order to do well overall for you. 50 sales a day on one book is hard. 50 sales a day on 10 books is easier.


This thread is brilliant, thanks Heavycat.
Also, I think you are absolutely right S Jaffe! A friend of mine works at a publisher and they can never predict which book that will sell and which one will not. And it is probably the same thing in the musical industry as well.

All we as authors can do is: 
A) Follow all the amazing tips and tricks from this thread and 
B) Sacrifice something suitable (preferable small, cute and furry?) to the Higher Gods (or just generally cross your fingers) and hope that our books will make it to the Top 100 list.

_Good luck and thanks again for this thread, I have learnt a lot. 
/ Lady T. L. Jennings_


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## BRONZEAGE (Jun 25, 2011)

Adam Pepper said:


> I just wish I knew which things actually worked. When I get a sale, I really dont know if it's from a random browser, or someone who saw my work on a review site or book blog, maybe it's someone from my mailing list. Maybe it's my mother again!


Adam, does your mom enjoy prehistory ?


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## NathanWrann (May 5, 2011)

This thread has been beneficial to me too. It confirmed a suspicion that I had: Webcomic readers don't read regular books. I have been kicking around the idea to do some advertising via Project Wonderful but now I'm certain it won't help. Project Wonderful's primary ( but not only) clientele is webcomics. Since you have a popular webcomic and they won't even buy the book associated with it, there's no way they'll buy a book that's merely advertised. Thanks. You saved me some $$


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## balaspa (Dec 27, 2009)

Gosh, I wish I could go from selling just a few to selling 50 a day.  But that has yet to happen to me.  If I sell five a day, I consider that a huge bump.  If I sell 200 a month, I jump for joy.


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## Stephen T. Harper (Dec 20, 2010)

First, thanks for this thread, very interesting and useful replies.

Second, - Thanks to Victorine re: click thru rate. Oh my God (even spelled it out!), I did not know that. Never checking for reviews and ranking on Amazon page again.

Third, re: HC's book.

If you only have one book, you should try Select for a few reasons. For starters, giving the book away for free will show you quite well whether or not it's the book, the cover, etc that is failing to attract. I wrote a pretty detailed blog post about this very thing a couple month back (I am a brand consultant by day  ) 
http://stephentharper.blogspot.com/2012/01/kindle-select-and-importance-of-good.html

In your case, basically, going free can really show you whether or not readers are attracted to what you are putting out there. I also have just one book (though I'm working furiously on more). When it goes free for a day on Amazon, I don't even tweet about it. It's not necessary. I've tried tweeting hard, blogging about the free day, telling internet friends, etc... it doesn't make any difference. Whatever is happening inside Amazon's system... tweeting pales in comparison. I give away virtually the same number of books each time whether I do extracariculars or not.

So, with no promotion at all, within 24 hours my book generally (not always but often) gets to number 1 on the free lists in it's 2 categories, and in the top 1-10 of fiction in general. This tells me a lot about what people (readers looking for books) think about it when THEY CAN SEE IT.

So, if you try that, you ought to be able to get a good sense of how Lady Star is coming across.

My two cents, I like the new cover a ton better (though I'd work on the title graphics a bit more). I don't know if there is a manga-novel audience, but I would think that anime is not something that even its fans would necessarily want to read without the art work. Right? Anyway, the first cover confuses me - just not sure what to expect. My guess is that if you ran a free promotion twice, once with the old cover and once with new, the new would perform better.

Good luck!


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## Sarah Woodbury (Jan 30, 2011)

And I would reiterate, with a number of people who commented, that if you want to sell more books, you have to write more books (this isn't necessarily for heavycat, because of the whole webcomic thing).  50 a day with only one book is very rare (Victorine did it!).  I didn't hit that number until I had 4 books published.  Even with 7, I hit a bad patch last Oct-Dec. where 50 felt like a miracle.  

The further issue is to write more books so that this whole writing gig is sustainable.  You want to sell that many EVERY DAY, and while books go up and down in popularity, if you keep producing them at a regular rate, you can cover those times when one book goes down because others are going up.  And you never know when a book is going to hit the big time.  In addition, series are good, because you have a built in market for your new release.  10 books at 5 a day, and you're at 50.  And if you got the cover/blurb/decent writing thing down, one of those 10 or maybe several even, will be selling a lot more than that.


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## JRainey (Feb 1, 2011)

What a fantastic thread! I will admit, I've only skimmed through it. If I missed something big, please forgive me and/or disregard what I say.

I wish I had some nuggets of wisdom to share, but I would only really be repeating others.

Still, I'll say what I always say:

1. Write more books.
2. Keep visibility high.

My sales have been pretty decent this month after a long dry spell. Why? I released another book. Also, when I'm not visible online--posting on my blog, taking part in discussion--my sales drop like crazy. They also drop like crazy when I talk about my books too much. No one likes overexposure.

You seem to have a good grasp on the internet presence part of the equation. I'll second what a few others have said; it's a good idea to try different genres and types of publication. Get more work out there. Shelf space is so important, and you can't build a career off of only one book (unless you're Harper Lee). 

Give different kinds of people with different tastes reason to give your writing a try. If you try writing another kind of book (or even short story/novella), perhaps you'll be able to pull in not only new fans for your first book, but for the web comic.

So much of it is luck, though. Regardless of the algorithms and such, there is no math to this.  Good luck to you and thanks for starting such a great thread!


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## Rykymus (Dec 3, 2011)

What Sara just said is exactly right. I had the same experience. 1 book, 16 sales a day. 2 books, 150 sales a day. (100 from book 1 and 50 from book 2) It is simply the most effective form of marketing. I'm not even going to use my free days for book 1 until I have at least a half dozen episodes up in this series, that way it leads to a ton of sales of the subsequent books.


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## IB (Jan 31, 2012)

Do you think Amazon counts it as a page view when you, yourself, view your page?


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## JRainey (Feb 1, 2011)

IB said:


> Do you think Amazon counts it as a page view when you, yourself, view your page?


I believe so, yes.

(Also, I love your cover, IB. It catches my eye every time!)


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## 31842 (Jan 11, 2011)

Victorine said:


> 4. Sell-through rate. Amazon knows how many people click on your book. They know what percentage of them carry through and buy it. You can drive traffic to your book on Amazon, but if all those people leave without buying, it ruins your sell-through rate. If you have a low sell-through rate, Amazon assumes something on your book page is turning people away. They're not going to waste time promoting books that don't have a good sell-through rate. Moral of the story: Don't send random people to your book page. Market to those most likely to buy.


Thank you for this! I had no idea about the sell-through rate. That's a good reason to quit obsessively checking my rankings. "Hi, I'm Kate and I have a click problem..."


