I tried removing the Goodreads reviews from Kobo today to see if that would make the advertising more effective, and I can't. Well, technically I can remove the reviews themselves, but the average star rating and number of reviews remain--you just can't see what the reviews actually say. Considering that Goodreads reviews level a star lower than, say, Amazon reviews, that's pretty much the worst outcome. So, the reviews stay, at least until Amazon yanks them.
retailing
Today
I had a great moment of clarity today after I drove to the airport, found that the Magical Land of Free Parking was still there (yay!), went into the hotel hosting Norwescon, and saw a line to register that wrapped around the entire inner courtyard. In that moment, it suddenly came to me: I don't really want to go to Norwescon this year. Under normal circumstances, I would go, but I feel like it's too soon after that big trip. Professional development is nice, but right now I feel like what I really need is time to focus in on the writing. Honestly, I've go so much on my plate now, book- and audiobook-wise, and it's been put off for so long, that I feel like the very last thing I need is to spend a few days learning about new stuff.
So I left the flyers in the rack and plan to roll my registration over to next year. Hopefully by then I'll be excited to do it again, plus I might actually learn some new things if I let a little time lapse.
In general I feel like I'm much better situated from a knowledge perspective than I once was, and I kind of skim through or neglect most of the self-publishing blogs these days. Things have kind of settled in, you know? Of course, news still happens--Amazon is buying Goodreads, for example. On the one hand, that's one less competitor for Amazon, but on the other, Goodreads was doing such a poor job of being a business that I'm actually kind of relieved.
What am I doing with my days?
Between children, random crap, and a lack of sleep, not much! And Norwescon starts tomorrow! Sorry, new readers desperate for the third book!
But I may add to your numbers, I think. Maybe. I am seeing more of a response to the Facebook ads now--so far more people are clicking than buying, but I did actually sell a copy (yes, one whole copy) at Barnes & Noble!!! Plus, I realized that the money I paid Goodreads was for an advertising campaign, not a single ad, so now I have four ads running on there (one each linking to Amazon, Smashwords, Nook, and Kobo).
Maybe someday enough people will click on the Goodreads ads that I'll actually spend through my pre-pay there. Dreams can come true, people.
(If you want a random laugh, go watch Zico of Block B fail to navigate using a GPS device. I especially like the part where his bandmate explains to him that Riverside Road probably runs along the side of the river. Comedy gold, people. ETA: Or try this one of the entire band failing to do a photo shoot properly. Or two of the group's rappers failing to sing. Or members failing to model. Or more atrocious singing. The Block B guys are a lot smarter than the characters in Spinal Tap, but there's definitely that feel to them sometimes....)
Korean music and the digital marketplace
One of my top priorities during this last trip was to not become the main player in a tragic murder-suicide. To that end, I spent a lot of time with headphones on, listening to Korean music.
Why Korean music? Well, it's new to me, and it's interesting. I'm not talking about traditional Korean music, or even K-pop, but rather certain Korean rock and hip-hop artists. (I actually feel sort of weird about lumping these groups together, because they're quite different musically. The only real similarity, I think, is a willingness to cross genre lines in unexpected ways, which probably says more about what excites me than anything else.)
So, how does a non-Asian, non-Korean-speaking ajumma living in the U.S. find Korean music? The answer is, totally randomly! As I mentioned, I started looking into the music because I was trying to extend the experience of watching a show I liked. That got me to FT Island and CNBlue on YouTube. Then I was curious if Psy was actually any good, and the answer is, he sure as hell is. (Language warning on the first one--yes, Psy lived in Boston and cusses quite comfortably in English--but not on the last one, because what sounds like "nigga" is actually the Korean word "niga," which means "you are.") Then I went to Pandora's CNBlue channel, which played this song, and lo, I discovered Epik High. Then, operating on the theory that Korean bands that have had major scandals tend to produce more-interesting music, I found the hip-hop group Block B, featuring the rapper Zico. (Let's just say they were hoping to create Korea's own Eminem, and by their more-conservative standards, they totally succeeded!)
