Is it really?
Yes, my sales are down. And it's my own damn fault.
You see, last summer we decided to move back to Ohio so DH is closer to his parents, GK his grandparents. I stayed in Texas to finish getting the house ready to put on the market.
Only to have the Great God Murphy intervene in a big way.
I tried to keep up on my production schedule. Blood Sacrifice and an Alter Ego novella were released in October. Three-quarters of the first draft of A Question of Balance was written during NaNoWriMo. Another Alter Ego short novel was published in May.
That is pretty f**king slow for me, and my sales numbers are starting to show it. I'm only selling about half of what I was a year ago. Because I'm not producing. Because my readers are waiting to see if I can complete what I started.
And rather than sinking my earnings back into my business, I used the cash to pay bills and finish work on the house. Seriously, when I saw my Amazon deposit yesterday morning, the first things I did was drop the check to my dentist in the mail and drive over to Home Depot for some supplies. When I get my B&N payment next week, I'll swing by Uncle Bob's for more boxes and bubblewrap.
This is definitely not how I would recommend running your business, folks. It's a damn good way to ground it into nothing. My production schedule is sitting by my side, mocking me. And there's no one to blame but myself.
Will things get better?
I believe they will. DH has agreed to pay Angry Sheep back from the proceeds of the house sale. I've already lined up someone to help me format the Bloodlines series for paper release next year. And once the house is show worthy (I need to tile the last bathroom and clean out my office this weekend), I'll retreat to Starbucks and write on my f**king phone if that's what it takes to get back in the groove.
As always, your mileage may vary.
And don't forget Amazon's new subscription service. I've heard from quite a few indie writers that their sales have been way down since that got fired up. Makes sense that hordes of people would take the free trial and binge. Have to see how many sign up to pay for the service, and after that how it actually affects everyone's sales in the long term. But for now, you really can't draw any long-term conclusions based on a short-term situation.
ReplyDeleteAngie
If there had been a sharp decline in my sales when Kindle Unlimited went live last month, I'd agree with you, Angie.
ReplyDeleteI've been putting out something new under one of my names every month from February of 2012 until May of 2013. Since then, there's been a novel and short story under my name and a novella and short novel under Alter Ego. Three of those stories came out between October 18 and November 1.
If I can blame any outside force, it's the Kernel Pornocalypse back in October. That little incident halved Alter Ego's income. And there's B&N's lack of direction which is killing ebook sales in their store.
But even those don't wholly account for the gradual slide since August of last year.
Glad you're getting the business money back in your account. We have that with Tim's stuff too. Sometimes we have to shuffle things about.
ReplyDeleteYeah, the unexpected bill shuffle. We know it well.
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