# I'm confused-have my sales tanked or is this due to the reporting glitch?



## Isabelking (Jan 16, 2012)

http://forums.kindledirectpublishing.com/kdpforums/message.jspa?messageID=320666#320666

Apparently KDp acknowledges there is some kind of sales reporting glitch going on.

Last month I was selling 120-150 books a day on Amazon and 40-60 a day on Amazon UK.. This month it's about 60 on Amazon and 20 on Amazon UK. Yesterday it was 49 on Amazon. I have 24 books for sale now. One of my popular bestsellers did die out big time but still - that's a HUGE drop.

I can't figure out if it's glitchy reporting or if I'm just having a sucky month.


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## Jan Strnad (May 27, 2010)

I'm trying not to get my hopes up that it's a glitch. Yes, September has sucked so far for me, but it's been part of a slow spiral, so I'm reconciled to the fact that my sales are really, truly sucking and pinning my hopes on the new book to reinvigorate them.


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## GWakeling (Mar 23, 2012)

I think it's a bit of both. There have definitely been reporting problems, but this month SUCKS. I have sold, drum roll please.....TWO books!     And one of those was to a friend. 

I'm only new to publishing, have two titles and am gradually climbing the ladder of obscurity...but sales were increasing. One legitimate sale to an unknown reader this month is awful. I feel like bashing my head into the wall!

Lets hope all our grumbles are answered with a stella October!


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## J.R. Thomson (Mar 30, 2011)

You've gotta be kidding.  I decided to put my book up for free today.  The last time I had a free day reporting and ranking went haywire on Amazon.  If this is happening again I'm never having a free day again!


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## Isabelking (Jan 16, 2012)

I'm torn between feeling kinda lame and whiney trying to blame my awful sales on Amazon sales reporting issues - and REALLY hoping they've lost some of my sales and will find them again soon.

But a number of people on another forum I'm on are also reporting slower sales this month. Weird thing is - all these people were saying August is awful, and I was dreading August, but it was my absolute best month ever. It was a dream month. I had literally achieved my goals in August. 

Then September happened.


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## Alain Gomez (Nov 12, 2010)

My sales have been remaining status quo.  Even slightly higher than August.

However, I've been getting a lot of single title sales.  Like one random purchase of something that hasn't been purchased in a long time.  I have noticed that my usually regularly selling works are not selling quite as many copies as they normally do.

Whatever


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## MegHarris (Mar 4, 2010)

My sales have been steady. I'm on track to earn about what I did last month.


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## Edward W. Robertson (May 18, 2010)

If your ranks have declined along with your sales, it's probably not a glitch, much as we'd all prefer otherwise. It's not impossible that both areas are misreporting, but from what I've seen, it's not super-likely.


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## Amanda Brice (Feb 16, 2011)

T.L. Haddix said:


> Ditto here - Forget the mid-summer months being bad. September has been awful.


September has been horrible. But I remember it being like that last year, too. I'm just going to do what I can, which is keep working on getting books out in time for the holiday season.


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## GWakeling (Mar 23, 2012)

Amanda Brice said:


> September has been horrible. But I remember it being like that last year, too. I'm just going to do what I can, which is keep working on getting books out in time for the holiday season.


THIS. I wasn't around last September, so have nothing to go on. I'm going to keep plugging away on two more novels, one of which will definitely be out by Christmas! Gotta keep that ball rolling.


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## PaigeAspen (Jun 5, 2012)

I had a book jump in rank last Thursday from @520,000 to @100,000 without a reported sale, but a sale showed up today with no change in rank... a 6 day lag in reporting? Is that even possible?


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## MegHarris (Mar 4, 2010)

> ... a 6 day lag in reporting? Is that even possible?


I don't know. But I put up a new book this weekend, and it started showing sales immediately (actually before I wanted it to, as it had some formatting issues when it first went up!). So at least _some _sales are showing up fairly quickly.


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## phil1861 (Dec 22, 2011)

Isabelking said:


> I'm torn between feeling kinda lame and whiney trying to blame my awful sales on Amazon sales reporting issues - and REALLY hoping they've lost some of my sales and will find them again soon.
> 
> But a number of people on another forum I'm on are also reporting slower sales this month. Weird thing is - all these people were saying August is awful, and I was dreading August, but it was my absolute best month ever. It was a dream month. I had literally achieved my goals in August.
> 
> Then September happened.


Yeah, my wife was tired of hearing me say how awful August was, how low selling August was, how dreadful August was; everyone is saying August is a bad month ... Now September has made August look like boom town.


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## Simon Haynes (Mar 14, 2011)

I've been posting in the *UK sales reports Broken* topic about this.

It has to be a glitch, but it seems to be tied in with rankings too. My UK sales figs for 4 books (for the whole of September) were 13-8-10-18 eight hours ago, and this morning the figures are 19-13-13-24. That's a 50% increase for one of them and the others are none too shabby.

I would have said 'hey, they're catching up at last', except the two books which jumped the most have had corresponding jumps in amazon rankings. Both are in the top 5000 paid on Amazon UK, which is the highest they've ever been.

So, hopefully it was just a glitch and things are finally starting to move.


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## Al Dente (Sep 3, 2012)

I've only been self-published since July, but so far, September has been much worse than August. In 11 days, I have made a TOTAL of 14 sales between  the US and UK. My free download periods were pretty awful, too. I don't think it's a glitch. It's just been a bad month.


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## ChristopherDavidPetersen (Mar 24, 2011)

Last year, for me, August and September were the worst months of the year. This year is looking to be about the same. As I recall, October is when things picked up so I'm hoping for the same patter this year. If it doesn't: hara-kiri


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## Cheryl Douglas (Dec 7, 2011)

I'm hoping it's a glitch. July and August were solid months for me, but June was terrible. So far, this month is looking more like June.  I don't get it, I thought things were supposed to pick up in September?


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## Rick Gualtieri (Oct 31, 2011)

This has been bizarro month for me.  My books that normally do well are tanking and those that are normally ignored are doing fairly well...no idea why.


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## ML Hamilton (Feb 21, 2011)

KDP has finally acknowledged there is a problem and it is with ranking too. I get a sale and my ranking gets worse, not better. They are going to update their community boards as soon as they get it fixed.

I'm not saying September isn't slow, it just isn't as slow as all of us fear. There is a major, eleven day problem with reporting.


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## phil1861 (Dec 22, 2011)

ML Hamilton said:


> KDP has finally acknowledged there is a problem and it is with ranking too. I get a sale and my ranking gets worse, not better. They are going to update their community boards as soon as they get it fixed.
> 
> I'm not saying September isn't slow, it just isn't as slow as all of us fear. There is a major, eleven day problem with reporting.


Holy Macaroni, Batman! 11 day problem? Is that 11 day delay or a running problem these past 11 days?


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## Simon Haynes (Mar 14, 2011)

phil1861 said:


> Holy Macaroni, Batman! 11 day problem? Is that 11 day delay or a running problem these past 11 days?


http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,125143

It's been going on since September 2nd.