If this seems like a haphazard method of music discovery, I KNOW. (Of course, as a rule, you never know how people will find your stuff.) Poking around YouTube is just not efficient. The band's official channels tend to be dedicated to stuff like Christmas messages to (existing, Korean) fans. Pandora has been of surprisingly limited use: The Psy channel is novelty rap; FT Island didn't have a channel until just a few days ago; and Pandora has apparently decided that if you're on Epik High's channel, you're just weird, so they'll give you some folk rock. You know, to go with your hip-hop. I fully expect to hear Simon & Garfunkel on the Jay-Z channel now.
What's been helpful with FT Island and CNBlue has been their live concerts on YouTube. They are excellent. Of course, FT Island's concert wasn't even posted by them or their label. Instead, it was put up and given English subtitles by a fan. (Which is nice, because it turns out that Mae West has been reincarnated and is FT Island's lead singer now.) CNBlue at least posted its own 392 concert, but there are no English subtitles available--and they talk and talk and talk while the audience laughs and laughs and laughs.
Once you find songs you like, there's a whole 'nuther tangle: How do you buy them? CNBlue's 392 album is $50 on CD. Presumably the songs would be cheaper (and the band would actually make more money) if you got them on iTunes, but you can't--392 is not available on iTunes.
Other CNBlue songs are on iTunes, but you'd better spell that name right. Spell it "CN Blue" like some native English speaker, and only one album comes up. "CNBlue" gets you more, but not 392. Oh, wait, you really liked the 392 live concert? They're a great live band, aren't they? I actually like the live version of CNBlue's "Coffee Shop" much better than the studio version. Too bad, though. If you want the live performances, you have to shell out $50 for a concert DVD--and forget about those little live TV appearances.
(I will say that YG Entertainment, which is Psy and Epik High's label, seems to have it waaaay more together. Presumably the success of "Gagnam Style" woke them up a little. Although they still don't have any live versions for sale (which strikes me as abundantly foolish--you can sell the same song two or three times over! What's not to like?), and they don't have English translations for the titles of a lot of their songs, meaning that once you have the MP3s, it's hard to find the particular song you wanted to listen to.)
Where this gets incredibly frustrating is when it comes to Block B and Zico. The band is suing their label for what looks to be some pretty serious financial mismanagement, and Zico managed to offend the entire nation of Thailand. (But he has yet to be sued by his own mother or to threaten anyone with a gun. Work harder, Zico!) All that means his chances of finding another label or getting the acting roles and endorsements that seem to form a big chunk of many Korean musicians' earnings are pretty slim.
So what's he been doing? Putting out a TON of music, that's what! He's put out his own mixtape (Zico on the Block 1.5) and produced one for P.O., who is another rapper in the group. Of course, he's giving it all away. Yeah. And it's not the first time--the original Zico on the Block came out a couple of years ago, and those songs were given away, too.
Do you know what happens when you give music away? No one has a financial interest in carrying it, so becomes very hard to find. And when you do find it (I really had to have this song), it's at some really dodgy download sites--I ran anti-virus software on everything, but you know, if I'm going to contract a virus from a problem-child musician half my age, I'd like to at least have a good story to go along with it. I would rather pay iTunes 99 cents or $1.29 than deal with dodgy downloads. Plus, I'm lazy enough that if Zico's music was on iTunes, I'd never even think to try to find it for free.
Obviously, I don't know all the details--maybe the contract he's suing over prevents Zico from actually selling music, or maybe iTunes is not free or easy to use for musicians living in Korea. There are legal issues surrounding selling mixtapes, of course, but I would think that that sort of thing could be worked around, since it's basically a matter of getting permissions. And I feel like if you're the kind of musician who wants to focus on making music rather than looking pretty, you need to take a serious look at how to monetize the music you make. I realize that Korea is not the United States, but look at Owl City--that was literally some guy sitting in his parents' basement uploading music to the Internet until he hit it big.
Where the industry is, and is going
So the very special BFF relationship between Barnes & Noble and Simon & Schuster is going the way of all very special BFF business relationships when the market changes: Down the toilet.
Business is business, and the bottom line is the bottom line.
Of course, the authors in the story are interpreting this in the way most likely to get them screwed:
Several writers published by Simon & Schuster expressed dismay that their books have been affected by the dispute but said they understood economic forces were involved and didn't blame their publisher or Barnes & Noble.
