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Post by Becca Mills on Mar 1, 2015 0:54:16 GMT -5
I think I'm giving up on trying to track permafree downloads of Nolander. The box sets have complicated the picture so thoroughly that it doesn't seem worth it to track just the stand-alone book. So, just sell-through:
Amazon: 330 Google: 84 B&N: 24 iTunes: 35 Kobo: 10
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Post by Becca Mills on Mar 31, 2015 23:36:12 GMT -5
March sell-through:
Amazon: 627 Google: 102 B&N: 34 iTunes: 14 Kobo: 15
The bump on all platforms is due to 1) much-appreciated sympathy buys during my copyright fiasco and 2) sell-through from a second boxed set. Over the last week, I've finally uploaded the revised version of Nolander, which Daniel formatted for me (it's lovely!). I'm hoping that this new version increases sell-through to Solatium. That said, the old version will remain active in two boxed sets that are still being downloaded by lots of folks. Nolander just came out in a third boxed set today. That set has mostly the new version (slightly different ending).
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Post by Daniel on Apr 1, 2015 8:38:37 GMT -5
I'm hoping that this new version increases sell-through to Solatium. Those are excellent sell-through figures! You should be proud that Solatium is doing so well. I think you have every reason to be optimistic about increasing your sell-through from Nolander, now that you have vendor-specific links at the end of the story and the Solatium excerpt. Without tracking, it will be hard to tell for sure, but I'll bet it helps.
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Post by Becca Mills on Apr 1, 2015 15:32:50 GMT -5
Thank you, Daniel! I'm delighted with the numbers in and of themselves, but as a sell-though percentage, I suspect they're weak. It's hard to know. Nolander is in a collection that's been hovering around #1000 paid in the store for the last couple months, and it's been in another collection that was in the top 100 free, oh, maybe three months had has been above 200 for a couple more. There are a huge number of copies of Nolander getting out there, so 792 sales might be way less than 1% sell-through. It's hard to know with any certainty, as I don't have numbers for those collections, and I don't know far into a boxed set most readers make it.
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Post by Daniel on Apr 1, 2015 16:01:14 GMT -5
I guess all that really matters is that your sales are holding. Regardless of what the sell-through percentage might be, Nolander is doing enough to keep Solatium visible.
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Post by Becca Mills on Apr 1, 2015 19:43:56 GMT -5
I guess all that really matters is that your sales are holding. Regardless of what the sell-through percentage might be, Nolander is doing enough to keep Solatium visible. Yes, that's a good way to look at it -- thank you. And Solatium is keeping Nolander visible, apparently -- it's definitely ranking better as a freebie than it was before Solatium came out.
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Post by Daniel on Apr 2, 2015 7:58:05 GMT -5
I guess all that really matters is that your sales are holding. Regardless of what the sell-through percentage might be, Nolander is doing enough to keep Solatium visible. Yes, that's a good way to look at it -- thank you. And Solatium is keeping Nolander visible, apparently -- it's definitely ranking better as a freebie than it was before Solatium came out. Makes sense to me. I'll bet you are getting also-bought synergy. No matter which book readers find first, the other is sitting there in the recommendations list.
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Post by Becca Mills on Apr 2, 2015 12:52:48 GMT -5
Yes, that's a good way to look at it -- thank you. And Solatium is keeping Nolander visible, apparently -- it's definitely ranking better as a freebie than it was before Solatium came out. Makes sense to me. I'll bet you are getting also-bought synergy. No matter which book readers find first, the other is sitting there in the recommendations list. Nolander actually isn't in the also-boughts for Solatium, though "Theriac" is. Maybe it's a series thing -- they assume people coming Solatium have already read the earlier book. But I did mention Nolander in Solatium's blurb.
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Post by Daniel on Apr 2, 2015 13:17:20 GMT -5
Makes sense to me. I'll bet you are getting also-bought synergy. No matter which book readers find first, the other is sitting there in the recommendations list. Nolander actually isn't in the also-boughts for Solatium, though "Theriac" is. Maybe it's a series thing -- they assume people coming Solatium have already read the earlier book. But I did mention Nolander in Solatium's blurb. Well, I would have lost that bet! It doesn't make sense to me that Nolander isn't in the also-boughts, unless there's a lingering problem related to the DMCA debacle. It's telling that Solatium is the first also-bought for Nolander. All three of my books have each other as the first two items in the also-bought list, so I don't think it's a series thing.
