[Kimberly Van Meter]

Ohhh poo. I was enjoying a bit of a small run but it seems the flow has since stopped and now my sales are trickling in, one-by-agonizing-one. Not sure what to do about that. Any suggestions? I've blogged, tweeted, Facebooked, reviewed, and whatnot...*sigh* is it time to sacrifice a chicken? Or perhaps a goat?

Kimberly V.

 

[BrianKittrell]

LOL I wish it were as simple as sacrificing an animal to the cause. Keep your spirits up.

 

[Kimberly Van Meter]

LOL I wish it were as simple as sacrificing an animal to the cause. Keep your spirits up.

Yeah, I suppose this is part of the process. I think I got a little giddy when I saw the numbers steadily climb. Not that I was selling thousands or anything. I was happy to break the 100 sold in a month mark. Alas, it's all quiet on the KD front today (and yesterday). Thanks for the commiseration!

Kimberly V.

 

[Lisa Scott]

I've only been doing this a month, but I had gained some steam too, and I'm slowing down as well.  But when you look at any steadily rising graph, there are usually some little ups and downs over the course of the graph, even though the overall trend rises.

This is what I'm telling myself while I work on the next story and try to limit sales checking. 

It'll pick up for you again. No animals need to be harmed in the making of your epub career.

 

[Theresa M Moore]

Keep doing what you're doing. It's not you, it's the selling program on Amazon. I had slow to regular sales no matter what my ebooks were priced at, and since I read about one author suffering lost royalties at the hands of a merciless promotion dept. I have raised my ebook prices back to a decent level. Treasure the few paying sales you get versus the thousands of free downloads.

As for a correlation between sales of ebooks and printed books, there is none. Printed books have fallen off drastically since Amazon has focused exclusively on its promotion of Kindles. While this may result in more ebook sales down the road, once the ebook is sold there is no guarantee that the printed books will sell to readers who already read the book on a Kindle. There is a disconnect there, and I am skeptical of claims that one will naturally lead to the other.

 

[Kimberly Van Meter]

I've only been doing this a month, but I had gained some steam too, and I'm slowing down as well. But when you look at any steadily rising graph, there are usually some little ups and downs over the course of the graph, even though the overall trend rises.

This is what I'm telling myself while I work on the next story and try to limit sales checking.

It'll pick up for you again. No animals need to be harmed in the making of your epub career.

You're right. Ups and downs are to be expected. Maybe I got a little spoiled. Teehee. And yes, I must limit my sales checking. This is making me neurotic. LOL!

Kimberly V.

 

[Kimberly Van Meter]

Keep doing what you're doing. It's not you, it's the selling program on Amazon. I had slow to regular sales no matter what my ebooks were priced at, and since I read about one author suffering lost royalties at the hands of a merciless promotion dept. I have raised my ebook prices back to a decent level. Treasure the few paying sales you get versus the thousands of free downloads.

I don't understand the free download thing. I mean, that's cool if you have eighty-bajillion downloads of your free stuff but that's not money in your pocket. Is it a sales thing? As in, if people buy the free read, they might download your other stuff?

Kimberly V.

 

[Paul Clayton]

Don't worry, we all experience these ups and downs.  Remember, 'slow and steady wins the race!'
Best!

 

[Mike McIntyre]

Hey Kim,

At least you have your book cover design business to fall back on. My only other skill is golf, but nobody is paying me to do that.  

Mike

 

[Carolyn J. Rose Mystery Writer]

Don't panic. Some days are better than others. Some months are better than others. The word-of-mouth tide will come in again.

 

[Holly A Hook]

Don't feel bad--the same thing is going on with my sales.  Which is why I'm working at getting two more books out this summer.  Hopefully this is only a temporary thing for you and things pick back up soon. 

 

[Kimberly Van Meter]

Hey Kim,

At least you have your book cover design business to fall back on. My only other skill is golf, but nobody is paying me to do that.

Mike

True. But I'm greedy - I want both. :-D

 

[RobynB]

This is what I'm telling myself while I work on the next story and try to limit sales checking.

It'll pick up for you again. No animals need to be harmed in the making of your epub career.

This. I haven't checked sales since the end of April and it's been the most liberating thing. Hang in there.

 

[Kimberly Van Meter]

This. I haven't checked sales since the end of April and it's been the most liberating thing. Hang in there.

I wish I had your strength. It's become an unnatural obsession likely more damaging to my self-esteem than submitting my work to All About Romance for review. LOL...*sigh* Ah, well. It is what it is. Time to get back to work.

Kimberly V.

 

[RobynB]

I wish I had your strength. It's become an unnatural obsession likely more damaging to my self-esteem than submitting my work to All About Romance for review. LOL...*sigh* Ah, well. It is what it is. Time to get back to work.

Kimberly V.

The strength took some building. Here's how I look at it: I don't want a stretch of poor sales to depress me, and I don't want a stretch of great sales to swell my head. It's a marathon, not a sprint (blah, blah, blah -- I know that's a totally unoriginal statement). I'm not saying I won't ever look again, but I'm trying to stay away from the hourly habit (which I had been doing for too long). At some point, I just had to let go and go write.

 

[IsabellaL]

I agree, sales have almost stopped. Six days into June and I still have those brown bands showing in my Kindle site. I have only been checking my paperback printed books about once a week as they rarely sell once they're in Kindle form. When I checked today I had TWO sales on the same book at $16.95 each. I can only guess that they bought the Kindle edition, liked it and are gifting friends with them. At least I hope that's what happened. Cheer up, things will get better. 

 

[R. M. Reed]

Is there a trick to getting the general public to find a book, not just people who see my Facebook and tweets and stuff? I sometimes wonder if there is something I was supposed to do to help searches find the book and I didn't do it.

 

[Sarah Woodbury]

I don't know that any of us have any idea what we do that 'works' in terms of marketing.

I wrote a whole blog post called 'Sacrificing the Goat': http://www.sarahwoodbury.com/?p=938

I list some options for gods and saints who might hear you

 

[J.A. Marlow]

[Post content removed to protect my content and data because I do not agree to or accept VerticalScope's new Terms of Service. I hereby reject said terms and retain all copyrights to my information and content.

I disavow any association with the new ads that now exist that may be tasteless, racist, demeaning to women, sexist, or exploitative in any way.]

 

[RobynB]

I don't know that any of us have any idea what we do that 'works' in terms of marketing.

I wrote a whole blog post called 'Sacrificing the Goat': http://www.sarahwoodbury.com/?p=938

I list some options for gods and saints who might hear you

Too funny, Sarah -- my mother gave me a little statue of Saint Francis de Sales years ago. I have it right next to my computer.