Jamie Mason, author of the thriller "Three Graves Full," published by Simon & Schuster imprint Gallery Books, said Barnes & Noble was "incredibly supportive" of her book during preproduction and that the chain was instrumental in changing the cover. "It was really cool," she said. But shortly before publication on Feb. 12, she learned that "Three Graves Full" would no longer receive the promotion at Barnes & Noble stores that had been expected. "It's frustrating," she said. "I'm a debut novelist. I don't have name recognition." She said Simon & Schuster has worked to boost sales elsewhere.
That's right, authors--it's your job to be understanding (not to understand) an industry that is failing you, because all these BUSINESS people who are in this to MAKE MONEY are so Gosh-darned nice and supportive.
Remember what your mother told you: It doesn't cost anything to smile. Yeah, sure, your mother wanted you to take something different away from that than I do.
Anyway, the Wall Street Journal also has an article on how publishers of coffee-table books are coping with the changes in the industry, since their books aren't well-suited to the e-book format and bookstore ain't what they used to be.
It isn't all doom and gloom for Quarto [Group, which publishes specialty books,] though. Many of its sales aren't in traditional bookstores but in specialist retailers that mostly sell nonbook items, such as home improvement and arts & crafts stores.
Marcus Leaver, Quarto chief executive, says selling books in nonbook stores can be extended to less obvious areas, adding that having the right books on display can enhance the atmosphere of a store. He cites the fashion chain Urban Outfitters, where you might go in looking for a distressed T-shirt and end up buying a book about body art....
Mr. Leaver, who became CEO in December, says books have a better chance of capturing a buyer's attention in a specialist store than in a general bookstore. In a traditional bookstore, niche titles are vying for attention with thousands of other titles.
Quarto says traditional bookstores now account for just 15% of its overall sales in the U.S. and Canada, though the figure is higher in other markets, such as the U.K.
Heading home
I go home soon (YAAAAAY!!!), so I went looking at my sales, and yes, they are clearly slowing down even more, despite the fact that the book now has 13 (!) five-star reviews and is now up to a 3.9-star average.
Which, as an aside, I think points to a limitation of those algorithms. I think that, in a perfect world, the fact that there's more data out there now about what kind of person REALLY likes the book should trigger more outreach to likely buyers. But the algorithms seem instead to be very reliant on momentum, so each slowdown in sales begets a further slowdown.
Anyway, I had set all the Facebook ads to run extremely cheaply since I wasn't going to be able to pay attention to them, and sure enough, very few people have seen the ads and almost no one has clicked. Which is far preferable to getting hammered, but since I shall soon be in a position to actually pay attention to the ads, I bumped up the per-click bid a little today.
I also realized that I never did a Kobo ad for Facebook. Gotta get on that (and fix those links) when I get home....
March sales
I'm not going to be able to do anything book-wise for pretty much the rest of the month, and I won't even have reliable Internet access much of the time, so I figured I'd get a note in now about March sales.
If you recall, after my last giveaway on Feb. 26, I got a big two-day bump, so in the final two days of February, I sold almost 200 copies of Trang. Then things slowed down, and at this point I might sell 150-200 copies in March. Which is certainly less than the 100/day rate, but FAR better than I was doing before.
The question in my mind is, will sales level out or continue to dwindle? I'm off all the bestseller lists at this point, so visibility is reduced. On the other hand, whenever I'm convinced that things have totally run out of steam with the 99-cent price point, I get a burst of sales.
Of course, since Trang is 99 cents and Trust is $4.99, at this point I make 10 times the money on the sale of a single copy of Trust than I do on a single copy of Trang. Trust sales are chugging along nicely at the moment, but if they start to dwindle, then it will be time to reopen the mouth of that funnel.
So it turns out that I'm actually at a good place to just ignore everything for a couple of weeks, because it will force me to wait until I have more sales data before I decide whether to keep Trang at 99 cents or go ahead and make it free.
(And Jim, I saw your review--thank you very much. But feel absolutely free to yank it if Amazon gives you any static whatsoever.)
Random points
You know, if one of the big selling points of a traditional publisher is prestige, what happens when those prestigious houses start running vanity presses?
Well, then John Scalzi (via Dean Wesley Smith) starts asking Random House if they're fucking kidding him and calling their behavior genuinely shameful, while April Hamilton starts accusing Simon & Schuster of bribery.
That's the problem with prestige: It's hard to earn and oh-so easy to lose.
