Just tonight I came across an interesting question over at Kboards – and if you Kindle authors haven’t heard of Kboards you REALLY don’t know what you are missing.
A fellow named Frank was asking how bottom-dwelling authors – that is, the folks who have to settle for selling double-digits every month. Say like eighteen books sold in a month or twenty-three or thirteen.
(remember that number)
It seemed that Frank was major-league bummed out over the fact that his books had been selling at a pace that made a frozen road-killed snail look fast.
Well – I thought about his question and then I stepped into the thread and rattled off this answer.
Listen Frank – I have sat and watched my Kindle sales freaking PLUMMET over the summer – and even before that.
Now – just these last couple of weeks I’ve begun a renewed campaign to goose those sales up a bit.
And I have seen some results in just these last couple of weeks. Brown bars have begun to slowly disappear.
I’ve got a big Friday 13th push coming in four days. I’ve got more promotion planned over the month of October. I am already beginning to figure on Christmas.
I have just begun to fight!
The good thing about being on the bottom is it gives you a pretty good idea which direction you need to head in.
Remember this – and this is coming from a hybrid author who still has foot in the traditionally-published camp.
These aren’t the old days. This isn’t the era when books would poop around on the bookstore shelves for three or four weeks before getting their covers torn off and their pages thrown into the landfill. Brothers and sisters we are publishing freaking kowabunga e-books – tiny wonderful immortal bundles of raw data that CANNOT BE KILLED.
Sure, you may be on the bottom today. But that doesn’t mean you have to stay there. Roll your pennies and collect your bottles and sell your baby sister for a couple of brand new nifty covers. Plan that next big promotion – with about three more promotions after it. Write a new book – or three new books – each one of them and advertisement and a potential life line for those books of yours that are inspecting the be-barnacled belly of the Titanic.
Remember – children – the e in e-books stands for EVOLUTION – which rhymes with REVOLUTION – which bespeaks of wheels and cycles and whatever is on the freaking bottom rising up again to the top.
Get at it now. Get writing and get promoting and just forget about the numbers are telling you now. E-rase that blackboard and e-volve your product and e-something-or-other yourself the heck off that bottom and back up to the top where you belong!
So that’s what the next month or two is going to bring. I’m going to tell you folks all about my upcoming promos and strategies over the next few days and I will tell you all about the HUGE sales event I have planned for this Friday 13th – at least for you folks who read Kindle.
But for now I just want to tell you that you should never, ever surrender in this business. Your book has not sunk forever – anymore than the Loch Ness Monster has gone and drowned himself. The fact is – what has sunk can and will rise again.
Here’s somebody who says this a little better than I do.
You might also want to give a read to Sherrilyn Kenyon’s speech to the RWA – what she went through before hitting publishing success is incredible!
You just follow this blog for the next few days and see what luck I manage to pull out of my bvd’s.
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If you want to read the actual Kboard thread check it out HERE!
And – if you are looking for something to read why don’t you pick up a copy of the fifth story in my collection of Sea Tales – BUILT FOR HANGING ON – which tells the story of a long-married Maritime couple and how they survive the Apocalypse.
Just click the photo-link. I guarantee a good read. Warning, though – this made my wife cry.
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