Amazon visibility for new books.

[Thriftypreneur]

In another progress thread, @Cannonball was remarking about feeling discouraged from publishing his first book and not seeing many/any initial sales. This brought up a question that I've been wondering about since first getting into publishing on Amazon, and now that we have a stable of writers with experience publishing there, I was hoping to revisit this question and see if we can get any meaningful data from it.

The question is this:

As a new author or new pen name, if you publish your first book (or any book) and do not see sales on the first day of publishing, do you assume you missed the mark for your genre? I.E. do you assume that simply making a title live on Amazon garners enough initial visibility to produce sales and soft launch a book?

I guess this would be assuming that the visibility from the 'Published in last 30 days list' are popular enough to launch a book since this is the only way I can see for customers to find newly released titles from unknowns--but is it? I mean, looking at Romance right now, for example, it had 6,455 titles released in the last 30 days, or 215 books per day, or 9 books hour! With that kind of volume, I can't imagine you're visible on the first couple pages of those lists for long at all without sales/reviews to get you on 'New and Popular' or 'Avg Customer Review.'

So what do you fiction writing Fastlaners think? What's been your experiences with newly published books and what are your expectations based on sales from Amazon without any outside promotion?

I'll go ahead and add my limited experience...

I published my first story in a poorly targeted genre, but to me, it felt as if publishing the book alone didn't provide enough visibility to really do anything. Now that may have been from poor genre selection, a bad cover, blurb, sample, whatever, but who knows. In total though, publishing by itself felt like putting up a web page that nobody knew existed. This, of course, all changed once I managed to get the first title permafree and there was measurable visibility through free downloads.

Looking forward to hearing others' experience and expectations.

 

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[Selfy]

I'm dying to know this as well. It seems like you get a bulk of your purchases in those few hours when you're on the new list. Then it dwindles down and crashes at nothingness. The next avenue is the "also bought list" which explains random sales after a month or so.

Love to hear from the more established authors.

//i'll add.. maybe we can be a little more entrepreneurial in choosing the direction of the genre. If you put an outlier book with no proven track record, you might get the upside of garnering more eyeballs or the downside of getting complete nothingness in the desert ocean of eternal desolation. But the risk might payoff, thus the upside might allow you to launch.

// Or we can start chasing trends.

 

[ChickenHawk]

Interesting topic! I can share data from two pen names.

Sales of First Book Under Pen Name #1:

• First 24 hours: 0 copies (other than a couple of purchases by friends)
• First Week: 0 copies
• First Month: A handful, don't recall the exact number.
• I did manage to get some decent sales within the next couple of months through a combination of free promos and appearing on Amazon's "also-bought" lists. But overall, results weren't terribly encouraging. After four books publishing under this name, the highlight was selling 145 copies of one book within a month's timeframe.

Sales of First Book Under Pen Name #2:

• First 24 hours: 30 copies
• First Week: 250 copies
• First Month: Approximately 10,000 copies

As a new author or new pen name, if you publish your first book (or any book) and do not see sales on the first day of publishing, do you assume you missed the mark for your genre?

Looking at the huge differences between my two experiences, I know that if I published a book and didn't have any sales during the first week, I'd probably take a serious look at what I was doing. I'd ask myself:

• Am I in the right genre for my voice/writing style?
• How's my overall quality? Is the story compelling? Do I have a strong cover, blurb, and excerpt?
• How does my book compare to others in my genre? Is my quality, price, and word-count comparable to the top sellers?

For Pen Name #1, I think I was mostly in the wrong genre. Hard to say for sure though!

 

[DennisD]

Interesting topic! I can share data from two pen names.

Sales of First Book Under Pen Name #1:

• First 24 hours: 0 copies (other than a couple of purchases by friends)
• First Week: 0 copies
• First Month: A handful, don't recall the exact number.
• I did manage to get some decent sales within the next couple of months through a combination of free promos and appearing on Amazon's "also-bought" lists. But overall, results weren't terribly encouraging. After four books publishing under this name, the highlight was selling 145 copies of one book within a month's timeframe.

