Fair warning: It's one of those "Big Experiment" posts.
I should have started this "indie publishing" thing six months ago. Am I going to retire soon? No, not at $0.35 a book, but my sales are definitely growing month to month. And when I write "sales" what I really mean is "potential readers". This week alone, I've seen more sales than the entire month of March. The Bottom Feeders continues to be my bestselling book, with 22 copies and counting out the virtual door. Notice: I'm not selling a ridiculous amount of any one book, but several are selling modestly well. Each book is a potential reader--note I use the word potential. Do you read everything you buy?
Will the trend continue? I hope so. It's a pretty steep curve.
Scott Nicholson, an indie author who has traveled the "traditionally-published path" and man for whom I have a great deal of respect, recently posted a blog entry Marketing is Not Selling. Read it and the companion piece on IndieReader. My favorite bit: "...I am not screaming "Buy my book." I'd rather you feed your family, or buy some seeds, or donate to your favorite local charity. That's what I do when you buy my book."
Feed your family.
For the first time I feel like I might be able to actually contribute to my family through writing rather than taking away. Think about it: years spent banging at the keyboard when I could have been doing something else. I've taken myself away from my family for my fictional worlds. It isn't as simple as that, but the kernel of truth is there.
Look in the mirror, Aaron: You are not evil because you want to be compensated for your time and effort. Got it? Good.
Yes, I've been releasing e-books faster than Jerry puts the smack-down on Tom. I have a pool of over 100 published short stories, some of them smelly as last week's garbage (don't worry about seeing them again) and several unpublished shorts which were "that close". Why let them fester on my hard drive? It's taken me years to arrive at this point. Years and thousands upon thousands of words.
After my current round of edits on The Sons of Chaos and the Desert of the Dead, I'm going to put the finishing touches on Borrowed Saints for a May release. I'm toying with the idea of writing a House Eaters sequel this summer.
The bottom line: I want to be read. I might be able to spread some good fortune to my family. Sounds like goals are meeting reality, right?
I just wish I would have started six months ago.
What are you waiting for?
After all this schtuff about e-book pricing, I thought I'd run a totally non-scientific experiment:
The buyer can set the price for We are the Monsters when downloaded from Smashwords.
I don't have to run a scientific experiment to act like a scientist, so here's my hypothesis: I won't sell enough copies via Smashwords for accurate data. But you can read the first 50% for free.
(Mwhahahahaha...)
February was busy. You've all read, I'm sure, of my 2677 edits for The Saints are Dead. Yes, most of them made the book better....but whoa. Just whoa. I wrote several new stories in February ("What Julie's Dad Doesn't Know" and "The North Lantern" being my favorites) and managed my Write 1 / Sub 1 goal of a story submitted a week.
Three stories "sold" in February: "Poe's Blender" to Death Rattle, "Upon Leaving the Candy Factory" to Bourbon Penn, and "The Ballad of Arkady and Nadia" to 100 Stories for Queensland. The latter was a "sale" sale, meaning no money flowed to the writer because it is a charity antho.
On to the Big Experiment...
Because I believe in full disclosure, I present:
Well...I won't be retiring any time soon, but a few things of note:
- One of those Bottom Feeders sales was a gift. So I sold eleven legit copies for Kindle, plus one through Smashwords.
- February's numbers represent the most copies of The Bottom Feeders I've sold since releasing the book last April. The trend is rising from seven last month. Short story collections don't traditionally do as well as novels (in any format), but I'm not complaining.
- The Bottom Feeders had a crazy little bounce this weekend, selling five copies between Friday and Monday. Not big numbers for some of the Kindle people, but I can't explain the bump. I'll be watching this closely. After all, it is an experiment.
I hope to have
We are the Monsters ready by the end of March. It's a novella (35K), and they are traditionally hard to place, after all. Jekyll and Hyde are welcome to live in one skin as long as they want, because
I've decided I want one thing out of writing: to tell stories.* To do this, you have to have an audience who wants to listen. Anything which puts a barricade between me and an audience is bad form (did you hear that, Hyde?). In addition, I want my "craft" to be top form so the audience keeps listening (keep subbing to those fine markets, Jekyll).
*wait...I've sort of known that all along.
So here's the Jekyll and Hyde of it all...
I've been of two minds lately: one side of me says "go, go, go" with the self-publishing. The cold hard fact is that people are really making money...some of them good money...publishing directly to the Kindle. How long will this last? No one knows, but "infinite growth" is impossible; history is filled with examples. So Mr. Hyde (he's the ugly one) wants to jump in (er, cash in) while he can.
But is he really the ugly one?
Dr. Jekyll is the half who wants to keep "improving my craft" and strives for professional membership in the HWA and/or the SFWA. He's the one who made me hammer away at my little stories until landing that (cue hautboys) Shimmer acceptance. But wait...wasn't it Jekyll who gave birth to Hyde in the first place? Isn't Hyde just another side of his personality?