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Post by Becca Mills on Apr 2, 2015 13:30:46 GMT -5
Nolander actually isn't in the also-boughts for Solatium, though "Theriac" is. Maybe it's a series thing -- they assume people coming Solatium have already read the earlier book. But I did mention Nolander in Solatium's blurb. Well, I would have lost that bet! It doesn't make sense to me that Nolander isn't in the also-boughts, unless there's a lingering problem related to the DMCA debacle. It's telling that Solatium is the first also-bought for Nolander. All three of my books have each other as the first two items in the also-bought list, so I don't think it's a series thing. Huh, that is weird. I don't think Nolander has ever been in the also-boughts for Solatium. But maybe I'm wrong, and it's a DMCA-fiasco thing. Dunno. Another possibility is that the various boxed sets Nolander is in are dwarfing the stand-alone book as a source of readers for Solatium, so the other boxed-set authors' books have taken all the spaces in the also-boughts.
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Post by Becca Mills on May 4, 2015 14:51:08 GMT -5
April sell-through:
Amazon: 527 Google: 92 iTunes: 40 B&N: 37 Kobo: 9 Smashwords: 0 DriveThru: 0
I'm happy to see that April's Amazon numbers are closer to March's than to February's. That suggests the bump I got during the DMCA thing has had some staying power.
The nicest development this month isn't reflected all that noticeably in Solatium sales: downloads of Nolander on iTunes have gotten going. There were 166 free downloads of the novel on iTunes in April vs. 35 in March, 10 in February, 11 in January, 9 in December, and 7 in November. So, while it's taken a very long time to get some traction on iTunes, it does seem finally to be happening. "Very long time" = two and a half years, with the last year and a half including a permafree.
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Post by Colleen on May 5, 2015 10:58:43 GMT -5
Becca, glad to hear that your perma free on iTunes is getting traction after two and a half years! I put up a perma free there in January and just get a handful of downloads, so you have given me hope! Thanks for posting your perma free updates, very helpful!
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Post by Becca Mills on May 5, 2015 11:54:04 GMT -5
You're welcome, Colleen! I'm so glad you find it helpful. ETA: Going wide can definitely be tough. Even well into that approach, 75% of my sales are still on Amazon. That said, some people seem to have much quicker luck. Some do very well on Kobo, for instance, for reasons no one seems quite able to pin down.
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Post by Becca Mills on May 5, 2015 13:08:11 GMT -5
Just to add a note on sell-through: I know selling 705 in a month sounds good, and I'm delighted. But to put it in perspective, Nolander was distributed in a boxed set that got about 46,000 downloads in April. It was also in another boxed set that got maybe 30,000 downloads (I'm guessing, based on rank). And also in a third that got ... I have no idea about that one, actually. Thousands of sales, but probably not as high as 10,000. And it got approaching 2,000 downloads as a stand-alone novel.
It's impossible to determine exactly what the sell-through percentage is, since I don't really know how many boxed sets were downloaded or how many boxed-set downloaders had already read Nolander in a different boxed set or on its own. But whatever the details, I think it's safe to say the sell-through rate is very, very low. It's taking a heck of a lot of distribution to generate the level sales I'm getting.
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Post by Colleen on May 5, 2015 19:05:42 GMT -5
I've wondered about boxed sets, and wouldn't mind getting in on a mystery/thriller specific one. I haven't seen many multiple author sets in the mystery/thriller genre, though. They seem to be much more popular in romance and fantasy genres. Not sure why, maybe because that's where the most avid readers are? I get what you're saying about the sell through. It's hard to tell where/how you get it. We need data
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Post by Becca Mills on May 5, 2015 20:36:30 GMT -5
I've wondered about boxed sets, and wouldn't mind getting in on a mystery/thriller specific one. I haven't seen many multiple author sets in the mystery/thriller genre, though. They seem to be much more popular in romance and fantasy genres. Not sure why, maybe because that's where the most avid readers are? I get what you're saying about the sell through. It's hard to tell where/how you get it. We need data Boy do we ever. Frustratingly, Amazon could give us hoards of data. I'm sure it'd be a big job to set up a system for sharing that data, but once they set it up, I imagine it'd be automated. If it helped increase book sales, it'd quickly pay for itself. Or they could charge authors a small fee to subscribe to their own data. Multi-author boxed-set ebooks seem to be new thing. I wouldn't be surprised if Phoenix Sullivan (in romance) and the Magic After Dark authors (in fantasy) pretty much invented the idea. I bet it will catch on in other genres.
