ROBUST discussion

Something very odd is happening. Sales of my book of literary criticism, STIEG LARSSON Man, Myth & Mistress is currently running at six times the daily aggregate rate for May, and May was up there with Christmas.

I haven't changed the price, $2.99, and it is a while since I changed the cover.

This sort of book doesn't take off like a rocket. It grows slowly to a modest peak and then sells steadily until one day you discover it has sold more copies than some of your bestsellers (which are misnamed, they should be called fastsellers).

The only thing I can think of is that there is a peak at the beginning of every month when people with book budgets splash out... I didn't notice it before, but then I don't check my sales more than about once a week, so I might have missed a peak at the beginning of previous months. Anyone?

Before we start shouting "Hallelujah!", let's find out if it is a trend or a pimple on the ass of God of Statistics.

I've noticed that my sales arrive at the last of one month and the very beginning of the next month (if they're going to arrive at all). I, too, figure it has something to do with budgets or maybe Social Security checks arriving. (I've seen statistics indicating that most Kindle owners are what the kids like to call "old" but I like to call "my peers"...)

Something else I've noticed is that when a bunch of free titles are released, my sales go to zero for a while.

Despite hiccups here and there, sales have kept rising for STIEG LARSSON Man, Myth & Mistress.

In December over the Christmas period the book was on sale for two weeks. In January, February, March and April sales were down to around a third of the projected monthly rate from December 2010, possibly to be expected. In May for the whole month the sales matched two weeks over Christmas, a rate of 50%.

Now, in the first two weeks of June, sales matched the fortnight over Christmas, and in the next week, between the 15th and the 22nd the total doubled. Let me say that again. In the third week of June 2011, the book sold as many copies as it sold over two weeks of Christmas 2010. If this *rate of increase* keeps up, we shall end June with four times the sales achieved over the Christmas fortnight.

This does look like a book that has been kickstarted.

My book has just started selling again after 10 weeks of zero sales.

Maybe a lot of kids got Kindles for graduation? Or Mom's for Mother's day?

K.A. wrote: "My book has just started selling again after 10 weeks of zero sales.

Maybe a lot of kids got Kindles for graduation? Or Mom's for Mother's day?"

I don't think microanalysis of that kind is useful. The essential truth is that you will probably never find out why the book started selling again. Just be grateful it did.

I'm grateful!

Now that I think about it - I released 'Impressive Bravado' the week before I started getting sales. I gave it away, with an ad for 'Let's Do Lunch' in the back.

I was talking about the surge in June sales - in general. I know a lot of women who wanted e-readers for Mother's Day.

Dumb Question Time:
If I put my story on Smashwords for free, will Amazon spiders report back so it will go free on Amazon?

I think it's Amazon's new policy to do that, but you don't get any royalties when your book is free (unlike the days when Amazon discounted books, but paid a royalty based on the list price, not the selling price).

We'll see.

I'd like to get my short story free on Amazon for a few weeks.

I accidentally had a book on Smashwords at a lower price than on Amazon for five days or a week, and in that time there was no reaction from Amazon. Please let us know how long you have to wait.

Also, I read somewhere that Amazon threatened punishments for those who try to "game the system", but I don't see what they can do except ban your books. Surely the bigger punishment would be not to make your story free on Amazon!

I read in some forum somewhere (I always lose track of where I've been) that Amazon KDP actually changed the terms, so it's okay to go free elsewhere if you're willing to have your Amazon royalties stop during the free period. I haven't re-read the terms so haven't verified this.

We'll see what happens. You never know with Amazon. But one free story and a Dollar Dreadful might get some interest in the new book.

Okay. I had two books on sale for about a fortnight over Christmas. That's a baseline. In the new years sales were below the baseline but climbing steadily from a very low level, reaching 50% in May. In June in the first fortnight, the Christmas fortnight was matched. In the second fortnight of June, the Christmas fortnight sales was doubled, 203% of baseline.

