It’s a rainy Friday afternoon, so I thought I’d do a quick update post for those who actually read this blog because of my ebooks (all three of you, you are awesome!) rather than an interest in e-publishing in general.
My first novel, The Emperor’s Edge, has officially sold 1,000 copies. This happened toward the end of April, meaning it took about four months. A thousand sales isn’t much compared to some of the numbers you see ebook authors post, but I’m tickled, and let me take this moment to thank you if you bought a copy. Thank you!
Since EE sells for $2.99, I earn roughly $2 per sale, meaning the book paid for itself (cover art, editing, formatting, advertising) a while ago. It also seems to be at the point where people find it on Amazon, and I get sales there, whether I’m actively promoting it or not. It’s nice to reach these milestones.
New Cover
I’ve never been that crazy about the original cover for EE, which was a reflection of the fact that I didn’t want to spend a lot of money on “start up” costs (December, in addition to being the month I released EE, was my first month e-publishing at all).
I thought the artwork itself was fine, but not a reflection of my characters. Folks also had a love/hate reaction toward it, which isn’t always a bad thing, but I thought I’d go for something more neutral. Hey, the walls in my house are white and beige. What d’ya expect?
After Glendon Haddix did the cover for Flash Gold, I decided to ask him to take a stab at it. Here’s the new version (and the old) in case you’re curious:
I haven’t updated the covers in the actual ebook files that are out there yet, but I’ll do that when I release Book 2 next month. Speaking of that….
Book 2 News
I’ve handed the last chunk of Dark Currents off to beta readers (thank you, ladies!), so I believe I’ll make my goal of publishing the second book in the series in June. One of the nice things about e-publishing is once you get the manuscript the way you like it, it doesn’t take long to get your ebook out there.
I haven’t come up with a blurb for it yet, but there’s plenty of action, a bit of a mystery, some new (nasty!) monsters, and some steampunk-y machines and artifacts making things tough for the gang. Also…Sicarius gets to crack a joke or two (albeit very dry ones).
I hope folks will enjoy it!
There’s nothing shabby about 250 ebooks a month especially when your other books are selling too. From the sales ranking of Encypted it looks like it’s doing almost as well?
Yes there are some authors being successful and posting big sales numbers but they’re the minority and a lot of the people selling a thousand copies a month are selling their novels at 99 cents. The way royalties work at most of the stores they’d have to sell 1500 copies to make as much as you do with 250.
Hey congrats on the sales! I like the new cover, too. How’s that sequel to Flash Gold coming? 😉
I like the new cover, classy with lovely colour and depth, except for that apostrophe which seems to have wandered off on its own…
True story: I was looking at Streetlight Graphics’ website today to see if I wanted to use them for my own ebook covers. I was looking at other covers they’d done and yours really, really, caught my eye. It just looked classy and intriguing.
Then I blinked and went, “Wait a sec, that’s Lindsay Buroker!”
So, to say that your cover is a stand-out and awesome is an understatement.
More Sicarius—-WOOT! Wait, wait, wait: he tells JOKES? I don’t believe it . . . hmmmph. 🙂
Congratulations, Lindsay.
Trust a perfectionist like Lexi to spot the high-rise apostrophe!
Congrats on the sales milestone, Lindsay.
On pricing, Konrath’s The List experiment showed pretty clearly that a lower price can increase sales (and chart position, which again increases sales) to a point where selling for less and a lower commission can actually make significant profits.
From Konrath’s blog: “Eighteen days ago, I dropped the price of my ebook, The List, from $2.99 to 99 cents on Amazon. I was selling 40 copies a day prior to that.
Currently, The List is selling 620 copies a day on Amazon.”
Here’s the figures in real money:
$2.99 at 70% netted him $2.09 a sale. 2.09 x 40 = $84 a day.
$0.99 at 35% netted him $0.35 a sale. 0.35 x 620 = $ 217 a day.
Two dollars less on each sale actually nets him $133 a day more…
Our experience on Kindle UK bears this out too.
Worth thinking about.
“…off to beta readers (thank you, ladies!)”
Hey! What about us gentlemen?
Thanks for all the comments, folks!
Loren and Mark, I’m considering lowering the price of Book 1 to 99 cents when I have more books in the series out. It doesn’t hurt to try, though I’m not sure my stuff is commercial enough that it’d ever be that popular, 99 cents or not. Also, both of my novels (@ $2.99) outsell my 99-cent ebooks by a lot. Granted my 99-centers are either short story collections or shorter works (Flash Gold is 18,000 words whereas my novels are 100k+), but the fact that the higher priced items sell better hasn’t had me in a hurry to lower the price on the novels.
Jon Mac, I’ll probably do another Flash Gold story this summer. It’s nice to take a break in between the novels and do something shorter. 🙂
Lexi, that apostrophe is a symbol for the author who likes to stick out and do her own thing… (yeah, you believe that, right?).
Thanks, Margaret! Let us know if you hire Glendon for your book. I love to see people’s covers.
Faith, it’s the kind of joke where it’s funny more because of the situation than because he’s attempting to be funny. As if. 😛
Peter, I don’t know. Somehow all of my critique buddies are women. Maybe I need to collect some gentlemen. 😉
Congrats Lindsay! I haven’t read The Emperor’s edge yet, but the new cover does seem to be more genre-appropriate in terms of having it recognizable as a steampunk fantasy. IMHO The old cover’s artwork is good, but it gives the impression of a feudal high fantasy (especially with the typography), not much steampunk there.
The new cover is fantastic. Yay on the new upcoming release and the sales. Fabulous!
You’ll just do better and better.
Way better book cover!
Thanks, Frida, Mpax, and Cathy! 🙂
The new cover looks so much more sophisticated than the old one. I’ve done covers myself back in the old days of non-digital art, and usually I like covers with scenes since they give us artists jobs!
The type font on the old cover doesn’t do a thing for it, but the new one has an aura of mystery — something that is absolutely essential if you want someone to get interested enough to read the book. It’s all about design.
Love the new cover! And hooray for a sequel – can’t wait!
I’m glad to know that you’re working on a sequel for Emperor’s Edge. Have you decided on a cover yet? It would be nice to see at least a cover, or better yet, an excerpt.
Congrads!
Thanks, Corie and Darla!
Lucy, Glendon just finished up the cover for Dark Currents. Hm, I bet I could scrape up an excerpt to post soon. 😉 Thanks for asking!