I’ve been resisting doing this article because of a host of factors. But with the last pricing article, it became clear that I needed to at least say something about this topic.
Why would I hesitate at such a simple and obvious topic? For that very reason. It just seems too simple and obvious to me to spend time talking about.
Then someone (my wife, Kristine Kathryn Rusch) reminded me I had been living inside of publishing since 1975 and what was obvious to me wasn’t to most people. And most indie publishers are not seasoned veterans of publishing, but new writers coming in.
As she said so clearly to me, “How would they know?”
So here we go. I will make this short, I promise.
Some Important History First
For a very, very long time in the publishing industry, everything concerning selling was divided into three seasons: Fall, winter and spring.
There were numbers of reasons for only having three seasons in publishing. The most important was that it took time for sales reps to go out to all the stores and sell the books to the stores and drugstores and newsstands. Often the early sales reps covered vast distances and serviced many, many accounts.
With each season came sales conferences, when editors used to present to the sales forces their lists of books. These conferences were done by each company and often covered an entire week. And it often took editors weeks to prepare for the conference.
Company by company, that is all done differently now.
But the three seasons remain.
Notice the season that is missing? Summer.
A number of factors played into this fact of the missing summer season besides the ability of the sales force to hit all their accounts in three months instead of four. One factor was air-conditioning. When I first came into publishing, it was common knowledge and “New York” (meaning traditional publishing) shut down in August. Sure, in the 1970s there was air-conditioning. But the tradition of shutting down still remained from the 1950s and back.
That tradition has now changed as well.
But the second major reason for no summer catalog and sales season for the publishers was that it was known that the lowest time for buying books by customers was May through the middle of September.
That has not changed.
Why Don’t Book Buyers Buy
from Mid-May to Mid-September?
If you look at your own life, the answer to that question should be clear. Graduation, nice weather, sports, kids are out of school, kids are going back to school, and so on and so on…
Do major publishers still release books every month? Yup. And often the bestseller game works wonders when a book is released into a known dead week or month, allowing the book to hit a bestseller list with far, far fewer copies than it would take in say October or November or early December.
But the books released into the summer downturn of sales are expected to sell less. That’s just the business.
Indie Publishers
For almost two years now I have been shouting (make that SHOUTING) that indie publishers should not watch numbers, but instead focus on writing their next book and learning how to become better storytellers.
At WMG Publishing Inc. we are just finally getting a person to help us develop a way to even track all our numbers and Joe Konrath finally hired someone to do the same for him. I tend to look at the numbers about once per month. (And I never read reviews and don’t care, which is another topic. (grin))
So I noticed the downturns in the seasonal sales from month-to-month, and how this summer I expected WMG Publishing numbers to go down, but instead they went up. The reason ours went up was increasing pricing, redoing some really ugly covers, and just basically relaunching some books, as well as adding in new material along the way.
Let me be clear here. I EXPECTED OUR SALES TO GO DOWN THIS SUMMER.
Why did I expect that and looked for reasons why it didn’t happen. Because I know the sales cycles of publishing.
So here are my suggestions to indie writers and publishers.
1) Focus only on learning and writing the next book.
2) Check your numbers when the money gets deposited every month and no more.
3) Expect your overall sales to go down from May 15 to September 15 unless you push in new titles or do something else to change your list.
The summer is a great time to push in new titles because they will be solidly in the system, throughout the world, as we go into the fall book-buying season. So if you do anything in the summer, get new titles up.
If you do change a price, for heaven’s sake, give the new price at least six months to nine months to return numbers to you. Changing a price from week to week or month to month is just flat silly in this business.
Think long term. Checking your sales numbers twelve times per year is enough. And for heaven’s sake, stop reacting to low sales in a traditional low-sales period in the business.
Nothing wrong with your books. Low sales in the summer are just normal.
Now try to remember that next summer. (grin)
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Copyright © 2012 Dean Wesley Smith
Cover art copyright Philcold/Dreamstime
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“And I never read reviews and don’t care”
This is very interesting…may I ask why you don’t read them? I have been pondering the wisdom of reading one’s own reviews for some time (I don’t have any…just started writing seriously in June). Blogs, emails, and the like, yeah I can see that as being more serious inquiries for the author. But reviews at places like Amazon, SW, etc….does reading them do more harm than good? I have read of some new authors quitting writing for weeks because of scathing, nasty reviews. I suppose that is less likely with email and blog comments. If they don’t like your book, I would think (not speaking from experience here) that they would tell you why they dislike your book, and in a semi-polite manner rather than just say, “SCAM BOOK!” on Amazon.
I totally dig your intent with the don’t check your sales numbers: Don’t freak out about the numbers going up and down. You’re not a writing day trader. Concentrate on your craft. Butt in chair. Good things will come.
That said, I check mine every day. Takes 5 minutes. And it motivates me to do more. Sales are down? Write more. Sales are up? Money and more fans, yay! Write more for them. If I get a review on a big review blog, I know how much it helps. Might be important some day. Maybe. I also have a promotional thing going on with Wattpad that’s been driving a lot of sales to me for my YA and takes 30 minutes of my time each week. Teens are hard to reach! Charting that, I know why my sales go up on Wednesdays.
I enter it all in a spreadsheet and go on about my writing life as in this last month.