Sales of First Book Under Pen Name #2:

• First 24 hours: 30 copies
• First Week: 250 copies
• First Month: Approximately 10,000 copies

Looking at the huge differences between my two experiences, I know that if I published a book and didn't have any sales during the first week, I'd probably take a serious look at what I was doing. I'd ask myself:

• Am I in the right genre for my voice/writing style?
• How's my overall quality? Is the story compelling? Do I have a strong cover, blurb, and excerpt?
• How does my book compare to others in my genre? Is my quality, price, and word-count comparable to the top sellers?

For Pen Name #1, I think I was mostly in the wrong genre. Hard to say for sure though!

+$$$

Was there a notable difference in external marketing efforts between pen name #1 and pen name #2?
Presumably by the time you got to pen name #2 you were more versed in promotion, not just writing and genre assessment.

Is there anything you know now to take the SAME book/blurb/excerpt from that first book, and give it a few more sales?

 

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[ChickenHawk]

Was there a notable difference in external marketing efforts between pen name #1 and pen name #2?

Nope! Technically, I did MORE to promote pen name #1, because I ran some free promos. For pen name #2, I did absolutely nothing to launch the first book, no free promos, no marketing. All I did was hit "publish."

Is there anything you know now to take the SAME book/blurb/excerpt from that first book, and give it a few more sales?

I debate this from time to time. But ultimately I figure I'm better off spending that time and energy on pen name #2, because that's where I get the most bang for my buck.

 

[DennisD]

Nope! Technically, I did MORE to promote pen name #1, because I ran some free promos. For pen name #2, I did absolutely nothing to launch the first book, no free promos, no marketing. All I did was hit "publish."


I debate this from time to time. But ultimately I figure I'm better off spending that time and energy on pen name #2, because that's where I get the most bang for my buck.

If I told you that you were my hero, would you find it corny?
Great stuff.

 

[Lex DeVille]

Interesting topic! I can share data from two pen names.

Sales of First Book Under Pen Name #1:

• First 24 hours: 0 copies (other than a couple of purchases by friends)
• First Week: 0 copies
• First Month: A handful, don't recall the exact number.
• I did manage to get some decent sales within the next couple of months through a combination of free promos and appearing on Amazon's "also-bought" lists. But overall, results weren't terribly encouraging. After four books publishing under this name, the highlight was selling 145 copies of one book within a month's timeframe.

Sales of First Book Under Pen Name #2:

• First 24 hours: 30 copies
• First Week: 250 copies
• First Month: Approximately 10,000 copies

Looking at the huge differences between my two experiences, I know that if I published a book and didn't have any sales during the first week, I'd probably take a serious look at what I was doing. I'd ask myself:

• Am I in the right genre for my voice/writing style?
• How's my overall quality? Is the story compelling? Do I have a strong cover, blurb, and excerpt?
• How does my book compare to others in my genre? Is my quality, price, and word-count comparable to the top sellers?

For Pen Name #1, I think I was mostly in the wrong genre. Hard to say for sure though!

So far this has been very similar to my experience with picture books, except I think you may have done a little more promotion.

I'm about to release book 4 so I guess we'll see what happens.

Who knows maybe my other side project will launch and take off like yours.

I'm crossing my fingers.

 

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[COSenior]

I'll chime in. I've spent six months puzzling over how @ChickenHawk achieved what she did, especially since she doesn't know herself. I'm thinking it was a combination of: great cover that fit the hot trend in the category, intriguing title and blurb, but most of all a compelling First Look. After reading the first sentence, I HAD to know what was going on here. I kept reading and kept reading, but the answer wasn't in the sample, so I had to buy the book (of course, I would have anyway). It helped, at least for me, that the writing was competent, by which I mean few editing errors. Now, CH will tell you it was a happy accident. I don't agree. I think she's done enough study of the category and the craft that she knew what she was doing, even if she wasn't conscious of it.