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## *DrDLN* (dr.s.dhillon) (Jan 19, 2011)

It is interesting thread that I saw today.  I write nonfiction with almost no serious promotion. My books are bought because people are looking for that particular kind of information. So they find my books from search or happens to see here and there, as in signatures below. I can't think any magic working out there.


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## StephenLivingston (May 10, 2011)

Interesting thread.  Thanks for all the tips.
Best wishes, Stephen Livingston.


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## ChrisVC (Mar 25, 2012)

heavycat said:


> Let's examine that. Is there anything particularly unappealing about teenage girls with magical weapons who fight evil monsters in a fantasy adventure story?
> 
> Recent popular titles would seem to indicate there is some demand for heroic girls fighting on the side of the good guys. (For the record, LadyStar pre-dates Hunger Games by nine years).
> 
> I can't say I believe at this point enough people have actually read the book to say one way or the other whether it is a failed idea.


I'm not saying that your idea is a failed idea...probably far from it. But what IMMEDIATELY stands out as unique about it? A lot of this has to do with your target audience. Let me show you an example of what I think is an excellent idea for a specific target audience: http://www.amazon.com/Janitors-Tyler-Whitesides/dp/1609080564

This is a book by a local Utah author published by Shadow Mountain, a Utah-based publisher (the same publisher who did the Fabelhaven series by Brandon Mull). Now who is "Janitors" written for? Elementary kids and kids in the first year or two of junior high. Guess who those kids see all the time? Janitors. They see them, but the janitors are always doing odd stuff behind the scenes....lurking around. The idea that they might be doing crazy, magic things...that there is some kind of a cool backstory to these people's activities... That is a unique, appealing idea that no one else has done that is of immediate interest to the target audience. And, most immortantly, for the discussion in this thread, that comes across immediately on the Amazon page.


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## IB (Jan 31, 2012)

JRainey said:


> I believe so, yes.
> 
> (Also, I love your cover, IB. It catches my eye every time!)


JRainy, Thanks! Credit to Monet. Back to business... So how can you check your page without being your own worst enemy?


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## GlennGamble (Sep 15, 2011)

MichaelWallace said:


> How many books have you written in the subsequent thirteen years? If you want to make a living as a professional writer, the number one thing you need to do is to regularly produce new work.


Michael, I totally agree with you, but I must point out that this doesn't apply to Kathryn Stockett.

She wrote one book and continues to make a fortune off that one hit. Is it unfair? Yes, but life isn't fair.


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## heavycat (Feb 14, 2011)

> But what IMMEDIATELY stands out as unique about it?


Teenage girls with weapons. Teenage girls learning to work together as a team.

(Almost all contemporary narratives have teenage girls as each other's social enemies.)

The LadyStar characters have actual physical weapons they wield in authentic physical combat. Not wands. Not power beams they shoot out of their arms. Weapons.

They learn to work together as a team in order to amplify their powers so they can overcome some of their physical limitations. Each character has to overcome a personality weakness or two as well.

A lot of writers face some tough questions when they compose a story. LadyStar has to believably place a five-foot-two 14-year-old girl with a sword between the monsters and the innocent villagers. Jessica has to learn to win her battles, and it isn't easy because she can't just smash her way to victory with size or strength.

In the process, Jessica calls upon a strength of will that rapidly becomes a rock all the characters learn to rely on.

That's probably the best synopsis I can write quickly.


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## MonkeyScribe (Jan 27, 2011)

GlennGamble said:


> Michael, I totally agree with you, but I must point out that this doesn't apply to Kathryn Stockett.
> 
> She wrote one book and continues to make a fortune off that one hit. Is it unfair? Yes, but life isn't fair.


That's a good point. It's the equivalent of stubbing your toe on a 10 kilo gold nugget. It might happen, but a better bet is building a sluice box next to the river and shoveling sand in it again and again until you find the gold flakes.


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## ChrisVC (Mar 25, 2012)

heavycat said:


> Teenage girls with weapons. Teenage girls learning to work together as a team.
> 
> (Almost all contemporary narratives have teenage girls as each other's social enemies.)
> 
> ...


Cool, yeah. Now you need to show some of that on the cover. The first cover looked like about a million other manga things. The second cover shows nothing of the magic, teamwork, powers (although her glowing eyes are neat) etc.... I think your idea is probably unique enough, but no one will ever find that out if they don't buy it, and they are only going to buy it if the uniqueness comes across on the Amazon page before the purchase.

Also, I'd redo your Amazon product description. I download the book sample and the writing in the book is a lot better than in the description. I probably wouldn't end every sentence with an exclamation point.


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## Rykymus (Dec 3, 2011)

Heavy Cat: That quick description that you just wrote makes me more interested in reading it than the actual blurb or either cover. Just saying.


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## H. S. St. Ours (Mar 24, 2012)

I agree. That's a much better blurb!


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## Adam Pepper (May 28, 2011)

BRONZEAGE said:


> Adam, does your mom enjoy prehistory ?


She's generally a fan of bestsellers and anything written by her son.


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## Ernie Lindsey (Jul 6, 2010)

JRainey said:


> I believe so, yes.


I always wondered that myself! I thought it might, but also wondered if Amazon had thought about us doing this and wouldn't penalize the author (which they could tell was me by my logged in account) for doing so. One can hypothesize/dream. From now on, I'll just keep an eye on my rankings by looking at the Bestseller lists and not my actual book page itself.

...just in case.


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## NathanWrann (May 5, 2011)

IB said:


> JRainy, Thanks! Credit to Monet. Back to business... So how can you check your page without being your own worst enemy?


I don't think it impacts the views unless you click from a different IP address everytime.


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## Stephen T. Harper (Dec 20, 2010)

Rykymus said:


> Heavy Cat: That quick description that you just wrote makes me more interested in reading it than the actual blurb or either cover. Just saying.


Definitely! Much better.


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## Sarah Woodbury (Jan 30, 2011)

On that buy-through click thing ... if you buy your own book, it might not matter how many times you check it, since Amazon knows you already bought it.  I actually bought all my own books for that reason, even as I attempt to only check the actual page for rankings once a day at most.


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## phil1861 (Dec 22, 2011)

Amazon is best at selling Amazon and no matter how much I self promote nothing compares with working with the Amazon system via Select for me so far. I'd not known about the possibility of the bounces and just shot gunning your book links via Twitter or other to whomever as a possibility of working against me. 

I've considered the landing page from my blog as the direct marketing approach but I've bounced back and forth over using one or just directing people to my book page as the landing page means people have to click just one more time to get to where they can purchase if they choose to, but factoring in this other little tidbit makes the neutral ground of a landing page perhaps that much more effective at minimizing a bounce.


