It’s already been a busy morning. PT for Mom, a grocery run, editing A Call to Honor. All that and more and it is only 10:30. But all that left me pondering and me pondering is not always a good idea. 😉
The grocery run was interesting. This was the first trip to the local Albertson’s since the mask mandate was listed and the corporation owning the store decided not to require masks to enter. I’ll admit, I wasn’t sure the store had adopted the policy or not, so I shoved a mask in my purse just in case.
And there it stayed.
First observation, there was no signage about masks at all. Not even to say masks were recommended but not required, something a number of businesses down here have been doing. Inside, all but one of the employees I saw were masked. I have a feeling they are receiving bonuses to wear their masks. As for the customers, probably 95% were masked. I have a feeling they were like me and didn’t know store policy so simply masked up before entering and then didn’t take the mask off once inside.
Second observation. No one, absolutely no one, tried to mask shame or gave dirty looks if you weren’t wearing a mask. Everyone was polite and keeping “distance” but that was it. I’ll admit that it was a very nice change of pace.
Next up, A Call to Honor. I’m having fun with this story. It’s nice to play in the Honor & Duty universe from another point of view. What I’m finding, however, is that Ashlyn Shaw is still very much in play even thought she doesn’t show up until the very last scene. I also realized this morning that the middle of the story–the part that has been hanging me up–needed to be rewritten. So I’ve been working on it.
However, I’ve gone old school, sort of, with the rewrite of that particular section. Since I was out and about, I took my ReMarkable tablet with me and worked on the two particular scenes longhand. I’ll finish them up shortly and let them sit until tomorrow when I’ll type the up and insert them into the story. Then it will a read-through for flow and consistency before sending it off to my beta readers.
Over the course of the next few weeks, I’ll be redesigning my website, both of them actually. It’s necessary with the wide release of my titles over the next six months or so. Because of that, I’m trying to figure out the best way to handle the multiple listings, etc.
What else?
I’ll be putting not only Fire Storm but also Victory from Ashes (Honor & Duty) and Danger Foretold (Eerie Side of the Tracks) up for pre-order in the next week or so. As someone said in one of the FB groups I follow, pre-orders keep my butt in the chair and working. I’ll announce when they go live. Also, just a reminder, they will be exclusive on Amazon for 3 months before going wide, at least the latter two will be. Fire Storm may go wide from the beginning.
And now, it’s back to work. Later!
I’m interested in your going wide experiences. I did have one question after your previous post. If you don;t mind answering.
What % (ball park) of your income from Amazon is book sales and what % is KU reading?
Trying not to be too sticky beaky so just rough percentages would be interesting so I can compare them to mine while I debate going wide as well.
Peter
It really depends. For the first two months after a new release, income either swings to sales–first month is usually about 75% or so sales because the new book sells and will usually push sales of sequels. Going forward until the next new book–and it has to be a novel and no short story–sales will drop to 50% or so and I’ll pick up page reads. Disclaimer: it also depends on the genre and series. Some have better sell-through numbers fairly consistently than others where I earn more from borrows/KU than I do for sales.
Thank you for that information. I find the whole subject interesting. I read a lot before publishing my first book (February 2020) and a lot of the stuff by other authors said that KU was only worthwhile for new authors to get them a broader market but that it was better to go wide later on.
My own experience so far is the exact opposite what they said which is why I was interested in your numbers. This month is my biggest sales month yet. I released the 6th book in my first series and it sales reached have reached a new high for me being over 20% more than book 5 (March) which was in turn about 20% than book 4 (Nov/Dec) and 4 was about 20% more than 3 (Sept/Oct) – I have deliberately changed my release pints tot be the start of a month for the last 2 and future books to make comparisons easier.
My KU has always been a high % – The lowest month was march last yea (total sales 31 books woohoo) where sales were 60% of my total but as the sales grew do did the KU% – In July (the first month I made enough to actually live on the sales, just) the sales percentage had dropped to 45% (on 400+ sales) and the maximum month (so far) was January where my sales were 1000+ in books but they accounted for just 33% of the earnings with KU hitting 66% –
This month (so far) where I have hit 2000+ unit sales for the first time they are still only 40% of income with KU at 60% which is at odds with your experience and all the other things I have read. I ma intrigued by this but also puzzled and a little concerned as I am wondering if it is a function of the genre readership (Alternate History) and my next series which is more Sci-Fi adventure and Romance Sci-Fi will have results more in line with your numbers ….
Sorry for rambling – I am just puzzled and somewhat concerned about the next series (July release) but also trying to understand why I’,m getting different results to you and many other people.whose advice I have otherwise been following.
If you don’t mind discussing it further perhaps we can talk on messenger – I’m following your author page on facebook.
Peter
There are a lot of factors that play into it, as you know. How much promotion you do–something I suck at but am working on–when you release a book, what genre and subgenre, etc. Covers also have a lot to do with it.
That said, the more investigation I do into the different platforms now–and aggregators–the more I’m seeing many of the “benefits” of KDP Select/KU are being offered by those other platforms. And, yes, some of those platforms also give you the same sort of “exposure” that KU does. So I’ll see how it goes.
Now, that doesn’t mean I’m leaving KU completely. I’m going to leave some stuff in it. I’m still figuring out exactly what. Besides, if this experiment doesn’t pay off the way I anticipate, I can always jump back into KU without any real issues.