Then, in a conversation the other day, someone mentioned my progress on "Coward". I said, "Oh yeah, it needs to be completely ready by the 16th. I'm way ahead. I have 14 days to write... 16k words. Er... maybe I'm not as ahead as I thought..."
So, I've been working hard to get it ready! As a consequence, I sent out the TrAuSt questions for tomorrow late, so I will probably post it Thursday this week. Please stop back to learn a little bit more about Coral Russell!
B&N switched over to May sales today, so I think it's safe to say I can count all my sales for April from them on no hands (Read: ZERO).
I saw a slump in sales in April. By slump, I mean I had 9 sales in March and 6 in April. April was 150% of my first month's (February) sales (4), but 66.6% of my March sales (9). I missed my target sales (20) by a whopping 70%...
HOWEVER. Much to my incredibly voluble and excited surprise, the first three days of May have already equaled my April sales... I attribute this in large part to the fact that "Cheat" (the first episode of the IH series) is beginning to show up in the "Customers also bought" portion of Amazon.
I won't lie, I'm already immensely relieved and grateful to have met last months sales in three days. It takes a lot of negative pressure off me for this month. If I can't surpass, I want to maintain! But, I can't very well say it's fine after only three days... so I'm (almost arbitrarily) setting my goal for this month at 200% of last month (12).
Here's what I'm extrapolating my data from:
One really positive thing I can say is that at least 3 people picked up "Liar"! Hopefully that means they read "Cheat" and wanted to know the next little bit. If that's true than of the 8 copies of "Cheat" that sold, I saw a 37.5% conversion to continue my series. (Of course, that's assuming they read "Cheat" first and didn't just pick up the one they wanted because they are supposed to be stand-alone.)
So, I'm still poking around in the low numbers, haven't broken 10 sales/month yet, but I'm hoping to have good news to report next month.
FYI: ALL of my sales, save for 3 copies of "Shackled" and 1 of "Cheat" were sold through Amazon.
Based on my exhausting research, authors tend to sell better after they have 3~6 titles available. I just broke 3, and my works are starting to show up in the "also bought" feature. Here's to a good May! (We deserve some of those May flowers in Ohio... it rained all but 8 days in April!)
Cheers!
Update: New header! If you didn't notice :)
You're in Ohio too? I was born and grew up there until I was 10 years old!
ReplyDeleteMy hubby is in sales and you know April is just a slump for sales in general. For him and like you, it seems, sales pick up again in May. :)
Oh and yes, you'll see me here tomorrow!
You very well might pop 10 sales in a month if you're already up to 6 for May. Doin' great! I'm glad to hear you're doing well thus far. May has been decent to me, not 6 copies, but it's something.
ReplyDeleteIn April, I slumped as well. Part of that was due to my ill-fated price change, which cost me at least 10 days of sales. I rounded out the month with 15 copies of One More Day and 1 copy of Three Before Dark.
Wasn't quite as impressive as I was back in March, but it was still a fairly positive way to finish the month.
Good to hear you're making strides on your next release!
Nick
One More Day Kindle Nook
Three Before Dark Kindle
@Coral: I've been here since I was about 4, mostly. Minus a year in SC, 3 in Japan, a summer in Florida... etc. Oh, Ohio. It could be so much better :( We have a wicked brain drain going on because we've been in a recession 10 years before the rest of the country caught up. Where did you live?
ReplyDelete@Nick: Yes, I hope to break double digits this month!! "Coward" releases the 18th, and I have some sort of instinct it will be a tipping point (3 in the series, 4 titles total...) We'll see how my research pans out. I don't think it will be a HUGE tip, but the trough heading for the crest (of the wave) maybe?
Very impressive on your 16 sales! You're blowing me out of the water ;)