Well, it has taken a while to get back to this topic and I apologize for the wait. I have been preoccupied with the bus strike and a copy edit of my next collection from Nimbus.
The release of BAD VALENTINES as a freebie during Feb 14-16 was fairly interesting. Number wise it was not exactly the wildest of freebie launches. We moved 509 free copies in three days – which isn’t much. We had been counting on a few more announcements and listings on several FREE KINDLE sites that did not work out for us.
I believe that partly the reason for the lack of publicity was the abundance of far larger and more prestigious e-books on that very same date. An awful lot of people had the same idea as I did – that is, too release an e-book with a Valentines Day theme.
A collection can be a very hard sell. I’ve got about a half a dozen e-book short story collections that sell two or three copies a month. I’ve got one e-book novel (DEVIL TREE) – that has sold over twenty copies a month in the last two months running.
Now, neither two or three or even twenty are really much in the way of numbers to write home about – but the difference between the two numbers is very noticable. I’ve decided that it is easier to peddle a novel-length e-book than a short story collection. So I am hoping that my next freebie – a novelette – will do a little better than BAD VALENTINES. And I’m hoping that my next e-book release – a great big honking full-lengthed novel of scarecrow terror is going to hit the ground with the same sort of momentum as DEVIL TREE.
Or at least that’s the plan.
So, did BAD VALENTINES free period help its sales? I’d say no – so far – although we did just sell an e-copy yesterday. Who knows? Perhaps this is the signal of a landslide of BAD VALENTINES e-book sales???
That’s the thing about business. When a business man looks at a graph with a line going upwards he will tell you that the line represents “an upward trend” that calls for “continued economical optimism” and a “genuine potential for positive momentum” – while the realist will tell you that the line is nothing more than a streak of ink stretched across a piece of glossy graph paper.
Whereas a writer will tell you that the blue line is actually a border between dimensions!
Speaking of blue lines…
AS OF SOMETIME PAST MIDNIGHT TONIGHT my e-book novellette SUDDEN DEATH OVERTIME is available as a free Kindle e-book – for the next TWO days!!
SUDDEN DEATH OVERTIME is the perfect combination of vampires, hockey and canlit. It is the story of a team of over-the-hill old-timer Labrador shore hockey players who find themselves in a sudden death match-up with a tour bus full of vampires.
And none of those fellas glitter…
Here we go – part two of my great e-book experiment. If you like what you see, download a copy when it’s free.
Yours in Storytelling,
Steve Vernon
YOURS IN STORYTELLING... 