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## Jan Strnad (May 27, 2010)

Edward W. Robertson said:


> If your ranks have declined along with your sales, it's probably not a glitch, much as we'd all prefer otherwise. It's not impossible that both areas are misreporting, but from what I've seen, it's not super-likely.


Mr. Robertson is very often the voice of reason here.

I repeat the "Dear God let it be a glitch" prayer frequently these days, but I'm afraid the fact is, my book isn't selling like it did during its heyday.

Maybe once _Alice_ is released, things will pick up. "Dear God, let things pick up when _Alice_ is released...."


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## ruecole (Jun 13, 2012)

September started off pretty good for me. I had several sales per day. I thought I'd finally hit the point where my stories would start selling on their own! Then this weekend, things ground to a halt. The weird thing was, even though sales were coming in, my rankings were going the down. They're now down far lower than they were in August. Little wonder sales dried up. 

Rue


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## Laura Lond (Nov 6, 2010)

Bad September here as well.


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## sarracannon (Apr 19, 2011)

August was better than expected for me as i expected it to be slower, but September is falling more and more each day. I was kind of hoping it was a glitch as well, but when I look at my ranks, they are dropping too. This says to me that my lower sales are true. Bummer. I have a new release coming next month, so I'm just hoping that brings me back up.


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## Simon Haynes (Mar 14, 2011)

My four-five month avg is about 20-22 paid sales per day across a bunch of titles. (That's total, not each. If it were each I'd be dictating these forum posts to my P.A. ...)

Anyway, for the first few days in September my average was about 8 sales per day, all in the US. After this morning's burst I'm up to 16 per day for September (180 sales), which is a lot closer to the long-term average.

Judging by the rankings I'd say that's probably about right, but who knows whether the Amazon KDP system still has a few more dollops backed up in the workings? They've admitted the problem on the KDP customer thread:

_We're very sorry for this inconvenience. We've confirmed this error is only affecting the display of information in some sales reports. The tracking of sales has not been affected.

We'll update this thread once the problem has been fixed. We appreciate your patience and understanding in the meantime.

Regards,

Kindle Direct Publishing Team_


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## Richardcrasta (Jul 29, 2010)

Am I right in noticing that the people who write erotica has suffered the least, or in some cases have steady and improved sales, and if so . . . could it part of a general trend?


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## Simon Haynes (Mar 14, 2011)

In the last 30 mins I've seen 3 returns go through on a 4.99 novel. It's book 5 in the series, and I usually see one return all month - across the entire series.

That's about a 12% return rate, which is unheard of for my later books. After all, if you've bought and read books 1-4, why would you return #5? It's been rated higher than the rest, and I haven't replaced the content for weeks.

I'm just hoping the returns are fore-runners to a rash of late sales figures, and not just some new Amazon accounting glitch.


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## MegHarris (Mar 4, 2010)

> Am I right in noticing that the people who write erotica has suffered the least, or in some cases have steady and improved sales, and if so . . . could it part of a general trend?


I don't know, but I will say that my "regular" romance sales have dropped to insignificance, and my erotic romance sales are what's keeping me afloat.


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## lorelei (Feb 25, 2012)

Last night KND ebooktracker service reported that my sales ranking is 0. 
Can anyone here beat that?


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## George Berger (Aug 7, 2011)

Simon Haynes said:


> In the last 30 mins I've seen 3 returns go through on a 4.99 novel. It's book 5 in the series, and I usually see one return all month - across the entire series.
> 
> That's about a 12% return rate, which is unheard of for my later books. After all, if you've bought and read books 1-4, why would you return #5? It's been rated higher than the rest, and I haven't replaced the content for weeks.
> 
> I'm just hoping the returns are fore-runners to a rash of late sales figures, and not just some new Amazon accounting glitch.


I had two sales all of yesterday, which is... somewhat lower than has been the norm, the last few months. This morning I woke up to six new sales - and four new returns. No idea what's going on.


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## Isabelking (Jan 16, 2012)

I write erotic romance, and my sales are about 1/2 to 1/3 lower than they were last month. A lot of erotica writers on the erotica forum are complaining that sales are down as well.

There are a handful of erotica writers who have written stories that are absolutely taking off like a rocket. However, honestly - several of THOSE writers have mentioned that their sales are down compared to last month. Still awesome, but down.

So no, I don't think that erotica and erotic romance have escaped. Maybe it's just a slow month for those of us who don't have huge hits.

A lot of my fabulous sales last month were due to Submitting To The Billionaire, which at its peak was selling about 40-70 copies a day and is now selling about 6 to 10 copies a day.


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## 4eyesbooks (Jan 9, 2012)

Well that explains it!  I had pretty steady sales in August, but this month has been abysmal.  Hope they fix the problem soon!


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## MegHarris (Mar 4, 2010)

> There are a handful of erotica writers who have written stories that are absolutely taking off like a rocket.


My books are not taking off like a rocket (wish they were!). However, the best sellers are the newest (well, in het erotica; I still am not making many inroads with my m/m stuff). My older ones, even the ones that have been steady sellers for a couple of years now, are definitely down a bit. I intend to release a couple new ones this month in the hopes of keeping my sales rolling.


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## RGPorter (Sep 19, 2011)

My sales the last few months have been horrible. I even did a free day twice and got 2 sales out of it  Hoping Oct plays better.


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## Debbiek (Aug 7, 2010)

I write mostly erotic romances and my sales are way down this month.  This morning was horrible.


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## Isabelking (Jan 16, 2012)

I hear ya, Debbie. I used to be excited to check my sales every morning. Now I think I need to start a "morning margarita" tradition, so I can drown my sorrows over my plummeting sales.


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## JumpingShip (Jun 3, 2010)

I had several promotions at the end of August, so I went into September on a roll, so to speak. I had a successful free day of book one, and a successful ENT Bargain Book day of book three and did a large promotion with other authors of book three for Labor Day. Anyway, my sales were pretty good--but definitely not at good as other post free sales even though I had over 9,000 downloads on the the two free days. Usually that carries over into the other books, as they area  series, but those sales are kind of flat. Not horrible, but not great. Yesterday was the worst day of the month, but I think last Tuesday the same thing happened. Barely any sales, and then several overnight. I had 16 sales when I woke up this morning. That was about as many as I sold all day yesterday (when I had been averaging about 30 or so if you exclude the immediate post free numbers from the average).


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## Genesis Blue (Jun 27, 2012)

I've only been published since June, so I don't have a lot of sales figures to go on, but my first month I sold 75 books, the second, 35 and then in August, things really tanked with about 20. This month, 8. And two returns.


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## Andykay (May 10, 2012)

The erotica I write under my pen name is way down. I've only got a handful of titles, but they've been steadily growing over the months, and despite the fact that I added a new one in the middle of last month, sales on Amazon in September are atrocious. 1/3 of what they were, give or take. I'd love to think it's a glitch, but I am still getting a tiny trickle, which makes that seem pretty unlikely. There's so much variance when you're dealing with small numbers that it's impossible to read too much into them.

On the plus side, I've sold 9 copies of things on Kobo this month. At least one of my titles is beating it's results on Amazon so far!


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## Simon Haynes (Mar 14, 2011)

You might all want to check your UK 6-weekly figs, especially if you chart them weekly as I do.

