Anecdata -
Looking at the unpersonalized SF&F landing page on Amazon, there are two items that appeal. The Discworld series (traditionally published), and the 99c Ian Hocking, not because it's dirt cheap (there are two other items with practically the same price), but because I knows it's recommended by another author, who I know through traditionally published books, and it's DRM-free.
There's another genre website that sells easy-reading at about double your price - but with the minimum quality guarantee that comes from also publishing in print. You can find a range of authors on the same site (including generous samples). And on sites that debate the state of ebooks, they're mentioned relatively frequently (as example for others to follow). You know who they
are; can an independent website compete?
Smashwords is impressive, but it's not paying any salary yet. (On ~30K self-published books, taking 10% of retail).
It's said that the way to make the most money on Amazon, is to raise your price when you reach a high ranking, then lower it again before you slip too far down. But it raises the question: how do you get there in the first place. It looks like there's some sort of special treatment for the top 100... there are >2000 SF&F books on Smashwords; so you need to beat odds on the order of 1 in 10?
(Btw, there's something screwy about the "£5 and under" feature on amazon.co.uk; it only shows 67 results for SF&F, and none of them are Steven's).
... ok, sorry. I tried not to make this a rant, but the facebook stuff below is getting long. <rant warning over, proceed at own risk>
I'm not scared by pro-biometric-DRM or anti-piracy missives, but I am kinda put off by a certain blog post. If Amazon or Kobo want to analyze reading habits, they can do it now (I was under the impression that Kobo _does_). News about the adoption of IPV6 has no bearing on it either way. It came over as junk writing -- I guess I'm not the target audience, but it seems odd for someone selling techno-thrillers and science fiction.
Maybe this is unfair or meaningless, but I'm not sure you've got the killer instinct. If you ignore morale, was the temporary shutdown a good idea? There's a popular site (GOG) that did that as some sort of publicity stunt, but if you didn't think you had nearly enough loyal customers in the first place... The domain change seems odd as well; you lose the benefit of older links (browser bookmarks, search engine ranking, etc)... I'd have ranked that as more important than boosting a new project with other authors, at the point where you're 'still in talks'. People can see RightBrane=StevenJordan; you're not really building a brand name when there's nothing else there yet.
The last time I posted, I suggested creating a page on Facebook. I confessed my ignorance, but suggested the benefit that people who use Facebook, and who subscribed to that page, would help spread the word. Because when a Facebook user does something like that, it'll often be seen by the people listed as their 'friend' on Facebook.
I should also have said -- I don't remember if I did -- that it would be a good place to post news about new books (or at that time, perhaps let people know when you'd re-released the books -- although being careful not to flood it with too frequent messages). If I was writing now, I would point out now that this gives you an RSS feed, and if you make the page public (duh), that allows RSS users to subscribe e.g. with Google Reader, _even if they don't have a facebook account. Finally, if you get enough users on a Page, you get statistics about location, pageviews, and maybe some other stuff, which would at least be interesting to play with.
I did explicitly mention the 'like' button, which can be posted on websites effectively as a link to a facebook Page or Group, as opposed to a _user_. I thought that made the point -- maybe you just didn't think it's worth working out how to do -- but...
I'm not logged into facebook. I've just followed the facebook link on your website. I can see you -- and a link back to your website. But it's a facebook user, not a facebook page or group. I can't see any news items at all. Maybe there's some on your Wall, but I can't see that, because I'm not your 'friend'. If I did send you a friend request, I'd have to wait for you to approve it first. I'd also have to consider whether _I_ wanted to grant _you_ whatever privileges becoming a facebook friend entails. (And whether I was being unduly familiar and looking for something that wasn't there, with the Wall being reserved for communication with real friends and family). And if you _did_ approve the request, and my facebook friends looked at this delayed piece of news, they'd see a new 'friend' -- it wouldn't be as obvious that I was subscribing to a commercial project, which sells books they might be interested in.
</rant> Not saying that that (or any other) one odd decision was a mistake that doomed you to permanent obscurity. It just suggests you might be continuing to miss some good opportunities. If you're trying to break into publishing success, I'd maintain that it's never going to be easy, and you need to look at every advantage you can get.