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## Rykymus (Dec 3, 2011)

I doubt very seriously that Amazon can't tell the difference between a customer considering a book page and the author of that book checking their rankings. I mean, Amazon knows how to sell books, and that would work against them as well. They know how to gather data and how to use it.


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## Ruth Harris (Dec 26, 2010)

Sarah Woodbury, Michael Wallace & others with many books in their sigs:

How did you fit them all in?  I'm about to upload 3 more titles & am already up against my limit.

Thanks!


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## dalya (Jul 26, 2011)

Ruth Harris said:


> Sarah Woodbury, Michael Wallace & others with many books in their sigs:
> 
> How did you fit them all in? I'm about to upload 3 more titles & am already up against my limit.
> 
> Thanks!


You can edit the width of the


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## JeanneM (Mar 21, 2011)

You can probably check your book page through your bookshelf.  I doubt they would count those against you.    I hope...anyway.


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## Victorine (Apr 23, 2010)

heavycat said:


> Truly I'm not trying to figure out the Amazon algorithm. I'm not entirely convinced an algorithm is the problem. What I have gathered so far is:
> 
> 1. A book must be visible on Amazon in order to sell.
> 2. See Item One.
> ...


You can market your book on the web. You just need to make sure you're marketing to people more likely to buy your book.

Is there a book that is similar to yours that is selling well? What does that cover look like? What you want to do is make sure your book appeals to readers of the other more popular book that is similar to yours. Make sure your cover is similar in nature to the other one. Use the same font if possible. Do a search for reviews of this other more popular book and find blogs that have posted reviews. Then submit your book to those blogs.

If there IS no other book like yours that is selling well, you have a problem.

The percentage of people who have ereaders is still small. Sending loads of people to your book page without marketing specifically to ereader owners is probably going to work against you.


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## B. Justin Shier (Apr 1, 2011)

Victorine said:


> 4. Sell-through rate. Amazon knows how many people click on your book. They know what percentage of them carry through and buy it. You can drive traffic to your book on Amazon, but if all those people leave without buying, it ruins your sell-through rate. If you have a low sell-through rate, Amazon assumes something on your book page is turning people away. They're not going to waste time promoting books that don't have a good sell-through rate. Moral of the story: Don't send random people to your book page. Market to those most likely to buy.


Does anyone have a source on this bit?

B.


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## IB (Jan 31, 2012)

JeanneM said:


> You can probably check your book page through your bookshelf. I doubt they would count those against you.  I hope...anyway.


JeanneM, How do I do that? (Though I think it's more likely that Amazon is sophisticated enough to recognize the difference between an obsessive author checking sales and a real customer, might as well play safe.)


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## Rachel Schurig (Apr 9, 2011)

modwitch said:


> I think, frighteningly, I might be... although I don't think I ever put it quite this way.
> 
> It's a hypothesis, folks. My background is as a web analytics consultant. Amazon is the king of web analytics. So, I expect they watch all the usual ratios I would watch for a client - sales or samples/pageviews, sales/samples, sales of series book two / sales of series book one. I'm fairly convinced these ratios make a difference to Amazon recommendations, and it wouldn't be a big surprise if they were used elsewhere as well.
> 
> But I'm guessing, just like everyone else. *There is no Gospel According to ModWitch *.


Pity. That's probably the only self-pub how to book I'd actually buy!

(besides for the Daglish bestseller, but that should go without saying)


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## Rebecca Burke (May 9, 2011)

Excellent thread. Heavycat, I love the way you framed the problem--funny! And I can relate.

Question: How do you give away books on LibraryThing--provide your email address so you can send them a file of their formatting choice? I've got 2 of my novels on Select so don't have the coupons that made Smashwords so handy for these transactions.


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## B. Justin Shier (Apr 1, 2011)

I know Amazon collects conversion data (I track my own on my Amazon Associate's dashboard), but I'd still urge folks to drive traffic to their Amazon pages any way they can. That's how impulse buys are made. And without impulse purchases, I don't see how you are going to be generating much buzz. Driving folks to a launching page adds another step between you and a sale. Amazon adopted 1-click purchasing for a reason. They know that a lower barrier to purchasing is crucial for non-sought goods. And even if a low conversion rate does somehow damage your also-bought standings, I'd argue that absorbing such hits will be more than made up for by word-of-mouth in the end.*

B.

*The following assumes you followed Konrath's Five Rules:
Write a great book
Develop a professional cover
Prepare a compelling product description
Get 5-10 products up for sale (all meeting the requirements of 1-3)
Give the process more than a year to gain traction


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## TravisD (Apr 15, 2012)

@heavycat

There is some good advice here and a lot of bad advice here. Plz take it with caution.

I admit that I am new to the whole self publishing thing, but I am not new to sales.

In a nutshell, selling lots of anything comes down to 2 things:

1. Have a quality product
2. Apply good marketing to the product

That's it. Anyone who tells you differently is lying.

Heck, even great marketing can sell a crappy product. But I don't recommend putting out
crappy products.

So...how does this apply to books? Simple. Write a good story. And market the hell out of it.
People want to read good stories. This is why you see people whining about poorly written
$2.99 books being in the top 100. How did it get there? Well, most likely because the story
was freaking amazing! And the readers were willing to overlook the bad grammar etc... for the
great story that was being told.

Another thing, you don't have to rely on the free giveaway tactic to make it. Many authors made
it big without doing that. 

Focus on marketing and getting good reviews and FORCE amazon or B&N or whoever to notice 
your book.

Trav


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## JeanneM (Mar 21, 2011)

IB said:


> JeanneM, How do I do that? (Though I think it's more likely that Amazon is sophisticated enough to recognize the difference between an obsessive author checking sales and a real customer, might as well play safe.)


 Go to your KDP page here: https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/help?topicId=A17W8UM0MMSQX6 then hit the tab at the top that reads Bookshelf. Put a checkmark in the box next to your book. Use the pull down menu under Actions. It gives you the option to view your book page. Just choose US UK or any other country you want to view.


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## Joshua Rigley (Mar 19, 2011)

I did not read this entire thread, though I doubt anyone mentioned this before. 

OP, another option to consider is simply skipping Amazon completely and selling directly from your own website. You can then host your own affiliate program with instant paypal commissions (if you've been in IM for as long as you say you have been, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about). This will give people greater incentive to promote your book. Plus, you'll have direct control over your blurb page without the usual distractions you see on Amazon, which allows for an opportunity to achieve higher conversions. 

I've often considered going this route with my own fiction. 

The obvious drawback to this method is that you don't get any official recognition or attention (no best seller list for you!) so even if you do sell thousands of copies, it's unlikely any big-time people in the publishing industry (aka people who can take your career further) will notice. Then again, if you are selling thousands of copies, you'll likely be making enough to earn a comfortable living, so that doesn't really matter. 

