Arthur Slade's Blog, page 15
September 1, 2011
A Brobdingnagian-sized Ebook update!
Yep, I'm going all literary with this update on my ebook sales. We all know from Gulliver's Travels that Brobdingnagian means giant-sized.* And this is a giant-sized report! Well, actually it's kind of small. It's more Lilliputian. But, really, who would click on a headline that says, "Author shouts out about lilliputian book sales!"?
Anyway let's start with a chart!
Eeek! My sales have gone all Lilliputian! I was warned about the doldrums of August by other ebook publishers. Apparently sales do drop in August. Get off the beach and buy books everyone! Anyway, here are the numbers:
Feb 12
March 43
April 377
May 204
June 139
July 154
August 72
Abandon ship! That's it mateys, all hands off deck and swim for shore. Oh, wait there were some grand developments. I crossed the 1000 sales barrier. That's good. And my little experiment last month of giving away this Norse horror book for free worked:
I gave away 7545 copies. But when I switched the book back to "paid" status Amazon's magical algorithms made it shoot up the charts and it sold 33 copies in two weeks (the highest it had averaged was 18 copies in a month). So there was some small immediate benefit to giving it away (plus it now has several new positive reviews). And I hope over time those 7500 readers will look kindly on the other books in the series.
Hey and there's other good news. I released The Hunchback Assignments and The Dark Deeps in the UK.
That's one of the clever things about ebook publishing. My agent sold the rights to these books to several countries, but the UK hasn't picked it up yet. So, with the click of a button, I can invade the UK. My hope is to make a little noise over there. So far...3 copies sold! C'mon Britain, remember when we Canucks helped out with that Boer war thing? You can finally pay us back! I am doing a few experiments at the UK amazon with free books...which I'll update at a later date (see, I'm trying to make this all sooo mysterious).
Overall, I had hoped to be further ahead in the ebook world after 7 months. I think the real test of this experiment will come over the next few months which are traditionally the busiest in book sales. And, as I've said before, every copy sold is a copy I wasn't selling before. All of these books were either out of print or not for sale in selected countries, so I'm making money on them now.And someday that Brobdingnagian load of royalties will come my way, right Gulliver! Right?
Cheers,Art
*next time you go to Starbucks refuse the Grande Latte and demand a Brobdingnagian latte. That'll shock their organic socks!
Anyway let's start with a chart!
Eeek! My sales have gone all Lilliputian! I was warned about the doldrums of August by other ebook publishers. Apparently sales do drop in August. Get off the beach and buy books everyone! Anyway, here are the numbers:
Feb 12
March 43
April 377
May 204
June 139
July 154
August 72
Abandon ship! That's it mateys, all hands off deck and swim for shore. Oh, wait there were some grand developments. I crossed the 1000 sales barrier. That's good. And my little experiment last month of giving away this Norse horror book for free worked:
I gave away 7545 copies. But when I switched the book back to "paid" status Amazon's magical algorithms made it shoot up the charts and it sold 33 copies in two weeks (the highest it had averaged was 18 copies in a month). So there was some small immediate benefit to giving it away (plus it now has several new positive reviews). And I hope over time those 7500 readers will look kindly on the other books in the series.
Hey and there's other good news. I released The Hunchback Assignments and The Dark Deeps in the UK.
That's one of the clever things about ebook publishing. My agent sold the rights to these books to several countries, but the UK hasn't picked it up yet. So, with the click of a button, I can invade the UK. My hope is to make a little noise over there. So far...3 copies sold! C'mon Britain, remember when we Canucks helped out with that Boer war thing? You can finally pay us back! I am doing a few experiments at the UK amazon with free books...which I'll update at a later date (see, I'm trying to make this all sooo mysterious).
Overall, I had hoped to be further ahead in the ebook world after 7 months. I think the real test of this experiment will come over the next few months which are traditionally the busiest in book sales. And, as I've said before, every copy sold is a copy I wasn't selling before. All of these books were either out of print or not for sale in selected countries, so I'm making money on them now.And someday that Brobdingnagian load of royalties will come my way, right Gulliver! Right?