By comparison, since January I've launched, with the help of a publisher, four novels in the adult contemporary romance market, though the publisher had some interesting ideas about what categories to list them under. OK, maybe one was new adult. Doesn't matter. The covers, up until the last one (my avatar), were okay. I happen to think the last one is the best cover and the best book so far. All of them were better than I had been doing on my own without the publisher. I'm not as practiced a writer as CH, so the first look--meh--I'm competent but not compelling yet, at least in my own mind. Blurb, the same.

Sales were lackluster until a Bookbub ad combined with a 5-day free promotion of the first book. By that time, we had just published the second book. 86,000 free downloads of the first book translated to some encouraging sales of the second. Since then, despite another Bookbub promotion of the second book (with about 56,000 downloads) and a Freebooksy promotion of the third, sales have dropped discouragingly. We're waiting to see if we can get a discounted promotion (as opposed to free) of the last one into Bookbub. Were the costs of the promotions justified? Yes...we made more money than we spent. But, despite several thousand sales under that pen name, Stray has dropped into a black hole, and I don't see it climbing out without a heavy promotional launch. Interestingly, the others, though not as well written in my opinion, are still seeing several sales a day each and seem to have stabilized in ranking.

Bottom line: you have to nail everything to do what CH did without promotion. But, with it, you can still do what @Held for Ransom did (though he didn't promote), which is develop visibility and a solid income with volume. Push through discouragement and just keep writing, if you're committed to this path. Now and then my handful of friends and mentors have to kick me in the butt to remind me that it isn't necessary to make all the money one requires with one book, and that the sales, even if low in volume, all add up. Everyone would do well to remember that.

 

[Thriftypreneur]

Bottom line: you have to nail everything to do what CH did without promotion.

This is the conclusion I've been leaning toward as well, with a heavy emphasis on making the First Look portion of the book amazing. Like you, I also analyzed @ChickenHawk launch success, and I also think that really nailing down a compelling opener is probably what made the most difference for her.

 

[ChickenHawk]

So far this has been very similar to my experience with picture books, except I think you may have done a little more promotion.

In all honesty, when I saw you were doing picture books, I was tempted to discourage you, because my results weren't all that great. But I didn't want to be a wet blanket on what could possibly be a terrific path for you. But for all kinds of reasons, they didn't really work for me. For one thing, they took a ton of time and had a higher delivery cost, which meant that the few I DID sell,weren't as profitable. But some people seem to be doing well in the genre, and it would be great if you joined their ranks. Regardless of where you go from here, we're all rooting for you!

friends and mentors have to kick me in the butt to remind me that it isn't necessary to make all the money one requires with one book, and that the sales, even if low in volume, all add up. Everyone would do well to remember that.

So very true! And a confession...Sometimes, even after the success of the first two books, or perhaps because of them, I'm nearly paralyzed by this pressure too. Sometimes, I feel desperate to hit another home run, and the prospect of "failing" terrifies me.

I didn't feel this way when I published my first romance book. Mostly, I was swinging for a modest base hit, something to start building a readership. This mindset enabled me to take some chances, writer faster than I normally would have, not spend so much time second-guessing. And overall, the book turned out better for it.

 

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[Rawr]

So very true! And a confession...Sometimes, even after the success of the first two books, or perhaps because of them, I'm nearly paralyzed by this pressure too. Sometimes, I feel desperate to hit another home run, and the prospect of "failing" terrifies me.

I didn't feel this way when I published my first romance book. Mostly, I was swinging for a modest base hit, something to start building a readership. This mindset enabled me to take some chances, writer faster than I normally would have, not spend so much time second-guessing. And overall, the book turned out better for it.

Just proves you're in the creative artists' club That fear never goes away as HFR said... but understanding that point is what allows one to say "Time for the process to back me up..." and press on. HM ward said she's changed the cover of every single one of her books at some point - meaning this million books sold woman still tinkers, still gets it wrong. But as we keep going, we get more experience, our writing gets better, our eyes gets better. Odds DO get more in our favor. That fear of doing worse than last time is a real one..but I'll tell you, it just gets you to the next book quicker. And it's another book that will FOREVER be out there..earning you money as more books come out when someone clicks on it. You guys remember how good hitting publish feels? Let's focus on that instead

As long as we're confessing... I hated CH's second book cover, I thought the fat looking guy would hurt sales. Glad to see the readers proved me wrong!


