Kindle Release - Measuring the Reader's Interest
"Crucible of a Species" was just released onto the Amazon Kindle Market on May 21, 2016. With it came a very surprising revelation.
The major problem of any author, or a publisher, is obtaining a measure of how well the work (book) is received by the reader (customer). Of course, the greatest challenge falls on the shoulders of any author whose name is new in the market and "name-recognition" is not yet established with the readers. The problem for an author therefore is to find out how well their latest story is received; will it last? For a publisher, the problem is finding the great authors of the future before deep funding for marketing is presented.
Historically, the most direct method is to look for reviews from readers. This is easily misdirected by intentional paid entries or proper pre-sales marketing.
A second method is to examine overall sales volume. This too can be biased by pumping enough money into marketing and active distribution ... i.e. get a good agent. All too often, a good agent will introduce the book into the market and initial volume will be great but then sales dry up. Why? The author's work didn't meet the quality of the agent's marketing so rather quickly sales dry up with time and the publisher's investment is lost.
So what is an author or publisher to do. One new tool I've just encountered in the Kindle Direct Publishing world is called the "Kindle Edition Normalized Pages (KENP)". This is I believe a great solution BUT it works only with digital editions because the feedback of the number of pages read by the reader per day is plotted.
KENP is a graph of both 'paid' or 'free unit sales' for for the book plotted as the number of pages read per day. Remember, 'Free unit sales' are not 'giveaways' but books selected by Kindle Unlimited customers.
An author or publisher will find 'success' defined as the number of pages read each day divided by the number of books sold.
Consider, if a story is one that captures the reader, then
ReadCrucible of a Species
The major problem of any author, or a publisher, is obtaining a measure of how well the work (book) is received by the reader (customer). Of course, the greatest challenge falls on the shoulders of any author whose name is new in the market and "name-recognition" is not yet established with the readers. The problem for an author therefore is to find out how well their latest story is received; will it last? For a publisher, the problem is finding the great authors of the future before deep funding for marketing is presented.
Historically, the most direct method is to look for reviews from readers. This is easily misdirected by intentional paid entries or proper pre-sales marketing.
A second method is to examine overall sales volume. This too can be biased by pumping enough money into marketing and active distribution ... i.e. get a good agent. All too often, a good agent will introduce the book into the market and initial volume will be great but then sales dry up. Why? The author's work didn't meet the quality of the agent's marketing so rather quickly sales dry up with time and the publisher's investment is lost.
So what is an author or publisher to do. One new tool I've just encountered in the Kindle Direct Publishing world is called the "Kindle Edition Normalized Pages (KENP)". This is I believe a great solution BUT it works only with digital editions because the feedback of the number of pages read by the reader per day is plotted.
KENP is a graph of both 'paid' or 'free unit sales' for for the book plotted as the number of pages read per day. Remember, 'Free unit sales' are not 'giveaways' but books selected by Kindle Unlimited customers.
An author or publisher will find 'success' defined as the number of pages read each day divided by the number of books sold.
Consider, if a story is one that captures the reader, then
ReadCrucible of a Species
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At last. I'm now able to retire and find time to turn from an avid reader to becoming an author of something more than technical writing -- namely Fiction.
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At last. I'm now able to retire and find time to turn from an avid reader to becoming an author of something more than technical writing -- namely Fiction.
I find w ...more
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