Cheers,Art
*next time you go to Starbucks refuse the Grande Latte and demand a Brobdingnagian latte. That'll shock their organic socks!
August 25, 2011
Funny Answers to Odd Writerly Questions
These are inspired by a few questions I've been asked...
Q: Arthor, I read your book DUST. Tell me the symbolism in it. I have a paper due tomorrow so I need to know now.
A: I will tell you the symbolism. But first I'd like you to cut my lawn. It needs to be cut now. I'm waiting.
Q: I have an idea for a book that you should write. It's my life story. Some really interesting things happened, so far. I can't tell them to you because you might steal the ideas. I'm too busy to write it.
A: I'm not busy at all! Would love to sacrifice a year of my life writing your book. Is 2071 too soon?
Q: Why does your book suck so much?
A: This may seem hard to believe but writing a book that sucks takes years of work. First I take anything that is remotely interesting or exciting out of the book. Then I add all the boring characters and have them sit around doing nothing. Finally, I inject suckiness into the prose using a special method taught to me by a suckiness master. It's like becoming a kung fu master, without the exercise. Glad to know my hard work has paid off.
Q: Really, I'm not joking, what is the symbolism in your book? I need to know. I got an extension.
A: My lawn still needs cutting.
Q: I have some really great ideas. How do I stop people from stealing them?
A: I don't want you to feel paranoid, but I'm reading your mind right now. Those are amazing ideas! If you want to prevent others from stealing your ideas wear a tinfoil hat.
Anyone else have questions? Post them below...
Art
August 24, 2011
Faith: the foundation of writing
You must have faith.
That's the conclusion I've come to after all these years of writing. The cornerstone of becoming a writer and continuing on in this odd field is faith. By that I don't mean religious faith, but a personal faith. You must believe in your story. Believe that, with enough work, the words will take the proper shape and become a perfect (or as perfect as possible) story. Believe that each word, each sentence, each paragraph is getting you closer to your goals. Believe that what you will create will be worth it in the end (that worth can be defined as making money or your actual happiness with your story).
This "literate" faith is what carried me through having my first six novels rejected by publishers. I certainly had my doubting moments (or even months) but after ten years of trying my first book was published. It was important to believe in what I was doing. I still need faith now--the act of beginning a novel is an act of absolute faith (perhaps even more so since I don't use outlines). The road does get rocky at times, either I can't solve a problem or a character goes off in a direction I don't expect, but I believe the answer will come. And so far it always has.
So have faith. The rest will fall into place after that.
Art
August 23, 2011
Allo UK! The Hunchback Assignments is now available
August 14, 2011
1000 eBooks sold but 0 Big Macs!
Light a cigar! Open a fizzy drink! Eat some chocolate! Have an organic carrot! My first ebook went on sale February 4th, 2011:
Since then I've added 5 more:
and we've finally sold 1000 copies (I say we because I know some of you have bought copies and I thank you sincerely--your imaginary royalty cheque is in the mail).
The sales are divided out this way:
66 B&N
20 iBooks
17 Smashwords
8 Kobo
889 Kindle
Which of course...and you knew this was coming...makes a lovely chart:
Ah, Kindle, how I love thee. Are the rumours true that you dominate the market?
And here are my sales divided by books (the price in brackets is the price most copies were sold at):
Dust = 752 (.99)
Draugr = 75 (.99)
Drang = 42 (2.99)
Loki = 39 (2.99)
Shades = 36 (.99)
Tribes = 56 (.99)
I've only made about $400.00 but I'm not too concerned about the $ at this point. It was more learning to understand how the ebook system works (err, as much as it can be understood, that is).
Art
Since then I've added 5 more:
and we've finally sold 1000 copies (I say we because I know some of you have bought copies and I thank you sincerely--your imaginary royalty cheque is in the mail).
The sales are divided out this way:
66 B&N
20 iBooks
17 Smashwords
8 Kobo
889 Kindle
Which of course...and you knew this was coming...makes a lovely chart:
Ah, Kindle, how I love thee. Are the rumours true that you dominate the market?
