7 Reasons You’re Not Selling Many Ebooks
| Posted in Book Marketing | Posted on 16-05-2011
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Let’s do a troubleshooting post today. I’ve had a few emails from new e-publishers wondering how they can sell more ebooks.
If you follow this blog, you know I’m not a huge seller, but my earnings have certainly improved a lot since I got started in December (if I lived somewhere with more affordable housing than Seattle, I might even be making my house payment by now *g*), so I’ll take a shot at offering some advice here. I like lists, so let’s call it…
7 Reasons You’re Not Selling Many Ebooks
1. Nobody knows your ebook exists.
Obscurity. This is what we all struggle with when we’re getting started, especially if we’re coming into this without an established fan base.
I know there are a lot of you out there like me, who feel the story should sell itself, but the truth is we have to work to be found, especially in the beginning. People can’t buy your ebooks if they don’t know they exist. We have to figure out what marketing tactics we’re comfortable with and pursue them, not just for the first couple of weeks our ebook is out but for the months that follow as well.
Some things I’ve had luck with so far:
2. The writing needs work
With ebooks, people can download samples before buying, so if your writing is turning the reader off in the opening chapters, that’s going to be an automatic no for folks.
We writers tend to fall into two camps: we’re either tough critics who are never satisfied with our own work, or we’re perhaps more satisfied than we should be, and it’s a shock when we get bad reviews. I’m firmly in the former camp, so I’m not sure what goes through the minds of folks in the latter, but either way we’re not the best judges of our own writing.
For a litmus test, can you answer yes to the following questions?
- If you have multiple ebooks out, does your other work occupy the top slots in Amazon’s “Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought” section? (Granted, if you write in different genres, this test may not be fair, but if people aren’t going on to purchase your other stories, that can be telling.)
- Are the majority of the reviews positive? (Only those from people you don’t know count.)
- Do readers write to you to say they enjoyed your work? (Bonus points if they ask about sequels.)
If these things aren’t happening, or occurrences are infrequent at best, it may be a sign that the writing isn’t there yet. E-publishing is easy, and it’s thrilling to see all the success stories out there, but rushing to publish isn’t always a good idea.
In Outliers: The Story of Success, Malcolm Gladwell pointed out people usually need 10,000 hours to become a true expert at something, and I’ve seen other writers say your first million words are “practice.” It’s not enough just to write a lot either — we have to seek opportunities to learn and improve. Participating in writers’ workshops, where strangers are critiquing your work (and you’re critiquing their work), is a fantastic educational opportunity. Your fellow writers are probably going to be your toughest critics, so when they start telling you your stuff is ready for publication, that’s a good sign.
3. Your cover art and blurb need work
I’m still waiting for the day when I love all my covers and my blurbs are all scintillating, but I’ll get there eventually! If you’re not sure if you’re there yet, ask for feedback from others. At the least, the blurb is easy to change.
If you don’t have a lot of funds to spend on a cover designer right now, save your pennies. I’m not sure this element is quite as important as some people suggest, but it is the potential buyer’s first impression, and you can often tell a self-published book right away based on the cover alone. If it amateurish, people might assume the writing is too.
4. Your work isn’t easily categorized
My two novels fall into this camp, and it’s a bit of a bummer. They’re fantasy, but they don’t qualify as “epic fantasy” or “steampunk” or “historical fantasy” or any other sub-category people search for. This translates to less visibility, because your ebook isn’t appearing in any Top 100 lists, and it’s not coming up when people type their favorite categories into the Amazon search box.
I don’t have an answer to help you with this one, except to suggest picking the “as close as it’s going to get” categories when you’re going through the publication wizard and then tagging your novel with popular sub-categories that maybe sort of kind of apply.
5. Too much front matter before the story starts
As I mentioned, people can and do download samples before buying ebooks. On Amazon, the sample isn’t always that long, especially on a shorter work. If you have a long dedication, a list of other works, a note to the reader, a long license statement, etc., then you may not be giving your readers enough time to get into the story.
6. Your ebook is priced too high
If you have an established fan base, you can get away with charging more for your work, but if nobody has heard of you, you’re asking the reader to take a risk. The higher the price, the most risk.
You probably don’t have to price your ebook at $0.99 (though we’ve discussed some advantages of the 99-cent price point), but many consider $2.99 fair for an unknown novelist. That lets you take advantage of the 70% royalty at Amazon and make $2 per ebook (more than most traditionally published authors will get per book or ebook).
7. You just published your first ebook.
Patience isn’t one of my personal qualities, so I can understand wanting fast results. You hope you’ll be the exception, and your books will take off right out of the gate. It doesn’t usually happen that way though. With most of the success stories we’ve looked at, the authors didn’t sell many ebooks their first six to twelve months until they reached a tipping point (there’s another Gladwell book you can look up) and sales took off.
Many of the successful ebook authors have a large body of work out there too. The more ebooks you have on the virtual shelf, the more ways there are for folks to find you.
All right, that’s seven! Thanks for reading, and I hope this posts helps those who are new to e-publishing. I still have a lot to learn myself and am crossing my fingers for future success for us all.