My 2 cents. Take it for what you will.


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## Herc- The Reluctant Geek (Feb 10, 2010)

Oh, you can also use your amazon author page as the landing page for an ad without affecting your conversion rates.


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## Victorine (Apr 23, 2010)

modwitch said:


> I think, frighteningly, I might be... although I don't think I ever put it quite this way.
> 
> It's a hypothesis, folks. My background is as a web analytics consultant. Amazon is the king of web analytics. So, I expect they watch all the usual ratios I would watch for a client - sales or samples/pageviews, sales/samples, sales of series book two / sales of series book one. I'm fairly convinced these ratios make a difference to Amazon recommendations, and it wouldn't be a big surprise if they were used elsewhere as well.
> 
> But I'm guessing, just like everyone else. There is no Gospel According to ModWitch .


I don't remember where I read about sell-through rate, I thought it was outside of KB but it very well could have been Debora's post. It does make sense. They do track it, and why not use that data to find books that convert to sales? It would be silly NOT to help promote books that have a great sell-through rate.

I certainly didn't mean to imply if you're not writing thrillers or romance that you can't sell books. I guess I was just responding to the '50 books a day' thing. If your goal is to sell 50 books a day, you'd be well to study which genres sell that many. There might be a few niche genres doing that well, but not in general.

And as always, take everything I say with a grain of salt. It's just my opinion.


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## IB (Jan 31, 2012)

TravisD said:


> @heavycat
> 
> There is some good advice here and a lot of bad advice here. Plz take it with caution.
> 
> ...


Agree with everything above, except one point. People complain about poorly written books because poorly written books for the most part are bad. Writers who can overcome bad writing to tell a compelling story are rare. I can think of a few who we'd probably all agree on, but that's another thread.

I'm very interested in your specific point about free giveaways. I haven't done that yet. My sales are good, but I'm still curious to see if I'd get a bump. I've been reading the debates about this on the Boards for 2 months and still can't decide if it would boost sales or crater them! And now, there seems to be some talk that Select isn't as effective as it once was.


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## ChrisWard (Mar 10, 2012)

Loved the OP's post, I laughed my ass off.  Been wondering the same thing myself.  

Personally, I think its being in everyone's face all of the time that works best.  It hasn't worked me for me, though, with only 7 sales in April so far.  I've set up a blog, I have a Twitter, a Facebook page with currently 86 followers, I hang out here, on Goodreads and on the KDP forums hoping against hope someone will get bored of me being in their face so much that if they click the link and then buy the book it'll make me disappear.  If 10,000 do that it will - because I'll have to stop worrying about selling the thing and will be able to get on with writing the next one.  

Judging by the other posts, though, I'm screwed.  I don't have any two books in the same genre, and I don't write either erotica (just the thought of it makes me queasy - had no idea it was so popular and can only assume that there are billions of bored housewives out there and they all own Kindles) or paranormal romance (shoot me, PLEASE, if I ever do).  I wish people were interested in kids that hang off the sides of trains and battle with crossbow-wielding half-human monsters but I guess that's a niche market.  I just spotted a sign post for the Land of Obscurity, so I'll be on my way...


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## skyrunner (Dec 28, 2010)

Ive come back to this thread once more - its grown by a number of pages.

After a quick read - in a nutshell it seems to be this - try our best to market to the people who _we think_ would want our books. Yes ?

So not _shotgun marketing_ - but_ target marketing_ - sounds obvious, but probably a good principle to remember.

Key words help, to find the right people - on Twitter and elsewhere

Modwitch reminds us about building a platform -_ a following_. That's an outcome of marketing to the people who we imagine will like our book -_ If enough people *do* like our book _- that's the beginning of a platform

Some authors a very strategic - they always address a certain genre - they write in a series - they build a platform - they build a brand as they go. If it works, that makes life easier - because they have built a platform along the way that is supported by branding. They have an audience. _Author and audience have found each other_. Yes?

Working strategically like this, is not going to suit every writer / every personality - but if it does suit you - go for it.

Amazon measuring the click thru _buy_ rates - makes target marketing _even more important._


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## Rykymus (Dec 3, 2011)

I honestly believe that the days of blitz-marketing are over. It worked for many early on, but now no matter how much you yell you're still just a voice in the crowd. I believe (as others have mentioned and by my own experiences) that the secret to digital publishing success is platform/branding (ie: series) and multiple titles. Luck helps, but perseverance and patience are more important.


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## Sally Dubats (Jan 9, 2012)

Victorine:

How did you give away 49,000 copies? Were they e-copies? How did you find 49,000 people to give them to?

Thanks,

Sally


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## EC Sheedy (Feb 24, 2011)

Rykymus said:


> I honestly believe that the days of blitz-marketing are over. It worked for many early on, but now no matter how much you yell you're still just a voice in the crowd. I believe (as others have mentioned and by my own experiences) that the secret to digital publishing success is platform/branding (ie: series) and multiple titles. Luck helps, but perseverance and patience are more important.


I've learned so much from this thread. Biggest discovery? Stop clicking through to my book pages. Who knew?
Really, e-publishing seems to be an uneasy, torturous alliance of art and metrics--at least for those of us who are algorithmic-ally challenged. 

And I very much agree with the above. Let's hear it for "perseverance and patience."


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## A.A (Mar 30, 2012)

> Judging by the other posts, though, I'm screwed. I don't have any two books in the same genre, and I don't write either erotica (just the thought of it makes me queasy - had no idea it was so popular and can only assume that there are billions of bored housewives out there and they all own Kindles) or paranormal romance (shoot me, PLEASE, if I ever do). I wish people were interested in kids that hang off the sides of trains and battle with crossbow-wielding half-human monsters but I guess that's a niche market. I just spotted a sign post for the Land of Obscurity, so I'll be on my way..


headofwords - could be a more difficult sell if your book is a YA with adult themes. In the YA market, 'kids that hang off the sides of trains and battle with crossbow-wielding half-human monsters' sounds about right.


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## Guest (Apr 20, 2012)

heavycat said:


> If that fails, the book is sunk, because there is literally no other way to make it visible without actually working against the algorithm. Please correct me if I'm wrong.


This is not the first time I hear there is an algorithm, which is on Amazon and some also stated that Amazon is continuously changing that algorythm and that may cause the low sales if you're on Select. Now, if there is an algorythm and if it's continuously changing, i.e.: it's not the same for every user in March, that was the same for every user in December, it's called heavy manipulation (And this is the reason I say that most of the free sale numbers are far away from any reality (As if the algorythm is changing, without the knowledge of the authors at a place where everyone should get equal chances, what else may change and what else could be manipulated? I always found the KDP Select numbers too high and the feedback ratio is too low to be realistic (10-40k freebie giveaway and 0-4 reviews after that? I won't buy that.).