As far as my first book, I just looked what was selling and I thought - ok, so a hot guy picture, good title, solid, tight blurb that grabs their face (hm wards words), good first 10% (hfr's words) and I put it out there. The story started sexual right away but I put it in the right context. I was getting 6-8 sales per day right out of the gate.

The point is to get better with each book guys... I'm telling ya, 5 books later, I haven't hit a homerun (my best was about 2k rating for about a week) but you can have a very nice living AND YOU DON'T HAVE TO GO TO A JOB WITH A BOSS AND SIT IN TRAFFIC AND BE SOMEONE'S B!TCH!!

 

[ChickenHawk]

t's another book that will FOREVER be out there..earning you money as more books come out when someone clicks on it. You guys remember how good hitting publish feels? Let's focus on that instead

Your whole post offers terrific advice, and boy, this in particular is so true.

As long as we're confessing... I hated CH's second book cover, I thought the fat looking guy would hurt sales. Glad to see the readers proved me wrong!

Funny! Yeah, I think the guy looks a little beefy too. I was really struggling for good images, and it had to match the cover for book #1. I was thinking, "Dang, why is it so hard to find the image I want?" I know it's been mentioned on other threads, but I swear, there's still a market for good book cover photos, especially in the romance genre.

 

[Magik]

If you put an outlier book with no proven track record, you might get the upside of garnering more eyeballs or the downside of getting complete nothingness in the desert ocean of eternal desolation. But the risk might payoff, thus the upside might allow you to launch.

My strategy is along these lines. My first book will be out in a month or so. I'm publishing it under contemporary fiction, the reason being is it's what's most suited for my voice, and I'm also much less "boxed in" as I would be in a genre like romance or fantasy. It is a feast or famine genre though, I'd say more so than romance, and the readers are less forgiving when it comes to writing mistakes. However, I focus on the feast aspect. There have been many books that have sold a ton in that space, many that have optioned the film rights, and many books that have pulled readers in from many genres. You can have a book like The Road (apocalyptic) and The Fault In Our Stars (teen romance) under the same genre, though you'd have marketing/sales problems if the same author wrote both of those books.

My overall goal is to have a book that is the outlier, the one that is different and sticks out like a sore thumb. A book that can develop a cult following and spread via word of mouth, that way I'm not dependent on marketing or an algorithm for sales. MJ calls this being "product centered", and that's my overall aim. The goal is quality over quantity, aim to stick out, do the things that can center me as an outlier wherever I can, and develop a unique voice that people want more of, regardless of what I write. Quentin Tarantino fan's could care less what type of movie he makes: western, war, Japanese samurai- doesn't matter. They know his voice and they know they are going to get quality. I may miss the mark, who knows, but it makes perfect sense to me, so I'll go with it and let the market tell me "yes" or "no".

 

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[Magik]

Based on all the research I've done via the web and reading books, beyond genres and things outside of your control, the following are what drive book sales:

1. Book Cover/Title: Title should build intrigue, or at least be easy to remember. Book cover should be unique for your genre. Look at what the other authors are doing, and do something at least a little different. Have a real graphic designer make your cover (yes, it will cost more).
2. First Sentence/First Paragraph/First Page/First Chapter: If the cover is what pulls them in, this is what keeps them. You have to come out with a bang, right down to the first sentence. In the book Stein On Writing, he talks about how important this is. Studies show that you've got about 10 seconds to grab the reader, which equates to the first few sentences. If you can't grab them here, then no sale.
3. Summary: Important, but if you do #1 and #2 correctly, not as important. Many times I don't even read the summary. I look at the cover and see what it's all about.
4. Marketing: Not ads, but social media like Twitter and Facebook, blogging, etc. all with the aim of driving traffic and building a list.

I'm a control freak, so I have a motto: "focus only on what is within your scope of control, and ignore everything else."

