Tag: Kindle Nation Daily

Sixth Week in Review

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I’ve noticed a trend in the sales of my book, pretty much in all six of the weeks since it’s been published.  Perhaps you can spot it here:

Sales are always best in the beginning of the week (Monday to Wednesday), and then dies down to a trickle (or nothing at all, like this week) from Friday to Sunday.   Apparently, people don’t really want to buy silly comedic choose your own adventure books on the weekend.  It’s a Monday thing.

This week I had several things happen: Kindle Nation Daily UK sponsorship, a feature Indie Books Blog, an interview at Kindle Author, as well as a review at Motherlode (all discussed in previous posts).   While I can’t tell what exactly caused what sales, I’m sure the Kindle UK sponsorship led to some American sales, and I’m presuming it was the reason for most of that spike in sales I had (although I’ve had no UK sales this week).  Overall, a nice start to the week, and then a very slow end.   And even though October has been utterly dead to me so far, I did finally break the $100 mark in royalties, so I’ll finally get a cheque at some point–I don’t know how often Amazon pays out to international authors.  But that was a goal of mine that I didn’t think I’d reach in early October, so I’m pleased with that.

This is the week, however, that I’ve been looking forward to for some time.  On Friday, October the 8th, my book will be the paid daily sponsor at the US Kindle Nation Daily.  I’ve read many accounts at KindleBoards where people mention breaking even with this in just a day or two, so obviously that is my hope.  But I also hope that it leads to some longer term exposure.  Either way, I’ve already purchased another US sponsorship, hopefully for early December.   KND has been getting so much positive press at KindleBoards that it seems certain that prices will go up, yet again, and availability will dry up faster and faster.

Finally, I purchased (for $35 USD) a daily feature at KindleBoards for November 14th.   Look at me, Mr. Moneybags…

Kindle Nation Daily UK Results

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So, some 24 hours ago, my Kindle Nation Daily UK  sponsorship went online.   The results are in!  The grand total of new UK sales is…

… none. I’ve had 4 sales until now, which seems rather normal compared to my US sales, but none from the UK since the weekend.  There has been a nice little boost to my US sales in the last 24 hours, although it’s a little hard to tell exactly since in that time my book has also been featured on Indie Books Blog, as well as an interview at Kindle Author.  It’s actually rather annoying that these last two free promotions ended up timing out with my Kindle Nation UK sponsorship, since I can’t really tell what’s causing what.

Anyhow, I’m pleasantly surprised by the affect on my US sales, and I’ll see how long that lasts.  However, as it stands now, the UK sponsorship through Kindle Nation Daily seems quite overpriced.  That’s just my experience, at least.

If someone reads this who’s had better success with Kindle Nation Daily UK, please leave a comment!

Five weeks in review

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So, as mentioned in my last post, I received a big boost in sales early in the week in which I attribute almost completely to an active discussion in the Amazon Customer Discussions for a few days.  Over these last few days the discussion has pretty much dried up, and the effect on sales it quite apparent:

And the effect on royalties just as obvious:

Thanks (I believe) to those discussions, I had more sales last week (especially in the first few days) than I did in the week when my book was priced at 99 cents.   Like I wrote earlier, that single discussion made a bigger impact on sales than anything else I’ve done.  But, these last few days things are quieting down.

Tomorrow (Monday), I have my paid sponsorship for Kindle Nation Daily UK.  Most of what I’ve read about the UK sponsorship leads me to believe I should count myself lucky to just get a few sales.  If this is the case, then the UK sponsorship is way overpriced.  I’ll let you know on Tuesday with a detailed post on this.   It seems that UK Kindle sales at about 1/10th of the Amazon.com site’s sales, so I guess I hope to get a whopping 5 sales from that sponsorship.   At 35% royalties, that’s… not much.  We’ll see.

The First Month in Review : What Worked, What Didn’t

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I started this blog because I read that authors who want to go the self-publishing route need to start a blog.  But, what to write about?  Really, what do I have to say that others will want to read?

So, I decided to focus on all the details, the sales and such, of publishing my first ebook.  Before I published Whatley Tupper on Amazon (and saying I ‘published’ it sounds so much more involved than in reality: I clicked a button), I couldn’t find much information on how many books new authors sell, and what to expect.   So, that became the focus of my blog.  And now that it’s been a month since I dived into this, I want to relay some of the things I think worked, and what didn’t.

What worked best?

A few things stand out.  Checking in regularly to Kindleboards, DTP Community, GoodReads, Amazon Community Discussions, and most recently MobileRead forums definitely helps, and I know I’ve got a few sales through each of those avenues.  The Author-Tag exchanges are also useful at both Kindleboards and DTP Community.

Making it cheap.  I’ll discuss this in more detail tomorrow (when I’ll update the sales and royalties graphs), but putting my book down to 99cents made a huge difference in sales.  I still don’t think I’ll keep it there for long (for reasons I discussed in earlier posts), but if you want to get your book out there faster, put it at 99 cents, at least for a week or so.  If I could do this again, I think I’d start at 99 cents just to get more copies out.

