Would you or wouldn't you?
Hi Everyone!
Long time no blog. *sigh* Hope everyone is doing well!
So, in the news! Yesterday, Amazon announced a new feature to it's authors. Bookscan access! Ohhh, boy. What does it mean? Well, starting yesterday, authors could log on to their pages at Amazon and see how many books they'd sold across the country in the month of November.
Would your finger hover over the button or would you want to know immediately?
I posted about this on Facebook and the comments were about 50-50. Some people wanted to see and some people wanted to stay in the dark. Some argued that there was nothing you could do about it, while others argued you should be armed with as much knowledge as possible about your book sales. (For a great "yes" explanation, check out Saundra Mitchell's entry.)
What do you think?? (Sorry, tried to post a poll but I can't make it work.)
I admit it. I looked.
The thing is, I have a book that came out in 2007 and one that came out in 2009. After hearing heartbreaking stories about books going out of print in mere months, I'm thrilled my books are still alive and kicking!
Problem: I have no idea what the numbers truly mean because what is the context?
I mean, a book with a huge print run that had tons of advertising money behind it that only sold 168 copies in a month would be very bad, right? But what about a book with no marketing behind it, that's been out for several years? Not so bad, right? Er, right????
Seriously, I have no idea.
And I suppose, that puts me with one foot in the yes camp and one in the no.
What authors who are super smooth at self-promotion can glean from this new access is to see where in the country their books are selling well or not at all, and put efforts into reaching out to untapped resources. But honestly? I'm not that gal. Boy do I wish I was. But self-promotion makes my teeth ache.
So, I guess I'll just continue doing what I can. Maybe pushing myself a bit more with each book. But honestly, I think we could drive ourselves nuts with this stuff. At least, those of us who don't really know what to do with the information.
Lets discuss! :-)
Long time no blog. *sigh* Hope everyone is doing well!
So, in the news! Yesterday, Amazon announced a new feature to it's authors. Bookscan access! Ohhh, boy. What does it mean? Well, starting yesterday, authors could log on to their pages at Amazon and see how many books they'd sold across the country in the month of November.
Would your finger hover over the button or would you want to know immediately?
I posted about this on Facebook and the comments were about 50-50. Some people wanted to see and some people wanted to stay in the dark. Some argued that there was nothing you could do about it, while others argued you should be armed with as much knowledge as possible about your book sales. (For a great "yes" explanation, check out Saundra Mitchell's entry.)
What do you think?? (Sorry, tried to post a poll but I can't make it work.)
I admit it. I looked.
The thing is, I have a book that came out in 2007 and one that came out in 2009. After hearing heartbreaking stories about books going out of print in mere months, I'm thrilled my books are still alive and kicking!
Problem: I have no idea what the numbers truly mean because what is the context?
I mean, a book with a huge print run that had tons of advertising money behind it that only sold 168 copies in a month would be very bad, right? But what about a book with no marketing behind it, that's been out for several years? Not so bad, right? Er, right????
Seriously, I have no idea.
And I suppose, that puts me with one foot in the yes camp and one in the no.
What authors who are super smooth at self-promotion can glean from this new access is to see where in the country their books are selling well or not at all, and put efforts into reaching out to untapped resources. But honestly? I'm not that gal. Boy do I wish I was. But self-promotion makes my teeth ache.
So, I guess I'll just continue doing what I can. Maybe pushing myself a bit more with each book. But honestly, I think we could drive ourselves nuts with this stuff. At least, those of us who don't really know what to do with the information.
Lets discuss! :-)
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