 

[Thriftypreneur]

First 24 hours: 0 copies (other than a couple of purchases by friends)
First Week: 0 copies

First 24 hours: 30 copies
First Week: 250 copies

Long-term sales tactics aside (we kinda veered off course there, but that was expected), this was exactly the type of information I was trying to get at with this thread. Zero outside promo in two different genres, two different results...

Can anyone else contribute first title (with zero outside promotion) data like above?

The basic question of this thread was, "If you hit 'publish' in this--whatever your--genre, do you expect sales?"

I know there are a LOT of variables in play, but it's interesting for debate because I imgine it won't be too long until publishing a book on Amazon just sends you to the abyss. Meaning: It'll be impossible to just hit 'publish' and spring to life out of no where. Need to hit while the iron's hot.

 

[Rawr]

Just read the last sentence you wrote over and over...until fingers start hitting the keys

 

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[Thriftypreneur]

Just read the last sentence you wrote over and over...until fingers start hitting the keys

Don't be shy. I know you've got stuff released. How did it do being released with no promotion?
c'mon, you stuff is valuable too!

Naturally, in the end, none of this matters....

A classic, best-selling romance has very little to do with genre algorthims or whatever. Thats not how the romance genre works.

 

[Thriftypreneur]

I don't know, I'm a bit intoxicated at the moment, so I'm obviously open for any type of debate on the romance genre.

I haven't wrote crap, but I've studied so much....

 

[Rawr]

I wrote my experience above. I think this self pity thinking is BS, put it out and change things until you suck less and less.

 

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[ChickenHawk]

I think this self pity thinking is BS, put it out and change things until you suck less and less.

Alas, I disagree. I'm not feeling that there's self-pity here. To me, it comes across more as a thirst for data to help choose the right path.

See, because authors are plagued by two totally conflicting sets of advice:

1. Pick a genre, and just keep writing and publishing. because with enough books, success will surely come, regardless of your genre or writing ability. Or...
2. Pick a genre/pen name, test it out, and see if it works for you. If it doesn't, either give up entirely, or start over with a new genre/pen name.

When I started on the self-pub path, I was really determined to stick with option #1. I told myself I'd write at least seven books under that pen name no matter what. But the harder I worked with only modest success, the more I thought, "Hmmm...I've GOT to do better." So I tried something different, started fresh, took a chance. But how do you know WHEN it's time to do this? Or heaven forbid, how do you know when it's time to give up?

As awful as it is to say, not everyone will find success with this. Every day, there's more competition, and readers are becoming more jaded. You can't just throw something out there and think it will sell. And, this is probably crappy to say, but not everyone will find success, no matter how hard they work. In my opinion, Held for Ransom, and probably you too, @Rawr, probably vastly underestimate your skill in crafting an engaging story, the kind that can rise above the noise.

Here's a funny observation. When you're having disappointing results, it all seems really complicated. When you find success, you think, "Wow, that was really simple!" But it's never that simple, and that's why we're all so hungry for information.

But overall, I agree with the gist of your original message -- if you're determined to succeed at this, the secret is to keep on writing, because if you don't, failure is pretty much guaranteed.

 

[Rawr]

CS, a lot of good points. I admit I can be drunk with a taste of success and think it's "easy". You're right, it isn't easy, but maybe it's easier for some than others. However, think about this - HFR's approach was to copy what was selling and put it in his own words. I would take a bet, that if a person did that to a top 10 book, he would see results. Why? Because the readers ARE hungry. The cover has to be good - CH, how did you know your romance cover was good, you've never put out romance? How did you know it was time to switch? Well... what are your goals? My perspective from day 1 was that I'll do everything I can to make sure the book succeeds. Do you think romance from first person female POV is what I'd pick to write? No, but I did because that's what sells. I know authors like to say it's difficult to stay up without promotion and luck. I agree with the luck part. Promotion I am sure helps, but not if it's your first book.

Here is some great wisdom from an author on Kboards that I just love:

"""""""""""
...it's saying model those who have careers you would like, not those that don't.

I'm narrowing your quote down to the bit that seems to get lost a lot.