I happened to take a snapshot of my UK 6-weekly figures a few days back, and lo-and-behold, they just changed overnight.

Amazon retrospectively added 41 sales & freebies, and about £11 in value (not a lot, but it works out to 15-20% of the old total).  This is still 50% down on my long-term weekly average, but it's a start.


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## MJWare (Jun 25, 2010)

September has been down for me; I think my place in the algorithms might have slipped.
We'll see.


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## Simon Haynes (Mar 14, 2011)

Not seen a single sale on my US or UK figs for the past 16 hours or so. Anyone else frozen?


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## Jnassise (Mar 22, 2010)

Nothing has changed for me in the last 20 or so hours either, Simon, which is unusual for me.

-Joe


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Seriously, I think Amazon has some extremely low-volume issues at the moment. Some books will obviously continue to sell well or OK, but I think the tide of evidence suggests that most of us are simply selling bugger-all.

I don't get it, because my B & N sales are 10 times my Amazon sales, and even my Kobo sales are higher. I was doing OK last month, but this month, sales just... stopped. Not only that, but if you get a single sale, a book rockets in the charts in a way it normally only does on very small sites, so that makes me think that many people just aren't buying full stop.

Meanwhile, I have lowered one of my Select titles to 99c, because I'm sick of staring at zeroes.


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## Simon Haynes (Mar 14, 2011)

Before the early September glitch I'd have assumed zero sales, but afterwards ... I'm not so confident.

I did 30 copies on Wed, 19 yesterday and zippo since last night. That's why I thought I'd post here, just to find out if anyone else is seeing a freeze.


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## Simon Haynes (Mar 14, 2011)

In case you think I'm obsessed about this ... I can't help it, I'm a numbers guy. I've been writing share market software for over a decade, and I'm used to figures and stats always being there, and used to them getting updated regularly. I've probably spent five percent of my entire life perfecting data import routines, fine-tuning reporting, tweaking database storage and update methods, etc, etc.

So, it's always irritating when I don't know if a report is accurate, and the data hasn't changed, of if the report simply isn't updating.


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## Romana Grimm (Mar 19, 2012)

Well, I'm from Germany and my sales haven't tanked exactly, but they've slowed considerably. One of my stories (Firedancer) is an especially weird case, as I know that I've sold at least one copy, but  reporting hasn't picked it up yet. The ranking has finally come through, though, which is at least something.  If the problem is global, as I suspect it is by now, then it might take Amazon some time to fix it for good. (Must be the hordes of authors entering the ranks as they flee from legacy publishing and delurk from their writing caves that did it  )


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## Lisa Grace (Jul 3, 2011)

ML Hamilton said:


> KDP has finally acknowledged there is a problem and it is with ranking too. I get a sale and my ranking gets worse, not better. They are going to update their community boards as soon as they get it fixed.
> 
> I'm not saying September isn't slow, it just isn't as slow as all of us fear. There is a major, eleven day problem with reporting.


I've emailed them twice in the last week because sales weren't showing up. Sales from fans (who ordered then read it and emailed me fan mails, and fans who don't mind giving me their Kindle addresses so I know the sales happened and dl'd.) Anyway, I contacted them twice after the sales and ranking not being adjusted after a whole week.

I received form letters about reporting, answered "no" they didn't answer my question, but they never acknowledged to me there is a problem. I was getting ready to email a third time when I stumbled across this thread. It's comforting to know I'm not the only one.

However, last year I had 60+ sales disappear off a report in December never to return (UK sales on Book 2), and I never got paid for them. So I'm not totally confident in their reconciling sales correctly.


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## Romana Grimm (Mar 19, 2012)

60+ sales!! That's terrible! Did they ever discuss this with you, or was the whole topic dropped quietly?


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## Lisa Grace (Jul 3, 2011)

Romana Grimm said:


> 60+ sales!! That's terrible! Did they ever discuss this with you, or was the whole topic dropped quietly?


I sent them several emails regarding the disappeared sales, never got a satisfactory response back. Just form letters, then correspondence saying my sales would show on my report.?! I feel I have no recourse as it never dawned on me to take a screenshot when they were there. I mean, I'd never had it happen before or after. I went from 66 sales on _Angel in the Storm, Book 2_ to it not even being listed on the report (back down to zero, so it didn't show.)


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## Romana Grimm (Mar 19, 2012)

Incredible!   I foretell droves of authors now doing screenshots at the end of the month just before the BBOS comes back ... I can't believe they'd do something like this! You have my sympathies, and I sincerely hope that this will never happen again


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## Simon Haynes (Mar 14, 2011)

Someone must have got the Drano out. KDP just added 7 or 8 sales to my figures in the past ten minutes.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Do non-Aussies know what Drano is?


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## Simon Haynes (Mar 14, 2011)

Patty Jansen said:


> Do non-Aussies know what Drano is?


I like to keep them on their toes ...


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## James Snow (Sep 11, 2012)

I got one added yesterday! Shame though as it means my reporting probably wasn't broken just sales had died.


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## StephenEngland (Nov 2, 2011)

Can anyone confirm that the rankings system has also been skewed? Labor Day was my best regular(non-promotion) day since June, but things have bottomed out since and the ranking is. . .well, weird.


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## George Berger (Aug 7, 2011)

Patty Jansen said:


> Do non-Aussies know what Drano is?


It's a 'merkin product, innit?

It's certainly available here, anyway...

_--George, unlike Cataflam_


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## Cheryl Douglas (Dec 7, 2011)

My sales are half of what they were last month. I do have the brown bar in Author Central indicating a reporting delay and it's been there since yesterday. I think it's a combination of a reporting problem and genuinely slow sales month.


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## Flurries Unlimited (Jan 24, 2012)

This seems to be a common problem as a couple of author friends and family have experienced the same thing.  Nothing for days, then a spike and nothing again.  Very weird!


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## Emily Ryan-Davis (Jun 8, 2012)

Weirdly my UK sales are way up. UK sales are coming in at close to 50% of US sales (which aren't impressive this month). That just doesn't happen.


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## MJWare (Jun 25, 2010)

I've noticed that my also boughts have been changing around a lot--both on my books and the books I'm on listed on.

Every time they change, my titles seem to fall farther down the list. Even one my own books, my other books used to be the first several also boughts now they've moved down.

Sales have been about 1/2 since the 7th. Oh, well, at least I'm still selling something!


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## Nicole5102 (Mar 12, 2012)

My sales report appeared to be stuck for days, so I sent an email to KDP. They sent me one back explaining that my report was not stuck, I just wasn't selling anything at the moment. 

A few hours later, two sales showed up.


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## Sybil Nelson (Jun 24, 2010)

I haven't checked my sales since Tuesday. I just looked today and I've only sold a handful. That is way below normal. I hope something is going on.


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## dlanzarotta (Jul 14, 2010)

I was wondering the same.  This has been the slowest month this year...


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## Emily Ryan-Davis (Jun 8, 2012)

I'm not asking this to be a jerk or anything but when sales slow down why is it widely assumed/speculated that the system isn't reporting correctly? Why isn't the first thought that either book sales in general are down, or somebody else's book is more popular than yours (ours)?


