MY GOD! The Woods has sold 5 copies on amazon and 1 copy on B&N! I'm going to be freakin' RICH!

Yeah, so that's a bit of hyperbole. But hey, the month of March is now over, so consider this the first "end of the month" report. THE WOODS went live on B&N on the afternoon of 3/29 and on Amazon sometime on 3/30, so the six sales are two and half days of B&N and one and a half days of Amazon. Still, there's been no huge surge of hungry readers desperate for my brand new tome -- in fact, Denise is responsible for the lone B&N sale herself, and she's already read it... FWIW, the best sales rank I notice on Amazon was in the 16,000s; on B&N, Denise's purchase pushed it to 325,000 or something like that in sales rank...

I am so going to rule the self-publishing world! Look out, Amanda Hocking!

I'll admit there is a temptation to check every hour or so to see if anyone else has bought the book, but so far I'm resisting gamely (and a good thing, too, since I'd usually be thrown into the Pit of Bookish Despair). As far as working with the two markets: the jury's still out. My first impression is that B&N has the better sales tools, though I've yet to see what each market's monthly sales reports actually look like. No customer reviews are up on either site yet -- don't know if the lack of reviews also has an impact on sales. Maybe I should have seeded a few friendly people with the manuscript???

BTW, I'm not going to report sales every few days -- but as I said in the first report, my intention is to be upfront about how things are going with this little venture in order that others might learn what to expect. I'll give you the sales figures each month, but it won't be until the end of April that we'll have a full month of sales to report.

At the moment, I still haven't heard back from Apple on the application I filled out to provide THE WOODS for iBooks. So that's still hanging fire... C'mon, Apple -- hey, I used to work for you; give me some love! I wonder if I should put it up on Smashwords as well... any thoughts on that?

And that's enough for now. When I have something interesting/new to report, I'll let you know!

-------------------------

-- learn more about THE WOODS here.
--Buy THE WOODS in Kindle format here from Amazon
--Buy THE WOODS in Nook format here from B&N

From: [identity profile] jimhines.livejournal.com


"I'll admit there is a temptation to check every hour or so..."

It's dangerous, isn't it?

Just give it time. I'm sure your millions and millions of dollars will be showing up any day now.

From: [identity profile] sleigh.livejournal.com


I just know it! And I'm going to use that fortune to buy goblin and stepsister books!

From: [identity profile] minnehaha.livejournal.com

I'm #6 on Amazon


I must have missed the post where you announced the self-published book. I just bought one.

Did you read this fascinating conversation (http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/2011/03/ebooks-and-self-publishing-dialog.html) on self-publishing? This (http://amandahocking.blogspot.com/2011/03/blog.html), by Amanda Hocking, is also interesting.

B

From: [identity profile] sleigh.livejournal.com

Re: I'm #6 on Amazon


Yeah, I pointed out to my students last week the strange synchronicity and irony of Eisler going into self-publishing just as Hocking was going the traditional publishing route. Interesting times.

From: [identity profile] minnehaha.livejournal.com

Re: I'm #6 on Amazon


And I'm deciding what I should do with my next book.

The thought of offering a $5 ebook is very tempting.

B

From: [identity profile] sleigh.livejournal.com

Re: I'm #6 on Amazon


You might just be able to do very well with that -- you have the built-in audience via your website that could really drive sales. You should think seriously about it.

From: [identity profile] minnehaha.livejournal.com

Re: I'm #6 on Amazon


I am. My two big negatives are that I want a print version, and that I want to be taken seriously by mainstream reviewers. Now I can do my own print edition -- there are companies that will print, warehouse, and even mail out my books on demand -- but reviews are harder. The tech publications will review me because I'm me, but mainstream publications won't review me without a reputable publisher.

B

From: [identity profile] minnehaha.livejournal.com


"I'll admit there is a temptation to check every hour or so..."

For my books, I have a script that scrapes the Amazon sales ranking every hour and puts it into a histogram. Here's (http://stats.schneier.com/amazon-bf.txt) eight years of Beyond Fear sales ranking, day by day. I suppose you could get someone to create a desktop thingy -- I don't know what you Mac people call them -- that automatically displays the sales figures for your books, much like the ones that display the time or the weather.

B

From: [identity profile] sleigh.livejournal.com


If I had a reasonable expectation of a book being a bestseller, I might do that. For me, checking in now and then seems to be adequate.

Still, it's nice that you can see if there's a correlation between appearances/mentions and sales figures.

From: [identity profile] minnehaha.livejournal.com


Yes, I found the correlations -- what works and what doesn't in terms of publicity -- to be very interesting.

B

From: [identity profile] slaynsoul.livejournal.com


I tried to buy one off of Barnes and Noble on Tuesday... but for some reason, even though I kept hitting the "Buy Now" button, it wouldn't give it to me... I think the site is conspiring against me... or possibly my browser. I'll try something other than Chrome this weekend.
.