And a helpful commentator explained the correct way to make a link on Kobo. Thank you, helpful commentator! As much as I truly appreciate that, I feel obligated to point out that when a retailer is relying on the public-spirited to explain how things work, that's actually a bad thing.
Buy it NOW!!
It occurred to be that there's really no reason, if I have Trang at 99 cents, not to have it on Barnes & Noble directly (I'm also letting Smashwords populate the book to there so I can make it free when I want to). I changed the price to 99 cents and republished it--a simple matter of clicking a button, since it was up there before.
But I managed to screw it up, and when I went looking for the link to make a Facebook ad, I realized that the price was 99 DOLLARS.
Yeah, that's likely. I've changed it, but you know, if you hurry....
Kobo kwerks
I like to have links to Trust in the back matter of Trang, but obviously you can't have retailer-specific links in both books until both are actually up at the store.
I'd heard that Kobo will change the Web address of a book if you update it, which obviously would be a problem: I'd update Trang to include a link to Trust, and then I'd update Trust to link to Trang, but that would change Trust's Web address, so then then I'd have to update Trang again, but that would change Trang's Web address--it would be this never-ending cycle.
To see if the rumor was true, I jotted down the last part of Trang's Web address and then updated it to include a link to Trust (on the theory that if I can only have a link in one of the two books, it should be a link in the first book to the second book). Then I looked at the last part of the Web address, and by gum, it had changed!
That seemed like a really screwy way to set things up, so I opened another browser window, and the address had changed again--but, I realized, it was just the last part of the Web address that had changed. The Web address is this God-awful monstrosity involving two long alphanumerical strings, and one had changed while the other had not.
Which might mean that the Web address doesn't really change every time you update the book--just the last bit changes every time you look the book up. But I don't know for sure, because I didn't write down the entire Web address, I just wrote down the last bit.
Progress report
Trang is off KDP Select, and I've republished it on Smashwords, as well as putting it and Trust into expanded distribution there. (I didn't get to putting it on Kobo today; I'll probably get that done tomorrow.) I've also priced it at 99 cents--as I mentioned it was doing pretty well at that price point on Amazon (although the bump does appear to falling off rather quickly), and the fact that 99 cents actually worked, even for just a little bit, made me curious to see if I can make 99 cents work in some kind of long-term way. I feel at this point that I have a decent idea of how to make free work, so I can always go in that direction (and probably will), but once you go free via price-matching it's hard to switch back to paid, and I want to have the opportunity for a good, solid fiddling with the 99-cent price point before I lose the chance.
Not that I'm going to do much fiddling right now: I realized something yesterday when I sat down and really tried to write, and totally couldn't--I'm just too distracted. Getting a bunch of new readers is, of course, extremely motivating, but I have this life crap that simply has to be taken care of (and will be taken care of by the end of the month), and it's making the kind of solid focus I need to write impossible to find.
Wow
I've sold over 100 copies of Trang TODAY. Huh. When Amazon kicks in for you, it kicks in hard, no?
ETA: And Christ, I'm now #5 on the science fiction: series paid list, and actually cracked the top 100 (#73) for science fiction in general. (No, I never show up on the science fiction: space opera list, because that is for paper books.) (EATA: Actually, now I think I'm wrong about the paper book thing, but I don't know.)
The day after the giveaway
So, not shockingly given how much better this giveaway did than the others, I am actually seeing some benefits after having switched back to paid: I'm #19 on the science fiction: series paid bestseller list, which just barely puts me on that all-important front page.
I've also dropped the price to 99 cents, for two reasons. Reason number 1: I still plan to make the book free. Reason number 2: People have suggested that, if you do have a good response to your free days, dropping the price can keep the momentum going.
My previous experiment with the 99-cent price point was a bust, but this time around (when I have more reviews and better placement on the bestseller lists), it's working like a charm--I haven't gone through the old sales reports to do an exact count, but in all likelihood I've sold more copies of Trang today than I did in 2011 and 2012 combined. Of course it's impossible for me to know if I'm really making more money this way than if I'd kept the price up and took the higher royalty, but since I'm planning to make Trang free anyway, I'm OK with making 35 cents a sale if it keeps the book on the front page.
