1000 eBooks sold but 0 Big Macs!

Light a cigar! Open a fizzy drink! Eat some chocolate! Have an organic carrot! My first ebook went on sale February 4th, 2011:

Since then I've added 5 more:

and we've finally sold 1000 copies (I say we because I know some of you have bought copies and I thank you sincerely--your imaginary royalty cheque is in the mail).

The sales are divided out this way:
66 B&N
20 iBooks
17 Smashwords
8 Kobo
889 Kindle

Which of course...and you knew this was coming...makes a lovely chart:

Ah, Kindle, how I love thee. Are the rumours true that you dominate the market?

And here are my sales divided by books (the price in brackets is the price most copies were sold at):
Dust = 752 (.99)
Draugr = 75 (.99)
Drang = 42 (2.99)
Loki = 39 (2.99)
Shades = 36 (.99)
Tribes = 56 (.99)

I've only made about $400.00 but I'm not too concerned about the $ at this point. It was more learning to understand how the ebook system works (err, as much as it can be understood, that is).

Art

Jolted: Measuring Success using Amazon, NovelRank, and Bookscan

If you're an author you've probably checked your Amazon rankings once or twice. Or every three seconds. And, perhaps you've stared at the rankings like you're trying to read your future in pig entrails. The great thing about the "modern" era is now there are even more ways to track things. Most of the time they're just charts that you stare at and learn nothing (and perhaps a little depressing) but I was recently able to track a "success" story to do with the my novel Jolted.

On May 17th or so the novel was chosen for  2011-2012 Florida Sunshine State Young Reader’s Award master list. This was great news. But because Amazon recently allowed authors (through their Author Central program) to see their Bookscan details, I was able to track the actual sales of the book from that day forward (I'm only concentrating on the paperback):

As you can see from the map, the darker the colour, the more sales. So obviously sales of the paperback had really taken off in Florida (and in one tiny corner of Louisiana...for some reason). The chart below shows the sudden increase in sales in bookstores in the U.S.:

For those of us who are chart obsessed (and really who isn't) Amazon also provides another chart to stare at (for hours at a time sometimes). This chart shows the uptick in sales through Amazon. So obviously the sales in the "ground" stores were also being reflected at the "virtual" store that is Amazon.

The final chart that I'll inundate you with is from Novelrank which also tracks sales on Amazon. It essentially gives you the same information, but with a slightly different appearance. Novelrank also can keep track of the # of copies sold per month (though this is a guesstimate on their part).

Perhaps I should end this with a chart of my geekiness (no, I better not...that would be jumping the shark). The sales in this time period might only amount to a thousand copies (so I won't go out and buy a new car), but I do find it interesting that I now have the ability to track all of this information. I won't know the actual sales until I get my royalty statements about six months from now. How to use the information is perhaps the tougher part of this exercise. It's not like I can fly down to Florida (or Louisiana) and start pitching my book (though I am beginning to get requests for Skype visits in Florida). Right now I'm filing it under the title: Interesting to know.


Plus, Jolted has been out for nearly 4 years now. It's nice to see it suddenly get zapped back to life (sorry, I couldn't resist).


Art 

The Amazing Ebook Experiment (update)

Well, I've sold 200,000 copies of my ebooks in the last two months. That's a so-so start but I'll have to live with it. Oh, wait, what's that you're saying? It's April 1st? You're right! How about I tell you the real amount.


Sorry, I couldn't resist.


So, as many of you know, I've been dabbling in the ebook world. I started on Feb 5th (with the release of DUST) and so far I've converted 4 books to the various formats (if you want to read my previous post on this topic it's here):





Hey, they look kind of nice all lined up like that! I hired two artists to do the covers for the first three books (Derek Mah and Christopher Steininger, respectively)  and I put the cover of SHADES together myself using an image from iStock Photo. I then uploaded the books to Amazon, Smashwords, and iTunes. Each time I released a novel I, of course, tweeted and Facebooked about it (I describe some of my promotions here). 


And here are the results so far (cue the drum roll): 68 copies sold.


Okay, that's not amazing, but I'm pragmatic about these things. Somewhere in the back of my mind I, of course, was hoping to add a few more zeroes to that number, but apparently, like everything to do with writing, you actually have to work at this! My plan from the start was to see this not as a sprint, but as a marathon. After all, these books will be on the shelves forever.


Here's the breakdown:

Amazon US

Draugr 13

Dust 7 (2.99) + 12 (.99) = 17

Shades 8

The Haunting of Drang 3

Total: 41

Amazon UK

Dust 2 (2.99) + 2 (.99) = 4

Total = 4

Smashwords

Draugr 6

Shades 2

Total = 8

iTunes

Draugr 6

Dust 6

Shades 3

Total = 15

Grand Total = 68 copies

What the numbers tell me is that, of course, Amazon sells the most. And I am not reaching beyond my base yet (in fact I could probably name at least half the people who purchased the ebooks). I think this "expansion" will come over time as reviews of the books trickle down into the public consciousness and as the books pop up more often as "recommends" on Amazon. I'm really curious what the sales will be like six months from now. I do feel that the children's ebook market is still about two years behind that "grown up" market--just not that many young readers have ereaders yet.

All of the books are priced at $2.99 except for Dust which is .99 cents right now (I've explained my logic behind the lower price here). As you can see (just using the Amazon numbers) Dust has sold 9 copies at $2.99 and 14 copies at .99 cents. So obviously I'd make more money if I flipped it back up to $2.99. But I want to experiment with that price level for another month or so to see if the price point allows the book to get more traction.

Overall, I'm happy with the results. No, I won't be buying a new car. But I do consider this an investment in my future. And these books weren't making me any money before this so it really is a win win win situation.

I'll do another update at the six month mark. If things go well enough, I'll buy each of you a car (no money back guarantee).

Art

Worldwide eRelease of The Haunting of Drang Island

Today is the official re-release of my second novel The Haunting of Drang Island. All three books in the Northern Frights series have been out of print for several years now, so I'm glad to see the second book in the series rise like...uh...like a giant serpent out of the water. It's the story of a teen going on a holiday on Drang Island (near Vancouver Island), meeting a girl, and...well...a horrible haunting occurs (really, folks, the details are too scary to give you, but there are ghosts and apparitions and shades and Icelandic swear words---well, they sound like swear words).The cover is done by the amazingly talented Derek Mah. I really love the feel that he's given this series--scary, but somehow a little humorous. The book is intended for grade four and up and is being released in e-format only.

The Haunting of Drang Island came out in 1998 (that year Saving Private Ryan won the Oscar for best picture and the Detroit Red Wings won the Stanley cup in case you were wondering). As I did with Draugr, I decided to keep the text as original as possible and only fixed a few grammatical mistakes and misspellings of Icelandic names. Just click on this link if you want to see the web page I've put up about the book.

I've priced The Haunting of Drang Island at $2.99.
The last book in the series, The Loki Wolf will roaring to life soon.

Here are the eReader links:
Kindle link (US & Canada)
Kindle link (UK)
All other eReaders.

In the next few weeks the book will also be available at B&N, iBooks, and Kobo.
Thanks for being part of the worldwide release!

Art

P.S. Here's what the covers look like side by side. Doubly frightening!

Cool Hunchback Book Trailer

I was so pleased when Harpercollins sent the link to this. What a great bunch of readers!

Art