Smashwords free coupons.  I know I’ve received at least a couple reviews through this, and I’m sure more will come along at later times.  Personally, this is all I use Smashwords for, the ability to give out free copies of your book.   It also allows you to download the Kindle-ready book file which you can attach to emails to prospective online reviewers.

A professional looking cover.  People really do judge a book by it’s cover, especially with ebooks, I think.  The spray bottle I made in 20 minutes appealed to my minimalist tendencies, but a cover for a book needs to be bold and clear even in a thumbnail.

Getting reviews.  Unless you’re getting friends to write overly glowing reviews, this takes time.  Hence the 99 cent route is useful, as well as Smashwords.

Spalding’s Racket.  I was featured when my book cost only 99 cents, and that day was the best day of sales I’ve had yet.

Getting lucky.  First, get your mind out of the gutter.  I’m referring to J.A. Konrath releasing his own choose your own adventure style book just this week, which lead to him writing a review for Whatley Tupper (which I plan on flaunting shamelessly anyway I can).  This had nothing to do with anything I did.  It’s just fortuitous timing.

What didn’t work?

Rushing into this too quickly.  I really should have waited a couple more weeks before clicking publish.  The earliest versions of Whatley Tupper had many typos, formatting errors, and malfunctioning hyperlinks.  I’ve been writing for more than a decade, and this is no time to get impatient.  I think I’ve been lucky in that no one who purchased one of the earliest copies ever wrote a scathing review (at least, yet), but this easily could have been avoided.  Considering the bad taste a lot of self-published work is leaving in some readers’ mouths, I don’t want to be part of the problem.  And I do not feel any resentment towards these people who trash self-published books for their amateurish quality.   If people are paying for something, even if it’s just 99 cents, it should be professional in quality.

Raising the price to $4.49.  Yeah, maybe there was a slight improvement in royalties, but I was only getting out a book every other day.  An unknown author will never grow his/her base that way.  Stick to $2.99, max, while no one knows you.  This isn’t about making royalties, not at this stage, at least.

Facebook.  But that’s just me, I’m sure.  I never used it before, instead enjoying being one of the last holdouts as if it makes me a better person (it does).  And, being a high-school teacher, I don’t want to have my own facebook account since that just seems like it’s not going to lead somewhere positive.  Perhaps I’ll learn more about the potentials of this.   Right now, it’s not doing anything for me.

What’s next?

I think the next month could be significant.  I have a paid sponsorship at Kindle Nation Daily UK on Monday, September 27th, as well as on the US version on Friday, October 8th.   Judging from the experiences of many others who have gone this route, I think this could make a significant boost to my exposure.  I won’t know until it’s my time, but right now this seems like the smartest route to advertise that I’ve read about.  Even though the price has gone up, $80 is cheap.  I’ve spent that much mailing out a couple of complete manuscripts of Whatley Tupper, just to receive a lowly rejection later a couple of months later (“It’s not you, it’s me”).

I’m hoping to get a few more blog reviews, like the one at Digital Spotlight Fiction Review.   Of course, this relies of more good luck, as well as those ever-so-useful Smashwords copies/coupons.

The key to all of this being successful is in having the exposure somehow taking on a life of it’s own.  If Kindle Nation Daily leads to be big spike for a few days before returning to where it was before, then I won’t consider it a success.   It needs to grow.  It can grow slowly, that’s fine, but it needs to grow.

So, we’ll see.

Or, to be more accurate, I’ll see.  Did anyone actually even read this far?

About the United Kingdom

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Just wanted to write a few notes about sales in the UK for Kindle books.  First of all, I’m not sure why the UK has as separate Kindle store, since the rest of the world uses the American one.  The UK site has separate reviews, prices, and bestselling rankings.  As well, authors can only ever receive 35% royalties on sales from the UK, regardless of the price.

Sales of Kindle books in the UK are clearly a lot slower than in the US site.  I’ve sold 2 books (and I feel quite lucky about that) in the UK, and I’m still around #8000 in rank.  Each time that I sold  a single copy, I jumped up below the #1000 mark.   It makes anyone feel like a fleeting big-shot.

This makes me wonder if sales for Kindle books in other countries, like Canada (where I’m living) and Australia, are equally slow.  The Kindle really seems to be an especially American phenomenon right now, they have a huge head-start on the e-reader market in the US, but not so much in the rest of the world.  I’ve never seen a Kindle in Canada, but I’ve seen many, many iPads, of course.

However, I did pay for a one-day sponsorship with the UK Kindle Nation Daily on the 27th of September.  Unlike people who say the American sponsorship has paid for itself with this, it’s virtually impossible for the UK sponsorship to do the same.  It cost $40 for a one day advertisement, and if my book is selling for the equivalent of $2.99 in pounds, then I’d have to sell around 40 copies, which apparently would make me the number one best seller in the UK, considering the slow sales.

So, why did I do it then?  Well, I do believe it’s a growth market there, and really, $40 is pretty cheap.  I’ve spent that much mailing out manuscripts to publishers in the past just to get back a rejection letter three months later.