What's important here isn't the actual sales (maybe impressive for hardcovers, but not for ebooks) but the rate of acceleration. We'll see after another fortnight whether growth is maintained.

I need to look up fortnight.

The fortnight is a unit of time equal to fourteen days, or two weeks. The word derives from the Old English fēowertyne niht, meaning "fourteen nights".[1][2]

Fortnight and fortnightly are commonly used words in Britain and many Commonwealth countries such as Pakistan, India, New Zealand, and Australia, where many wages and salaries and most social security benefits are paid on a fortnightly basis.[3] The word is rarely used in North America, except regionally in Canada and in insular traditional communities (e.g. Amish) in the United States. American and Canadian payroll systems may use the term biweekly in reference to pay periods every two weeks. Neither term should be confused with semimonthly (in one year there are 26 fortnightly or biweekly versus 24 semimonthly pay periods).

Y'all don't talk proper 'Merican.

Keryl, Keryl, where's Keryl? Brit Picker alert!

HA! Gang up on me, I dares ya! I gots my double-barrel shotgun full of rocksalt. You Limey!

Gee, I've been on the Amazon fora this week, and the worst insult flung at me comes-- on ROBUST.

I'm Irish, not British.

Never mind. I forgive you.

Well I've been educated. I never knew Americans didn't use fortnight.

No, we don't. There are actually a number of words that are in the UK languages that haven't made it over the pond.

Sorry - y'all said I was a 'Brit Picker.'

The only time I use "fortnight" is when I want to sound cultured. Or is it only pearls and strep that's cultured?

Useful Russian word, kulturny, and its counterpart, non-kulturny.

Hehehe - in Kentucky we is cultured when we wears flipflops instead of runnin' bearfeeted.

We were sidetracked - how did that turn out for you, Andre?

Thanks for asking. Sales accelerated tremendously in June and July, made a very slight downkink at the beginning of August and seems now to have leveled out on a plateau at well over twice the height of Christmas last year. We should approach these figures cautiously, though. We're talking about an ultra-niche book (literary criticism and not of a common kind either), the periods under consideration are very short indeed and we cannot know all the external factors.

If I were standing in front of a marketing seminar, I would first ask students to note that the period of December through to April form the classic bell shape of initial trial period, fall-off and then slow growth, but that the sudden acceleration thereafter must have another explanation. A list of possible causes, and what we can do to influence or copy or intensify them, would take up the rest of the semester...

"...the period of December through to April form the classic bell shape of initial trial period, fall-off and then slow growth, but that the sudden acceleration thereafter must have another explanation. A list of possible causes, and what we can do to influence or copy or intensify them, would take up the rest of the semester..."

Could be that you've caught on. There seems to be a point where if you leave enough tracks on the internet people start finding you.

My sales tend to occur in the middle of the month. I think people go for a 'name' book the first of the month, then start trolling for bargins later in the month.

Since the KB crowd has been lamenting slow sales in the same period, it sounds twice as nice.

I'm wondering how long it will take for the Smashwords promo to translate into sales. I'm going to say October. So I'm looking for an uptick for October. I'm hanging in there until then.

When are you releasing Dakota's books?

Gemma, the publisher at Coolmain Press, is now talking about releasing six of Dakota's books before Christmas. That may be a little ambitious considering that this is August... But we have six complete, delivered, in hand, with five of those in various stages of editorial work, three more needing only connecting work, and most of a tenth one finished too.

Kat, my books tend to sell at the very end of, and beginning of, the month.

Andre - that's great! Knock them out!

Patricia - Isn't interesting to find a pattern like that? I always wonder what I could do to help it out.

So far the only thing that's worked was the free story. The banner ad gets some attention, but not as much as I got during the Smashwords promotion.

Kat, I haven't found anything that helps. People buy when and if they feel like it and I'm powerless to influence them. I figured the timing of my sales was related to when government checks are issued or how the family budget looks at the end or beginning of the month.