So that's all very nice for me. But I think it points to some larger lessons for all indie writers, which I shall patronizingly spell out in a numbered list because I've got a really big head right now:
1. Prepare. A lot of the stuff I did, like backmatter links, targeting the cover and description, getting into the right Amazon categories, and getting reviews did NOT pay off immediately. Clearly, it was still worth doing, because it's paying off now. (OK, it's not paying off in a financial sense yet--I still have a long way to go before I break even. But you have to crawl before you can run, and the momentum is definitely in the right direction.)
2. Experiment. Do we need to go over how much money I've wasted on marketing that did not work? It's embarrassing when that happens, and if you're me and you know you don't know much about marketing, it makes you feel like this is something you'll never really get a handle on. But if I hadn't been persistent with BookBub (and it took two tries), I wouldn't have had such a successful giveaway. And I doubt that I wouldn't have gotten into BookBub in the first place without all the work I did earlier to get reviews, have a good description, have a targeted cover, etc.
3. Believe. Recently Edward Robertson did a post on giveaways in which he says, Oh, you should be getting thousands of downloads. Which, I didn't before. But the important caveat there is that if you get your book on one of the free book sites you should get thousands of downloads. And you know, once I did, I did.
It can be hard to hear stuff by people who are better established and are saying things like, Oh, just get your book on Pixel of Ink (can't, sorry); or, Just make your book 99 cents (didn't work); or, Don't market. They're trying to be helpful, but when what works for them doesn't work for you--or doesn't work to a level that they would deem acceptable--it can make you feel like a big old loser who has written a crap book.
But there are still differences in the playing field, even on Amazon, even with e-books. Someone with a 20-year career as a novelist behind them is simply going to have an easier time finding readers. Amazon is going to help you a lot more if you've sold 20,000 copies than if you've sold 20.
It's hard starting from zero. But it doesn't mean you wrote a bad book. It doesn't that your book lacks potential. It just means that...it's hard starting from zero. True in any career.
4. Persist. Always the bottom line for writers, right? You can't win if you don't play.
The final free day
So, today's my last KDP Select free day, and the first time I've used BookBub. The BookBub ad cost $60--so slightly less than my first Facebook campaign, which was $70.
And I've gotten 10 times the downloads!
So, yeah, big ups to BookBub for being a highly cost-effective way to reach readers. Other advantages: They don't shut you out if you don't have a review average of four stars, and (although it costs more and presumably would result in fewer buys) you can buy an ad with them if you simply put a title on sale as opposed to making it free, so you aren't locked into KDP Select.
Oddly, I don't seem to be moving up the Amazon bestseller list like I did in the previous two campaigns (only at #14 now in science fiction: series, but at least I'm on the front page). I'm assuming that just a lag or a glitch, since that number hasn't changed since early this morning (and yeah, you can really tell when that BookBub e-mail goes out).
(Of course, it's possible that it's not a glitch--that Amazon doesn't count the BookBub downloads when compiling its bestseller lists. Which would suggest that, once the book goes free permanently, I'd actually be better off spending $70 on Facebook, because I'd get better visibility on the lists. Interesting.)
Goodreads is still a dog that won't hunt: No clicks so far. At this rate, the $60 I pre-paid them will last into the next century.
By-the-by: Before the giveaway, sales for February were maintaining their January levels, which were substantially higher than I'd seen before (although not high in any non-relative sense).
Moving on to reviews: I picked up three reviews over the past month--all of them were five-star reviews, moving the book from two five-star reviews to five five-star reviews. I happen to believe that psychological factors play a large part in whether people think a book that they enjoyed is worth three, four, or five stars. So, before I thought anchoring was playing a large role in the average star rating on the various Web sites.
This time around I think it's actually a response to those one-star reviews. The new five-star reviews are quite short, and I think what happened is that people enjoyed the book, and decided to have a second look at it on Amazon. Then they saw those one-star reviews, and thought, "That's SO unfair! Those people didn't even read the book! And that one is such a sanctimonious asshole--ooh, this frosts my shorts!" So instead of giving they, say, four stars, they get their dudgeon up and give it five.
Which is a reminder to myself that even jackasses have their uses....
I have skepticism enough to go around
It's become painfully obvious that Barnes & Noble's Nook business is not living up to expectations, despite a significant effort on their part to convince everyone that everything's just dandy. And it's equally obvious that, although you can't always believe everything a CEO says, Amazon is likely doing much better than Barnes & Noble.
