Thursday, May 24, 2007

Depressing sales for The Tulip Kiss on fictionwise

Karen has been posting fictionwise sales per week on the authors' forum on yahoo. I like this a lot. It helps us see if we had any sales and helps us project what our possible royalties will look like when we receive them. - so she is keeping us informed (since there is still a glitch on Echelon Press's webstore page and I believe now she is sending every ebook directly to fictionwise and not even publishing on the Echelon website - but she is still publishing printed books - so anyway - I like this being informed of what sales look like on fictionwise, although it can be depressing when you look at it a week at a time - such is the case for these past three weeks so far

I knew I wasn't selling much but golly gee - do I not have any fans out there? - The first week of May (April 30 through May 6) my sales totaled all of 2 (Jane from down under purchased a copy and had some delightful things to say to me via email about my story and that she can't wait to purchase more of my writings (she also gave me a good rating on the fictionwise site)- so thank you Jane from down under) and Jane from Washington state purchased another copy just to put a rating on the story - which I think her for also) - so my whole two copies for the month of May so far.

(Overall, Echelon authors sold 99 stories this first week with one author selling 23 copies of her story - and of course Janelle sold 11 copies that week - way to go Yvonne and Janelle)

Fictionwise only updates their site once a week, every Monday. Any books to be uploaded are uploaded on Mondays. I'm anxiously awaiting my Butterfly Halves to be uploaded since Karen said it had already been submitted to them (she thought it should have been uploaded yesterday but as of this evening sometime, it had not so alas, hopefully for memorial day - will be a good thing)

Okay, week #2 (May 7 - May 13) - Zero books sold on fictionwise - what's up with that - I have no sales whatsoever, how tres, tres tres sad for me - where are my friends and fans? Yvonne sold only 8 copies (for her first place sales this week) and Janelle sold 3 copies (placing her in second place). Where are the fans and readers? (overall, all Echelon stories that sold this week was very low - only 35 copies of stories sold - these are just authors from Echelon who sold stories).

Week #3 - (May 14 - May 20) - Although I still sold 0 copies of The Tulip Kiss (my fans must all be sleeping - I mean a story that you can download for only $1 and I've been pushing it with my email signatures, and other things - bookmarks floating around places and mentions just about everywhere I go - so where are my wonderful reading fans?), Echelon authors did sell 80 stories overall (not as many as the first week but more authors sold stories than previously). Yvonne has taken a dip in sales and is now 4th with only 6 copies sold. Janelle took a small dip also, she sold 3 copies and now sits at 7th place on the chart. The top two sellers both sold 10 copies each and they are both brand new uploads - so awesome job ladies.

All I'm asking is if you have purchased a copy of my story, either from Echelon when it first came out, or from fictionwise since the end of January, please review or rate the story. I believe that reviews do help sell stories, especially ebooks, since people can't hold the story in their hands and flip through to read passages throughout to decided if they want to buy the story. If you have purchased a story, I really do thank you from the bottom of my heart and would love to know what you think of it. Either review it publically on Echelon, rate it on fictionwise or drop me an email or note here to let me know what you think of it.

Thanks again to all the wonderful readers of short stories out there - see you all in the postings - E :)

3 comments:

Cidermaker said...

Hi Elysabeth,
Don't know what's happening here but the links at the bottom of your post just bounce you back to the top. I've tried this on two different computers, one stand alone and the other networked, with the same result. I'll have to get to the Tulip Kiss another way.

Anonymous said...

how many Jane downunder do you know?

elysabeth said...

I only know one Jane down under but I know many Janes and that is why the reference - Jane down under bought a copy of my book (she is an author or submitted author for my story line on Magazine of Unbelievable Stories) and Jane from Washington state bought a copy that week. The reason I know is because they both emailed me to let me know that they had purchased a copy. They both rated the story.

Jane from Washington is aka Janelle Dakota and it is her story, Hear the Wind Blow, that is out and doing very well in the rankings. She is still ranked in the 10th spot for best sellers for Echelon Press on fictionwise (way to go Jane). It is depressing since my story has been out since the end of January and then I've found out that since that time I've only sold maybe four or five copies whereas Janelle sold like 11 copies the first week her story was posted on fictionwise (just goes to show - it's definitely who you know and how many people you know - she had a list of folks waiting for it to hit fictionwise so they could buy her story - and I'm happy for her but I'm also sad for me because you'd think that with my story being up for a few months longer than hers and me advertising every way I can afford right now that I would have more sales but alas, not - so I hope my second story does better but it will be tough competing with Janelle's sales - since she is averaging about 5 or more a week - I need to just get out there and hope that the promotional material I send to Printer's Row will be a kickstart and boost sales - E :)