I think I may have discovered why my sales increased so
dramatically the other day. It has nothing to do with a marketing promo
suddenly taking off or someone posting a rave review and recommendation. I
believe my increase in sales was due to Kindle error. I posted a few notes on
the KDP forum about my jump in sales and it seems that I’m not the only author
that this happened to. It appears Kindle had made some mistakes in their
counters and the recent jump in numbers was them finally correcting this
problem. But here’s the good news… they were real sales! Though the 80
purchases in an hour and a half didn’t happen at that moment, the sales were
still real and the ranking in the paid Kindle store was true. In a strange way,
this gives me hope on the days that I rack few sales that perhaps there are
sales taking place that will be recorded later. That said, the secret to making
it as a successful indie writer is this: PATIENCE. We are experiencing first
hand a new era in publishing where the writer can instantly connect with the
publisher. It used to be that authors received a quarterly notice on sales and
had no way of knowing how they were going until then. Now, sales recordings are
almost instant. A writer can check hourly if he or she has sold a book. This
can lead to a daunting feeling of “things aren’t happening fast enough”.
Yesterday, I was a little depressed because I only logged 4 sales for the day.
What I don’t take into account is the 125 sales I’ve shown so far this quarter.
And this quarter isn’t over. And my sponsorships are just beginning. And with
the electronic age my books have no shelf life so they will be available for
purchase forever. It’s kind of mind boggling when you think about it. I have my
entire life to market and promote my books. Wow!
On a side note, I spent quite a bit of time trying to figure
out what led to my jump in sales. Though, it had no direct impact that day, I
believe posting on Kindle Boards is the best way to promote your books without
over-promoting. Kindle Boards allows you to attach your book images and links
to buy them with each post you make. So, even if your posting a question about
something unrelated to your writing you’ll still have a hash tag of your books.
I believe this has led to an increase in sales.
No comments:
Post a Comment