I just want to point out the friction point I see: There are a whole lot of people who don't want that career, they just want that money -- but they want it the way they want to win the lottery. Ask them if they want to be an investment banker who makes that same amount of money and they'll say no. They don't want to do what an investment banker has to do to reach that point. Or they *can't*.

That's something that should be highlighted: they should look at people who write the books they want to write, and look at the people who make the money they want to make, and see if they are the same people. If they are, great! Do as they do. And if you don't do as they do, don't complain that you got different results.

But if they are different people, then you get to make a decision. Follow one, follow the other, or try to create your own path. If you don't like the results, change paths.

You can't save people from the scars of the wrong path, because no matter what they say, you don't know what they value. They may not know what they value until they have tested it. Some people have to pee on the electric fence for themselves.

But I think the big thing is.... The choice is almost always more narrow and nuanced than the choice between Making Serious Money, and being a Penniless Artiste. There is a huge area in between those two.

"""""""""""




I am sure @britnidanielle has some input too as I've seen her books are doing well now after the slow start.

Thrifty, how many books have you published? How many times have you changed blurbs and covers on them?

 

[britnidanielle]

Oh hey...you rang?

Hmmm. My books sell copies every day. Sometimes a handful, sometimes "a lot" (by a lot I mean 10+, which is not a lot in @ChickenHawk terms lol), but I make sales.

Unlike most(?) I write under my own name, so I tweet, FB, Instagram about my books. I bought a Goodreads ad that didn't sell any books, but that was just a test. I ran one free day on Amazon & hit up some listing sites that showcase free books and got 7500 downloads in a day of Book 1 (Turn It Loose), then that pushed sales of Book 2 (Two Steps Back) a bit.

I don't have a rhyme or reason to it, though, which....could be a problem.

My goal? Keep writing good stories. My books have good reviews, I tinker with the covers (redesigned Turn It Loose & Two Steps Back), and keep writing.

Thanks to a little advice I'm going to dip into another genre via a pen name and see if I can gain a little more traction, but if it works, I'll write in the pen name + my name because I actually LIKE the things I write.

So...yeah. I dunno. You get an initial push & if you keep at it, maybe run some promotions, then move onto the next thing you can make it work.

I started publishing in October 2013. May is my most profitable month to-date (released a new book + ran that free promo). I earned $580, not MASSIVE, but not chump change either. I'll take it...and keep building. Every other month has been like $100-$200.

Oh, and randomly, I get a fair share of print sales, which have higher royalties.

Hope that's what you were looking for @Rawr

 

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[Thriftypreneur]

Thrifty, how many books have you published? How many times have you changed blurbs and covers on them?

Not enough. This thread wasn't about bemoaning slow sales of my titles or anything like that, not quite sure how you got that impression (perhaps I didn't word things correctly). This thread was aimed at trying to gather data on the visibility, if any, that simply hitting 'publish' in a genre can get you. New publishers having an idea of what kind of visibility they can expect can be invaluable to measure cover/blurb/first look effectiveness until they build up their own promotion network and email lists.

 

[AroundTheWorld]

So very true! And a confession...Sometimes, even after the success of the first two books, or perhaps because of them, I'm nearly paralyzed by this pressure too. Sometimes, I feel desperate to hit another home run, and the prospect of "failing" terrifies me.

There is a Ted Talk by the author of "Eat, Pray, Love" about this very thing. She did publish again. It was a flop. AND, it was liberating for her! It freed her from that "pressure" and allowed her to just get back to that creative process.

 

[AroundTheWorld]

http://www.ted.com/talks/elizabeth_gilbert_success_failure_and_the_drive_to_keep_creating

 

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[LisaK]

I can't imagine doing zero promotion, especially as a new author. I realize it is happening for some people and I have to admit, I don't really get how it happens. So, I appreciate this thread and will keep watching. I did pick a niche and I don't think it has as high of readership as other niches. I will be looking into pushing into a niche that has higher readership in the future.

