A breakthrough month . . .

Posted by scotthunter

Sales, sales, sales

A few months ago I promised to let you know how sales were going on Amazon KDP.

Well, so far I have three titles published on KDP:

The Trespass

The Ley Lines of Lushbury

The Serpent and the Slave

I’ll give a breakdown of ‘The Trespass’ for now, as the other two titles were published recently and it will take a little time for them to get going.

Weekly figures

24/09 : 329

01/10 : 471

08/10 : 963

15/10 : 1920

22/10 : 1439

29/10 : 1382

Once the book had entered the top 100 it charted higher each day, eventually reaching no. 14 in the overall paid Kindle charts. The trend has tailed off with the month end chart position plummeting to the lower nineties. What caused this exponential rise in sales? And, more significantly, what caused the drop-off?

Pricing

Well, there was one concrete action I took which definitely helped propel ‘The Trespass’ into the top 100 after it had spent a few weeks lurking around 120/130, and that was to reduce the price from £1.09 to 0.99p. This accelerated the chart climb almost immediately. Us Brits like a bargain, so it would seem. From that point onward I just drew attention to the bargain price on FB and Twitter, and the book continued to climb.

As the month went on, a couple of ‘not so great’ reviews appeared for ‘The Trespass’. J Konrath says: ‘as long as someone’s talking about the book, that’s a plus.’ But I reckon that the brace of 2 star reviews had a confidence-decreasing effect on the eBook shoppers.

I did get a couple more good reviews as well btw 🙂

Saturation?

I’m also guessing that there are a finite number of people willing to take a punt on an unknown thriller writer. Perhaps saturation point is reached after one or two weeks. It will be interesting to see if, after the lull, there is another upsurge in sales as more readers switch on to the trend and buy Kindles (and the new £89 Kindle is very tempting I must say).

Monthly cycle

The drop-off could be related to the time of the month (if you know what I mean). If book buyers are anything like me the money runs out not at the end of the month, but round about the middle.

Anyway. . .

Having said that, the book is still in a good position in the genre-specific charts…

so will still be visible to the eBook shopper . . .

What will November bring I wonder? (Apart from snow)

It would be interesting to have your thoughts, my fellow indie-writer buddies.

RSVP!

Scott

6 Responses to “A breakthrough month . . .”

  2. Andy

    Just bought your book on Kindle, I must say it was absolutely the price that made me buy it. Thanks for pricing it at .99. I hope your success continues stronger in the future!

  3. Euan Sinclair

    Thanks Scott – The Trespass was the first book I bought my new Kindle. I’ve just finished it and thoroughly enjoyed it. I was really gripped towards the end. I didn’t know anything about it, but I was attracted by your hook and the price (at 99p less than a newspaper). I hope it is proving a successful model for you.