Sixth Monthiversary Sales

[rowyn]

These are the sale figures for my polyamorous fantasy romance novel, A Rational Arrangement. (Buy it here! Amazon ~ Kobo ~ Nook ~ iBooks ~ Print).

Sales Graph from June 24, 2015 through December 30, 2015.

(This graph is only Amazon sales, because only Amazon breaks out sales by day. I generated it in Google Sheets, though, since Amazon will only generate a graph for the last three months or less.)

Total Sales:

Pre-launch: 36
1st Month: 507
2nd Month: 292
3rd Month: 146
4th Month: 68
5th Month: 75
6th Month: 37
Total through 12/28: 1161

Average unit sales:
1st Month: 16.9
2nd Month: 9.4
3rd Month: 4.9
4th Month: 2.3
5th Month: 2.4
6th Month: 1.2

After holding steady for a month, unit sales are falling again. It will be really interesting to see how the trend for this book compares to the trend for the next book I release!

The $4.99 sale ended on 12/14, which I suspect is partly responsible for the resumed decline. I put the book back on sale on 12/26, in the hopes of catching some of the "I got a gift card for Amazon!" crowd. I hadn't planned to make $4.99 the permanent price until the serial wrapped up in March, but it's tempting to take that route now. I think I'll put it to $5.99 at the end of next week, just to see how that price point works out.

Also curious if I'll get a sales bump on A Rational Arrangement when I release Further Arrangements (planned for February, at this point). I plan to time a sale on RA at the same time FA comes out.

Comments

[elbren]

have you talked to sofawolf about publishing a bigger print run?

[rowyn]

No, it's self-published. I didn't shop A Rational Arrangement to any publishers, in part because of its length: it is about twice the maximum length that any publisher I've seen will look at from a new author, and in part because of its genre: I am not aware of any publishers looking for polyamorous second-world fantasy romance.

Sofawolf, for instance, would split a book of this length into two volumes, and I think that would be a grave disservice to both the book and readers.

Also, based on what I've heard about small presses, RA has already made more money for me self-published than it would have through 95% of small press deals. :/

[elbren]

it might be worth looking into for a print run (maybe after the serial completes?)- you could retain electronic distribution rights. even in two volumes, it'd be easier for bookstores to carry (though they got digger into a single tome, so perhaps...).

it has giant talking cats! & sofawolf seems like they might be flexible on length for something this awesome that's done so well on its own.

[rowyn]

They put Digger into a single volume because Ursula Vernon is orders of magnitude more popular than anyone else they've ever published. By contrast, they split MCA Hogarth's Godkin Griffin into two volumes. Having an ebook as one volume and a print edition as two is suboptimal (it's confusing to both readers and Amazon). OTOH, it's certainly true that print rights are not worth anything to me at the moment. If a publisher came to me and offered a print-only deal, I'd take it. Whether I have the spoons to put into looking for one is another questions. :|