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Post by Becca Mills on May 6, 2015 14:33:06 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. Me too. Yeah, we've gotten a lot of bad reviews about the books being first in series. Some people seem to take a glass-half-full view (Cool, a free way to find new authors!) and some people are the opposite (I'm being manipulated into paying for books!). I think it's inevitable.
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Post by Colleen on May 6, 2015 15:29:16 GMT -5
Yes, I agree genre specific is key, with a max number of titles. I think 4-6 books is nice and gives better visibility to the books later in the collection. Too many in one bundle and we lose the discoverability and devalue our books at the same time. At some point I might join or initiate a mystery/thriller bundle. I'll add it to my "to do" list!
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Post by Becca Mills on May 6, 2015 15:41:47 GMT -5
Yes, I agree genre specific is key, with a max number of titles. I think 4-6 books is nice and gives better visibility to the books later in the collection. Too many in one bundle and we lose the discoverability and devalue our books at the same time. At some point I might join or initiate a mystery/thriller bundle. I'll add it to my "to do" list! You should, Colleen! The first one Nolander got into resulted from someone on Kboards starting a thread saying, basically, "Hey, want to be in a boxed set?" It's a lot of work, but the pay-off is good. Maybe smaller boxed sets would be better. I've only been in very large ones. The advantage of the large ones seem to be that they're particularly tempting to readers. I guess they look like an extra good deal. The perception isn't entirely accurate, since all the books are generally already free as stand-alones, but the appearance fo good-deal-ness seems to be powerful anyway.
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Post by Colleen on May 6, 2015 16:09:51 GMT -5
I saw some of those threads on Kboards but figured I'd end up in the back of a 60 novel boxed set or something. I haven't seen any mystery thriller ones, but I'll keep watching. Glad to hear it worked for you with Nolander
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Post by Becca Mills on May 6, 2015 18:37:26 GMT -5
Thanks! I think it's working out. The jury's still out on the long-term effects.
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Post by Daniel on May 6, 2015 20:13:34 GMT -5
Yeah, we've gotten a lot of bad reviews about the books being first in series. Some people seem to take a glass-half-full view (Cool, a free way to find new authors!) and some people are the opposite (I'm being manipulated into paying for books!). I think it's inevitable. First in series shouldn't be a problem, unless the books end in a cliffhanger. A "no cliffhangers" rule might be good to consider for anyone creating a collection. As a reader, I'd actually prefer for the books to be the first of a series. I'm one of those readers who uses samplers to find new authors, and it's cool to find an author who has other works for me to enjoy. That said, it's well documented that I don't care for cliffhangers under any circumstances.
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Post by Becca Mills on May 6, 2015 22:48:03 GMT -5
Yeah, we've gotten a lot of bad reviews about the books being first in series. Some people seem to take a glass-half-full view (Cool, a free way to find new authors!) and some people are the opposite (I'm being manipulated into paying for books!). I think it's inevitable. First in series shouldn't be a problem, unless the books end in a cliffhanger. A "no cliffhangers" rule might be good to consider for anyone creating a collection. As a reader, I'd actually prefer for the books to be the first of a series. I'm one of those readers who uses samplers to find new authors, and it's cool to find an author who has other works for me to enjoy. That said, it's well documented that I don't care for cliffhangers under any circumstances. OMG! In response, I really must tell you that
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Post by ameliasmith on May 7, 2015 5:58:39 GMT -5
Someone was talking about putting together a fantasy boxed set on KBoards a while ago. I got a vibe of disorganization at one point so I decided not to pursue it. It did kind of get me thinking about how it might be interesting to put a boxed set together with other people who write in the same corner of the fantasy genre I hang out in -- mostly female protagonists, and with social systems that are non-standard in some important way (not like ours, and not Tolkien knock-offs, either). My first thought was to seek out others who had different sexual cultures, but I think that might be too limiting.
(pardon OT ramble, it's early here).
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Post by Colleen on May 7, 2015 12:57:24 GMT -5
Someone was talking about putting together a fantasy boxed set on KBoards a while ago. I got a vibe of disorganization at one point so I decided not to pursue it. It did kind of get me thinking about how it might be interesting to put a boxed set together with other people who write in the same corner of the fantasy genre I hang out in -- mostly female protagonists, and with social systems that are non-standard in some important way (not like ours, and not Tolkien knock-offs, either). My first thought was to seek out others who had different sexual cultures, but I think that might be too limiting. (pardon OT ramble, it's early here). I think that's the best way to do it: targeted to the same reader.
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Post by Becca Mills on May 16, 2015 22:26:49 GMT -5
The folks managing the first boxed set Nolander is in have just posted some numbers. I'm adding them here for reference: Amazon: 239,866 iTunes: 8,490 Kobo: 3,782 This is since October of last year. They say the Google numbers are also very high. Sort of stupefying, eh? So, yeah ... I've got me some loooooow sell-through.
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Post by Daniel on May 17, 2015 8:27:18 GMT -5
Almost a quarter million books on Amazon? Yikes!