As for marketing, I have to agree that most of the elements what you have mentioned too truly doesn't work, regardless how some internet marketing guru is stating the opposite;
#1; I created a torrent exclusive promo release (Basically it's the same as KDP, but I have more than five days to promote my work.).
#2; I opened my online store
#3; I speak with my customers


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## Rebecca Burke (May 9, 2011)

Thanks, modwitch--I never knew that. Time to do a LibraryThing giveaway of the one book not on Select, then (When I Am Singing to You). 

This thread is refreshingly honest but discouraging for non-genre/-serial writers like me. (Also have the problem Anna pointed out of a YA novel with adult themes: see above).


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## David &#039;Half-Orc&#039; Dalglish (Feb 1, 2010)

TravisD said:


> People want to read good stories. This is why you see people whining about poorly written
> $2.99 books being in the top 100. How did it get there? Well, most likely because the story
> was freaking amazing! And the readers were willing to overlook the bad grammar etc... for the
> great story that was being told.


This is such a god-awful mindset it's terrifying....and common, sadly. You say above that good marketing can sell a bad book, but then deny that a bad book can be in the top 100?

Anyone, *anyone,* that starts their life as a writer with the mindset of "it doesn't matter how good my writing is so long as the story's good" is in for a very, very long slog until they finally open their d*mn eyes. Maybe you don't actually think this, but if you do, good freaking luck to ya.


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## Rykymus (Dec 3, 2011)

There is simply no way that checking the rankings of your own title counts against you. It is so easy for analytics to tell where the clicks come from. That's where the term "unique visits" comes from. You think Amazon got where they are today but not taking something as obvious as obsessive-complusive authors checking their rankings into account? And even if they didn't, considering the number of "hits" they are dealing with, you'd have to be checking your rankings every single minute for it to have an effect. And also, what a way to kill off the competition! Just hire a few minimum wagers to keep clicking away on your competitors.

I'm sorry, but Amazon has already proven time and again, that they are not that stupid!

Please, stop perpetuating this with any hard evidence. You're all steering the poor OP away in a panic.


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## Debra Purdy Kong (Apr 1, 2009)

jimkukral said:


> ...So here's what I've learned since I started publishing books in this game. It's a TON of luck, and a TON of writing a book that the masses want.
> 
> Sure, everything else matters a lot too. Cover, great book, blurbs, reviews... All of it matters a lot. But trying to figure out the algo to Amazon isn't the same as Google. With Google we had a lot of clues. They told us enough to make us learn how it works. Amazon isn't making the same mistake. They're not telling us diddly. And frankly, I don't think they really know/care. As long as they keep selling books, why should they care about the authors that aren't selling? They don't, and they shouldn't because they are in the business of sales. Google is in the business of ads, and relevancy. They are forced to make concessions to us to give us hints at how to rank better. It's the ultimate carrot and stick.
> 
> Amazon... not so much.


I don't have a marketing background, but I really agree with what you're saying, based on over 15 years of selling my books and talking with others in both the print and ebook world. Sure, there are the commonsense things like a good cover, great reviews, fantastic blurb, but luck still plays a part of this. Joe Konrath wrote about it awhile ago. After all his years of writing and publishing, he still has no clue which books of his will sell or not. He has colleagues who do all the right thing and write terrific books, yet they don't sell. It's a mystery, and trying to figure out how Amazon really works might be akin to beating your head against that brick wall. Control what you can. Don't worry about the rest.


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## MGalloway (Jun 21, 2011)

skyrunner said:


> Some authors a very strategic - they always address a certain genre - they write in a series - they build a platform - they build a brand as they go. If it works, that makes life easier - because they have built a platform along the way that is supported by branding. They have an audience. _Author and audience have found each other_. Yes?
> 
> Working strategically like this, is not going to suit every writer / every personality - but if it does suit you - go for it.


That's definitely a problem for some of us (or maybe just me, I dunno). I get bored writing in the same genre all the time. I need to feel challenged and engaged in what I'm writing about or the prose falls flat. I do tend to rotate through a certain set of topics/genres, however, but it makes marketing much more difficult.


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## TravisD (Apr 15, 2012)

David 'Half-Orc' Dalglish said:


> This is such a god-awful mindset it's terrifying....and common, sadly. You say above that good marketing can sell a bad book, but then deny that a bad book can be in the top 100?
> 
> Anyone, *anyone,* that starts their life as a writer with the mindset of "it doesn't matter how good my writing is so long as the story's good" is in for a very, very long slog until they finally open their d*mn eyes. Maybe you don't actually think this, but if you do, good freaking luck to ya.


Kid grow up.

I have a great mindset! The best ever! But if you really want to know what a bad mindset is and what
is even worse advice that is being given here, it is the advice of everyone of you who suggests to give
your books away for free. That is just plain dumb.

I was never ever suggesting that bad writing is ok as long as the story is ok. That is not my philosophy.
I was simply providing a response to a comment that someone made earlier in this forum about seeing
bad books in the top 100. That is all it was.

As a matter of fact I am taking my time and learning how to write a novel so that I can put out the best
quality book possible. And when I am done, I promise you this, I will be in the top 100 someday. Remember
this name and this face. It will happen.


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## Victorine (Apr 23, 2010)

Yeah, free doesn't work. Just look at Dalglish. Why, he's earning thousands and thousand of dollars and he's never given anything away free...oh, wait. Yeah he has.

Never mind.


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## TravisD (Apr 15, 2012)

Victorine said:


> Yeah, free doesn't work. Just look at Dalglish. Why, he's earning thousands and thousand of dollars and he's never given anything away free...oh, wait. Yeah he has.
> 
> Never mind.


Yeah and he lost thousands more by giving away that many free books.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

TravisD said:


> Kid grow up.
> 
> I have a great mindset! The best ever! But if you really want to know what a bad mindset is and what
> is even worse advice that is being given here, it is the advice of everyone of you who suggests to give
> ...


Haha!

You better listen to him, David, or you'll never sell any books!


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

TravisD said:


> Yeah and he lost thousands more by giving away that many free books.


Travis, you might want to consider stepping back and pondering what you are saying for a moment. You are making youself look like.... Well, let's say less than intelligent.


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## Victorine (Apr 23, 2010)

TravisD said:


> Yeah and he lost thousands more by giving away that many free books.


Yeah, never mind that sales increased after each free stint. It's okay, you don't have to give away your books free. No one is forcing you to. But don't tell others it's bad advice when he's making six figures and you've not published yet.


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## Herc- The Reluctant Geek (Feb 10, 2010)

In the absence of effective advertising avenues, spending your advertising dollar on giving away books is a legitimate strategy. However, the free thing is begining to lose its lustre and is nowhere near as effective as it was just 6 short months ago.

