An Update on How Various Publishing Platforms and Approaches are Going
By Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig
Just a quick wrap-up today of my thoughts on various formats/platforms I’m using to reach readers, an idea for a format I might explore in the future, and a general thought on the production process.
Wattpad: Wattpad lists free books, so I can’t gauge if it’s having an impact on the sales of my other books. But it’s been an interesting experience for me so far because I’m reaching a completely different audience than I ordinarily do, by decades. So I’m at 131 reads right now (woo-hoo!) and these are folks who probably don’t usually read my genre…maybe I can even help introduce a few new readers to cozy mysteries.
Amazon Foreign Sales: Japanese Amazon sales are suddenly, inexplicably, as strong as my European sales. Absolutely no idea why.
Nook, Smashwords, Apple: Steady sales but not nearly in the same league as the Amazon sales. Nook is usually about 5% of my Amazon sales.
ACX: I have no quibbles here because what I make at ACX (audiobooks) is pure profit—I invested nothing in the production, having chosen a royalty share deal with my narrators. ACX has also recently branched into the international community (more information on that in Joanna Penn’s May 1 post, “Audiobooks: Tips For Distribution With ACX And Marketing Ideas”). I’m unhappy that they lowered royalty rates (covered here in Porter Anderson’s March 6 article, “A Most Audible Alarm: ACX Chops Royalties”), which gave me the uneasy feeling like…well, like Amazon could do the same for their ebooks. But that’s why I’m diversifying. In addition, ACX’s sales can be pesky (audiobook authors don’t set price) because it does mean lost revenue. But, in all, I make a decent income there with my four books…and again—it’s all profit since I sunk nothing into production.
Print: Always steady sales. It’s almost exactly a year since I branched my self-pubbed books into print on CreateSpace—it was the best decision I made. Again, I do have an older readership which may have contributed to the success, but the one-time investment of cover design (adapting the ebook cover to a print cover with a spine and back cover) and formatting was certainly worth it for me.
Production-related thoughts: I’m effectively approaching work like my trad. publisher does and contract book design labor before the current WIP is finished as long as my outline seems pretty firm and I’m not going off in some crazy, unplanned direction. Since I’ve had to wait on covers before because designers so quickly get booked, this has helped me out the two times I’ve done it now.
Summing it all up…I’m still thinking diversifying is key to what we’re doing. Not having an all-our-eggs-in-one basket approach. Trying different things. Figuring out different approaches with production.
Hugh Howey effectively blew my mind the other day with his May 28 post, “The Beauty of Booktrack.” This isn’t necessarily a way that I want to experience books (with a soundtrack), but I can totally see how it could be very appealing to other people, especially younger readers. His post introduces Booktrack a bit. There’s more information here (FAQ) and here (video tutorials). It’s free and your book must be listed free there.
That’s my run-down on what trends I’m seeing currently with my own sales as we head into the summer months. Are you looking into trying any different formats for your books? Have any insights into what’s working or not for you and your books?
The post An Update on How Various Publishing Platforms and Approaches are Going appeared first on Elizabeth Spann Craig.