Update: JA Konrath (bazillionaire traditionally published author turned indie) wrote up What Works: Promo for Ebooks last week, and it’s the most useful post I’ve seen on his blog. It also makes me feel terribly unoriginal for mentioning Outliers. Ah, well. The post is definitely worth a read!
4. That’s the one I suffer from.
I can see it’s handy for booksellers to be able to slot every book into a given genre, but it has nothing at all to do with quality. This mitigates against many a harmless good book.
Great post Lindsay! I yearn for the day when I’m actually totally happy with (1) my cover art (2) my blurb and (3) my writing!
I actually did not realize until I read your post that readers can downloads samples from Amazon. Good to know!
#2 is definitely where I’m at. Gotta get those 10,000 hours in!
Super encouraging post, Lindsay. Thanks!
Lexi, I don’t think you’re suffering too much! Looks like your sequel is doing well over there.
Michael, I like your covers, and you’ve got good reviews, so it looks like you’re doing a lot right!
Thanks for the comment, Nicole. I know some people buy without sampling, but I sample everything unless it’s an author I know. I’m a fussy reader. *g*
Great post.
#1 trumps all others. The overall rule of sales is: “Get your book in front of a buyer that is willing to buy it.” All other reasons roll into that. For example, #2, if you get your book in front of a reader that will overlook the not-quite-1,000,000-word-experience-level of the author but is willing to pay for the book (for whatever reason: word of mouth, good cover, etc) then it’s a success. However, with every ding against the book (bad cover, tough genre, poor writing) that pool of potential buyers continues to shrink until it’s only a puddle that only includes your mother and your aunt.
@Michael: How come when I go to your page it says “Now available at Smashwords and Amazon” but none of the book covers or titles link to the sales sites? Is it my browser? If not, right away the lack of intuitiveness at your site is creating a hardship on the customer and you could be losing sales from it.
@Lindsay, I think I have a weird situation when it comes to sample size. For some reason the downloadable sample for my novel “Dark Matter Heart” is almost 2/3 of the book. No idea how it happened but it did.
Thanks for the tips, Lindsay! Yep, that #7 is almost as bad as the killer rabbit in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. *grin*
Worst example of “too much front matter” I’ve seen was a book that had a lengthy copyright/license page, dedication, acknowledgement, and a huge list of endorsements. Dozens of short “FIVE STARS!” “reviews”. And no working table of contents to skip that cruft. I sat there wondering where the hell the story was, and how that could possibly seem like a good idea to anyone.
Great post, Lindsay. Glad I found your blog.
Being an indie SF/F reader and reviewer, I think the top three things that turns me off from a book are:
Bad blurb (#3), Bad writing (#2), Too much front matter (#5)
I choose books to buy and review on the basis of both the blurb and the sample. If I like both, I jump in on it immediately. The blurb is a general promise of what’s to come, the sample is a quality test.
If I didn’t get into the sample but the blurb/premise is very original and interesting, I could take a chance. Same thing if I liked the sample but the blurb was mediocre.
I’m flabbergasted at some of the bad blurbs and bad samples out there. “Not saying much” doesn’t cause intrigue, it just causes frustration on the part of the reader and will make her pass over your work. If the sample consists of nothing but maps of a world I don’t care about (yet) with three pages unoriginal, boring exposition that says nothing about the story that’s coming, you’re not making it easy for readers.
I like having a good sense of setting, tone and the POV character from the blurb and/or the sample. I’d be deciding if want to spend the next 8 hours of my leisure time in that world or not. Time is costly.
Regarding bad writing, even though many have editors, I think it’s important to bring in new and impartial betas/editors to look at the work right before it gets published. The sentence-by-sentence editing might be good, but there might be plot problems that can only be spotted by people who are a bit further away from the work. Or even just jarring details that the older editors and the author herself has gotten used to.
There’s samples I’ve read with jarring details in the first three pages (profanity that’s inappropriate with the tone, bad use of foreign phrases etc.) that made me immediately put the book down. I’m more forgiving of a few mistakes if they only happen towards the end. I care less because I’m already invested, but if I’m not invested yet and all these jarring details keep coming up, don’t expect me to read your book.
Great post. I’ve bookmarked it in my resources list that I’m building.
As someone who is preparing to jump into the self-publishing pool, I appreciate your experience and insight and you willingness to share it.
Thanks again.
Good line, Nathan: “However, with every ding against the book (bad cover, tough genre, poor writing) that pool of potential buyers continues to shrink until it’s only a puddle that only includes your mother and your aunt.” (My aunt doesn’t have an ebook reader, so I may be out of luck with her.)
Thanks for commenting Suzan and Theresa!
Anke, I think I saw that book.
When authors stick a bunch of glowing reviews up front, it kind of makes me think, “Oh, yeah? Prove it.”
Thanks for the reader’s-eye-view, Frida! Hm, I may have to ask you for a guest post or interview someday. As soon as I stop looking at my own blurbs with a paranoid eye.
Thanks, Roh!