The problem with this debate is that we all operate in such a volatile and evolving market that what works well today may not work at all tomorrow. The only consistent and effective strategy to building up sales thus far has been to keep writing and releasing new titles. It was true 12 months ago, it's true today, and, hopefully, it'll be true 12 months from now.


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## TravisD (Apr 15, 2012)

Guys, I understand. I get it. I really do.

Some of you have been writing for 20 years and still can't sell more than 100 books.
And then some loud-mouthed punk like myself comes into your sacred kindle forums
and starts talking trash and making big promises.

I get all of that...but seriously, you are all doing it wrong.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck... it might be a four letter word


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## AmberC (Mar 28, 2012)

Wow. For the record this thread has some great info. Thank you! Also for the record I'm team Orc. I downloaded one of David's free books and guess what? I came back and paid for more.


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## dalya (Jul 26, 2011)

Are we still talking about covers on this thread? I just saw this gorgeous, original one today that I adore:


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## Sarah Woodbury (Jan 30, 2011)

Way back on page 4, someone asked about fitting all my books into my signature.  I took the links from the Author profile and ran them through tiny url to shorten them.  And then I changed the img=125 to img=95 to make them smaller.

Hope that helps.

I don't want to get in an argument about the free thing, but when it works, it works.  At the same time, free should be part of an overall strategy, not for its own sake.


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

This is my favorite thread. A wonderful confluence of great advice, bad advice and hilarious posturing.


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## heavycat (Feb 14, 2011)

What I've gathered from this epic thread of epicness    is that there's probably already a lot of traffic on our book page that we're not taking advantage of.  That we need our own landing page to qualify customers before they click through to our book page, and that our cover and blurb need work.  Some of that work is already done, fortunately, so we may be back in business pretty quick here.

I do want to try the free giveaway as soon as we get our page re-assembled, and of course, we'll publish more books.  I'm thinking the shorter books with a faster release cycle will be more appealing than larger books released less often.  I've been considering a 20k to 30k-word format for a while.  

Please continue discussing, though.  I'm learning as much as anyone else.


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## David &#039;Half-Orc&#039; Dalglish (Feb 1, 2010)

TravisD said:


> Kid grow up.
> 
> I have a great mindset! The best ever! But if you really want to know what a bad mindset is and what
> is even worse advice that is being given here, it is the advice of everyone of you who suggests to give
> your books away for free. That is just plain dumb.





TravisD said:


> Guys, I understand. I get it. I really do.
> 
> Some of you have been writing for 20 years and still can't sell more than 100 books.
> And then some loud-mouthed punk like myself comes into your sacred kindle forums
> ...


BWahahhahahahahahaahahahahahahahahh.

Hahhahahhahahahaa.

Hhahaha.

Hah. Hah. Ooh. Okay. I'm better now.

As for your actual point: I've given books away. Lots of books away. I have books that will be free effectively forever. And I also sell books at $4.95, and even one at $9.99. I made over $200k last year, and am on pace to make over $300k this year. But yeah. You, _the man who has not yet written a book_, will be the one to tell us all how this business works. Now I really, really hope you're just a troll, because otherwise, that's too freaking hysterical.


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## dalya (Jul 26, 2011)

DO NOT FEED THE youknowwhat.


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## David Adams (Jan 2, 2012)

David 'Half-Orc' Dalglish said:


> BWahahhahahahahahaahahahahahahahahh.
> 
> Hahhahahhahahahaa.
> 
> ...


What I learned from this thread is that nobody knows anything... Especially that guy.

As usual Daglish brings the truth.


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## ChrisVC (Mar 25, 2012)

D. said:


>


I agree. Good cover. Good title. Makes you want to know more.



heavycat said:


> ...that our cover and blurb need work.
> ...I'm thinking the shorter books with a faster release cycle will be more appealing than larger books released less often. I've been considering a 20k to 30k-word format for a while.


Yep. Both these things should help.


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## NathanWrann (May 5, 2011)

heavycat said:


> What I've gathered from this epic thread of epicness  is that there's probably already a lot of traffic on our book page that we're not taking advantage of. That we need our own landing page to qualify customers before they click through to our book page, and that our cover and blurb need work.


Good things to take-away but I think you're missing one of the main things. Webcomic readers do not read books. They read webcomics. They read comics and they read graphic novels. They don't read books. Unfortunately that's where your fan base is so that really raised your expectations for how many units you could move. Fortunately there are millions and millions of people out there that do read books. That's who you need to target. And you target them with a cover that appeals to book readers. Like that Friday Society cover. That thing is bad ass. And LOOKS like the cover that should be on your book.


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## TravisD (Apr 15, 2012)

I will give you kids 1 free lesson.

Authors need to stop trying to sell to other authors.

Or in other words...get off the freaking forums and go find some customers...


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

Oh well. I thought you were just a noob, but I see I was wrong. Bummer.


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## NathanWrann (May 5, 2011)

TravisD said:


> I will give you kids 1 free lesson.


Thanks for the freebie. I'll be happy to pay for all of your further lessons in a year when you're a best seller.


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## MeiLinMiranda (Feb 17, 2011)

I disagree that webcomics readers don't read other stuff. I got a big chunk of my readership via webcomics ads on PW pointing them to the serializations of my work. I mean, a BIG chunk of my readership, the people who wait for everything I do and plunk money down on my Kickstarters etc.  So yeah, it can work for the right stuff.


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## NathanWrann (May 5, 2011)

MeiLinMiranda said:


> I disagree that webcomics readers don't read other stuff. I got a big chunk of my readership via webcomics ads on PW pointing them to the serializations of my work. I mean, a BIG chunk of my readership, the people who wait for everything I do and plunk money down on my Kickstarters etc. So yeah, it can work for the right stuff.


Did they respond to any of your books in particular? Any preferences for one title over another? How did you target specific books to specific webcomics?


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## Rykymus (Dec 3, 2011)

Here's a free lesson for ya... no one ever sold a book by being jerk. And every author on here IS a reader.


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## Karin Kaufman (Jan 9, 2011)

Sally Dubats said:


> Victorine:
> 
> How did you give away 49,000 copies? Were they e-copies? How did you find 49,000 people to give them to?


Victorine, I'm curious about this too. How did you do it?


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## ChrisWard (Mar 10, 2012)

Anya said:


> headofwords - could be a more difficult sell if your book is a YA with adult themes. In the YA market, 'kids that hang off the sides of trains and battle with crossbow-wielding half-human monsters' sounds about right.


I was going to comprise and cut out all the swearing and tone down the violence, which would fit it nicely into the YA category, as its about a bunch of 12 - 21 year olds who end up on the run from the government's killing machines, and all that, but when I decided to self-publish it I decided to do it the way I wanted. It's better than Hunger Games, so if I toned it down I could probably shift a bucketload, but I refuse to sell out. Yet...