50k+ written, despite Dragon*Con and allergy season. Read one book on craft. Read a host of articles on craft. Read a section of Techniques of the Selling Writer for the umpteenth time.
So I don’t think it’s the checking so much as the attitude. Writers write. Whatever else they may do promotionally, tactically, with a tennis racket, it doesn’t matter. As long as they keep writing and don’t let that other stuff interfere with the *real* work. That other stuff has to take away hobby time, social life, watching the roses bloom time.
That’s how I’d say it, but knowing writers with fragile egos, the way you say it (don’t check them) is probably the better tactic in mass. You teach workshops. You know how other writers think better than I do. And I know I’m wired different from most.
Oh, and based on my spreadsheets: Sales of the YA were strong in April. Went soft in May. Plummeted in June-August. Climbing back up in September. Predictable.
David, every writer is different. I think I’ve said that a few thousand times, huh? (grin) Most beginning writers I have met stress over reviews and over sales numbers. Older professionals and most bestsellers seldom bother with a review except to get a pull quote out of the major ones.
But I have seen a review stop a writer cold and make them turn away from writing. And usually what a review does is bring a failed writer into your office with you to help you write. That’s not what you want.
So, if they don’t bother you and you can completely forget everything they said the moment you hit your writing, you are a rare writer. The rest of us are better off ignoring reviews and just writing our own stuff.
And in a way, checking numbers are the same thing. If you can do it only for business, you are also rare. Most do it for ego and feedback and when bad days and months happen, as they will, they take that into their writing office and that leads to trouble.
So my advice stands. But caution, folks. If you think you are like David, great. Just make sure you are. You don’t need readers and fans and reviewers in your writing office with you.
I’m a fellow allergy suffer (ah-CHOO!), so you have my sympathies.
I check my numbers daily most days, at around midnight. I keep a log so I can do month-to-month comparisons and also to be able to pinpoint if certain actions have any effect (exchanging samples with another author in each other’s eBooks was wonderfully successful, as was notifying my Facebook friends of a new book; advertising has brought in mixed to no results). My sales actually did pretty good through the end of June but then dipped sharply in July. August brought a backlist title in eBook for the first time, and a nice showing for that title, but the others are still lagging. I’m looking forward to fall…the final week of last September is when my sales jumped.
Something else I noticed…my numbers look best in the middle of the night, when my newest title often creeps up to the 40s or 50s on the Top 100 Multicultural Romance Bestseller list, but during the day is either not on the list or is in the 80s or 90s…Interesting, huh?
Bettye, not interesting to me at all I’m afraid. More horrifying to be honest. Why you would check all that or even bother or care or waste all the time every day is beyond me and just makes me shudder.
Honestly, folks, checking numbers every day is a trait of an author who cares more about being published than of a writer who just focuses on writing the next story and enjoying the process of writing.
I am not sure why this post about not watching sales has so many people telling me they are doing exactly the opposite of what I suggested.
Check your numbers once a month, folks. Only really, really bad decisions can come out of checking sales numbers daily in publishing. And spend all that extra time you will have writing more.
And stop doing worthless promotion and write more as well.
I will give you an attitude I have had from the very beginning and it has served me wonderfully for 37 years.
When a story is done and published, FORGET IT. That’s why when someone starts talking to me about a story or book I wrote, I have no idea what they are talking about in most cases. I am always focused on THE NEXT STORY. Always.
A point of interest. Traditional publishers only looks at numbers after six months, and only make decisions after a year of numbers on a book. On some things, they know what they are doing.
One more comment to all of you checking your numbers ever day. Joe Konrath just did a blog about hiring a person to finally get all his numbers after these years. We are finally doing that at WMG so every month we will know general sales numbers.
But let me give you some perspective on attitude, folks.
I have over EIGHT MILLION books in print, which means I have sold EIGHT MILLION PLUS sales. And that’s only novels. In paper editions. God only knows how many copies of magazines and anthologies I have been in that had a copy of the hundreds of short stories I have sold.
And you know how I know I have over eight million novels in print? Because about a year and a half ago, I spent a few hours going through royalty statements and adding them all up, and digging back through old royalty statements in old files for books that were out of print. And that’s not counting the 500,000 plus thousand sales Kindle says I have sold in electronic books. And that’s not counting the last 18 months or so for books selling, because honestly, that was a few hours too many for me to do that kind of work again any time soon.
If you want those kind of sales numbers for your own books, instead of paying attention to every single sale, stop counting and write more and learn how to write better stories. Follow Heinlein’s Rules.
And then in a few years, you can go back and add them all up and be surprised like I was.
But you won’t get there, I can promise you that, by always looking backwards every day. And watching your sales numbers every day is ALWAYS looking backwards, no matter what you claim.
“All the time” amounts to less than 10 minutes…if I can’t spare that, I’d be in pretty bad shape. If it becomes unwieldy, I’ll stop. With only 7 books out, maybe 9 by year’s end, I think I’m a long way from that happening.
I do agree about the promotion part, though…but I had to find out what works and what doesn’t. Cross-promoting (trading excerpts with authors who write similar genre books) has worked. Advertising has not. It’s kind of like the lottery…you have to be in it to win it!
