ebook sales
So I’ve now had ebooks for sale for full three months. Three sword-and-sorcery, one mystery, one urban fantasy, and one technical book about Ubuntu Linux.
How have they done, sales-wise?
Demonsouled: 56
Soul of Tyrants: 29
Share the Pain: 12
I’d Sell My Soul To Get Published: 0
The $0.99 Ubuntu Beginner’s Guide: 598
So, I’ve sold a total of 729 ebooks since April 18th, 2011. And the Ubuntu Linux book sold almost six times as many copies as my novels combined.
So, what conclusions can I draw from these sales?
-Technical nonfiction is way, way easier to sell than science fiction and fantasy.
-I tend to have better luck with sword-and-sorcery than urban fantasy or mysteries. (Share the Pain is a mystery, and I’d Sell My Soul is urban fantasy/horror.)
-Having a series is good. Both “Soul of Tyrants” and “Child of the Ghosts” will (Lord willing) have sequels out before the end of the year.
-Surprisingly, I sold 22 of those Ubuntu books through the Apple iBookstore. I didn’t think iPhone and iPad users would be interested in Ubuntu, but there you go.
-Clearly, it is in my interest to write more short technical books. “The $0.99 Beginner’s Guide” is going to become a series.
-In general, I think I will try to write shorter works more quickly – I suspect that the ebook format favors shorter works than print.
-I will branch out and try different genres. In particular, I want to write a short history of the final civil wars of the Roman Republic, and perhaps my own short Western Civ textbook.
-I should find more effective ways of marketing the novels. Starting with a cover redesign, I think. And as my various series get longer, I’ll set the price on the first book in the series to free.
-I’ll play with pricing a bit. Right now everything is $0.99. But as I do more shorter work, I’ll want a variety of price points to differentiate shorter stuff from longer stuff. $2.99 for novels in the future, I think – it won’t make much difference to sales and I’ll get more money.
Overall, I’m very pleased with how this has turned out. No publisher in the world would have printed a 40,000 word book about Ubuntu Linux, but I’ve already sold 600 of the damn things.
-JM