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

Karin Kaufman said:


> Victorine, I'm curious about this too. How did you do it?


I'm not sure if Vicki did it with a combo of pricematching and later Select. Back in the day, I had Out of Time PMd to free for 12 days and there were over 65K downloads.


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## Victorine (Apr 23, 2010)

Karin Kaufman said:


> Victorine, I'm curious about this too. How did you do it?


Sorry! I missed this. Monique got it right. It was price matched to free on Amazon. That was actually my free stint in February. I was free in November, right before Select, and gave away 40,000. Both times sling shot me up into the top 100. This last time I was free I gave away 32,000 and didn't get near the top 100. (The highest I got was #300something.) Timing and luck I think have a lot to do with it. And catching new readers.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

What? I read a lot of webcomics (and prefer ones with a serial plot, though I do read some stand-alone funny ones like Softer World and XKCD) and I read a ton of books, too.  I don't think those markets are separate.  I do think that it will take some doing to leverage a webcomic audience into buying a book if the book is the same story/plot as the comic.  I don't think I'd buy a book based on a comic when I could have the comic and illustrations instead, for what that's worth.

Travis- I'd be surprised if a single person on this forum had read even one of my books. The point of this place, as I see it, isn't to market to other writers, but to share information and cheer each other on (or give each other a reality check when we need it).


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## PhoenixS (Apr 5, 2011)

Victorine said:


> Sorry! I missed this. Monique got it right. It was price matched to free on Amazon. That was actually my free stint in February. I was free in November, right before Select, and gave away 40,000. Both times sling shot me up into the top 100. This last time I was free I gave away 32,000 and didn't get near the top 100. (The highest I got was #300something.) Timing and luck I think have a lot to do with it. And catching new readers.


Velocity matters. A lot. It isn't enough to aggregate 30K downloads over a couple of weeks. You have to get around 4000 downloads in a compressed amount of time to crack the Top 100. Having all those downloads, though, as Victorine and Monique know, will help keep you sticky at the rank you wind up at once the post-free bump hits.



TravisD said:


> I will give you kids 1 free lesson.
> 
> Authors need to stop trying to sell to other authors.
> 
> Or in other words...get off the freaking forums and go find some customers...


Hmmm, last I looked there were a dozen or so KB members who've been in and out of the Top 100 paid just this past week (why, yes, me included). Once you've been there, feel free to lecture the rest of us about where and how we choose to spend our time.


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## Ben White (Feb 11, 2011)

NathanWrann said:


> Webcomic readers do not read books. They read webcomics. They read comics and they read graphic novels. They don't read books.


This.

Is.

Such.

Rubbish.


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## NathanWrann (May 5, 2011)

Doomed Muse said:


> What? I read a lot of webcomics...


I don't doubt that there are _some_ people that read both webcomics and books (and I knew when posting that that I would hear from at least 1 webcomic fan). But it has been my experience (primarily through knowing webcomic creators, reading webcomics myself, knowing other webcomic readers and being a vendor at a webcomic con) that webcomic readers are not big "real book with words"* buyers. Combine my experience with the experience of a webcomic creator (HeavyCat, the OP) who has over 250,000 hits on his site and no sales to show for it and I think that weights it a little to the "not a good market to pursue" column.

However, MeiLinMiranda said that she had great success marketing to webcomics via Project Wonderful so I'd like to hear what her breakdown was for targeting and ROI.

Doomed Muse. You are a webcomic fan, a book reader *and a writer*. That last descriptor kind of disqualifies you from any potential poll of buying/reading habits. As a writer your selection, purchasing and reading of books is skewed well outside the norm of an average reader.

*This is how my books were referred to over and over and over again when they would be picked up and opened to reveal the thousands of words inside.


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## Karin Kaufman (Jan 9, 2011)

Monique said:


> I'm not sure if Vicki did it with a combo of pricematching and later Select. Back in the day, I had Out of Time PMd to free for 12 days and there were over 65K downloads.


Thanks, Monique. That makes sense.


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## Karin Kaufman (Jan 9, 2011)

Victorine said:


> It was price matched to free on Amazon. That was actually my free stint in February. I was free in November, right before Select, and gave away 40,000. Both times sling shot me up into the top 100. This last time I was free I gave away 32,000 and didn't get near the top 100.


Thanks, Victorine. I was imagining some sort of massive email registry.


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## B. Justin Shier (Apr 1, 2011)

B.


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## MeiLinMiranda (Feb 17, 2011)

Nathan: My webcomics readers started out with the draft of what became my Intimate History series, and that's what still draws most people to my work; I serialize the finished books on my site in teeny chunks.  But they've also come to support my Scryer's Gulch serial, and I'm pretty sure that when I release my part of the Drifting Isle Chronicles novels (five fantasy authors writing five separate but related novels to be released together this winter) they'll pick that up, too.

I advertise the History series primarily--almost exclusively. There are a handful of webcomic sites that give me spectacular returns so I return to those every few months for a run to remind people I'm here. I found those sites over time and experimentation. I keep a very close eye on my stats both at PW and at Google, and adjust my buys accordingly. I try to match themes rather than story lines or even genres.

And you can't be surprised that buyers at a comics convention aren't so much with the "books with words." A good friend--Jake Richmond of "Modest Medusa"--had a table at Orycon last year, a SF/F con that is super book-focused, and he didn't sell well. They're not so much with the "books with pictures" at Orycon.  Now, do the people who go to Orycon read comics? Oh heck yeah, but they're not in a comics frame of mind while they're at that con. They're neither looking for nor expecting comics.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

I'm a book reader first. I read about 300-350 books a year. I've also run a webcomic (almost 12 years ago now, heh, but we had a fun run).  I can't think of a single friend of mine who reads webcomics and doesn't also read a lot of books.  Sure, it's subjective here since I'm a giant nerd who is surrounded by a lot of at least somewhat nerds, but no one I know reads only webcomics.

I see Howard Tayler of Schlock Mercenary doing just fine at SF/F conventions, speaking on panels, selling comics in paper volumes, etc. Same with the Girl Genius people (which also regularly hits the Hugo ballot and I don't think it is just comic fans putting it there but the cross-over fans of which there are a lot in the spec fic world).  

I don't know why the 250k hits didn't turn into sales other than somehow the message was getting lost between clicking and arriving on the book's page.  I would guess it has more to do with presentation (blurb, cover, etc) than with a lack of people who read both comics and books. That seems like a red herring to me, personally. Maybe I'm wrong. But it doesn't flow with my own experience at all.

