Into the Fire

8 responses to “Outranked . . .”

1. 

   BK Jackson

   December 15, 2011

   Well I don’t know about general statistics, but Joe Moore announced his book was on sale for the Kindle over at The Kill Zone blog yesterday, which has a very well established community, and that resulted in 8 sales that I know of, and not counting the ones who didn’t mention it.
   I doubt there are sufficient statistics to be found anywhere regarding what methods actually produce sales. Marketing, like the rules of writing, are beaten over an author’s head.
   However, in observing all this marketing madness, I get the impression that those authors (or groups of authors) who are most sincere about building community, not just sales, are the ones who achieve better sales results.
   I have nothing to back it up of course. What I do know is that for me personally, I am more likely to buy a book I might not otherwise even be interested in if its a book produced by someone who HAS built a strong sense of community with their web presence.
   As to giveaways, I completely ignore those. They don’t entice me in the least.

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2. 

   dayle

   December 15, 2011

   I’m a firm believer that all you can do it prime the pump.
   The only thing that sells fiction for a newbie non-celebrity, non-platform is word of mouth. The small number of ads, give-aways, etc. can only get the wheels in motion if the novel has the goods.
   The other numbers are a result of the success of the word of mouth.

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3. 

   Nicole

   December 15, 2011

   You know I’m not a big statistics buff, but I know that writers are forced to waste a lot of time thinking of, suggesting, and doing things that don’t work for the selling of their novels.
   I agree a community of people bodes well for selling books, but even then sometimes the community we gravitate toward doesn’t “do” our genre. And building that community can be a dubious and fruitless task.
   Word of mouth can take years, and all the social networking can create “friends” that have zero interest in the particular genre we write.
   Wish there were some concrete stats to point out where to enlist best efforts . . . that’s all.

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4. 

   Nicole

   December 15, 2011

   Agreed, Dayle. But still: word of mouth can be a very slow process.

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5. 

   dayle

   December 15, 2011

   That may be true, Nicole, but it’s the only thing that works for the unconnected newbie.
   If it takes too long, that means the novel didn’t have the necessary attraction. After word of mouth for the first novel, comes reader loyalty.
   Money can buy alot of hype and start the pump stronger and therefore have more sales(although nothing great), but if the book doesn’t drive someone to tell their friends “you have to read this” it will run out of steam.

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6. 

   Nicole

   December 15, 2011

   True. It’s the money and hype starting the pump which might help get the book in the right market’s hands. Niche novels are necessary, but finding the group who will push them if they like them: not always an easy task. And some readers are passive. They might love a book, but unless someone else brings it up, they never mention it to others.

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7. 

   BK Jackson

   December 15, 2011

   It’s like a circus. 😎 One of the books that has been much-hyped that I finally bought and downloaded to my Kindle last night was The Hunger Games. I haven’t even begun it yet, but here’s a book for which you consistently hear raves by word of mouth from people who couldn’t put it down.
   That’s what everybody hopes for with their books, but not so easy to achieve. Wonder how this writer went about marketing this book? I’ll have to google someday when I have time.

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8. 

   Nicole

   December 15, 2011

   One thing I do think sells books is the “right” people giving the good word or recommendation. The Hunger Games has a wide appeal apparently although to a person everyone has said the final book in the series was not good. If you find out what the initial marketing was like, tell me about it.

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