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## dlanzarotta (Jul 14, 2010)

Emily Ryan-Davis said:


> I'm not asking this to be a jerk or anything but when sales slow down why is it widely assumed/speculated that the system isn't reporting correctly? Why isn't the first thought that either book sales in general are down, or somebody else's book is more popular than yours (ours)?


Anything could be the reason. I'm sure the thread was started to see just how many people are having the same problem. It's much easier to point out the source of the problem this way.


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## Emily Ryan-Davis (Jun 8, 2012)

dlanzarotta said:


> Anything could be the reason. I'm sure the thread was started to see just how many people are having the same problem. It's much easier to point out the source of the problem this way.


That's cool! I only ask because this isn't the only place I see speculation, and just about everywhere else (yahoo loops, other forums) the statement is usually "My sales have stopped! Is Amazon broken?". I'm a relative newbie to the ins and outs of indie publishing (I didn't even realize there was a "Hot New Releases" feature on Amazon until I started lurking here) so I'm kind of fascinated by all the talk of algorithms...but I'm also used to non-indie where you just shrug and figure that for whatever reason your book isn't selling/didn't sell in X month.


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## CoraBuhlert (Aug 7, 2011)

I haven't had a single sale reported in over a week. Now I have had dry spells of several says before, but this is one is unusually long. And I had far fewer books available when I had those long dry spells. 

So I suspect that sales reporting is frozen again. At least, I hope it is.


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## Simon Haynes (Mar 14, 2011)

Emily Ryan-Davis said:


> I'm not asking this to be a jerk or anything but when sales slow down why is it widely assumed/speculated that the system isn't reporting correctly? Why isn't the first thought that either book sales in general are down, or somebody else's book is more popular than yours (ours)?


Because KDP admin have posted on the KDP Customer forums, officially admitting there's been a problem.

And also because they retrospectively altered my six-weekly UK figures, adding 15% to the totals for the latest week.

And because rankings for some titles are going up in big steps (# numbers falling on the store page), with no sales reported for up to twenty-four hours.

All the evidence points to major issues with the sales reporting. So, with that in mind, when sales freeze for 12 hours, the first question people have is 'is it me, or is it KDP ... again?' Surveying others who have pretty consistent daily sales is a quick way to check.


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## Lexi Revellian (May 31, 2010)

My theory is that Amazon have changed the algorithms again, making it more difficult for some books to make sales (and possibly making it easier for others). The reporting glitch and this being a slow time of year may be side issues - though Lisa's experience of non-reported sales is disturbing.

My sales this month are about a third of the first half of August's - and August was not a good month for me.

Lexi


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## James Snow (Sep 11, 2012)

I seem to be picking up steam. My US sales are up and September is looking to be a good month for me if I carry on at this rate. However my UK sales have died which is odd as they normally come in at least 50% of my US sales but right now we are talking 1% of my US sales. Shall see how it goes!


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## Flurries Unlimited (Jan 24, 2012)

Does anyone know if Amazon has made any statements about it?


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## Simon Haynes (Mar 14, 2011)

flurriesofwords said:


> Does anyone know if Amazon has made any statements about it?


Only an official KDP support person posting to the official KDP support forums. (I won't include a link in case it's verboten here, but when you're on the KDP publishing page, click Community. There are about 20 threads about slow sales, no sales, messed up reports, etc, etc, dating from about the 2nd of September, and KDP Admin has posted in a few. After they declared it 'fixed', the threads really lit up.


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## CoraBuhlert (Aug 7, 2011)

I just had another flurry of sales show up, though UK sales still are much lower than normal. Even my DE sales are higher than UK this month - though that may be due to launching my first two stories in German translation.


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## ML Hamilton (Feb 21, 2011)

T.L. Haddix said:


> That is my first thought, then I come here and see if anyone else is noticing an abnormal slow down. And that's the key - most of us are not talking about sales just slacking off a little. Most of us are noticing significant, abnormal drops in sales. When you've been selling X number of books consistently through the toughest months of the year, and then bam! those sales are gone, it raises a red flag. My sales are down 75% from where they were last month. That's not just readership dying off. That's a glitch, or else something weird is going on someplace I can't find.


Exactly! And the silence from KDP is somewhat alarming. The forums over there are getting very tense.


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## Simon Haynes (Mar 14, 2011)

My sales have been split 55/45 between the US and UK for the past 12 months, and for both to freeze and/or tank at the same time is odd.

I was just wondering whether people are throwing their book budgets at the new Kindle models, which would impact sales to some extent. (e.g. 'Hey, if I don't buy any books for two months I can get a new Kindle) But would that explain the Kindle UK slowdown? I don't know whether the new models are even on sale there yet.


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## BooksMedia (May 26, 2012)

I wonder if anyone's noticed a couple of things I'm seeing ...

1) The algorithms/also-boughts have been flipping several times a day throughout this month.  I normally see this happen much less frequently.  When they do flip now, they often seem totally random and unrelated to the book.  Are you noticing this, too?  Also, as I've noticed the frequently changing also-boughts, I wonder if that has anything to do with many of our decreasing sales this month?  Less visibility, right?

2)  In addition to reduced sales, are you noticing a drop in KOLL borrows (for those in KDP Select)?  After having seen a steady increase, I'm seeing a total screeching halt for days now.

This is a really tough month for sure.  And I'd be curious to hear if you all are noticing the above as well?

Thanks.  And hopefully things start to turn around ...


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## Victorine (Apr 23, 2010)

I do think Amazon is messing with things again. They're always trying to tweak stuff to make more money. When they tweak, I notice a teeter totter effect. Some people have increased sales, some have drops.

Usually things even out again, although sometimes it takes another promotion to get my book noticed again. *Sigh*


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## Emily Ryan-Davis (Jun 8, 2012)

I don't track as thoroughly as some of you but what I've noticed about my sales is they've been abysmal since the first of the month - maybe Labor Day weekend, but just September in general. It's mid-month and I just crossed 200 sales on a book that almost reached 800 sales in July, and almost 700 sales in August.

So...I'm not sure what the deal is. A combination of things? But since writing royalties are how I feed my family and keep a roof over my head, I hope it's just a slow buying month and things start to pick up in October. I didn't think I'd say this because I LOVE pleasant fall weather, but come on cold, wet, "stay in and read a book" days.


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## CoraBuhlert (Aug 7, 2011)

I just checked one of my books earlier tonight and noticed that it had different also-bots than normally. And a newly released book had also-bots showing up after only two sales, which must be a new record.

They're definitely tinkering with the algorithms again.


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## Emily Ryan-Davis (Jun 8, 2012)

T.L. Haddix said:


> Definitely noticing a slow down in the borrows.
> 
> Emily, I'm there with you. We're not completely dependent on my sales, but they certainly help me from having a nervous breakdown. I think I'd flat freak out if they slow much more.


Don't even think of "even slower" as a possibility. Knowledgeable, experienced people warned me about the Fall sales slump. If this is it, I can live with it - I just hope it's a short slump.


