Measuring Success

As I obsessively check sales figures, I'm trying to decide if what I'm seeing is good or not. (Reading articles about Amanda Hocking doesn't help.) How do we self-pubbed authors determine if we're successful? And I realized I never really set a bar for myself. I hadn't defined what success would be beyond a hazy concept of being able to quit my job and write full-time.

When I set Unicorn Bait and Scary Mary for free, I had no expectations. I knew I would get some downloads, but I had no idea what the numbers would be. (I'm going to use only Amazon data in this post because it is the most up-to-date and accessible.) My books were initially .99 on Amazon. They stayed .99 for a few months, and I wasn't seeing much in the way of sales. In the first month, I sold zero. Then I sold 1 the next month. I sold 84 copies in the next nine months. Then Amazon finally made Scary Mary free like I wanted.

And then my socks were knocked off. Scary Mary was downloaded 16,125 times in one month. I was beside myself. I couldn't believe just how many people were downloading Scary Mary. I was sure this was some sort of sign. And it is a sign. A sign that free is the perfect price for a lot of people.

As of today, Scary Mary and Unicorn Bait have been downloaded over 110,000 times on Amazon. If I add up all platforms, their total downloads are north of 150,000. That's amazing to me because I did no promotion outside of my own website. I've had some reviews on small indie blogs, but I know the driving force behind that six digit number is the free price tag.

Considering how well the free books did and how many people have read Scary Mary, one would think Stalking Shadows would be a great success. I mean at least 50,000 people have downloaded Scary Mary, and it appears a great many enjoyed the book...so Stalking Shadows should be a best seller, right? Um, no. Stalking Shadows was released in late October of this year, right before Halloween. At this time, it has sold about 600 copies. Don't get me wrong. 600 is pretty damn good, but when I compare it to 50,000, it seems kind of well, paltry.

So I'm having to adjust my perspective. Selling 600 copies of Stalking Shadows is GREAT. I'm very happy with that number, but I've got to accept that nothing will ever beat free. I mean look at this--Scary Mary has been downloaded 12,000 times this MONTH on Amazon.uk, and Stalking Shadows has sold 220 copies. Comparing these two numbers and wondering why there was such a disparity could drive someone insane. Someone could wonder if maybe 11,780 people read Scary Mary and didn't think it was good enough to read the sequel. Someone could wonder if she can really hack it.

Or someone could take a deep breath, stop refreshing the reports screen in Kindle Direct Publishing, and write the freaking sequel to Unicorn Bait. Someone thinks that's what she'll do.

Selling Out

I've been struggling with something that feels a little sacrilegious. I've been thinking about switching from free to charging for Scary Mary and Unicorn Bait. I would most likely leave the free versions up on their websites, but I would charge for the ebook versions, and any updates I would make to the stories (in most cases grammatical) would only appear in the ebook version. My thinking is purely monetary. My current dream is to make enough money where I could reduce my full-time job from 40 hours a week to 32 or less (while still keeping my full benefits, I would just be paid less). The ultimate goal is to support myself solely by writing, but I know that isn't likely anytime soon. I just want to reduce my schedule by one day right now.

I know if I switched both books to .99 that the downloads would take a nose dive, but they wouldn't stop completely. I would possibly make fifty bucks a month or something but that would help me get a little closer to my goal of reducing my work schedule. That's not a guaranteed dollar amount, but I feel it's very likely, especially as a lot of reviews have been generated, so new readers may be willing to put down .99 for a book that a lot of other people have seemingly liked.

In my mind, one of the hiccups to changing to .99 is the free online versions. I worry that readers might resent the fact that I charge .99 for the ebook while giving it away elsewhere, but I've been told by some readers (they email me directly) that they would've happily paid for the story. This is wonderful to hear, but I worry that other readers may not feel that way. I've also seen some other authors charge for their ebooks in one location while giving it away elsewhere.

