Did Read an E-Book week hurt sales?

[Freeshadow]

Originally Posted by neilmarr

because it's not too difficult to judge reader taste from a short email and the choices s/he originally makes.

Modest as usual.
both Neil and Tony are great at this kind of guessing.

[Anke Wehner]

Originally Posted by neilmarr

***I am starting to think that the formula is to have a book series or catalog of titles, and to periodically give away a book from that set in order to promote the other books.***

Smart thinking, B, and it can be used on a permanent basis and constant promo.

See Baen Free Library, where you can pick up first volumes of a lot of series.

Originally Posted by neilmarr

And something else that surprised me was that some of our ebooks with the lowest sales so far were up among the most popular requested give-aways. How do you explain that?

Borderline interest? I mean, people who previously came across the book thinking, "This book sounds interesting, but not interesting enough for me to pay the asking price," and taking the chance to check it out for free.

Were those mostly books from authors without other titles already available, or if from an author with a backlist not part of an established series or in a different genre than their other works?

[neilmarr]

Not necessarily, Anke. But they did tend to be some of our older titles from three or four years ago. Our contracts usually run for three or five years, but we try to keep the calaogue relatively small and manageable for the browser, so not all contracts are extended and full rights are returned.

Highest requests were for sparkling new releases, but several very popular give-aways were for the generally low-sale group.

My own theory is that these books -- where there was never any author support for us in their promotion (it's not a contractual obligation here for an author to join in the promo effort -- but, gosh does it help!) were simply overlooked until that fifty-fold increase in browsing our site exposed their potential value to folks who'd never heard of them before.

Dunno. Assessing anything other than the editorial quality of work and an author's literary value, is quite beyond me as a humble editor. I'm no statistical analyst. But it's food for lots of thought.

And that result should tell ALL authors (whether with a publisher, big or small, or self-publishing) that promotion is everything in acheving recognition and sales.

Can't remember who it was off hand. But someone recently said during the general debate on piracy and DRM imposition: "Piracy is not the threat to authors ... OBSCURITY is."

How right he was.

Even the Big Five with their massive promotional budgets and marketing resources tend to give little exposure to mid-listers and to few first-timers.

Contractual or not, the fact is that the author himself is more often than not responsible for his or her success (ask Amanada Hocking).

For the brand-name writers, promotional input is contractually demanded. And it is so time-consuming and draining that there's little writing space or creative energy left.

The author's job doesn't end when s/he types the words 'The End' at the bottom of an ms ... that's when it starts.

Good luck and best wishes. Neil

[Yolina]

Neil, because you started the promo early on Mobile Read, there must have been quite a few people like me, who read the freebies you kindly sent pretty much straightaway and decided to go and do a spot of extra shopping there and then. What I got from you was really well written and no doubt well edited - quality books mean repeat customers I've also stocked up on Smashwords during that week, but I have to say the quality so far has been somewhat hit and miss.

[neilmarr]

Thanks, Yolina. Yup, we're very selective in what manuscripts we work with (about 1% of submissions), and books are always in professional edit for several months, often a year or more, as manuscripts are updated and exchanged between editor and author, etc ... even before they go into formal proof-reading by at least four individual sets of eyes fresh to the work. No push-button publishing on demand here. Hope it shows. Cheers. Neil

[Anke Wehner]

Originally Posted by neilmarr

these books -- where there was never any author support for us in their promotion (it's not a contractual obligation here for an author to join in the promo effort -- but, gosh does it help!)

Yeah, that should be common sense.

[neilmarr]

You'd be surprised how many don't cotton on, Anke. In spite of the fact that about 90% of our sales are in ebook editions, relatively few of our authors have even bothered to buy a reader and get the hang of it. They're treebook-huggers ... a snobishness they MUST get over if they want to avoid total obscurity. Neil