Summer Promotion Analytics
During July, I participated in Smashwords' Summer/Winter Promotion. I watched my titles travel up and down the bestseller lists as people made purchases (for those of you who don't know, these lists are updated on an hourly basis).
I decided to take a look at the numbers and do a quick comparison to last year. I received 226 purchase notifications, most of which were for single title purchases, but some for multiples. During the same period in 2010, I sold five copies across all titles then available (I offered a discount). Five -- compared to 226 purchases, some of which were for more than one of my books.
The lion's share of "sales" (I did giveaways this time around) went to In The Eye of The Beholder: A Novel of The Phantom of the Opera. I could see a spike in both views and purchases on three days in which I mentioned the book on websites where there was an interest in the subject matter. Ditto for You Had to Be There: Three Years of Mayhem and Bad Decisions in the Portland Music Scene. My most-downloaded title, however, remains Sui Generis. it was interesting to note that, at the end of the proverbial day, the best-selling title stayed in that position -- as did the lowest-selling title. I saw some more interest in the latter after I changed its categorization, so we'll see.
So, why do I look at these things? I want to understand the economics of what I do. Like most authors, I have a day job. Part of what I want to do is build my audience, so if giving things away periodically helps, so be it. I think one of the driving factors this year, though, is that so many people are hurting financially. That eReader purchased during more prosperous times, might be loaded up with books in which someone is interested -- but just didn't have the money to buy all the titles they would like. Or, maybe people are more willing to give an indie author a chance if they don't have to pay as little as 99 cents, or even as much as $2.95 (the price range on my titles). I don't know what drives those decisions, but I do know that my work is in a great many more hands this year than last.
I decided to take a look at the numbers and do a quick comparison to last year. I received 226 purchase notifications, most of which were for single title purchases, but some for multiples. During the same period in 2010, I sold five copies across all titles then available (I offered a discount). Five -- compared to 226 purchases, some of which were for more than one of my books.
The lion's share of "sales" (I did giveaways this time around) went to In The Eye of The Beholder: A Novel of The Phantom of the Opera. I could see a spike in both views and purchases on three days in which I mentioned the book on websites where there was an interest in the subject matter. Ditto for You Had to Be There: Three Years of Mayhem and Bad Decisions in the Portland Music Scene. My most-downloaded title, however, remains Sui Generis. it was interesting to note that, at the end of the proverbial day, the best-selling title stayed in that position -- as did the lowest-selling title. I saw some more interest in the latter after I changed its categorization, so we'll see.
So, why do I look at these things? I want to understand the economics of what I do. Like most authors, I have a day job. Part of what I want to do is build my audience, so if giving things away periodically helps, so be it. I think one of the driving factors this year, though, is that so many people are hurting financially. That eReader purchased during more prosperous times, might be loaded up with books in which someone is interested -- but just didn't have the money to buy all the titles they would like. Or, maybe people are more willing to give an indie author a chance if they don't have to pay as little as 99 cents, or even as much as $2.95 (the price range on my titles). I don't know what drives those decisions, but I do know that my work is in a great many more hands this year than last.
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