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## George Berger (Aug 7, 2011)

Emily Ryan-Davis said:


> Knowledgeable, experienced people warned me about the Fall sales slump. If this is it, I can live with it - I just hope it's a short slump.


The Spring slump, the Summer slump, the Fall slump, the Winter slump; the pre-Christmas and post-Christmas slumps; the various Holiday slumps, the stupid-secular-almost-holiday slumps (like Super Bowl Weekend slump), the bad weather slumps, the _good_ weather slumps, the blockbuster movie release slumps, the Olympic slump, the back-to-school slump, the graduation slump, the Amazon-put-other-peoples-books-on-sale slump...

...there are a lot of slumps.


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## dlanzarotta (Jul 14, 2010)

Whenever there are KDP issues with sales being frozen, does Amazon automatically fixes the problem or do you have to contact them?  What has been your experience?


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## dlanzarotta (Jul 14, 2010)

DDark said:


>


LOL Hmmm


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## Emily Ryan-Davis (Jun 8, 2012)

George Berger said:


> The Spring slump, the Summer slump, the Fall slump, the Winter slump; the pre-Christmas and post-Christmas slumps; the various Holiday slumps, the stupid-secular-almost-holiday slumps (like Super Bowl Weekend slump), the bad weather slumps, the _good_ weather slumps, the blockbuster movie release slumps, the Olympic slump, the back-to-school slump, the graduation slump, the Amazon-put-other-peoples-books-on-sale slump...
> 
> ...there are a lot of slumps.


Every four years, the presidential election slump?


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## AmberC (Mar 28, 2012)

Don't forget the Tuesday-Friday slump.


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## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

Sweetapple said:


> Don't forget the Tuesday-Friday slump.


I always have a Sunday slump. Actually, it's more like a Sunday drop-dead.


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## George Berger (Aug 7, 2011)

I realized, everyone says they started seeing a slump around Sept 3rd... guess who released a new book on the 2nd?

My bad.

And I usually see a Monday-Thursday slump, myself...


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## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

George Berger said:


> I realized, everyone says they started seeing a slump around Sept 3rd... guess who released a new book on the 2nd?
> 
> My bad.
> 
> And I usually see a Monday-Thursday slump, myself...


So we're blaming you?


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## Laura Lond (Nov 6, 2010)

Victorine said:


> I do think Amazon is messing with things again.


That's what I think, too. There's just no other explanation for such a sudden drop for so many of us.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

OK, lemme get this straight: There are people who spend time checking the also-bots of all their books? And logging into Author Central to check the ranking of all their books every five minutes as well as their KDP report?

Imagine what you could do with all that time if you spent it writing!


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## 13893 (Apr 29, 2010)

Patty Jansen said:


> OK, lemme get this straight: There are people who spend time checking the also-bots of all their books? And logging into Author Central to check the ranking of all their books every five minutes as well as their KDP report?
> 
> Imagine what you could do with all that time if you spent it writing!


That's why it's called self-publishing. The writers in us write. The publishers in us keep abreast of what's going on on the nonwriting side.


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## 13893 (Apr 29, 2010)

All I can say is, I'm so glad I have an ENT bargain day coming up.


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## dlanzarotta (Jul 14, 2010)

DDark said:


> I check once a week, but since the drop, I've been looking more closely. I've also been writing two books on the side. While I never check my also boughts, I don't think there's anything wrong with monitoring your sales when your seller is potential changing things behind the scenes that are impacting your sales. I used to run a company for seven years and if I saw a dramatic change impacting income, I wouldn't stick my feet up on the desk and shrug it off while watching Judge Judy. Just sayin'.


Well said. As a writer, you want to get the books in front of readers. You have to know how sales are going to know if you need to make changes in your marketing strategy...


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## George Berger (Aug 7, 2011)

Gertie Kindle 'a/k/a Margaret Lake' said:


> So we're blaming you?


Sure, why not? 

_--George, the book SO BAD it ruined several writers' lives, and put a nearly-measurable dent in Amazon's third-quarter profits! Buy it now!_


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## Lexi Revellian (May 31, 2010)

Victorine said:


> I do think Amazon is messing with things again. They're always trying to tweak stuff to make more money.


What I want to know is, why are the algorithm tweaks always bad news for KDPers? When am I going to read a thread where everyone is posting about a sudden dramatic _increase _in sales due to an algorithm change?

Lexi


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## Richardcrasta (Jul 29, 2010)

Sorrow shared is sorrow halved--or something like that.

While my Amazon Sales are down like those of the rest, I have sold just one book on Kobo direct, and two on Pubit this month--percentage-wise, the performance of the latter two is much worse.

Which is why I can only hope, like the rest of you, that I am comforted by seeing those "missing" sales reappear at least on KDP.

And I might actually, when I get round to it, reassign books from Kobo and Pubit to Smashwords, and let them be my retailers for at least those two platforms.


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## Andykay (May 10, 2012)

Well, sales this month are still abysmal for me on my erotica pen name. I sold about 90 stories on Amazon overall in August. This month, I've sold 15, and absolutely nothing for the last five days. I feel like something has to have changed somewhere, but I have no idea what.


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## Lexi Revellian (May 31, 2010)

Andykay said:


> Well, sales this month are still abysmal for me on my erotica pen name. I sold about 90 stories on Amazon overall in August. This month, I've sold 15, and absolutely nothing for the last five days. I feel like something has to have changed somewhere, but I have no idea what.


That's like my September sales, a third of August's. I'm not happy about it, but relieved it's not just my books being shunned by book buyers.

Lexi


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## James Snow (Sep 11, 2012)

I guess only time will tell if it's just a slump or an error. This is what worries me so much about KDP select. Something goes wrong on amazon then all my eggs are in one basket.


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## That one girl (Apr 12, 2011)

James Snow said:


> I guess only time will tell if it's just a slump or an error. This is what worries me so much about KDP select. Something goes wrong on amazon then all my eggs are in one basket.


I agree. My KDP Select titles have taken a nosedive off a steep 30-day cliff, but at least I'm still seeing sales on the two not in Select.


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## MH Sargent (Apr 8, 2010)

Lexi Revellian said:


> My sales this month are about a third of the first half of August's - and August was not a good month for me.


^^^This. It would be nice to know if it is due to Amazon tweaking things, or a reporting glitch, or both.


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## NS (Jul 8, 2011)

I was freaking out and still am. Because I see _some_ sales, like one-two, but it's just one-two! I hope it's a glitch.


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## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

Natasha A. Salnikova said:


> I was freaking out and still am. Because I see _some_ sales, like one-two, but it's just one-two! I hope it's a glitch.


Exactly. If it were no sales whatsoever, I could (semi) confidently say it's a glitch, but one or two could be something else. Something too terrible to contemplate. My best selling standalone hasn't sold even one copy this month and that has not been the case since it's release.


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## NS (Jul 8, 2011)

Gertie Kindle 'a/k/a Margaret Lake' said:


> Exactly. If it were no sales whatsoever, I could (semi) confidently say it's a glitch, but one or two could be something else. Something too terrible to contemplate. My best selling standalone hasn't sold even one copy this month and that has not been the case since it's release.


