…yes, I know it was a few days ago, god, you guys have the attention spans of goldfish. Anyway. Yeah. You remember the book sales post. I have an addendum. One thing that I did not discuss is that sales in the last couple of weeks have been… well, abysmal, at least at Amazon. (Benevolence Archives continues to do well at Smashwords, and I want that one free anyway, so it not selling at Amazon doesn’t bother me.) Here’s the graph:
Nothing at all for two solid weeks. Now, those two solid weeks were right around Christmas, and people tend to buy stuff for other people, not for themselves, around Christmastime, and ebooks are a shitty present, so I can come up with some reasons why sales might nosedive without trying too hard. But this is still kinda ugly, and again: sales of Skylights have been virtually nonexistent on other platforms. The sales I’ve had at Smashwords were from a direct experiment and haven’t replicated themselves. And I’ve tried a few gentle reminders here and some more pointed Tweets at various times of the day and with varying levels of humor and seriousness, and… well, you see the results.
So: an adjustment. As of right now, assuming that they believe me when I say I’ve pulled the book from sale at other outlets (I assume it will take a day or two for them to actually disappear,) Skylights is exclusive to Amazon.com and enrolled in the KDP Select program for the next 90 days. The Benevolence Archives started in KDP, and I pulled it eventually, and I’ve been pretty happy with how the book has done on its own. I’ve got several months of data of how Skylights did with my own marketing efforts, and now it’s time to see if three months of Amazon supposedly pushing it a little bit will either equal or exceed my own efforts. The way I see it, I’ve plucked all the low-hanging fruit at this point, so if Amazon gets comparable numbers to how it did without KDP, I’ll keep it there. (EDIT: This is a better comparison than I thought, as– purely by accident– the book has been on the market for exactly 90 days. I got the first 90, they get the next 90. To arms!)
I love experimentation, don’t you?
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Welcome to infinitefreetime dot com 
I’m not really attracted to your books – just not my genre – but I love your name. There can’t be many Luther M. Silers.
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There are, in fact, NONE– which is part of why I picked it. (It’s a pen name.) And I forgive you; sci-fi isn’t everybody’s thing. That said, I’ve had a few out-of-genre folks who liked my books anyway. 🙂
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I have had the same problem. Since around the eighteenth or so, I have had absolutely no sales. It sucks. Hopefully both of our sales will pick up soon.
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Anybody else out there want to chime in? I don’t have previous years to compare it to– is there usually a lull around Christmastime for us self-pubbers?
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…and I just downloaded your sample chapters, for whatever that’s worth. 🙂
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Lol, thank you =) I sadly don’t have previous experience either as this is my first self-published book. I think it makes sense that there is a pre- and post-Christmas lull because people aren’t buying books for themselves. I’m thinking in mid-January there maybe a pick up when people start using their giftcards.
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crossed fingers
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But nothing sells book one like book two. I know you have more than one book, but you know what I mean. -goes back to writing book two-
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I’m very, very curious to see what’s going to happen once there’s a sequel to BENEVOLENCE ARCHIVES out there. Soooo clooooose…
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That’s how I feel with my work. The Winter Garden (book two) is 3 chapters or so away from being ready for editing. I would love to compare sales figures and trends with two books in a series out in the world.
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Stay tuned. 🙂
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Dude, we could be brothers based upon our sales. I expect more action after the holidays end.
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Aw, rough.
If it helps your spirits any, the two books I’ve ever published were academic publications, so that nobody bought them out of a sense they might want to read either themselves, and probably nobody’s gone on to actually read them as they fit into that vast indistinct mass of slender books on the math library shelves. It’s strangely peaceful to be an author you know will be safely un-read.
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Thanks for sharing this, Luther. Did things end up picking up at all after the holidays?
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