I think the biggest issue is that gambling on a single title can just lead to madness. You can lead all the readers to something that you want, but if it isn't the book for them, for whatever reasons, it just won't take off. Visibility is only a part of things.  Nobody knows how to turn a single book into a bestseller or even a decent seller. Nobody. It's all speculation. We can do all the right things, get great covers, have great editing, write a great book, have a catchy description, and market the heck out of something, and it might still fall on its face. That's the reality of this business and why it is best not to try to shoot for the moon only once.

By the way, Orycon is a tiny convention. Nobody sells much there, so I'm not surprised your friend didn't do that well. As cons go, it's a great little one, but definitely small time.


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## 41419 (Apr 4, 2011)

TravisD said:


> I will give you kids 1 free lesson.
> 
> Authors need to stop trying to sell to other authors.
> 
> Or in other words...get off the freaking forums and go find some customers...


Here's a free lesson: acting like a d*ck won't get you very far.


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## Herc- The Reluctant Geek (Feb 10, 2010)

TravisD said:


> I will give you kids 1 free lesson.
> 
> Authors need to stop trying to sell to other authors.
> 
> Or in other words...get off the freaking forums and go find some customers...


On an unrelated note, I like your new avatar.


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## Guest (Apr 21, 2012)

NathanWrann said:


> Webcomic readers do not read books. They read webcomics. They read comics and they read graphic novels. They don't read books.


Hmmmm. And who told you this?

As for the topic; never consider authors as your primary audience, even if they tell you they're readers and a VIP, as authors love to believe a, they know everything better than other authors, b, they're so important. So, try to split your audience;
Author Reader hybrids = "Ignore them" category (They never will be your primary audience and most of them will hold you back, especially if your book is better than theirs.).
Readers = "You should care" category (They're your primary audience. You must impress them.).

And if after this an author would say, you've just lost a VIP author reader, you should be glad for this and remind him or her there are 7 billion people on this spinning mudball and you're writing to impress readers, but not to impress fellow authors. The problem is that the indie world is slowly starting to turn the very same snobbish, just as the traditional world was and still is. And that's not a good sign.

So here is my freebie advice: do what you know to be right and don't count on anyone else as regardless how it seems, regardless what fellow authors tell you, you're on your own in this game.


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## TravisD (Apr 15, 2012)

dgaughran said:


> Here's a free lesson: acting like a d*ck won't get you very far.


Thanks.


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## TravisD (Apr 15, 2012)

Herc- The Reluctant Geek said:


> On an unrelated note, I like your new avatar.


Thanks a lot!


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## JRWoodward (Apr 26, 2011)

I've never sold a single "unit" but one day I hope to sell a few "books."


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## MeiLinMiranda (Feb 17, 2011)

Phil Foglio's an interesting example of comics/fiction cross-over. He and Kaja have been revamping Girl Genius into novels. I had the privilege, and it's the correct word, to hear him read from the first one last year at Stumptown Comics Fest. If you ever get a chance to see Phil read, GO. He is effing hi-larious. He also looks EXACTLY like he draws. If you've never seen a picture of him you could still pick him out of a large crowd with ease.

Anyway, the translation into fiction worked well and they're selling fairly well if Stumptown was any example.


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## Spirit Flame (Feb 28, 2012)

I just wanted to say that this thread is extremely interesting! 
The "Notify" feature does not seem to alert me so I thought adding this WILL notify me about future contributions.


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## BrianKittrell (Jan 8, 2011)

dgaughran said:


> Here's a free lesson: acting like a d*ck won't get you very far.


Totally depends on the genre.  Tucker Max comes to mind.


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## IB (Jan 31, 2012)

BrianKittrell said:


> Totally depends on the genre.  Tucker Max comes to mind.


Exactly! And it also depends on the talent vs d*ck quotient.

In Hollywood, it's a simple formula. The more talent you have, the more of an a--hole you can be. I'd guess that to be true in publishing. (And you can replace talent with box office or sales!)

BTW, please don't misinterpret this. There are plenty of people who have a lot of talent who are good people. And there are plenty of people who have no talent who are d-cks.


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## Nomadwoman (Aug 25, 2011)

D. said:


> P.S. Have you considered putting a limp girl and some purple swirls on your cover?


Did the change to swirling typeface increase your sales?


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## Nomadwoman (Aug 25, 2011)

When you're trying to get into the top 100, does it matter which top 100? I just took a look at Ruth Harris after she asked a question on this thread and although her work is fiction, one book is at #15 in self-help, parenting, another in her fiction series is in Non-fiction. SO should we putting out general fiction into odd categories to make ourselves top 100?


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## MonkeyScribe (Jan 27, 2011)

IB said:


> Exactly! And it also depends on the talent vs d*ck quotient.
> 
> In Hollywood, it's a simple formula. The more talent you have, the more of an a--hole you can be. I'd guess that to be true in publishing. (And you can replace talent with box office or sales!)
> 
> BTW, please don't misinterpret this. There are plenty of people who have a lot of talent who are good people. And there are plenty of people who have no talent who are d-cks.


And when you haven't yet written a single book, the acceptable ratio of sphincter to talent is very low.


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## Zelah Meyer (Jun 15, 2011)

Nomadwoman said:


> When you're trying to get into the top 100, does it matter which top 100? I just took a look at Ruth Harris after she asked a question on this thread and although her work is fiction, one book is at #15 in self-help, parenting, another in her fiction series is in Non-fiction. SO should we putting out general fiction into odd categories to make ourselves top 100?


The reader side of me finds it really annoying when people file their books under categories that don't even apply to their books. It makes it harder to find something you actually want in that category because it's full of rubbish that doesn't belong there (and, like a weed being a plant in the wrong place, if your book is a horror story filed under children's board books - then it's a weed to the customer who actually wants to buy a board book, even if it's a great horror story.)

It's only a matter of time until Amazon institutes some reporting method for customers to use to stop this, because it doesn't help them either.


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## EresWilliams (Mar 17, 2011)

Nomadwoman said:


> When you're trying to get into the top 100, does it matter which top 100? I just took a look at Ruth Harris after she asked a question on this thread and although her work is fiction, one book is at #15 in self-help, parenting, another in her fiction series is in Non-fiction. SO should we putting out general fiction into odd categories to make ourselves top 100?


I noticed that one of Rick Riordan's Lightning Thief books (middle-grade) was listed in teen horror.

For most indies, I think this is a dangerous little game and could easily backfire with a rash of 1-star punishment reviews. But some people like to live on the edge...


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## MeiLinMiranda (Feb 17, 2011)

Lovers and Beloveds is listed under nonfiction > bisexuality. I did NOT put it there, and so far requests to take it off have not been answered. Time to try again. I don't think it's doing me a bit of good even though I'm usually in its top ten let alone 100.


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