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Post by Miss Terri Novelle on May 6, 2015 10:42:24 GMT -5
Just to add a note on sell-through: I know selling 705 in a month sounds good, and I'm delighted. But to put it in perspective, Nolander was distributed in a boxed set that got about 46,000 downloads in April. It was also in another boxed set that got maybe 30,000 downloads (I'm guessing, based on rank). And also in a third that got ... I have no idea about that one, actually. Thousands of sales, but probably not as high as 10,000. And it got approaching 2,000 downloads as a stand-alone novel. It's impossible to determine exactly what the sell-through percentage is, since I don't really know how many boxed sets were downloaded or how many boxed-set downloaders had already read Nolander in a different boxed set or on its own. But whatever the details, I think it's safe to say the sell-through rate is very, very low. It's taking a heck of a lot of distribution to generate the level sales I'm getting.
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Post by Miss Terri Novelle on May 6, 2015 10:54:19 GMT -5
Just to add a note on sell-through: I know selling 705 in a month sounds good, and I'm delighted. But to put it in perspective, Nolander was distributed in a boxed set that got about 46,000 downloads in April. It was also in another boxed set that got maybe 30,000 downloads (I'm guessing, based on rank). And also in a third that got ... I have no idea about that one, actually. Thousands of sales, but probably not as high as 10,000. And it got approaching 2,000 downloads as a stand-alone novel. It's impossible to determine exactly what the sell-through percentage is, since I don't really know how many boxed sets were downloaded or how many boxed-set downloaders had already read Nolander in a different boxed set or on its own. But whatever the details, I think it's safe to say the sell-through rate is very, very low. It's taking a heck of a lot of distribution to generate the level sales I'm getting. In my limited box set experience, none of the authors reported much more then a modest sales bump for subsequent books even with the box set being promoted and having given away 12-15k books. Just as a guess, I'd say the box set being permafree is a factor. Another would be that our set was only targeted toward sweet reads rather than a specific topic/genre and the books vary a lot in type. If they had all been suspense or regency, I think the set would have done better. My books is next to last in the lineup so I'd expect it to get fewer reads than the earlier ones. It's been a learning experience and one I'm glad for but in terms of sales...meh.
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Post by Becca Mills on May 6, 2015 12:35:43 GMT -5
Just to add a note on sell-through: I know selling 705 in a month sounds good, and I'm delighted. But to put it in perspective, Nolander was distributed in a boxed set that got about 46,000 downloads in April. It was also in another boxed set that got maybe 30,000 downloads (I'm guessing, based on rank). And also in a third that got ... I have no idea about that one, actually. Thousands of sales, but probably not as high as 10,000. And it got approaching 2,000 downloads as a stand-alone novel. It's impossible to determine exactly what the sell-through percentage is, since I don't really know how many boxed sets were downloaded or how many boxed-set downloaders had already read Nolander in a different boxed set or on its own. But whatever the details, I think it's safe to say the sell-through rate is very, very low. It's taking a heck of a lot of distribution to generate the level sales I'm getting. In my limited box set experience, none of the authors reported much more then a modest sales bump for subsequent books even with the box set being promoted and having given away 12-15k books. Just as a guess, I'd say the box set being permafree is a factor. Another would be that our set was only targeted toward sweet reads rather than a specific topic/genre and the books vary a lot in type. If they had all been suspense or regency, I think the set would have done better. My books is next to last in the lineup so I'd expect it to get fewer reads than the earlier ones. It's been a learning experience and one I'm glad for but in terms of sales...meh. That's interesting feedback, Laura. Thank you for sharing that experience. You know, I have a feeling placement within the boxed set is key. Christine Pope has the first book is first in one of the boxed sets I'm in, and she's reported extraordinary sell-through. I wonder if readers tend to open the boxed set, read that first book, and then close the boxed set and dive into Christine's series, then Christine's backlist, etc. Some remember to come back to the boxed set; some don't. On the upside, some might come back to it a year from now. The more devices your book is on, the better, IMO.
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Post by Miss Terri Novelle on May 6, 2015 13:00:28 GMT -5
I'd do it again without question. Maybe with a bit more savvy, though. A cohesive theme will be a must for any other set I put a book in and the more specific the better.
We got some complaints in the reviews about the books being first in series and the first book ended with a HFN that was just a bit too cliffhangery to suit a few readers who then thought the rest of the book would be the same. Also, there were only a couple full length books, the rest were novellas which also seemed to piss off some reviewers.
I think you may be right that if readers like the first book, they may go off to devour the rest of the backlist. I would probably do that.
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