And here are my sales divided by books (the price in brackets is the price most copies were sold at):
Dust = 752 (.99)
Draugr = 75 (.99)
Drang = 42 (2.99)
Loki = 39 (2.99)
Shades = 36 (.99)
Tribes = 56 (.99)
I've only made about $400.00 but I'm not too concerned about the $ at this point. It was more learning to understand how the ebook system works (err, as much as it can be understood, that is).
Art
June 23, 2011
Jolted: Measuring Success using Bookscan, Amazon Rankings, and NovelRank
If you're an author you've probably checked your Amazon rankings once or twice. Or every three seconds. And, perhaps you've stared at the rankings like you're trying to read your future in pig entrails. The great thing about the "modern" era is now there are even more ways to track things. Most of the time they're just charts that you stare at and learn nothing (and perhaps a little depressing) but I was recently able to track a "success" story to do with the my novel Jolted.
On May 17th or so the novel was chosen for 2011-2012 Florida Sunshine State Young Reader’s Award master list. This was great news. But because Amazon recently allowed authors (through their Author Central program) to see their Bookscan details, I was able to track the actual sales of the book from that day forward (I'm only concentrating on the paperback):
As you can see from the map, the darker the colour, the more sales. So obviously sales of the paperback had really taken off in Florida (and in one tiny corner of Louisiana...for some reason). The chart below shows the sudden increase in sales in bookstores in the U.S.:
For those of us who are chart obsessed (and really who isn't) Amazon also provides another chart to stare at (for hours at a time sometimes). This chart shows the uptick in sales through Amazon. So obviously the sales in the "ground" stores were also being reflected at the "virtual" store that is Amazon.
The final chart that I'll inundate you with is from Novelrank which also tracks sales on Amazon. It essentially gives you the same information, but with a slightly different appearance. Novelrank also can keep track of the # of copies sold per month (though this is a guesstimate on their part).
Perhaps I should end this with a chart of my geekiness (no, I better not...that would be jumping the shark). The sales in this time period might only amount to a thousand copies (so I won't go out and buy a new car), but I do find it interesting that I now have the ability to track all of this information. I won't know the actual sales until I get my royalty statements about six months from now. How to use the information is perhaps the tougher part of this exercise. It's not like I can fly down to Florida (or Louisiana) and start pitching my book (though I am beginning to get requests for Skype visits in Florida). Right now I'm filing it under the title: Interesting to know.
Plus, Jolted has been out for nearly 4 years now. It's nice to see it suddenly get zapped back to life (sorry, I couldn't resist).
Art
On May 17th or so the novel was chosen for 2011-2012 Florida Sunshine State Young Reader’s Award master list. This was great news. But because Amazon recently allowed authors (through their Author Central program) to see their Bookscan details, I was able to track the actual sales of the book from that day forward (I'm only concentrating on the paperback):
As you can see from the map, the darker the colour, the more sales. So obviously sales of the paperback had really taken off in Florida (and in one tiny corner of Louisiana...for some reason). The chart below shows the sudden increase in sales in bookstores in the U.S.:
For those of us who are chart obsessed (and really who isn't) Amazon also provides another chart to stare at (for hours at a time sometimes). This chart shows the uptick in sales through Amazon. So obviously the sales in the "ground" stores were also being reflected at the "virtual" store that is Amazon.
The final chart that I'll inundate you with is from Novelrank which also tracks sales on Amazon. It essentially gives you the same information, but with a slightly different appearance. Novelrank also can keep track of the # of copies sold per month (though this is a guesstimate on their part).
Perhaps I should end this with a chart of my geekiness (no, I better not...that would be jumping the shark). The sales in this time period might only amount to a thousand copies (so I won't go out and buy a new car), but I do find it interesting that I now have the ability to track all of this information. I won't know the actual sales until I get my royalty statements about six months from now. How to use the information is perhaps the tougher part of this exercise. It's not like I can fly down to Florida (or Louisiana) and start pitching my book (though I am beginning to get requests for Skype visits in Florida). Right now I'm filing it under the title: Interesting to know.Plus, Jolted has been out for nearly 4 years now. It's nice to see it suddenly get zapped back to life (sorry, I couldn't resist).