I’d heard that there were seasons but I hadn’t thought much of which months were the downturn. It actually helps a lot to know that most of my time selling has been in low months. Of course there could be a million other things wrong but as for right now, this post was very helpful! Thanks
Thanks for writing this, Dean – your wife is right, you can hardly overestimate the amount of stuff that some of us (such as me) don’t know about publishing yet. I’m very grateful for your info.
I’ve been wondering lately whether, with self e-publishing, there is still such a thing as a “launch” for a new book in the conventional sense – that is, the author doing a load of promo at the time that the book is uploaded onto Amazon or wherever.
I can imagine a situation where my book is ready to be published but I’m not able at that time to do any promo. Does that matter? Now that we’re not talking about paper books as “produce” in a bookstore for only a few weeks unless they sells rapidly, does the timing of the promo matter?
I wondered if one place it might still matter would be in trying to get magazine reviews. My work-in-progress has specialist appeal and I might be able to attract reviews in specialist magazines. Would it matter if I was approaching them months after I published my ebook?
Sasha,
Reviews need to be done months ahead of a release of a book, and then only the ones worth while are paper, for the most part.
If you are only publishing electronic, no reason to do much promotion if any. Always better to build inventory than promote one book readers will forget about because you have no other work to back it up.
So, to answer your question, you are right, there are no launches in ebook indie publishing. And as the world shifts, there will be fewer and fewer in all books.
Thanks, Dean, that’s a very useful reply. I suppose it also means that if you’re only e-pubbing, then you don’t need to take account of the seasons either – you just hit the “publish” button once your book is ready because it’s always going to be available to the reader, unlike a book in a store.
But what if you’re also offering a paper POD version online? Would reviewers be interested in paper books that are only available online, or just books in stores?
I would qualify that, if that’s okay, with the comment that if you’re writing a series, let your readers know that the new book is out. I collect emails off my web page from people who signed up because they wanted to know when I release a new book. So I do (along with posting on my FB author page).
I used to check sales every day and I went off it cold turkey. I was trying to think of it as a business–like a coffee shop owner counting his cash every day–but it was crazy making with the ups and downs and I am far more productive, not to mention happier, NOT.
Thanks for the post, very useful insight on sales and seasons and such forth. I’ve never really understood why sales should be much lower in summer. There’s holiday and beach reading for one thing. I love reading in the summer, lying in a hammock in the garden on a lovely summer’s day.
I so agree with you on both accounts. I was without Internet for a whole day this past weekend and wrote nearly 10,000 words that day! I did have to get caught up on guest blog posts the next day for a new release, but still, it made me realize how much time I spend wasting time, because looking at sales figures all day, or all the other myriad of stuff I can do INSTEAD of writing that next book…takes time!
New releases always help sales of backlists and the current title more than anything else I can do.
Wow, 10k words is outstanding! That is what I call “hard writing”. My best days are 4000 words, tops, and I don’t meet that goal often. Congrats!
I also check my sales daily. No sale: Need to write more! Sale: Yippie!
That’s one of the reasons I’m really grateful for your blog, Dean: It prepared me for all kinds of experiences a beginning writer has to face. (Same goes for Kris’ blog, of course!)
On topic: I always thought summer was a good time to sell a book since a lot of people read them in their vacations. Some reviews explicitly named some books an excellent read for the beach or something like that. Not contradicting you, I’m just surprised.
Frank, it’s a fine time to sell a book. They just don’t sell in the same numbers and never have. But books do sell. But sales are always down.
Frank, see my comment to Bettye. Why are you doing that?????
Because at this time I sell only 4 books a month. So when I see a sale in the morning, it lifts me up. It’s motivating. No sale in the morning is normal, so it doesn’t bog me down.
It was all short stories until now; just published the first novel, preparing the second. I’m optimistic sales will rise with those (short stories are quite dead here).
When I’m nearing 4 sales a day, I will quit looking every day, I promise.
Your career, Frank. All I am saying is the practice is very, very dangerous in more ways than you can imagine at the point you are at.
I thought about it, and you’re right. Uploading the short stories was kind of experimental, so every sale was a positive surprise, I still stand by that. But it’s different with the novel: I’m hoping for sales now, so no sales will be disappointing and probably lead to other unwanted emotions.
I’m afraid I’m not strong enough to look only once a month. But once a week should work.
I expected a summer downturn and my sales indeed went down in June and July, but to my own surprise they went up to winter levels In August and even higher than last December/January in September to date (yes, I do check my sales. I just don’t obsess about them). But then, I have a lot more books out now than I had last year. And I used the summer holidays (I’m a teacher in my dayjob) to get more books out there.
By the way, happy to hear you say that promo isn’t necessary and that we’re better off just writing the next book. I loathe the idea of Facebook, Twitter and all that stuff. I had been considering just hitting the “publish” button and doing absolutely zero promo just to see what happened and if there’s really no such thing as a “launch” for an ebook then I’m not risking anything.
I like what you’re saying, mostly because I am The. Worst. Micro-manager. Ever! I do check my numbers whenever I get a notice that money is going in. There are downsides, of course… I realized this week my book is not coming up in any search in the bookstores that my book has been distributed to. Now, I have to do some leg work and get this glitch worked out. It’s been almost four months. Some might call that irresponsible. ha! I call it writing and real life.