I did do about $100 in promotion getting my free days out and have had about 1600 downloads in 2 days. Had I not promoted, I guess I will never know. I have managed to stay #1 in Free for my genre for 2 days. I would think that is better than being 100 in my genre. I feel confident it is due to the promotions I did. I will probably lose money on this book...i.e., $250 bucks is about what I have into it with editing, promotions, createspace mistakes etc. Also still finding editing mistakes and it makes my stomach hurt. Next time, although excited, I will take a little more time prior to publishing and promoting. I also will try the countdown on the next book instead of free and see how that fairs and compare. This is all a few months down the line though. I am sure it will take me that long to write the second book. I don't know if I'll ever be able to "crank out" books like some of these authors. Maybe I just haven't found my ...template to success.

 

[LisaK]

In another progress thread, @Cannonball was remarking about feeling discouraged from publishing his first book and not seeing many/any initial sales. This brought up a question that I've been wondering about since first getting into publishing on Amazon, and now that we have a stable of writers with experience publishing there, I was hoping to revisit this question and see if we can get any meaningful data from it.

The question is this:

As a new author or new pen name, if you publish your first book (or any book) and do not see sales on the first day of publishing, do you assume you missed the mark for your genre? I.E. do you assume that simply making a title live on Amazon garners enough initial visibility to produce sales and soft launch a book?

I guess this would be assuming that the visibility from the 'Published in last 30 days list' are popular enough to launch a book since this is the only way I can see for customers to find newly released titles from unknowns--but is it? I mean, looking at Romance right now, for example, it had 6,455 titles released in the last 30 days, or 215 books per day, or 9 books hour! With that kind of volume, I can't imagine you're visible on the first couple pages of those lists for long at all without sales/reviews to get you on 'New and Popular' or 'Avg Customer Review.'

So what do you fiction writing Fastlaners think? What's been your experiences with newly published books and what are your expectations based on sales from Amazon without any outside promotion?

I'll go ahead and add my limited experience...

I published my first story in a poorly targeted genre, but to me, it felt as if publishing the book alone didn't provide enough visibility to really do anything. Now that may have been from poor genre selection, a bad cover, blurb, sample, whatever, but who knows. In total though, publishing by itself felt like putting up a web page that nobody knew existed. This, of course, all changed once I managed to get the first title permafree and there was measurable visibility through free downloads.

Looking forward to hearing others' experience and expectations.

I think it is exactly like putting up a web page that nobody knows exists. Genre, keyword selection, category selection...cover it all plays a part. Although I am not familiar with how Publishing houses promote their authors I feel pretty certain they do promote! I think a mediocre book can rise in rank if promoted. That is not to say "hey lets write mediocre books!" Many of us are brand spanking new at this though. Like me, I do not have the background COSenior and Chickenhawk. This is a new adventure. I may have some talent I may not. I may have to change genres and pen names to find my right niche. I may find there is no right niche. I don't know. There are some other comments on this thread about those who want to hit the jackpot with this. Who doesn't want to hit the jackpot? The thing is though, we have to go back to the Fastlane premise that its a process. Some people are going to find a key that works for them, maybe more quickly than others. Some of us will give up after the first book. Some will give up after the 10th. Some of us may keep going and the 11th book with be the winner.

I know there are some things we can do to promote ourselves better and get more visibility. I think it is naive to think you can put your first book out on amazon and get a ton of sales with no promotion. I'm not saying it isn't happening, I know it is but now that so many are jumping on the bandwagon there is more static to get through.

I will do the same promotion on my second book as I have with this book except I will try the countdown. This may limit where I can promote. Amazon makes you choose between count down or free. I chose free this time because I'm new and I need some exposure so I can write better and get some feedback. Also I hoped it may create a mailing list but so far, not so much.

 

[LisaK]

In another progress thread, @Cannonball was remarking about feeling discouraged from publishing his first book and not seeing many/any initial sales. This brought up a question that I've been wondering about since first getting into publishing on Amazon, and now that we have a stable of writers with experience publishing there, I was hoping to revisit this question and see if we can get any meaningful data from it.

The question is this:

As a new author or new pen name, if you publish your first book (or any book) and do not see sales on the first day of publishing, do you assume you missed the mark for your genre? I.E. do you assume that simply making a title live on Amazon garners enough initial visibility to produce sales and soft launch a book?