If I did begin charging for the stories, I would at least make another pass through them to fix any errors I found. (I just realized that somehow the first piece of dialog by Mrs. Boon is not italicized in Scary Mary's ebook version. I don't know how that happened.) But I wonder about adding any other content to make paying for the story worthwhile. I could add a sneak preview of Stalking Shadows to Scary Mary. That's a no brainer, but I don't know what to do about Unicorn Bait. I could add a sneak preview to (OMG, this will be first reveal of the title to the sequel) Dragon Prey. BUT that is still being written. I'm not even sure the first chapter will stay the same, and I would need to indicate when the sequel would be available which OMG (again), I have no idea about.

And I don't know if anyone really reads these posts so I may be typing into the wind, but if you have an opinion pro or con, please feel free to leave a comment. Even if no one comments, typing out my thoughts here has helped.

ETA: Well, this is ironic. It appears I was just featured on GetFreeBooks.com. Never fear, I'm not making the books for sale this instant. I'm just thinking about it, and I'll need a little time to read back over the stories to polish them a little more, but I am seriously considering charging, especially as I look at getting professional cover art for Dragon Prey. Dragons are expensive!

Vote For Me!

Made a fun discovery Thursday night. It seems I've been included in a few lists over on Goodreads, and there's a voting option to each list.

Unicorn Bait is on these lists:

Unicorn Books
Best Unicorn Books

Scary Mary is on this list:

Eye of the Beholder

So if you have the time and are so inclined...VOTE FOR ME!

I know I won't beat Peter S. Beagle in either Unicorn list or any list really, but I want that second place! ;-)

To whoever added me to these lists, thank you so much. They made me happy!

And no, I did not vote myself, and it has nothing to do with the fact that Goodreads tracks that sort of thing...

My Review of The Hunger Games

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Yes, I finally read this widely read, highly acclaimed, soon-to-be major motion picture book, and it was good. The story was familiar. The idea of people being chosen by lottery to kill each other has been done before. I feel every review should at least mention Battle Royale. I have not read the book but I've seen the movie of the same title and many elements are the same. Both stories center around teens who are forced to kill each other until there is one victor.

This is not to say that Battle Royale was the originator of this storyline. Go back to gladiator days and this story was actually lived by some poor souls. The idea of kill or be killed is plum storyline material. How Collins story stands out I think is in the character of Katniss Everdeen. She has lived a hard life and had only herself to rely upon, but she is still a good person. She's fiercely protective of her sister, is entirely self-reliant, and has a strong moral code. But she doesn't trust people and views everyone with suspicion and cannot accept things people say to her at face value. Her struggle to accept that other people might actually care for her and confusion of who she might care for beyond her family is wonderfully handled. I plan to read Catching Fire and am intrigued with how the story will progress beyond The Hunger Games. The world Collins created is still largely unknown but what Collins revealed in the first book makes me eager to learn more.

View all my reviews at Goodreads.

Achievement!

I did it with only a half hour to spare, but I wrote fifty thousand words in November! I really appreciate my local Wrimo group. I don't think I would've been nearly as successful without them. I'd never word warred before this and wouldn't have guessed it would be such a boon. I surprised myself with how much I got written while furiously typing in a room with a bunch of other furiously typing writers.

Now, don't get too excited because the STILL untitled sequel (I'm really struggling with the title) is not close to done. It needs another thirty to forty thousand words and then the editing may just kill me, but I have gotten a firm start on this book. That wouldn't have happened without Nanowrimo.

I have to say that I have seen some anti-Nanowrimo articles online and they don't make much sense to me. They claim that having a lot of people write is a bad thing. I feel there's an elitist tone to these articles. Like only select people may write stories. This is preposterous. Everyone can write a story. It doesn't matter if it's good or bad. Everyone can write a story. Now, I can have some sympathy for the agents and editors who get a flood of submissions from people who wrote a story and are now sending them in without any editing or proofreading. But I still applaud the person for participating. I think writing is a wonderful thing and everyone should do it. Now there have been studies that found journaling to being a health benefit. (One article here.) I think storytelling may offer many of the same benefits. I mean just look at the list provided in the article all of the bullets could easily apply to storytelling. So go write a story! Don't worry about it being good and have fun with it. It will do you good.