So now there's a flurry of stories about how Amazon is just doing AWESOME with e-books, making money hand over fist!!!!
And I'm just going to take a moment to rain on this particular parade.
I am willing to take it as a given that Amazon is doing better with e-books than the other retailers. I think there's enough anecdotal evidence to back that up (although bear in mind that some book do indeed sell better at other outlets, so please don't ignore them). I also assume that selling e-books is a profitable thing for them, if only because their self-publishing rates are set up so that they are basically ensured a 35-to-65 percent profit margin.
But HOW MUCH money are they making?
Oooh, look--a pretty chart! That sure looks scientific, doesn't it? And these stories are all filled with lots of numbers! Such precision!
There's just one problem: All of the stories--ALL of them--have a single source, and that source is a report by an analyst at Morgan Stanley.
Let me tell you something about analysts: They are not psychic. It's like estimating the e-book market--it doesn't matter how much analysis you throw at something if you don't have good underlying data.
Do analysts have special access to data? Investment banks would like you to think they have. As a business reporter who covered the bursting of the dot-com bubble, I'll tell you that it really depends.
Most analysts (although not all) in my experience work hard to cover a particular industry. They tend to know the industry quite well--who are the players, what are the larger industry trends. But when it comes down to a particular company...?
The problem is that it's never in a company's best interest to air its dirty laundry. NEVER. If people don't know where the bodies are buried, it is NEVER EVER in a company's best interest to point that out to them, especially if that person is an analyst. Who reads analysts' reports? People who are trying to decide whether or not to give a particular company money! Do companies ALWAYS want money? Yes, they do!
So analysts are subject to an even bigger blizzard of PR than everybody else. If they can, they try to get information from other sources to get a more realistic picture. So, for example, if Barnes & Noble is telling you they control 27% of a market, and examining parts orders suggest that they control only 13% of a closely related market, then you as an analyst can go, Hmmm.....
The problems I see with trying to break out how much money Amazon makes from e-books are that 1. Amazon is notoriously secretive, so getting it from them would be hard; 2. if they did give you those figures, you'd have to wonder why they did and if the numbers they gave you are accurate; and 3. where's the third party you can use to verify this? The Morgan Stanley analyst is basically claiming he knows the overall size of the e-book market and the percentage of it that Amazon controls. Those are some mighty big claims to make.
And I'm not even getting into the larger question of can you believe anything Morgan Stanley says about Amazon anyway? Which is a perfectly valid concern--it's not supposed to be, but stock analysis unfortunately often is stock PR that helps the investment bank more than individual investors.
A tiny hint that retailers are maybe starting to pay attention
So, Apple is starting to highlight self-published e-books in its store.
It's something, right? I mean, if you compare Amazon, which has been great to self-published writers, and Barnes & Noble, which has pretty much sucked for self-published writers, and you look at who is seeing more e-book growth, it might occur to you that appealing to self-published writers might be good business.
Might be!
Of course, you have to actually appeal to them, which is harder to do than saying, "We just love us some self-published writers!" To actually appeal to self-published writers, you have to make the service easy for writers to use (time is money, after all). And then you actually have to be good at attracting readers (helpful hint: hiding the free books is a bad idea), and then you have to make it easy for those readers to find and buy and read stuff, because what self-published writers really like is sales.
Apple does not have a great reputation on any of these fronts.
With Apple (and Kobo, too) it seems like they're making a lot of promising noises. And that's great--I'm glad they're thinking of moving into this sector more aggressively. I think more sales platforms are good, because then writers would have to rely less on Amazon. I think if people really gave it some thought, they could create real competition: Passive Guy has a great post on how much book discovery could be improved by making a search engine that works more like Lexis-Nexis--which is a very robust search engine, to be sure, but hardly a new technology.
But if Barnes & Noble is proving anything, it's that the devil of selling e-books is in the details. So far, I don't see a lot of retailers really nailing those details.
A quick note about January and Trust
So, since I enrolled Trang in KDP Select, I had one set of free days in late December and another set a few days ago. As I've mentioned, I have given away scads of copies of Trang.
That's all well and good, but it's not like I can make money giving away free copies, right? In my accounting, free copies are not tracked and don't count.