I do hope that aging demographics will change summer sales and lower birth rates (as I don’t write for the under 18 crowd). Of course, it won’t make summer months equal because there will always be some portion of the book buying (or bought for) crowd comprised of children and their parents. Still, I do look forward to the boomers becoming heavy readers after they retire.
I’ve got to thank you for this post. If nothing else, it’s given me a good reason to quit checking my sales numbers every day. Heck, there have been days when I go and check them five or six times. It’s a terrible waste of time.
Sales aren’t really through the roof. I’ve a long ways to go before I can make a living off of my writing, and checking my sales numbers every day just ends up being sort of soul-crushing– especially on days when I don’t make any sales (most days). Checking them once a month seems reasonable enough and will help me stay focused on the important thing: My writing.
OJC, maybe if you are doing this a bunch of times per day, you need to cut back to only once a week at a certain time. It seems this habit will be like cutting out smoking for some. (grin)
LOL! OJC, I do that too. No excuses. Dean is right. I’ve tried weaning myself from this ridiculous obsession three times so far. I’m good for a month…or even two! But somewhere in the middle, my resolution erodes, and there I am checking every day, then twice a day, then more. Yikes! Stop that, writer! Get back to thy Word window and type!
(Dean, just like so many here I’m confessing to my terrible habit. Give me credit for knowing that it has no redeeming value whatsoever!)
We have always said the best promotion is a good book. Better promotion in another better book. And so on. So totally agree with learning the craft and writing more better books…However, the numbers game. I do check numbers more frequently then when the checks are deposited. Bob Mayer checks at the end of the week–but he’s looking at dollar signs, not book sold. I check number of copies sold and depending on what is going on with promotional pushes, new releases, updated covers, soft launches, hard launches, will depend on how often I check these things, where and why. Its almost impossible to gather the right kind of data that lets me know what is working and what isn’t working. Even with good analytics that allows me to track clicks in and out of our books, I can’t track which clicks lead to sales on Amazon, B&N, etc. I what I can track are patterns…most authors right now are getting ready to tune me out–you’re writers, you want to write–its what you do. We’ve always said that self-publishing in its purest form is very difficult, which is why Bob and I work as a team and I handle all this side of the business. The key word here is “business”. As authors, we are self employed in the business of publishing. Yes, our job is to write good books that readers want to buy. But as indie authors, our role, if we are to be successful, is more than just writing–we have to understand the business aspect and if we don’t, then we need to create a team. Success doesn’t happen in a vacuum and understanding discoverability, marketing and how to reach readers (which are not book buyers) is key.
Jen, I never said to ignore the business. In fact, on post after post after post here I have been hammering on writers to learn and understand business and put good business practices into play, from how to set up a business to money to signing contracts. So please do not say I am telling writers to not pay attention to business because I tell them to get out of the bad habit of checking numbers every day.
Understanding business trends and such is fine, but in publishing time is everything. Things take time in publishing and in business, and trends don’t happen in a week or even a month in publishing. Even with electronic speeding up things from the old days of slow as a glacier before global warming, trends and other factors take time.
My point of this post is that I saw so many indie writers looking at a month of days of watching sales and getting all panicked and lowering prices and such for no reason other than a seasonal downturn.
I stick with my suggestion of making sure your numbers are in line once per month and spend the rest of the time working on becoming a better storyteller and writing more work to put up. I think my wife checks some numbers every week. Not all, but some.
I check them every month because that’s when Apple and Kobo and Sony and Amazon and CreateSpace and others report. I look at the totals every month and then adjust my thinking for the season. Watching the daily numbers is just, in my opinion, dangerous and bad business because watching at that micro level will lead to really bad business decisions.
I want people to be good at business. And that’s EXACTLY what I am talking about.
To further emphasize your point, in the business world where I spend my days doing trend analysis, we track year over year on a quarterly basis … how did the 3rd quarter of 2012 compare to the third quarter of 2011 and 2010 etc.
Another great post! I don’t even know if I would understand all the data and spreadsheets that writers talk about. Sounds boring to me.
I think you are right about getting as many books up so readers can find more than one book. I have made the decision to just write and publish and concentrate on getting better at the writing. I think that is the main thing-to be the best storyteller you can be! Readers will find you as your wife Kris as said.
Dean, thanks for another great column with sound advice, obviously experienced based. However, it does raise a question, at least in my mind.
Disruptive change in the world of publishing is much discussed, both in your excellent posts and elsewhere on the web. I can’t help but think those same changes will, at some point at least, impact the sales cycle. As far as demand goes, I take your point regarding good weather, vacations, etc., in summer, but wonder if those are really the factors driving demand? For example Fall brings school activities, NFL and college football, followed by basketball, preparation for Thanksgiving and Christmas, etc. Personally, I’m busier in the Fall than Summer, and get more reading done in the summer months than at any other time. It raises the question (at least in my mind) if established sales patterns are not the result of decreased supply based on the behavior patterns of traditional publishers. To use the example of television, I don’t turn it on if I know there’s nothing there but re-runs. If books sales ARE somewhat impacted by supply, it seems logical that will also change in time. The folks in NYC might go to the Hamptons in August, but Indie authors don’t. Increasingly, the content will be there and ever available via wireless delivery.
Any thoughts on that?
Not arguing, just thinking out loud (or rather, on line).