My bestselling title is dead for three days. Something to worry about...


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## teashopgirl (Dec 8, 2011)

Lexi Revellian said:


> What I want to know is, why are the algorithm tweaks always bad news for KDPers? When am I going to read a thread where everyone is posting about a sudden dramatic _increase _in sales due to an algorithm change?
> 
> Lexi


Excellent question. I want to wake up and see it tilt in our favor.  In fact, I've been so uneasy about my book sales that I'm back to taking freelance curriculum writing gigs. It's not the way I'd prefer to spend my writing time, but a paycheck's a paycheck!


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## ML Hamilton (Feb 21, 2011)

Natasha A. Salnikova said:


> My bestselling title is dead for three days. Something to worry about...


Exactly! This is why I fear that this is more than a reporting error, more like an algorithm change. I really, really hope I'm wrong. Please let me be wrong...but I fear...


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## Andykay (May 10, 2012)

With all of these reports, it feels like something larger has changed than a simple reporting glitch. I'm the first to say that with small sample sizes, a drop in sales is hardly the most conclusive thing ever, but with so many people suffering such dramatic cuts (I literally haven't sold anything on Amazon for five days, having sold three a day on average last month), it's hard not to read something into it.


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## VannaSmythe (Feb 28, 2012)

I too have been experiencing a very slow month on amazon.com selling 1 to 2 copies a day, where before I sold around 4-5. My ranking during this period stayed pretty constant around 20 000 to 40 000 though. I emailed support to ask how it was possible that I was getting such few sales yet my ranking didn't drop. I received a reply today that there was an issue with reporting the sales but that they have fixed it and that no sales were lost. They also said that sales are probably taking awhile to propagate. I hope that means they're still going to be added   I have not had such a bad week as this last one since I published in March.


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## NS (Jul 8, 2011)

I noticed something unusual after my last free run. My new book with two reviews wasn't mentioned by the big guys. I had about 700 downloads. Before - I haven't seen any sales with a run like this. None. This time it's been a small sale increase. Small, but enough to notice.


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## Sharebear (Sep 25, 2011)

I've been shopping not writing recently... so as a reader here's a few things I've noticed this month.
Separation of free and paid bestsellers: A week ago mine seemed to be showing me mystery a lot more, odd because I have never bought a mystery book. Now back together and showing all ebooks.
Top 100: A lot of high priced kindle books in the top 50, more than usual. Only 1 ebook under 3.99 in the Top 20 Children's eBooks for example.
Author names: Couple days ago they were Italicized in also bots, today Bolded.

Not sure how any of this impacts anything, except to say things are definitely being tweaked. Especially the last one gives merit to that.
Here's to October,
Brina


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## Rhynedahll (Oct 23, 2010)

Some more fuel for the fire:

The Magic & Wizards bestseller list has gone from being top heavy with indies since January (books at 2.99 and 3.99) to most of the top sixty spots being controlled by mainstream higher priced books in September.

While this may simply be consequence of older books naturally moving down, previously there had been a constant influx of new indies to keep the streak going.

Either all the indie authors are on vacation, or indie books in the category are not selling as well.


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## CoraBuhlert (Aug 7, 2011)

I had a few more sales showing up today. No dramatic surge, this could have been a natural pattern. Interestingly, my US sales are about normal, UK sales have gone off a cliff and are only a fourth of what I had in August, while DE sales are up, but that's due to releasing two German books.


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## MegHarris (Mar 4, 2010)

I had a few more sales today, too. And I agree-- my UK sales have really deteriorated badly lately. But they were already showing signs of a slowdown in August.


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## CoraBuhlert (Aug 7, 2011)

I had my best ever UK sales in August, which is why this sudden drop-off is so surprising.


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## Sharebear (Sep 25, 2011)

Today has been my best day in a while, however my ranking is dropping even though sales are really showing up.


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## Simon Haynes (Mar 14, 2011)

CoraBuhlert said:


> I had my best ever UK sales in August, which is why this sudden drop-off is so surprising.


Same here. July was good, August was a fraction better, and September is like a failed Mars landing (picture a big crater)


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## Sarah Woodbury (Jan 30, 2011)

I really don't like the separation of free and paid books.  We know that the more eyes on a book, the more likely it is to sell (or in this case, to be given away). Free books already aren't in the pop. lists unless you sort by price.

My sales are down by 1/3 from August.  This happened last year too at this time as Amazon fiddled with algorithms and page layout--some definitely to the detriment of indies, though I don't assume that's Amazon's plan.

I have no words of wisdom or hope things will improve between now and December 25.


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## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

What I can't understand is why books that always sell are not selling anything at all. Zero. Not even one.

At the rate I'm going, I won't sell as much as I did this time last year and I have nearly twice as many books out now.


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## PhoenixS (Apr 5, 2011)

Rhynedahll said:


> Some more fuel for the fire:
> 
> The Magic & Wizards bestseller list has gone from being top heavy with indies since January (books at 2.99 and 3.99) to most of the top sixty spots being controlled by mainstream higher priced books in September.
> 
> ...


Hmm, I'm looking at the Bestseller list for Magic & Wizards, and I see indies at the following ranks:
4
5
7
9
15
17
18
20
22
24
26

For the PopList (Kindle):
2
3
7
13
14
17
20
21
22
24

That's 10 and 11 out of the top 26. Between 38% and 42%. That's not too shabby for the upper echelons. Am I missing something? Were the numbers really reversed earlier this year? I can definitely see how that might have happened in the Pop Lists. The algo changes there in May have been discussed at length. Do you have numbers that we can compare from earlier months?


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## Victorine (Apr 23, 2010)

Whenever I wonder about reporting issues, I open up my book's page and keep an eye on the rank vs. the sales that are being reported.

I'm pretty sure sales reports are delayed, but it might only be a few hour delay. I'm seeing jumps in rank that would equal to several sales, with no sales coming through. Then later I see a jump in sales with no rank improvement. 

All just guesses really, but I'm sure there's something buggy about the sales reporting.


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## Sarah Woodbury (Jan 30, 2011)

It's here: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=node%3D16205&field-keywords=&rh=n%3A283155%2Cn%3A%211000%2Cn%3A25%2Cn%3A16190%2Cn%3A16205

and just like that, Amazon puts free books alongside paid ones on the Kindle bestseller lists again, at least for me, in Chrome, at 6:54 pm  http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/digital-text/158582011/ref=pd_zg_hrsr_kstore_2_5_last

As regarding indies verses trad. pubbed on the wizards' list ... there are no indies in the paper books lists (not really surprising). Some time ago, I don't know exactly when, Amazon separated out the kindle books from the paper books in the 'books' best seller lists.

The 'Book' list is here: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=node=16205&field-keywords=&rh=n:283155,n:!1000,n:25,n:16190,n:16205&tag=vglnk-c1533-20 All trad. pubbed books.

and the Kindle list is here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/search/ref=sr_nr_p_n_feature_browse-b_mrr_2?rh=n%3A283155%2Cn%3A%211000%2Cn%3A25%2Cn%3A16190%2Cn%3A16205%2Cp_n_feature_browse-bin%3A618073011&bbn=16205&ie=UTF8&qid=1347847036&rnid=618072011 which is the list Phoenix was looking at.