What does Jekyll really want? Awards? Accolades? Acceptance from the cool kids who get to play "professional writer"? Are those things really any different than cashing in on the Kindle craze? Damn it, Jekyll! You made this monster, now man up and do something about him!
*deep breath* Okay. Call it "growing pains". What do I do next? Can I find a way to sate both sides of my writerly self?
Today, I'm Dr. Jekyll. I need to put final edits on a short story. I like the story; I've worked hard on the story. Should the target market accept it, I think I'll make something like $30, minus Paypal fees. Hopefully a hundred people will read it. Mr. Hyde is laughing at me, just like he did all last week while I toiled away at my 2677 edits for The Saints are Dead.
*sigh*
I've resurrected "The Write Addiction" and will post five prompts a week.
Today's writing prompt (a non-traditional one): Make a list of food the world's heaviest person might eat in a day.
_____
A little announcement about the
Big Experiment. I've decided to donate 10% of each month's sales (right now, that amounts to about 3 cents--woo-hoo!) over the next year to a charitable organization. I've also decided to let my blog readers vote each month on the charity which receives the cash. If I win, so does someone else. Due to
JA Konrath's latest plea to let the experiment take its course, I'll be running the big experiment for the next year. At least. Some may not believe in the Church of Konrath; I'm not sure if I do, but he is one of the lead advocates for self-publishing. The experiment is about his sermons as much as anything.
_____
I have something special to share (and it's about writing), but I figured it needs its own post. Hint: it's about someone else. Three someone elses, in fact.
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Exactly! Congrats on making the decision. You're right - .35 a copy isn't much but it garners potential readers. Keep multiplying the novels and it builds.
And no, I haven't waited. :) I've .35 my way to over $500 last year. That may be only a month's worth of groceries, but it's better than sitting on my hard drive.
Best post I've read, EVER, on self-publishing. Congratulations on all your success, Aaron! And you too, Laura - you both deserve it!
Congrats Laura! Yes, it's much better than gathering virtual dust.
Caty - I owe it all to Mr. Nicholson. ;) Thanks!
Rings true enough. I'm slogging away in hopes of having something publishable. Don't dare rush into anything, as I'd hate to put out a shoddy piece of work or naively sabotage my efforts on a good piece of work.
"What are you waiting for?"
Good question. Next week - edits. It's time for me to get something bigger than a short published.
Gef - There's some pretty lousy stuff out there that has, somehow, not sabotaged its author. I don't claim to understand it.
Natalie - The world is ready!
Congrats on the sales! I hope they go up and up. Every time I think about self-publishing, I dread figuring out the formatting and covers and so forth. Other than that, I'm starting to think more kindly on it. It's certainly better than letting stuff sit on my hard-drive forever.
Thanks, K.C. There are some really inspirational writers at Kindleboards. It's a different mindset--but, then again, it's a different world.
At the risk of sounding like a massive snob, you are precisely the person I want doing this, too. I keep trying to push the point (to the naysayers) that the independent spirit, the ability for authors who don't fit into some BOX to get their stuff out there is SO FUNDAMENTAL to the exchange of good ideas--fictional or otherwise (what's one but a way of exploring the other?).
I'm so, so happy to know that your sales are on the rise. Like, for you, for me, for the whole effing world of publishing. This is what it's about.
"Do you read everything you buy?" Not always all the way through, but I try everything--eventually.
So glad to hear your sales are on an upswing. :D
Hi Aaron,
Great to hear the units are shifting, as goes the lingo. I definitely agree with you--why wait when the technology is here, and will only improve?
Time to get some content out there...
The greatest thing about the e-book revolution is that your stories never have to languish. Personally, I'm still pushing all my work at the traditional markets first; but with the knowledge and know-how to do it by myself if a particularly story runs out of markets.
Katey - Thanks, Katey. If all I do is stir the pot a little, I've done my job.
Thanks, Cate. (I try, too)
Daniel - The technology has really made it work. The best gatekeepers have always been readers.
Ben - And I encourage you to do so. I'm still trying the market for short stories. Most (75% or so) of my collections are previously published work. Kindle is just placing those stories in front of more eyeballs.
That's the way to re-bound after our publisher went south. Good Luck To Ya.
I can second that. While I don't think my numbers are rising as significantly as yours on a monthly basis, I can see a definite upward curve in week by week sales. I think your "experiment" back up Mr. Konrath's belief of success also hinging on how much virtual shelf space you are occupying. I have also started looking closely at a few things that were "that close" (including a novella) to try to take up some more of that same shelf space.
Congrats on the sales! Onward and upwards!
Ricky - I'll be following your journey as well--best of luck.
Barry - Bottom Feeders is at 26 copies for the month (as of just now). Not burning up the world, but I might hit 100 overall. I can't complain about that.
Every time I read one of your posts, I get a little kick in the ass to keep writing. If my ebook does half as well as your have, I'll be uber-impressed. It's all about gaining readers. After all, what is a writer creating if no one ever discovers it?