This week's sales have been 0 again, but I am running "The Proposal" free again (yesterday and today). When I checked my report at 10 minutes until 2 this morning, the past 6-weeks' report hadn't gone up but I had 410 downloads in the US (several in the UK, DE and FR) of "The Proposal". Having checked it about an hour or so before that, I had 370 something downloads. So my question is why when I look at amazon's rankings and standing in the free downloads section did it show me ranked at 585 with the 370 something downloads and 16th in the free kindle downloads, humor and dropping me to 598 ranking, still at the 16th spot in the same category when I gained almost 40 downloads. With more downloads, the ranking should be moving toward the top 100 (from 585 to 400 or 300 or whatever) not back up in numbers (higher ranked which is not what an author wants to see).
UPDATE AT 9:30 AM: Total downloads for Saturday were 424 in the US, 46 in the UK, 5 in DE (that is Germany, not Denmark as I had originally thought) and 1 in FR (I hadn't had any downloads in France for my other stories). Still no sales of any of my other stories but when I checked the amazon page for "The Proposal" my three other stories ("The Tulip Kiss", "Bride-and-Seek", and Finally Home) were listed as what customers also bought with "The Proposal", albeit there were no other books listed in that. My ranking went from 598 to 461 and #11 in the kindle store/ebook/humor department. Almost in the top 10. So far this morning, I showed 22 downloads in the US and a few in the UK, DE and possibly 1 in FR (I'll have to go back to check it out later since this report is reflective of the week ending March 31).
Please don't forget that if you have read any of my stories, whether when offered for free or you have purchased them and have completed reading them, reviews are very welcome. Please post them on Amazon, Goodreads, librarything, your blog, wherever you post your reviews and let me know when the review is up so that I can try to drive traffic to your website or blog. I appreciate it very much.
I don't hold any hope of making any sales after the free offering nor do I hold my breath that any of my other stories will show any sales in the days to follow, but one of these days I'll be a known author.
In other news, I have completed another afghan (posting to follow on Monday regarding my new campaign for the afghans) but have misplaced my camera so can't post pictures on the blogs or websites. It is frustrating because the last time I saw the camera was at the SCASL conference.
I'm still looking for some new ideas to post about and am glad to see I've had a couple more folks comment on at least one posting (this past Thursday's had 3 people comment), which means Susanne is not alone and there are two more folks reading my blog sometimes. Now to work on getting more readers or followers who will leave comments. I'm not up to any challenges as suggested by several folks, so maybe I need to give away something.
How about some bookworms. Your choice (all bookworms can be found on my website under the gifts tab and I think I'm up to 8 different colors including the Christmas one. So if you have not already received a bookworm, the first 8 people that comment here will get a bookworm, their choice of color. So leave your comment, suggest a topic to post about, or just leave words of encouragement and don't forget to leave a way to contact you so that I can get your mailing address (email address can be left in the comment in the following format: eeldering (at) gmail (dot) com) to send you your bookworm. See you all in the postings - E :)
3 comments:
It’s a real mystery to me, why your rankings haven’t improved. I think Amazon is a prime portal for up and coming authors like you. Have you considered trying to sell your books, instead of allowing people to download them for free? If so many folks are eager and willing to download them for free, I think people would be willing to purchase them, don’t you? I wish you the best of luck! And many thanks for stopping by my blog. I do value your comments!
Diplo Daddy in Kuwait
Hi Elysabeth! Don't give up on getting more comments or book sales. It takes time.
Susanne
PUTTING WORDS DOWN ON PAPER
Diplo, I do have my stories for sale - the three stories are only 99 cents on kindle. I've enrolled in their select program which allows me to put my books up for free for five days during a 90-day period of being in the program. The setback is that I can only sell my ebooks for Kindle through Amazon; they can't be offered for sale anywhere else. As soon as my 90 days are up, the stories will go back on Nook and smashwords (which will get the stories on several different ereader formats - Sony, Kobo, for the computer, et cetera). I had two of the stories on Nook and Smashwords before taking them down and putting them in the program. Even still, my only sales previously had been when I offered a coupon to get the story for free and I think I've had a couple of other actual purchases from those places but nothing to write home about and nothing to sneeze about - and definitely not enough to earn a royalty that has actually been paid out.
I know the stories are good or they wouldn't have been selected as a first place story ("The Tulip Kiss") or a second place story ("The Proposal") in the contests they had been entered in. I'm still trying to make a name for myself and hopefully I'll have a turn around when I get my novel published next year. I really would like to see sales that will start causing a change of flow of funds - lol. At this point, I'm still supporting my habit with my full time job instead of my writing support me and allow me to travel around the United States like I would like to do. I keep on hoping and just put some more short stories out and hope I see a change one day.
Susanne, I know. I just don't see how some folks who have subpar writing are doing so well with their ebooks and those of us who offer quality writing are doing so poorly; it's a big mystery to me.
Joe Konrath is a prime example. He posted on his blog in January that in a 3-week period of time (the week after Christmas and the first two weeks of January) he had actually earned (and this wasn't his direct sales but his actual royalties) $100,000. I've read a couple of samples of his books and felt they were passive and not very worthy of me spending whatever he is offering them for - $2.99 to $7.99 (I don't know what his ebooks really sell for but this seems to be the normal trend to offer novels in that range). I'm offering quality short stories at 99 cents each and am making very little; like I said my royalties everywhere haven't even been enough to pay me out yet.
As far as the comments go, to me comments mean someone is reading your blog and I feel that no one is. Case in point, I can offer all the freebies I want just for following my blog or reading and commenting and the only person who comments most of the time is you. I'm still offering free ebooks to everyone when I reach 150 followers and that has been ongoing since January and I've gained like 3 followers since posting that.
This blog posting - free bookworms for the first 8 comments and I've got two - you and Diplo_Daddy and I might pick up 1 or 2 more during the week.
It's discouraging but I'm not going to give up. Thanks for the encouraging words and for being such a wonderful follower. See ya'll in the postings - E :)
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