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## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

Victorine said:


> Whenever I wonder about reporting issues, I open up my book's page and keep an eye on the rank vs. the sales that are being reported.
> 
> I'm pretty sure sales reports are delayed, but it might only be a few hour delay. I'm seeing jumps in rank that would equal to several sales, with no sales coming through. Then later I see a jump in sales with no rank improvement.
> 
> All just guesses really, but I'm sure there's something buggy about the sales reporting.


In my case, looking at the rankings, I just have no sales. Oh, well. Back to writing more books that won't sell.


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## MJWare (Jun 25, 2010)

My sales are definitely suck today. I haven't even had a free sale since around noon, but my free book ranks are the same better ranks than earlier in the day.

I also have noticed since this whole separating the free list test, my free downloads have been down.

Update: Mine are updating now.


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## Simon Haynes (Mar 14, 2011)

Yes, just seeing a few sales go through. Since it's about 1am in the US (I think), and these are the first sales for about 20 hours, I'm guessing they're really backlogged with the updates.


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## Katie Salidas (Mar 21, 2010)

I've seen an across the board decline in sales since the start of the summer. That's with adding new titles since then too. I just don't get it. And my UK sales, don't even get me started there. It's like my books have dropped off the face of the earth. I can't seem to understand why. I'm still doing just as much marketing as before. I have been requesting lots of reviews, doing giveaways, passing out 50% off coupon codes for some books as incentives, sending out a monthly newsletter and Press Releases. I mean, what else can I be doing? 

Last year at this time I had less books and was selling 30-40 books a day. Now I am lucky to sell 2. 

I really wish I knew what was going on.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Katie Salidas said:


> I've seen an across the board decline in sales since the start of the summer. That's with adding new titles since then too. I just don't get it. And my UK sales, don't even get me started there. It's like my books have dropped off the face of the earth. I can't seem to understand why. I'm still doing just as much marketing as before. I have been requesting lots of reviews, doing giveaways, passing out 50% off coupon codes for some books as incentives, sending out a monthly newsletter and Press Releases. I mean, what else can I be doing?
> 
> Last year at this time I had less books and was selling 30-40 books a day. Now I am lucky to sell 2.
> 
> I really wish I knew what was going on.


IMO that's easy to explain. You have more books out. I have more books out. Everyone on this board has more books out. There are more people on this forum. Trad-pubbed writers have brought out their OOP backlists. There are books coming out of everyone's ears.

1. After a bit of experimentation, most buyers will return to their comfort food, in other words, authors they already know
2. The number of buyers/books being bought overall has increased, but not as much as the number of available books, therefore
3. Sales per book drop.
4. Amazon has a vested interest in 1. keeping the large publishers on-side, and 2. keeping customers happy. Therefore, they will tweak the algorithms to maximise both.

I also think the 50 shades thing embarrassed/surprised them hugely. I still hear agents/publishers who just know how to deal with the phenomenon and wish it'd go away. They have no problem as such with self-published writers making it big, but they want those writers to write books they approve of. Ergo: it is in their interest to make it harder for people to be successful at self-publishing.

Plus: this just doesn't seem the time of year when big sales happen.


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## Katie Salidas (Mar 21, 2010)

Patty Jansen said:


> IMO that's easy to explain. You have more books out. I have more books out. Everyone on this board has more books out. There are more people on this forum. Trad-pubbed writers have brought out their OOP backlists. There are books coming out of everyone's ears.
> 
> 1. After a bit of experimentation, most buyers will return to their comfort food, in other words, authors they already know
> 2. The number of buyers/books being bought overall has increased, but not as much as the number of available books, therefore
> ...


I'd agree with you on some points. Yes there are floods of books on the market right now. Yes amazon tweaks the algorithms to suit the mainstream books. But, there are many indies still making a decent amount of sales per month. My sales have seriously dropped to nothing even though I am still working my fingers to the bone to keep up. So there is a slight disconnect there. I'm probably just pissing and moaning tonight. I know I should be better using my time to get more writing done and keep on flooding the market as well.


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## Simon Haynes (Mar 14, 2011)

Patty Jansen said:


> IMO that's easy to explain. You have more books out. I have more books out. Everyone on this board has more books out. There are more people on this forum. Trad-pubbed writers have brought out their OOP backlists. There are books coming out of everyone's ears.


That would explain a slow decline, but I've had a nice steady rise for 12 months, culminating in record July and August figures which were twice anything I've had before. Then came September, with just about zero sales for the first seven days, and a trickle ever since.

If the reporting is accurate (and that's a big IF), then my bet is on people saving their money for a new Kindle. There's only so much cash to go around, and if they already have a few titles stashed away on their TBR piles then they'll be reading those instead of adding more and more.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

As much as we'd all like to think that our name guarantees a floor level sales, I'd like to go into the game under the assumption that I'm not. In my view, "making it" is just as hard in traditional publishing as in self-publishing, which means that some people here will sell well, but most of us won't. It also means that to get to the stage where you start selling well requires either a lot of luck or a lot of work, probably both and probably more likely work than luck.

This is not a game for the fainthearted or the butterflies.


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## Simon Haynes (Mar 14, 2011)

Just to back that up (re people perhaps saving for new devices - even the iPhone 5?) - my Kobo and Smashwords sales figs have also tanked for the month. My Kobo average since KWL went live was 2 per day, and I've seen 7 for the whole of September. Smashwords along the same lines, although I did get a boost when I finally convinced the meatgrinder to put an illustrated kids' book up.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

IMO also, the manner of drop-off does not tell you anything. Previously, we were cushioned from the vagaries of the market by publishers' three-monthly reports.

The only "conspiracy" I see is that Amazon probably (and as per their right) is tweaking the also-bots continuous to shelter their customers from nasty surprises with a poorly-formatted self-published book.

IMO no sales are showing, because there are none.


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## Pamela (Oct 6, 2010)

Simon Haynes said:


> That would explain a slow decline, but I've had a nice steady rise for 12 months, culminating in record July and August figures which were twice anything I've had before. Then came September, with just about zero sales for the first seven days, and a trickle ever since.
> 
> If the reporting is accurate (and that's a big IF), then my bet is on people saving their money for a new Kindle. There's only so much cash to go around, and if they already have a few titles stashed away on their TBR piles then they'll be reading those instead of adding more and more.


I agree this is the worst month. There's the flood of books, but I also used to spend lots on books myself. Now I haven't bought a book in months. With all the free books I'm apprehensive about this trend. Freebies are great, and one of mine is now in the top 100 on Amazon, but I feel with so many free books, the work of a writer is being denigrated to almost worthless in terms of monetary rewards for talent, hard work, and initiative.

Why buy when you can get a book free?


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## Katie Salidas (Mar 21, 2010)

My conspiracy theory is the freebies are killing us. People know that most indies will make a title free. If they wait long enough they can just pick it up at no cost. In the mean time, they can read all of the currently offered freebies. 

But that's a whole other issue.


