Reader Question Day #7 – additional Ghost books and Kindle vs. Nook
It’s been a long and busy week, but we can close it out on a high note with Reader Question Day!
Manwe writes:
Looking over the sales of the ebooks, some of them sell much, much better than others, just compare “Soul of Tyrants” to “Driven and other stories”, what are your thoughts on this? Do you think it’s just because certain series begin with a free book, or do you think it’s a genre thing?
I strongly suspect that series ebooks sell way better than stand-alone ebooks. After all, if you read a book, you invest time and energy in reading it, getting acquainted with the characters, and so forth. So if you’ve read a book, and you liked it – why not read another with the same characters and setting?
Having the first book free in a series helps immensely with that. It’s a lot easier to get people to take a chance on a free book.
Generally, a stand-alone novel will never sell as well. My murder mystery SHARE THE PAIN hardly ever tops four or five copies a month, while SOUL OF TYRANTS can do over 400. The reason for that is because SHARE THE PAIN has no sequels. If I wanted, I think I could perk up SHARE THE PAIN by writing two or three sequels and turning it into a proper series – but then I’d have to write those two or three sequels, and I’d rather write more DEMONSOULED and THE GHOSTS books.
The rules for nonfiction are completely different. I haven’t done a single bit of promotion for THE $0.99 UBUNTU BEGINNER’S GUIDE. I think the key for nonfiction is to have a book that is a.) timely, and b.) informative. A book called THE $0.99 COMMODORE 64 BEGINNER’S GUIDE would get very little traction.
And, of all your book series, do you have a favorite (series)? If so, which?
Not really. I think CHILD OF THE GHOSTS, the first in THE GHOSTS series, is the best stand-alone book I’ve written, and that SOUL OF SERPENTS is the best sequel I’ve written.
Garnet writes:
Hi I was wondering if there is any continuation of the ghost series?
There will be. Right now there are the three GHOSTS books – CHILD OF THE GHOSTS, GHOST IN THE FLAMES, and GHOST IN THE BLOOD. As soon as I finish SOUL OF DRAGONS in February, I’m going to start the next GHOSTS book – GHOST IN THE STORM. If all goes well, I should have GHOST IN THE STORM done by late spring or early summer.
Kallinikos writes:
Kindle Fire or Nook Tablet?
Actually, I do have a Nook Color. However, I boot it off a microSD card running the excellent Cyanogen Mod so I have access to all the features of Android. (If you’re not familiar with Cyanogen Mod, it’s a custom version of Android aimed at giving a freer user experience than typically found on smartphones and tablets.) This means, of course, that I can install the Kindle app on a Nook device, which no doubt makes some poor Barnes & Noble executive’s head just explode.
The downside to tablets is that they tend to be far more locked down than the average PC. However, I’ve worked in tech support for almost 12 years now, and I understand why that it is – if you gave the average user full root-level control over a smartphone, he or she would probably render it inoperable within 15 minutes, no doubt by trying to install free screensavers from the Internet. Still, whenever possible, I prefer to have full control over my computing devices – so, Nook Color with Cyanogen Mod.
-JM