Art
June 12, 2011
The Hunchback Assignments wins Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire 2011
I'm extremely pleased to announce that The Hunchback Assignments has won Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire 2011: Roman jeunesse étranger (The Grand Prize of the Imagination, Youth foreign). This is the most prestigious fantastical fiction award in France and it is proof that my novel's translator, Marie Cambolieu, is brilliant. The official award website is here if you want to see the other categories. The book is called Les agents de M. Socrate, Tome 1 : La confrérie de l'horloge in France and is released by Le Masque (loosely translated as The Agents of Mr. Socrates: The Brotherhood of the Clock). The award was presented at a festival in Saint-Malo, France. I nearly was able to attend in person, but had to stay home to watch the NHL Playoffs (I'm kidding, of course, great effort was made to fly me out there but the scheduling didn't work out). Instead I sent a short video of my acceptance speech:
The other award nominees in the same category were:
Roman jeunesse étrangerLe Sortilège de pierre de Cornelia Funke (Gallimard jeunesse)Voraces de Oisin McGann (Mango jeunesse)Alcatraz (Série) de Brandon Sanderson (Mango jeunesse)La Confrérie de l'horloge de Arthur Slade (Le Masque)Léviathan de Scott Westerfeld (Pocket jeunesse)Autres titres retenus en première sélection :Les Portes de John Connolly (L'Archipel)Entremonde de Neil Gaiman et Michael Reaves (Au Diable Vauvert)Un endroit où se cacher de Joyce Carol Oates (Albin Michel jeunesse)Jenna Fox, pour toujours de Mary E. Pearson (Des Grandes Personnes Frankly, I didn't expect for my book to win. There are some very heavy hitters on that list (and I'm especially intrigued by Oisin McGann's Voraces. Irish steampunk!). But I'll take the prize and run (actually I don't know if there is a prize--the honour is enough). The book has been selling briskly in France, so this should help it sprint to the finish line. If you'd like to see a few photos of the event just click here. As you can tell, I'm very excited about this award. Last night, at dinner club, we raised a glass of French wine in honour of Grand Prix de l'imaginaire (and had Beef Wellington, which also fit the theme since Modo used the name Wellington as a code name).
Au revoir, Art
June 7, 2011
Odd Questions Students Have Asked
I do a great number of school readings. And when I get to the end of my presentation I say, "Now it's time for the dreaded Q&A. You ask the questions and I'll attempt to answer, though I don't do mathematical questions." Often I get asked, "Where do you get your ideas?" "From a factory in Pennsylvania." Or "Which book that you wrote is your favourite?" "Dust...because it made the most money for me."
But here are a few of the questions that I didn't expect:
"Do you own a tractor?" From an Aussie student on Skype (I was wearing a John Deere t-shirt at the time).
"Does your wife think you're funny?" No.
"Are you in the military?" Huh?
"Did you have any friends in high school?" Sometimes.
"Do you wear briefs or boxers?" Hmmm, I think this student may have received a talking to after I was gone.
"Are you evil?" This was in a "bible belt" area school. I had just read the first chapter of DUST. "Uh, do you mean do I write horror scary type stuff?"
"No...are you evil?" I actually had no answer. Other than a demonic chuckle...
Art
June 1, 2011
arthurslade @ 2011-06-01T10:42:00
Well, I have all my ebooks up online now. Here are the fancy covers (with clickable links, of course):
And here's my updated report across all platforms:
February: 12 copies
March Sales: 43 copies
April Sales: 377 copies
May Sales: 273 copies
That's a drop of over 100 copies since last month. Here's the handy dandy graph (the different colours match different books...DUST is the blue book):
The drop for sales between April and May is even bigger than it appears because 70 of those copies in May (of Draugr--more on this later) were free copies given away as a promotion. Many epublishers reported a drop in sales last month, partially due to Amazon having a massive giveaway of free ebooks and, about mid-month, Amazon changed their format for "tagging" books. Well, actually they deleted the way books are tagged, so this affected which bestseller lists my books appeared on. One assumes the tags will return with a revamped tagging system in the future.