R.E., the August off habit is gone now for the most part in traditional publishing. So that has changed as I said. But readers are still readers no matter how they are reading. Electronic is just a new form, just as paperbacks were back when they came in. New forms seldom mean readers change habits and their lives. As I said, publishers still release books every month all the way through the summer, and readers still read. But they do NOT buy books at the same pace as the fall, winter, and spring. And there are a million reasons for that.
Before ebooks really hit, I researched traditional publishing to prepare for submitting. During the research, I recall someone mentioning the summer slow selling season, but it’s been so long ago I don’t recall where and when.
However, that little piece of information, tucked away in the recess of my brain, remained. I started publishing in a February, not too far from the season hitting. When it did hit, and a bunch of Indies around me were panicking, that little piece of information popped up. It kept me calm while so many around me were dropping prices, giving things away for free, or dropping their current writing project to promote all day.
To watch them had me shaking my head. Meanwhile, I went back to writing. That year the slump didn’t end until well into October, but the US economy was still deep in a recession. Later in October, in part thanks to a new release, sales started to rebound.
This year I did well until the beginning of August. Then things crashed. Still within that ‘season’ but again, I know what is happening. No reason to panic. Continue working on the current writing project. Continue to finish, edit, and then get things out there. Make sure there is new work released at the end of September and into October to help the backlist come out of that ‘season.’
Isn’t it great that the best response is more writing and releasing? For me, that’s the most exciting part of this whole business anyway!
Now to sales numbers. Like Dean and Kris, I’ve spent the summer going through the backlist (around 30 releases) to update covers, write better blurbs, and to get as much as possible out in print. With that comes formatting new ebooks with altered back-copy. Despite several months to do it, I’m not finished yet because :ahem: I also wrote 3 95k+ novels this summer, and around 100k in short stories and novelettes, too.
How often do I check sales? I’ll admit it’s been more often lately, but that’s only because I’ve been uploading new versions of the ebooks, covers, and book descriptions into all the retailers. Want an extra reason to look, since you’ll already be there? Release something new! That’s a wonderful little carrot to dangle in front of the Logical-Brain obsessive-compulsive side of you that loves numbers so much.
Do you think some of this is a function of newbie vs. old hand? Few books vs. many books? I’ve only been at this two and a half years. My fifth book will go up in a few days. In that time, my need to check sales has diminished, although not to once a month.
I started this second career too late in life to have the multitudes of books of a lifetime writer like you, Dean, but I suspect in another two or three years I may get to that once a month check. (And I hope that applying your advice will result in more than five additional books in that time.)
Ellen, if it is newbie vs. old hand, it’s brand new. I know of almost no authors in my time (ancient history) who started and worried about numbers. We worried about writing more and getting more things in front of editors, but when something sold, it never occurred to most of us to even count. I think the reason for that is that any actual numbers on book sales were so delayed and we finally got them every six months anyway.
And once per year it was easy to look at the postal mailing information in magazines to see how many copies they were printing. For example, in my editing days at Pulphouse, anyone who sold me a story got 4,500 readers. If they sold Kris a story at F&SF in that same period, they got around 90,000 readers. In theory.
But no one I know of (who continued on) paid much attention. Our focus was always on writing the next story. And getting paid.
It’s funny how subjects resonate: Kris’ post and Konrath’s post made me write up a post for tomorrow’s blog and one of the things I realized was… the reason so many people depend so deeply on Amazon (to the detriment of their sales elsewhere) is that Amazon gives them such incredible numbers feedback.
People get addicted to seeing their numbers move, and it’s like our instinctive monkey brain gets a reward when the numbers move — so we start doing things to see it Move! Now! In real time!
And that brain reward exists even when we logically know for sure that what we did and that numbers move are not related. It’s still cool to try to make the stats move by magic.
The result for Amazon is great: people may stop writing, but they spend all their time and attention on Amazon, becoming a more committed customer, and flogging products all over the place.
But for writers… it’s just another addiction.
July was my best month ever, with no new releases. August was good as well. September (so far) has been the worst month.
I’m glad you made the post about this, because there’s a lot of variance in the results of particular writers, and many of those writers spread their stats as if they’re gospel. So I was under the impression that Summer was the second most booming season for ebook publishing (Winter being the first, of course). Obviously, mileage can and does vary, but many of the people making pronouncements haven’t even been publishing a year and are just repeating things they heard, which may have been said by people who heard it from someone else – and when you follow the chain of information, it becomes more difficult to figure out the experience of the person talking and whether they have any at all or are just making it up.
I only went looking at reviews once, because my mom taunted me that the reason I had no interest in them was because I was “scared” that people didn’t like the work. As it came at about the same time as a sudden upsurge in sales, I decided to submit to looking for where those sales were coming from and (while I was at it) read the reviews at GoodReads that also ended up in the search results. I was able to reassure my mom that the reviews were good, learn of a formatting issue in one of them (which I was able to fix), and then go into a weird sort of headspace where I just abandoned the piece I was working on because of a comment in one of the reviews. It wasn’t exactly negative, as the comment was something along the lines of, “You knew where the story was going, but it was enjoyable to go there.” At the time, I actually considered it a compliment, but it still made me second-guess myself. The story I was working on is now number three or four in my queue, as if it’s being punished for being the project I was working on after reading the review. It’s silly, but there it is. So I wish I hadn’t let myself be goaded into reading the reviews, even though I was rather pleased with the reviews I had. I have no intentions of reading them again because I certainly don’t want to be put into a new “weird headspace” and I also don’t want to write-to-reviews, because I feel like it’ll make me very self-conscious about my writing and probably end up second-guessing things that most people have no problem with to attempt to placate someone who may not have really had a problem with it either.