The sell-through on the set might be spread over a long period of time. I haven't picked up many boxed sets, but I've discovered that I don't necessarily read them right away and I don't read all of the contained books together. I tend to jump around between genres, rather than read a whole bunch of the same kind of novel in sequence. So, with a boxed set, I'll read one book and then move on to some other story or two. Then I come back to the set when I'm ready for more Contemporary Fantasy (or whatever it is). I've also given up on boxed sets if the first two or three stories don't appeal to me, which is silly, since the stories are by completely different authors and the last one might be the one I like the best. At some point I get tired of slogging through the ones I don't like, hoping for one that appeals.
So, there you have one reader's anecdotal experience of boxed sets. With a reader like me, the chances of your book being read in the first few weeks (or even months) after download are low unless you are one of the first two or three titles in the set. And if I don't like the first couple of stories, I may never get to yours at all.
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Post by Becca Mills on May 17, 2015 22:14:33 GMT -5
I hope you're right, Daniel. If so, these boxed sets could be the gift that keeps on giving. That'd be awesome!
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Post by Becca Mills on Jun 1, 2015 0:42:40 GMT -5
May sell-through:
Amazons: 582 (up) Google: 75 (down) iTunes: 31 (down) B&N: 34 (down) Kobo: 13 (up) Smashwords: 0 (same) DriveThru: 0 (same)
Edited: corrected Google numbers
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Post by Becca Mills on Jul 3, 2015 11:45:54 GMT -5
June sell-through:
Amazons: 520 (down) Google: 71 (down) iTunes: 41 (up) B&N: 30 (down) Kobo: 9 (down) Scribd: 0 PageFoundry: 0 Smashwords: 0 (same) DriveThru: 0 (same) Remarkably consistent, these last two!
Getting into the Smashwords reporting page, I noticed that Solatium has also had 11 sales on Scribd over the course of the year, which I hadn't noticed before. I added Scribd and PageFoundry to the list so I remember to check them next month.
One of the things that interests me is growth of the non-Amazon sales platforms. June, the other platforms accounted for 22.5% of sales. In May, 20.8%. In April, 25.2%. In March, 20.8%. In February, 31.7%. So, it's bouncing around a bit, but there's no consistent growth.
As a straight number, non-Amazon sales seemed to have peaked and are now trending down: Feb: 153 Mar: 165 Apr: 178 May: 153 Jun: 151
ETA: Looks like the paid boxed set Nolander was in has been taken down on all platforms (I'm completely out of the communication loop on that one, so I have no idea what's going on with it). That will have a notable impact on sell-through.
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Post by Becca Mills on Jul 3, 2015 23:43:06 GMT -5
Meant to add something! I noticed that Scribd sends percentages-read to the Smashwords sales report. I only have 11 Scribd sales of Solatium, so this isn't exactly a representative sample, but the percentages on those 11 books are ... 78 31 14 91 82 62 76 53 83 81 83 ... for an average of 62%. Only one gets close to 100% -- and it's not all that close! Sort of disturbing, eh? Now, Solatium has some non-story material in it, in the form of a glossary of people, places, and terms. But by word count, the meat of the novel still takes up 97.7% of the words in the book. Everything else -- front matter, glossary, about the author, TOC, etc. -- accounts for just 3,155 words out of 137,267. My guess is that none of the above 11 readers read the entire story. I figure the people in the 81-91% range probably reached the end but skipped some sizable chunks here and there. How frustrating to know that Scribd (and the other retailers) probably knows exactly where readers stopped reading or skipped chunks, and yet not be able to access that data.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 4, 2015 13:01:46 GMT -5
Hmm that kind of corresponds to the data Monique shared from Kobo regarding her read through rates a while back. I think after a month of KU 2 some people are going to be really surprised with their total page numbers... :/ Thanks for sharing
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Post by Becca Mills on Jul 4, 2015 15:30:40 GMT -5
Hmm that kind of corresponds to the data Monique shared from Kobo regarding her read through rates a while back. I think after a month of KU 2 some people are going to be really surprised with their total page numbers... :/ Thanks for sharing Yeah, it is sort of discouraging, especially considering that these are, I assume, folks who made it through Book 1 of the series! I guess I want to live in Lake Woebegone, where all the children are above average.
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Post by ameliasmith on Jul 5, 2015 14:46:59 GMT -5
This is interesting. I'm planning to try permafree through September and then re-assess. Part of the drop in numbers may be just summer slump, too.
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Post by Becca Mills on Jul 5, 2015 19:21:59 GMT -5
This is interesting. I'm planning to try permafree through September and then re-assess. Part of the drop in numbers may be just summer slump, too. True, true. Well, maybe the rash of shark attacks on the east coast will keep Americans inside reading this summer. Let us know how the permafree goes for you, Amelia! I started it long enough ago, now, that my experience might not be all that typical anymore.
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Post by Becca Mills on Aug 3, 2015 17:42:24 GMT -5
July numbers:
Amazons: 426 (down) Google: 61 (down) iTunes: 47 (up) B&N: 33 (up) Kobo: 5 (down) Scribd: 0 PageFoundry/Inktera: 0 Smashwords: 0 DriveThru: 0
One of the boxed sets Nolander's in was unpublished this month. That's had a notable impact on the Amazon numbers.
ETA percentages (rounded):
Amazons: 74% Google: 11% iTunes: 8% B&N: 6% Kobo: 1%
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