I guess this would be assuming that the visibility from the 'Published in last 30 days list' are popular enough to launch a book since this is the only way I can see for customers to find newly released titles from unknowns--but is it? I mean, looking at Romance right now, for example, it had 6,455 titles released in the last 30 days, or 215 books per day, or 9 books hour! With that kind of volume, I can't imagine you're visible on the first couple pages of those lists for long at all without sales/reviews to get you on 'New and Popular' or 'Avg Customer Review.'

So what do you fiction writing Fastlaners think? What's been your experiences with newly published books and what are your expectations based on sales from Amazon without any outside promotion?

I'll go ahead and add my limited experience...

I published my first story in a poorly targeted genre, but to me, it felt as if publishing the book alone didn't provide enough visibility to really do anything. Now that may have been from poor genre selection, a bad cover, blurb, sample, whatever, but who knows. In total though, publishing by itself felt like putting up a web page that nobody knew existed. This, of course, all changed once I managed to get the first title permafree and there was measurable visibility through free downloads.

Looking forward to hearing others' experience and expectations.

I think it is exactly like putting up a web page that nobody knows exists. Genre, keyword selection, category selection...cover it all plays a part. Although I am not familiar with how Publishing houses promote their authors I feel pretty certain they do promote! I think a mediocre book can rise in rank if promoted. That is not to say "hey lets write mediocre books!" Many of us are brand spanking new at this though. Like me, I do not have the background COSenior and Chickenhawk. This is a new adventure. I may have some talent I may not. I may have to change genres and pen names to find my right niche. I may find there is no right niche. I don't know. There are some other comments on this thread about those who want to hit the jackpot with this. Who doesn't want to hit the jackpot? The thing is though, we have to go back to the Fastlane premise that its a process. Some people are going to find a key that works for them, maybe more quickly than others. Some of us will give up after the first book. Some will give up after the 10th. Some of us may keep going and the 11th book with be the winner.

I know there are some things we can do to promote ourselves better and get more visibility. I think it is naive to think you can put your first book out on amazon and get a ton of sales with no promotion. I'm not saying it isn't happening, I know it is but now that so many are jumping on the bandwagon there is more static to get through.

I will do the same promotion on my second book as I have with this book except I will try the countdown. This may limit where I can promote. Amazon makes you choose between count down or free. I chose free this time because I'm new and I need some exposure so I can write better and get some feedback. Also I hoped it may create a mailing list but so far, not so much.

 

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[LisaK]

First, sorry for the duplicate postings. I don't know how to get rid of them and my computer has locked a couple of times when I hit post reply, shows nothing so I do it again and...duplication.

Update on Free Promo:
So, today is the last day of my 4 day free promo. I have 3000 downloads. I hope this will translate into some sales. I have stayed #1 and #2 in two categories in my niche for all 4 days. Again, not sure how this will translate after the promo is over but being #1 and #2 has to be better than being #100. And I have 1 person signed up on my mailing list.

FYI: I will never....not promote in the future.

 

[ChickenHawk]

I can't imagine doing zero promotion, especially as a new author. I realize it is happening for some people and I have to admit, I don't really get how it happens.

Me neither. And I'm one of those zero-promotions people. One thing that's frustrating is that before you have a breakout book, it can be hard to secure the very best promo opportunities. For example, BookBub is supposed to be amazing. But they reject almost every author submission. (Of course, our very own @COSenior was accepted, so we're in some very fine company.)

I will never....not promote in the future.

This is really interesting. If you felt inclined to share what worked and/or didn't work, even in very general terms, that would be some terrific info. I'm asked about promos all the time, but alas,have nothing good to share, since I haven't done anything like this.

It sounds like you spent $100 to get 3,000 potential new readers. This seems like a good investment to me, especially since you're already getting signups for your mailing list. The only thing we don't know for sure is how many readers you would've gotten if you had done nothing. But overall, $100 seems a small price to pay for these results, so obviously you're doing something right!