As I mentioned a few weeks ago, my book of short stories is now available on Amazon. (See it here.) I thought we were just in the pre-order stage, because that's what it says on the book's information page. Amazon says the book does not really come out until September 8th. I ordered one a few weeks ago, just to see if it made the sales numbers change, and got a note that it would ship on September 8th. But two days ago, I got another message that it was coming this week. It showed up today. I'm wondering if someone fat-fingered 9-8 and 8-9 somewhere along the way?
Other odd things:
-The price of the book dropped 48 cents from a few weeks ago to now. It's now $16.51, which is a really weird price.
-It is now letting people post reviews, which it shouldn't be doing until the book officially launches. (There's a great review now. Check it out.)
-I signed up for Author Central and linked the book to my author page. This is supposed to let me see sales figures. But nothing is there yet. After a bit of research, I think that the figures don't show up until the book actually launches. As I've just said, though, I'm not sure if the book has launched yet or not. So I don't know when I can expect to see sales numbers.
Signs I've probably done things wrong:
-I was supposed to send the book to reviewers with plenty of time to spare before it launched. The preview copies got delayed a lot, and so I was already not sure I gave them enough time when I sent the book out last week. But if the book has now launched, then all the reviews will be late.
-I knew there would be errors, but it was a little disheartening to get a text today from a friend (whose copy also came today) that said, "Nice editing, douche, and this is just page two" along with a photo of a typo.
-Although I can't see my actual sales figures yet, I don't think they're very good. I can see that Amazon currently ranks the book 1,454,547th in the world. It was much higher a few weeks ago, but it was never that great. We'll see, I guess.
Really, my goals for sales are just not to embarrass my not-for-profit publisher. That doesn't seem it should be that hard to do, but clearly, I need to step up my game.
Slightly off topic, but this Millions article was written for you.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.themillions.com/2017/08/youre-a-writer-now.html
I feel like maybe I've read this before. If not this, something like it. I definitely had read enough to have really low expectations, to realized I wasn't going to have any red carpets spread before me. In fact, I was so well prepared for disappointment, there actually have been a few nice moments. When my ARCs came, nobody ran over them, and it was really great to see something I'd made come to life.
DeleteStill, I just don't get a lot of the business aspects of it. I just can't get myself to pay attention to them. I posted about it on social media, I've blogged about it, I bugged my friends about it, I'm going to go to some appearances/readings. I just don't know how much more I can do. This isn't my day job.
I guess posting yesterday must have done something. I suddenly jumped into the top 100,000 for a while. Was that all you? Did you buy 57 copies at once?
You mean your sales rank dropped once people could actually get the book?!
ReplyDeleteWhen it was first available to buy...July 20th or so...it was ranked about 40,000 for a while. Then, it slowly dropped for the next few weeks. Yesterday, it temporarily jumped back up again into the top 100,000. Amazon updates hourly, I guess. I'm out of people to shame into buying it, though, so I guess it's likely to just keep falling from now on.
Deletei can get it cheapest on abebooks from the UK!
DeleteThat's another thing that seems weird--how do all these multiple book sellers have the book in stock right now? There's even a used version for sale--although I think I know the origin of that one.
Delete