As for checking stats… I was checking daily, maybe twice daily (once when I woke up and once before I went to sleep) if it was right after a title was released, but since the May downturn, I went from every-few-days and then to, “Oh, I forgot it was the 15th the other day, I should put those monthly numbers into my spreadsheet before I forget, huh?” (speaking of…) I can’t say that once I publish the next story I won’t do the, “check stats daily” thing for the first few days, since I seem to need about 3 to 7 days of downtime between stories or I get frustrated more easily/write less than I do without recharge time, but I don’t think it’ll be like the first month of publishing where I was checking each and every day up until I published the next story. (Though possibly part of that habit was because I was being asked each and every day how my sales were.) Will likely just not let my friends and family know when I’ve published the next title, since I really have no intentions of keeping a graph of daily sales, which would really be the only excuse of being that obsessive about it. Making sure I keep track of the monthly sales is enough information.
I should mention that many of us newbie writers may have felt like we “should” check our stats that often (ie: daily or multiple times daily) because of anecdotes of writers checking their stats that often. They seem to gather neat-if-probably-useless facts like they make most of their sales at lunchtime on weekdays (Wednesday, specifically) and their Amazon ranking is highest on full moons and they never publish on Fridays because if they publish on Fridays they debut an average of 20.5% lower on the charts than if they publish any other day of the week. (Of course, I’m exaggerating a little, but hopefully I give the impression of the sorts of information some people seem to have at their fingertips, paired with an impression of good or even excellent sales, so the idea is, “If I want sales like that, I need to gather information like that so I can make sure to release at the exact right moment, even if it’s taking an extended lunch break or waking up at 3 in the morning to ensure better sales!”) I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if there grows from this sort of thing superstitious practices based on one vocal person’s three months’ worth of experience. And, honestly, it’s one of the major reasons I don’t participate on writers’ forums.
It’s blogs like yours, your wife’s, and a few others who’ve reassured me that I needn’t sink time into those sorts of things to be successful and I’d like to thank you again for all the information you share openly. It’s helped me avoid many traps and pitfalls, letting me waste my time on things like video games rather than barking three times before hitting the Publish button.
RE: ignoring reviews is good but what about serial spoiler listers?
Dean
Thank you for posting this. Your wisdom is helping us newbies!
I wanted to ask about reviews. I basically have decided that your advice is gospel (beacause it works!) so I will not read reviews as I think that’s for readers not writers.
However how about the occasional review by a jerk who decides to ‘review’ by giving away the spoilers to EVERY short story in say, your uploaded short story collection?
Amazon’s policy is they will erase such ‘reviews’ because it will anger other buyers who don’t want their fun spoiled (and it might hurt sales to write out spoilers).
The thing is if you don’t scour your reviews for ‘spoilers’ listers you won’t be able to alert Amazon staff. On the other hand I loathe the idea of reading reviews (because if Im a writer I should be writing right?!).
May I ask what your position is in regards to this kind of problem?
I can ignore bad and good reviews, no worries but shouldn’t I seek out the ‘spoiler’ listers as it might hurt sales? Or should I just ignore that type of activity too?
George, if you don’t read reviews, how would you know that someone did that? Or even care? And that’s my point.
When you only care about writing the next book and that is your focus, nothing else really matters much.
If someone tells you about it, then write Amazon or whoever and fix it. But why go looking?
Sort of like people telling me all the time that my books have been pirated somewhere. I always shrug and go back to writing. Means someone thought my book was valuable enough to take. But not worth my time to fight the idiots of the world.
And there have always been idiots and there always will be.
(I will admit, however, when someone tries to make money off my work without my permission, I do have a lawyer on speed dial. That’s where I draw the line. But I let a lawyer spend the time while I keep writing and doing what I do.)
Dean thank you for responding. The line (about spoiler listers):
“If someone tells you about it, then write Amazon or whoever and fix it. But why go looking? ”
Okay THAT hit me like a splash of cold water. Why go looking? Why indeed?
I was going to say “but it will lower sales–if you dont go looking, in order to prevent damage” but then I saw the subtext of what you are saying. A writer goes on to write more (more magic bakery goods! more!) This GENERATES sales. And expands your territory overcoming any minor setbacks.
Going all anxious and seeking out spoiler listers etc is a defensive posture –PREVENTING sale loses.
But “the best defense is a good offense” — instead of defending won ground you go on to fight for more ground.
Because to defend what you already have is NOT to grow, and not to grow your brand (write more, bake more magic pies) is stagnation. And to stagnate is not different from losing ground.
aha I understand you. I get it.
Thanks Dean.
As for calling the lawyer when someone tries to make money off my work without my permission –I agree that’s a different matter entirely. Spoilers, etc are not illegal but trying to take money from your wallet that you are rightfully earning is a different matter of course.