But sold copies count. How has giving away so many copies of Trang affected sales of Trust?
Well, they've had quite the impact! We're still not talking huge numbers here, but in January alone I sold 85% as many copies of Trust as I had in the last six months of 2012 (Trust came out in June). And that percentage is probably a hair smaller than it should be, since presumably some of December's sales happened after the late-December giveaways.
But of course I lost revenue on sales of Trang, right? Actually, it's been a good month for Trang sales--not as good as Trust sales, but good. (Let's hear it for the also-bots!)
Of course, if I make Trang permanently free, then I'll completely lose any chance to make revenue off that book, and as it sells more, that becomes a tougher call. On the other hand, all this is happening because Trang had free days! So I'm still confident that free is the way to go.
Pigs fly! And Amazon releases sales info!
Here's some FASCINATING news: Amazon released a teeny, tiny bit of information about e-book sales! (Via PV.) OMG! This is especially exciting to the people in Hell, who also received a glass of ice water.
What did Amazon say? That e-book sales increased 70% over the past year!
So, here's the score so far on e-book growth in 2012:
Amazon: 70% increase
Publishers: 34% increase
Barnes & Noble: 13% increase
Just looooook at those numbers. Looooook at the big fat gaps in growth rates.
Look askance at any projection that relies on just one of those growth rates.
KDP Select and online advertising so far (now)
Like I said, I've had Trang enrolled in Amazon's exclusivity program since December 1st. So, do I have any updates?
At this point I've gone from zero borrows to one borrow ($2 in revenue!), so I feel comfortable in my opinion that you ain't gonna get a lot from the borrow program absent other enticements.
While I think (? data is not conclusive) that advertising is having some effect selling copies of Trang, it's not a large effect, so I'm also comfortable in my opinion that one should keep one's click bid as low as possible with a long-term pay-per-click campaign for a not-free book.
At this point, I'm skeptical that there's anything KDP Select could give me (since I am shut out of buying ads on the major sites promoting KDP Select free days) that I couldn't get by making Trang free.
Why's that? Well, I am seeing a significant uptick in sales of Trust. Not, you know, enough to pay off a mortgage or anything, but still...significant. Especially given that Trust has always been somewhat of a laggard. But you give away a bunch of copies of Trang, and...some of those people click on that back matter link and get Trust! I love it when a plan comes together.
So, really, the question for me is--do I make Trang free as soon as it comes out of KDP Select, or do I wait until Trials comes out? The original plan was to wait until the third book, but...remember how I was #3 on the science fiction: series free list? That might be exposure worth having. Maintaining such exposure would presumably involve occasional relatively expensive advertising campaigns plugging a free book, but it might be worth it (they weren't that expensive). Trang (or really, any non-Illuminati activity) is not a significant source of revenue for me anyway, and expanding the fan base may well pay off when a new release comes out.
Wow. Sounds like I've almost talked myself into it....
How bad is that bad news?
People who work in health care sometimes experience the following scenario:
A family has a beloved elderly relative, who we'll call Nana. Nana is not "young elderly"--she is 97 years old. Also, she is a diabetic. Also, she has suffered several strokes. Also, she suffers from congestive heart failure. Also, she has a terminal cancer diagnosis.
Needless to say, Nana is a heavy user of the health-care system. Staff at the local ER and ICU can recognize her on sight and try to keep a bed open for her at all times. People who work in the funeral industry automatically hand their cards to her family. Wherever she goes, flocks of expectant-looking vultures follow.
One day, Nana passes away.
The family is TOTALLY SHOCKED by this completely unexpected turn of events. How could Nana die!?! they shriek. They assume the cause must be malpractice and threaten to sue every health-care worker in sight.
If one of these health-care workers can get the family to calm down long enough to ask them why they are so surprised when Nana was obviously so very sick, the answer usually comes out along the lines of, Nana never died before. Those six months in an ICU? She made it through. Those 47 ER visits? She survived every single one.
The problem is that if enough bad news comes out about someone or something for a long enough time, people start to ignore the fact that the news is, in fact, very bad. If Nana holds on for long enough, it doesn't matter that she has one foot in the grave and the other on a greased banana peel: Nana is a survivor. She can't die.
I was reminded of this reading some responses to Barnes & Noble's dismal holiday sales. There has been so much bad news about Barnes & Noble for so long that some people seem to be thinking, well, this can't be that bad--they've survived crises before.