I’ve been reading your blog for a couple of weeks now and I appreciate the thought-provoking topics covered. I think a lot of us recently published indies need to keep the perspective of number 7. It’s too easy to look at Konrath, Hocking, Larson, and others and think that kind of success can be built in a day, week, or month–heck, even a year might be impossible.
I read these same bits of advice over and over from different authors, and I am astounded that everyone really is saying the same thing (which is not a bad by any means). Simply put, there is no formula and there is no guarantee. I don’t know how many books I’ve seen selling like mad on Amazon with very basic covers and complaints from reviewers about editing, and yet they continue to sell. Sure, you don’t want to emulate that, but as Lexi and others said, it’s about doing everything possible to increase your chances.
@Lindsay: Glad you find my comments worthwhile. I’d love to do a guest post/interview, feel free to email me anytime.
I guess some of my frustration shows through my comment, but there’s just published books out there that aren’t ready. I love science fiction and fantasy, but I feel disappointed whenever I see books with great concepts but didn’t go through a quality control process. Considering the amount of time writers invest writing each book, not taking the next steps to polish it just seems bizarre.
Many readers are enthusiastic about indie books, but we’re also genre-savvy and expect nothing but the best regardless of price point. Indie authors aren’t competing against other indies, they’re competing against the entire world of literature and fiction in general. I review all books on the same scale as books by George R. R. Martin, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Arthur C. Clarke. I think it’s the only way for indie authors to get out of the indie sandbox.
Readers are smart and won’t trust the uninformative short 5 star reviews written by the writer’s mother and aunt. We can tell. I tend to pay more attention to books with mixed reviews or at least some criticism, because it means that the author received the attention of an audience that owes nothing to him/her. Then I judge for myself if it’s something I’m interested in or not.
Awesome blog, funny how I’m reading this now after I asked about a sequel for Flash Gold earlier.
I’ll be filing this blog away to review when I do get that debut published. Keep up the awesome work you’re doing!
Hi Lindsay,
I’m a new visitor to this blog, and I found it very informative.
My novel has been selling reasonably well, and I think it’s succeeded mostly because of its dynamic cover (as many people tell me it is), the blurb is good, and Upcountry has been getting great, independent reviews from blogger everywhere. I’ve done two giveaways, with good success. And the price is right at $2.99.
Therefore, I think my problem is # 4 as well, since Upcountry doesn’t fit well in any specific category. A crime occurs, but crime reviewers don’t think it’s ‘crime-y’ enough (an actual criticism). It is suspense driven, but most of my readers liked the emotional journey and serious issues (spousal abuse, being the number one issue) presented in dramatic, fast-paced terms.
Big Al’s BooksandPals blog gave me a 5-star review. Al, of course, is the guy who had the now-famous tiff with a disgrunted British novelist over a poor review (she told him to eff off!).
Anyway, Al labelled Upcountry as strong literary fiction/suspense–which is the closest it’s come to a category.
I’ve been through the Amazon site. How do you peg your book to the wizards? Any specific suggestions are welcome.
Thanks for such a good blog!
Rick
Brondt Kamffer said: “Simply put, there is no formula and there is no guarantee.”
This is an excellent point which is so difficult to accept.
There’s a “minimum floor” formula from J.A. Konrath (great cover / content / blurb / price), beyond it, we’re all on our own.
There is at least one other reason for me as a reader that an author doesn’t sell beyond the first book anyway. And that is the atrocious editing of some indie. In my opinion, any author that writes a book of whatever size, runs it through a spellchecker and considers it edited, is a fool.
It is amazing to me the number of homonyms in some works. I consider it to be a sign of illiteracy or extreme careless. It would seem to me that a simple rereading of the book would make such errors stand out. If you are a professional writer or want to be then this would be important to you. Bad grammar, weird spelling and extraneous words in a sentence mean to me that the author doesn’t care. Why should I?
May I ask, Ms. Buroker, who edits your books? You or someone else? Whoever it is, they do an excellent job. If only all authors were as careful and professional.
Hi, Xenchu! Thanks for the blog comments and the compliment on editing.
I have some great beta readers who catch many of the typos and extra words on the first pass, and then I run the manuscript by a freelance editor. Faith Carroll (Have Faith Proofreading) did The Emperor’s Edge and Shelley Holloway (Holloway House) did Dark Currents and Encrypted.
Thanks for reading!
[...] Harper Lee your first book. Self published authors especially tend to find some commercial success when they get a couple of books in circulation. If your first book is destined for success, it will get there, but let it come. And before you [...]
Phew…so glad to hear that it’s usually 6-12 months for a book to take off! I uploaded my ebook to Nook and Kindle a few weeks ago and have only sold one copy…to a friend recovering from surgery–ha! My no-budget marketing push (free copies given to forum friends, guest posts, etc.) hasn’t really begun yet, but I was starting to worry that I might be forever doomed to a dust-filled virtual shelf life.
Patience is a virtue, patience is a virtue, patience is a virtue…my new mantra!
though this post is old(er), like me
it still has much great info, thank you!
your more recent post, “does advertising work for authors…” helped lead me to this article
thank again