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## EC Sheedy (Feb 24, 2011)

Katie Salidas said:


> My conspiracy theory is the freebies are killing us. People know that most indies will make a title free. If they wait long enough they can just pick it up at no cost. In the mean time, they can read all of the currently offered freebies.
> 
> But that's a whole other issue.


Yes, another issue, but it might well be that tsunami of freebies (to which I contributed) has caught up with us. How long has Select been with us anyway? Not sure, but long enough to have loaded up an awful lot of Kindles, et al. Maybe everybody--or at least a whole lot of somebodies--are really starting to dig into them. Hence, slower sales. 

Signed: She who knows nothing.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Interesting datapoint re cheap vs full price books.

I'm running an ad on ENT at the moment (to pay Greg back for all the times he's listed my freebies), and it allows you to upload different ad copy all the time. I decided to do a special 99c sale of one book. The only people who bought it were Twitter followers, but no one on ENT even clicked on the ad. 

People don't want cheap books. They may want free ones, but if they're anything like me, they've got their Kindles full of freebies they're never going to read, and are buying quality-assured books instead.

Time is money. I have no time to wade through all this crap to get a good book, so I'm no longer going to Amazon and downloading anything that's free. I've reverted to my old method of book acquisition: by listening to what other people are reading.

I'm not downloading freebies (although I may peek at the preview page).
I'm not buying 99c books.
I'm buying books from authors who I know can write and frankly care little about the price, because I don't want to waste my time on the other stuff.


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## Katie Salidas (Mar 21, 2010)

EC Sheedy said:


> Yes, another issue, but it might well be that tsunami of freebies (to which I contributed) has caught up with us. How long has Select been with us anyway? Not sure, but long enough to have loaded up an awful lot of Kindles, et al. Maybe everybody--or at least a whole lot of somebodies--are really starting to dig into them. Hence, slower sales.
> 
> Signed: She who knows nothing.


I know it has _something _ to do with the slow sales. Not necessarily all though. I did run into a reader who said they were intrigued by my book series but their current TBR list was in the triple digits so they would have to check back with me when it became more manageable. *Sigh* Not much I can do there.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

Or, you know, sales slow down during summer into September is pretty normal for the publishing industry.


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## Marilyn Peake (Aug 8, 2011)

For the first time in months, my sales have plummeted even when my ranks improve. I'm crossing my fingers this is due to a glitch.


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## Richardcrasta (Jul 29, 2010)

Pamela said:


> I agree this is the worst month. There's the flood of books, but I also used to spend lots on books myself. Now I haven't bought a book in months. With all the free books I'm apprehensive about this trend. Freebies are great, and one of mine is now in the top 100 on Amazon, but I feel with so many free books, the work of a writer is being denigrated to almost worthless in terms of monetary rewards for talent, hard work, and initiative.
> 
> Why buy when you can get a book free?


I agree with Katie, Pamela, and the others who have posted after and before them, even though I rely on a gut feeling and my own experience since buying a Kindle (though my experience has partly to do with my own tight budget, it may have some bearing): most of my downloads have been of free books, even though I look for quality, even in free, 95% of the time (the other 5%, I take a chance). I am afraid we've all (and I've done it too, though not as vehemently and widely as a few others) fallen into the trap of devaluing our work, collectively. I had a terrific review of my book (by the way, my best-reviewed book by far) appear in The Elephant Journal, an e-magazine, a pretty classy one; and an excerpt of another in another e-magazine, The Last Goddess: and have not sold a single copy of those two titles on Kindle in September. Suggesting that those used to reading good quality free e-magazines are too used to free content to bother to pay for it? Maybe. Is this phenomenon now migrating to books? Possibly.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Ranks are comparative, based on sales per total volume. Your ranks can go up in two ways: 1. you sell more books, 2. you sell the same number or even fewer books, but they're a larger percentage of overall sales (i.e. many other books sell even less) so your comparative rank is going to be higher.

The way a book jumps after a single sale reminds me very much of what happens on B & N: one sale, huge jump. This means low volume sales overall.

There is no glitch, other than the occasional  delay in reporting. There is no point complaining to Amazon.


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## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

Maybe I'm in the vast minority, but I've never loaded up on free books. I check out the freebies, only download those I'm interested in and make a point to read them. I might have missed a couple, but I do read them. Some of those reads have led me to buy other books by the author. Not a lot, but some.

I still buy books but I won't spend the prices trad pubbers ask. I spend 99 cents to $2.99 and occasionally $3.99. 

Not everyone spends their time lapping up free books just because their free. Some of us are still discriminating readers, maybe a lot more of us than you think.


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## Andykay (May 10, 2012)

There's basically no way to argue that free books aren't doing at least some damage. It's a pretty simple situation. I only have so much leisure time in a year, and I can only read so many books in a year. Price has never really been a determining factor for me. I read what I want to read in the time I have to read. That's how a lot of middle class western consumers read. Relatively cheap entertainment, like music, books, films etc, are largely not limited by price. If every book was suddenly 10c, I wouldn't really read more than I do. Thus, the more quality free books I obtain, the less paid books I need to fill the same amount of reading time. 

I don't go out of my way to look for free books. I've got KND on Facebook, who I mostly ignore, and aside from that I don't check any of the other big sites. The only other free notifications I get is when someone mentions their books are free here in the Writers Cafe. And even so, I've read three or four free books this year. That's three or four books I am no longer buying. Did it completely destroy my book purchasing habits? No. I bought plenty of books this year. But there's no way to argue that authors didn't make less money because I acquired those books for free.

A lot of people who say free doesn't do any harm say they sell more books once their title goes free, and that's often true, but it doesn't mean they're generating new sales. They're taking sales away from other books that consumers would have chosen to read had they not acquired the free title. Overall money spent on books isn't going to go up. People can't just suddenly spend an extra 300 hours a year reading to bring their average spend up to what it was before free titles were an option.

Clearly there are people out there for whom price is a determining factor, and their reading hours are going up due to the glut of free titles now available, but again, money spent won't go up, because they simply don't have it. Either way, there is some negligible effect.


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## Victorine (Apr 23, 2010)

Sales most likely come and go depending on how much Amazon is promoting us.

Unless you're promoting on a place that gets tons of ebook buyers, like ENT or POI, your sales are probably coming from Amazon's recommending system, or from your fans buying your other books. If you've seen a general downward spiral in sales, it's probably because Amazon is slowing it's promotion of your books. That doesn't mean Amazon is earning less money. It just means you're not the one gaining ground, someone else is.

Remember, there are tons of ebooks from self-published authors. Some aren't great, so those are probably not ever going to gain tons of traction. But there are a lot of good ones. Amazon will take turns promoting them. 

Amazon doesn't want to be showing the same books to the same customers. How's that going to look? As time goes on, different books are naturally going to be promoted. I'd love for them to always promote mine, but that's not going to happen. Best seller lists change over time. Next year, the lists will be different from today. And the year after that.

We've just got to write more books, and write books that hook people and get them coming back to you as one of their favorite authors.

Not to say we can't do things to make those sales come back. Make a book free for a while, buy an ad, do some blog tours. But in the end, the powerful force is Amazon promoting us. That's what sells the most books.

Just my opinion.


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