boboratory
Minstrel
So, being a small publishing house, I thought I would share some insights on how we are doing, because a lot of others have shared theirs and I have found it insightful.
I am being somewhat general because I publish other people, and I don't want to share their business, but there are some things I can share (there are pieces in my rambling):
The Stores:
1) Don't Give up on Barnes and Noble (for eBooks). January's numbers for us for Amazon and B&N were dead even, which says to me that there are nook owners out there buying books, they are just not grabbing the news headlines like Amazon is.
2) Somebody still has a Sony Reader. I made a bunch of changes in December to the titles we list through Smashwords, making a number of them free titles, we saw an almost instant response at Sony's ebook store, and that trend continued into January. So, again, they aren't getting any headlines, but apparently there is still an audience out there. Sony users also purchased titles, so I would not generalize and say they only want free stuff.
3) Kobo was our best store :-(... In January I transitioned out of distributing to Kobo through Smashwords, and went direct with Kobo. Kobo recently was acquired by Japanese company Rakuten (mostly I know them because I also use the Linkshare Service, and I guess they also own Buy.com). I digress... Kobo was our best selling store up until the middle of the year, when their reporting slowed way down (they have since caught up), but so far this year, I have no idea how we are selling, haven't gotten a report yet. I think all these changes (both mine and theirs) have confused how we are (or aren't) doing.
4) Apple... Someone here had suggested that they had not had a challenge setting up their book to be distributed through Apple, so in first part of January, I gave it another shot, and was successful. So, I uploaded our catalog and am waiting for "Quality Assurance" to complete, so I don't really have any numbers to say how well the iBookstore did for us.
5) The smaller stores, like Diesel, Omni (romance ,mostly) and Bookstrand (Naughty mostly), have not done anything for us, still waiitng on that first sale. Smashwords itself has yet to provide any income, but I think they still serve a place, although I'd like to see them expand their store offerings in 2012, it's been stagnant for a little while now. It would also be nice if they cleaned up some of their site, the reporting piece, and that "interesting" conversion process needs to be rethought I think...
Promotion:
Facebook. Being a one person operation, I have to maximize my time as best I can. Used Facebook Pages alot, although I am still unsure of the benefit of creating separate pages for each book as opposed to just having a page for the author and promoting the book through that. One thing I can say, I used Facebook ads, both to promote the pages and to promote direct links to Amazon, and Barnes and Noble, and I did get sales from that effort. I am planning a larger purchase for the next book we release, and I am curious if that increases sales by the same ratio.
Google plus. I set up pages for our books, but no one has added them to their circles, yet. Still early.
AdWords. I abandoned Adwords in December, because I did not see a material increase in sales, and I was frustrated with Google in general regarding their interfaces. I am reading some of the success stories others are having and I may visit it again in March.
Microsoft AdCenter. Tried it, it was easier to use than Google, but their auction prices apparently were alot higher, I could not get my ads to show at bids anywhere near the Google Bids.
Banner Swaps. I run an ad display software called OpenX across all of our websites, so I can integrate ads from a number of different Ad swap networks. Best performer was the MyStarship.com banner exchange, people clicked on those banners on my sites... I expanded our ads we are sharing through that network.
Email List. Really worked to expand our email list this month. Regardless of what happens with facebook, Google, or what have you, I still use the email list for direct contact with people.
Anyway, I hope that gives you guys some stuff to play with....
I am being somewhat general because I publish other people, and I don't want to share their business, but there are some things I can share (there are pieces in my rambling):
The Stores:
1) Don't Give up on Barnes and Noble (for eBooks). January's numbers for us for Amazon and B&N were dead even, which says to me that there are nook owners out there buying books, they are just not grabbing the news headlines like Amazon is.
2) Somebody still has a Sony Reader. I made a bunch of changes in December to the titles we list through Smashwords, making a number of them free titles, we saw an almost instant response at Sony's ebook store, and that trend continued into January. So, again, they aren't getting any headlines, but apparently there is still an audience out there. Sony users also purchased titles, so I would not generalize and say they only want free stuff.
3) Kobo was our best store :-(... In January I transitioned out of distributing to Kobo through Smashwords, and went direct with Kobo. Kobo recently was acquired by Japanese company Rakuten (mostly I know them because I also use the Linkshare Service, and I guess they also own Buy.com). I digress... Kobo was our best selling store up until the middle of the year, when their reporting slowed way down (they have since caught up), but so far this year, I have no idea how we are selling, haven't gotten a report yet. I think all these changes (both mine and theirs) have confused how we are (or aren't) doing.
4) Apple... Someone here had suggested that they had not had a challenge setting up their book to be distributed through Apple, so in first part of January, I gave it another shot, and was successful. So, I uploaded our catalog and am waiting for "Quality Assurance" to complete, so I don't really have any numbers to say how well the iBookstore did for us.
5) The smaller stores, like Diesel, Omni (romance ,mostly) and Bookstrand (Naughty mostly), have not done anything for us, still waiitng on that first sale. Smashwords itself has yet to provide any income, but I think they still serve a place, although I'd like to see them expand their store offerings in 2012, it's been stagnant for a little while now. It would also be nice if they cleaned up some of their site, the reporting piece, and that "interesting" conversion process needs to be rethought I think...
Promotion:
Facebook. Being a one person operation, I have to maximize my time as best I can. Used Facebook Pages alot, although I am still unsure of the benefit of creating separate pages for each book as opposed to just having a page for the author and promoting the book through that. One thing I can say, I used Facebook ads, both to promote the pages and to promote direct links to Amazon, and Barnes and Noble, and I did get sales from that effort. I am planning a larger purchase for the next book we release, and I am curious if that increases sales by the same ratio.
Google plus. I set up pages for our books, but no one has added them to their circles, yet. Still early.
AdWords. I abandoned Adwords in December, because I did not see a material increase in sales, and I was frustrated with Google in general regarding their interfaces. I am reading some of the success stories others are having and I may visit it again in March.
Microsoft AdCenter. Tried it, it was easier to use than Google, but their auction prices apparently were alot higher, I could not get my ads to show at bids anywhere near the Google Bids.
Banner Swaps. I run an ad display software called OpenX across all of our websites, so I can integrate ads from a number of different Ad swap networks. Best performer was the MyStarship.com banner exchange, people clicked on those banners on my sites... I expanded our ads we are sharing through that network.
Email List. Really worked to expand our email list this month. Regardless of what happens with facebook, Google, or what have you, I still use the email list for direct contact with people.
Anyway, I hope that gives you guys some stuff to play with....