And they have, sure. They may survive this one in one form or another.
But I think writers really have to accept that, no matter how much they like the stores or long for a strong competitor to Amazon, Barnes & Noble may not make it through.
Why not? Well, you have to think like an investor. Basically there are two kinds of investors: Those who invest for income, and those who invest for growth. People who invest for income are looking for regular payments of money, like dividends, and don't care much if a company is growing or not. Those who invest for growth, in contrast, are looking to put a small amount of money into a business that is growing, and to eventually cash out a large amount of money.
Two years ago, Barnes & Noble suspended its dividend, thereby ensuring that income investors would not be interested in the company. So it became a growth play.
The problem? Barnes & Noble's brick-and-mortar book business was shrinking, not growing.
Enter the Nook business--e-reading devices and e-books, a new growth business! That attracted $300 million from Microsoft and $89.5 million from Pearson, as well as other investment from other companies. These companies paid for shares in the Nook portion of Barnes & Noble as though that business on its own was worth more than Barnes & Noble in its entirety.
The problem is that, as we just discovered, the Nook business is doing horribly. It is not growing, it is shrinking. It is doing worse this year than last, it is doing worse than its competition, and it is doing worse in e-books than the traditional publishers who supply them.
It is difficult to attract growth investors when you are not growing, especially when others in your industry are. Not shockingly, people are wondering if those outside investors didn't make a mistake by putting so much money into the apparently not-so-valuable Nook business.
Now, a lot of things could happen here. A company could decide, "Gee willikers, no one's ever really given the Nook business a chance!" and plow a ton of money and effort into it. Despite the fierce competition in the sector, they could prevail, transforming Barnes and Noble into a wonderful online retailer that is so incredibly effective at selling self-published books that every last indie author makes a fortune!
Or, you know, they could just not put any more money into Barnes & Noble. The device business is bad--you have to compete with Amazon, which is willing to sell its devices at a loss--and the Web site's going to require some major fixing. "Don't throw good money after bad" is not some alien concept in corporate circles, and $300 million is simply not so much money to a company the size of Microsoft that they can't possibly write it off.
But what if, for some strange reason, Microsoft REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY wants the Nook? A year ago I said, "at this point any potential buyer will probably wait until B&N actually goes into bankruptcy and then snap up those assets on the cheap." That didn't happen in 2012, but just because Nana made it through her first 47 ER visits doesn't mean she's going to survive visit number 48.
Again, I don't know the future (although clearly I am not optimistic). I do not know for sure that Barnes & Noble is going to go under.
But I do think that it's wise for writers to be prepared for that possibility.
My advice? I'm so glad you asked!
1. Keep your ear to the ground. I'm not yanking my books from Barnes & Noble--they might pull through, after all. But the minute authors start complaining that Barnes & Noble isn't paying them what they are owed, I'm outta there. They are a client, and I do not work for clients who stiff other people, because I know they will soon stiff me.
2. Diversify. A surprising number of authors, especially new authors, put their book up only at Barnes & Noble--it's the name they associate with bookselling. I would say that diversifying away from Barnes & Noble is a really, really good idea these days--if you haven't done that before, do it now. If you sell well at Barnes & Noble (lucky you!) but not so well at other places, start marketing campaigns to build bases at the other retailers. Another thing to keep in mind: If you've got your book up only at Barnes & Noble and Amazon, recognize that, if you don't branch out, there's a solid chance that you'll soon have all your eggs in the Amazon basket.
Likewise, if you do marketing or sell paper books at your local Barnes & Noble bookstore, start putting out feelers to other bookstores in your area--it can't hurt you no matter what happens to Barnes & Noble. And think outside the bookstore box, if possible. Even traditional publishers market to other types of stores, and I've seen books by local indie authors at stores that carry goods by other types of local artists.
3. Consider the industry impact. Barnes & Noble has a long history of working hand-in-glove with traditional publishers, and publishers have been predicting that the sky will fall if the chain doesn't stay in business.
Are they full of it? Quite possibly, but if the chain does collapse, less-profitable or more-unwary publishers could go down with it. The uncertainty surrounding Barnes & Noble also surrounds traditional publishing, so extra caution is needed before signing any contracts.