All in all I'm happy with the sales. April was a bit of an anomaly because DUST had several mentions in influential kindle websites and that really affected sales. I still hope that the book will, over time find traction on its own (and my other books, of course). Plus I think the YA/Kids market is still a year away from reaching its true potential. I am pleased that I now have an account with Barnes and Noble, so my books can be bought and read on the Nook (love the app for my iPad). The Nook market isn't as big as Kindle, but it's the second largest of all the markets. Plus they have a really easy interface for keeping track of your books and sales.
Free Horror!
Also, for the month of June, I am giving DRAUGR away for free. So if you go to iBooks or Smashwords you can download it for nada. I can't lower the price past .99 cents on B&N nor Amazon (though Amazon may drop the price to zero once its "robots" recognize the book is on sale in other places). It should soon be free on Kobo, too. This is my way of introducing readers to the series (and hope that they pick up the second and third book). Plus, if you've never downloaded an ebook before, there's no risk in downloading a free one.
Update over. Art out.
And here's my updated report across all platforms:
February: 12 copies
March Sales: 43 copies
April Sales: 377 copies
May Sales: 273 copies
That's a drop of over 100 copies since last month. Here's the handy dandy graph (the different colours match different books...DUST is the blue book):
The drop for sales between April and May is even bigger than it appears because 70 of those copies in May (of Draugr--more on this later) were free copies given away as a promotion. Many epublishers reported a drop in sales last month, partially due to Amazon having a massive giveaway of free ebooks and, about mid-month, Amazon changed their format for "tagging" books. Well, actually they deleted the way books are tagged, so this affected which bestseller lists my books appeared on. One assumes the tags will return with a revamped tagging system in the future.
All in all I'm happy with the sales. April was a bit of an anomaly because DUST had several mentions in influential kindle websites and that really affected sales. I still hope that the book will, over time find traction on its own (and my other books, of course). Plus I think the YA/Kids market is still a year away from reaching its true potential. I am pleased that I now have an account with Barnes and Noble, so my books can be bought and read on the Nook (love the app for my iPad). The Nook market isn't as big as Kindle, but it's the second largest of all the markets. Plus they have a really easy interface for keeping track of your books and sales.
Free Horror!Also, for the month of June, I am giving DRAUGR away for free. So if you go to iBooks or Smashwords you can download it for nada. I can't lower the price past .99 cents on B&N nor Amazon (though Amazon may drop the price to zero once its "robots" recognize the book is on sale in other places). It should soon be free on Kobo, too. This is my way of introducing readers to the series (and hope that they pick up the second and third book). Plus, if you've never downloaded an ebook before, there's no risk in downloading a free one.
Update over. Art out.
May 25, 2011
arthurslade @ 2011-05-25T11:46:00
On this day (May 25th) in 1977 Star Wars was released. At the time I was ten years old. I still have a very clear memory of convincing my father to take me and my three brothers and my mother off the ranch and cross country to Shaunavon, SK to see the movie. I remember that first scene where the Imperial ships are moving through space above the camera, larger than any battleship imaginable. Would they ever end? The very molecules of my brain began to vibrate. This was the world I was suppose to live in. And then that entrance of Darth Vader. Was he not evil incarnate? Here was someone who could knock Sauron off his pedestal. And it turned out the story was about a farm boy who was going to learn to use a lightsabre and save the princess. For a ranch boy in South West Saskatchewan this was speaking directly to me. Yes, Luke, get off the farm! Save the princess! Blow up the Deathstar. My brain was altered from that moment forward. I knew I had to live in the world of imagination. As we left the theatre, I felt as though I was floating in the air. My father turned to my Mom and said, "Well, that movie was far fetched."
Obviously the movie isn't for everyone. But thank you, Star Wars, for blowing my mind.
Art