And I don’t need speed dial, my kid brother is a litigator who makes Perry Mason look like a boy scout *big grin*.
Thanks, George, you made my day and made me smile. Seldom someone flat gets it at a lot of levels. So thanks!
Folks, Read George’s answer. He makes it very clear, better than I did. And is spot on.
My pleasure Dean. I unpacked what you already had put up in compressed form. I spent several years at the U of Toronto studying philosophers, theologians, maverick intellectuals etc (ancient, medieval, modern) unpacking the argumentation of brilliant thinkers. Its what I do.
I thought I would go into it as a career (a prof) but it did not excite me like fiction.
Your argument also brought another buried idea in from my mind: Christ’s parable of the talents(cash). It occurred to me that the servant who buried the talent (stagnate, merely thinking he kept it from ‘loss’ without investing/growing) was in fact ‘stealing’: what he was stealing was the potential future profit. A very real loss of a future gain that will not come to fruition because your wasting time burying/protecting your current talent/pie.
So if you keep protecting one pie today you are preventing yourself from gaining tomorrow by baking more pies. You are stealing valuable time. And thus you ‘squander’ it by trying to merely keep it.
You have only two choices in this life: to bake more pies or lose the opportunity to bake more pies.
There really is no middle ground, because the FUTURE profit will be lost by your present standing still. The existence of the future (and its potential loss or gain) prevents you from merely standing still and NOT losing.
I don’t want to turn your thread into some sort philosophy class–but you helped me see that growth is the only way to work, constant growth.
Thank you much!
George, again spot on the money, but let me add one thing that is a critical ingredient in baking the pies to sell into the future: Learning. Constant growth with the same skill level and product also leads to stagnation and worse. But content growth and work (and that evil word to writers: Practice) combined with a thirst for knowledge will bring a future with success.
Dean thank you, Learning ! humility to accept being a lifelong student.
re: learning/practice/thirst for knowledge
Yes of course.
I have written out a recipe for myself for ‘continuing education of the writer’ (hopefully others will find it useful too):
Education routine
1) Write
2) Read Fiction
–
3 a) Study NonFiction writer’s techniques books
b) Study Writing Business related books (copyright handbook your wife mentioned, books on the business of pub contracts,rights, marketing even, etc), internet-pub-related books
c) read good writing sites (mine are DWS blog, Kristine Kathryn Rusch blog, Konrath blog, and Passive Guy(for news)
–
4) take writing courses online (ie like deans courses)
5) take writing courses in person (seminar at your classes or clarion etc)
Also, Regarding 3a) today I picked up (randomly from my huge writer ref. book shelf) ‘the 10% solution” by Ken Rand and behold you wrote the forward to that! I heard strains of the TZone in the background I swear.
Personally I think 4 should be done only after you’ve done #1-3 for at least a year or two. And #5 only after #4. That way you don’t go into a seminar before you got ‘your papers in order’. Otherwise you’ll be going up and asking Dean whose published over 100 books, questions that are too basic (ie like asking the ‘Hulk to open a pickle jar’). I’m reminded of Bruce Lee who never took on students who weren’t already at least a black belt.
These steps are in order of ‘what should take up the most time’ in your education. Routine #1 being the top (most hours and daily) So, #1 and #2 for everyday for sure.
#3 daily or a few times a week but not at the expense of #2 (and #2 not at the expense of #1)
4,5 once or a few times a year.
Dean please correct me if I’m missing anything or if I got it wrong..
:blinks: That’s the REASON I go onto Amazon to read reviews, regardless of the fact that I buy elsewhere. I refuse to buy a book without finding out from spoilers whether it’s actually my cuppa. Weird as it is, there’s plenty of readers who don’t like nasty surprises in their books and actually reread their favorites instead of reading only new books. I have never enjoyed a book less from being spoiled, though I have from being unpleasantly surprised. I’d advise you not to scour for spoilers. Readers know how to avoid them when they want to and find them when they’re looking.
Ahh, Liana and George, you both so perfectly illustrate my point that indie writers, and any publisher for that matter, can’t control readers and who buys what and why we as publishers and writers just flat never know what a reader will buy and for what reason.
That’s why worrying about all the silly stuff like watching reviews and studying numbers is a waste of time. Always better served to just write the next story or novel. Always.
Cool, Liana I understand. If you feel like that, there must be many others who approach it like you too. I never thought of your kind of reaction! Refreshingly different from my what my own crowd would say.
You see, I come from the Science Fiction/OTR/Star Trek/Star Wars/Dr.Who/Anime/Gaming/Pulp/Comic Book community (!) In our little corner of the galaxy even a hint of giving something away is considered a ‘high crime’! Shouting/writing ‘spoiler alert’ before said event occurs is considered proper etiquette. (I can only imagine how that statement must appear to you, somebody not suffering with our peculiar affliction).
Here is a short clip from a group of characters that could have come out of my local sf/comic store.
—>Its 3.30 min but you only need to watch till 2.40 min.
—>’Stuart’ is the comic book owner. Pay attention to the tall character, Sheldon, who is only slightly exaggerating our communities hypersensitivity to even hinting at giving the story away. And Stuart wasn’t even really spoiling anything!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPIzYXiB7p0
Dean I hope the link posting is okay if not mea culpa!
