Sales trends

RobeH · Mar 24, 2015

Hello all, I haven't posted in a long while and would very much appreciate some advice/comments.

I started self-publishing my novels - mainly historical stuff set in medieval England - about two years ago. Sales were a bit slow at first, but improved quite dramatically in the spring of last year. I had a great month in October but since then some odd trends have occurred.

US sales have slowly dwindled, while paperback and UK sales have increased. The lack of sales in the US is a mounting worry, because about 60% of my royalty income stems from those.

I just wondered if anyone else has noticed or experienced a similar trend, and if there is anything tangible that can be done about it? I do a fair amount of promotion work - time permitting - and pay a decent UK-based graphics company to produce good, professional standard covers.

Thanks a lot!

WriterBN · Mar 24, 2015

US sales have declined substantially for my first book this year, but it's 2 years old, so I suspect it's a natural phenomenon. There are some authors who attribute declining sales to the rise of Kindle Unlimited, but I haven't seen convincing data one way or the other.

cutecontinent · Mar 24, 2015

sales have increased for me, but all my stuff is on kdp select. sales through select typically outweigh normal sales in any given day..

if possible, i say enroll one in select and set free for 5 days... and see how that goes?

veinglory · Mar 24, 2015

Are you in Select, and if you are what is your trend on borrows versus sales?

RobeH · Mar 24, 2015

Thanks for the responses. I am in Select for all my books, and have noticed a lot more borrows in the past 3 months or so. I still outsell the borrows by a ratio of 2 or 3 to 1 though. Could any of that be significant?

Salaris · Mar 24, 2015

I'm only very recently published, so my sample size is very small, but I'm in Kindle Select and my numbers tended to trend upward for about the first month. Now, they're fairly steady, possibly trending a tiny bit down. Some of this might be because I've been tweaking my Categories, however - I'm not sure.

cutecontinent · Mar 24, 2015

Salaris said:
I'm only very recently published, so my sample size is very small, but I'm in Kindle Select and my numbers tended to trend upward for about the first month. Now, they're fairly steady, possibly trending a tiny bit down. Some of this might be because I've been tweaking my Categories, however - I'm not sure.

categories, and keywords especially, have a big impact

girlyswot · Mar 25, 2015

When did you last publish a book? Sales naturally decline after a while, so unless you've had something new out recently, that's not a surprising journey.

WeaselFire · Mar 25, 2015

Have you tried plotting the sales curve for each of your works? That's one of the basic measurements for sales of any product and lets you establish a baseline expectation for future works, as well as identify your personal sales trends. You don't need a MBA to self publish, but you do have to have some serious business chops to make it big.

Or write illiterate pseudo-porn that defies all logic and goes mega-platinum...

Jeff

WriterBN · Mar 26, 2015

WeaselFire said:
Or write illiterate pseudo-porn that defies all logic and goes mega-platinum...

Damn. You uncovered my master plan for world domination.

Sales trends

RobeH

WriterBN

cutecontinent

veinglory

volitare nequeo

RobeH

Salaris

Fantasy Writer and Game Designer

cutecontinent

girlyswot

WeaselFire

Benefactor Member

WriterBN