Being from a heavily fandom background, I do know about those who hate being spoiled. At all. I’m just not one of them. I was a reader before I was a fangirl, and I literally read every single fiction book in my library over and over until they got some new ones.
Ah so you are one of the ‘tribe’ too.
Now reading a book over and over again I don’t think that is very common for fiction books. But I have to admit I do read Dickens Christmas Carol every Christmas time. And wait… there’s my favorite Shakespeare plays and Dostoevsky’s novels…hmmm!
I think Dean’s advice is the best: if somebody tells you of spoilers then go and check and email whoever fixes it.
Contrary to the other poster above, the vast majority of readers I know hate spoilers. They ruin the fun of finding out what happens! For most readers that is the whole point of reading a new book. I mean other than reading a classic over again like George pointed out, reading new current fiction is fun because I do not know what will happen. And you do not need to have somebody write out a spoiler to find out ‘what kind of book it is’ , that is what free reading samples on amazon are for. I have a reading group I am a part of and the host put on a blog questionaire once about spoilers. Out of the 4000 replys it got only 9 people were not bothered by knowing how the story ended before they read it. But I do agree with Dean it is not something a writer should go looking for. But if a friend tells you then yes address it.
Watching numbers is an addiction. People chart their numbers and tell themselves they know something, but what is it they know? Tracking sales doesn’t increase sales. And I’ve yet to see any posts or comments from the daily trackers naming how they were able to create a strategy based on that information.
Although I’m afraid CR Reaves is right, and there will be some whack suggestions about releasing your new romance at 3:00am on a Tuesday with a full moon and if the Republicans are in office. Even if there was any strategy to glean from the numbers trail, it would still pale beside the first and foremost: Write More.
Hi Dean,
What a fabulous post! I released my second book in the middle of August, and so far my first book continues to make more sales. I suppose this is obvious for a number of reasons. One being my first book has been out for over a year and has gradually built up more reviews. But reading your blog has made me feel slightly better now, and I just have to hope that over time the sales of my second book will pick up. In the mean time all I’m going to do is continue to write my third book.
“Check your numbers when the money gets deposited every month and no more.”
Dean, where are you selling, that you get monthly deposits? I sell through online sites like Amazon, B&N, Kobo, Smashwords, etc. They pay quarterly, not monthly. Am I missing a venue?
Thanks for letting us know about the summer season. I check my numbers once a quarter, to see if I’m due any money, and I’ve noticed the significant drop-off in those months. Now that’s one less thing to worry about.
Sarah,
Money comes in from B&N (Pubit) and all the different areas of Amazon monthly. It is delayed 60 days, but it still comes in monthly. So when I get the deposits, I check the last month’s numbers, even though I won’t see that money for 60 days. On Smashwords, you get paid quarterly as well, but Apple, Kobo, Sony, and so on report and pay them monthly. (I hate that Smashwords holds onto our month for months, but that’s another point.) You can check your numbers monthly from the different sources there as well.
Check monthly. Only 12 times per year. That is my suggestion for everyone.
Agreed – I get paid monthly from Amazon, B&N, Kobo, and ARe. Granted it’s on a 2-month lag (got paid in Sept. for August sales, for example). Smashwords is quarterly, but as Dean says, the vendors report monthly.
That said, if you don’t make over $10, then you’re not going to see a payment until you do, which is why you’re maybe not seeing as regular deposits.
Thanks for this most interesting article!!!
Thank you so much for this post.
It is extremely reassuring and put the things into right perspective.
Having not a tenth of your experience, I could not agree more, with the post and some of the replies to the comments as well.
Thank you
Ah, this explains why the books advertised as “great beach reads” come out in March. I’d wondered a little. The pre-holiday autumnal push also makes sense.
Some mildly interesting historical trivia: American beef prices and meat sales also used to drop in July and August, because people ate less meat in summer and consumed produce instead. After around 1900, better stoves made cooking less onerous in summer, while iceboxes and commercial refrigeration reduced the chances of food poisoning, and people began eating more meat in hot weather. So maybe someone needs to invent a hand-cooling e-reader.
Hello Dean,
I’m in the final book design stages of a novel that I’m getting ready to publish through CreateSpace (SmashWords & Kindle for the ebook edition), but I have a few concerns. You say not to watch the numbers, but then how do you know if they add up? A recent post on another blog contends that Amazon and CreateSpace may “rip off” indie publishers by failing to correctly report sales. Please look into this issue (because it frightens me) but while I’m here, I have a couple other questions.
When I mentioned that I plan to publish the POD through CreateSpace, a fellow writer said, “Sadly, they’re not very good quality. The spine of one of mine was so off center the text almost went over the edge.” She suggested Lulu. After looking at a number of complaints on the CreateSpace forums, I found that the printing/binding quality can be hit or miss. Has this ever been an issue for you?
Also, you’ve stated that there’s absolutely no reason to buy an ISBN when the print-on-demand/epub company provides one for free. However, Amazon lists your publisher as “CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform” rather than “WMG Publishing, Inc.” Is there any negative aspect to this at all, or is it just mildly annoying to the vain indie publisher who wants their company name plastered on every virtual wall?
You’ve probably answered these questions (or very similar ones) time and again, so thank you for your patience. I’ve been a writer for years, but indie publishing is still new to me.