January Brick Cave Info

[boboratory]

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....

 

[Telcontar]

Thanks for sharing this info. Number 1 was especially hopeful to me, as I really want Amazon to have some serious competition to keep them from trying too many shenanigans.

Regarding number 3, could you perhaps share some of the reasons you switched from publishing to Kobo via Smashwords to start doing it directly? Was it because of the extra lag in reporting and payment? Were there other reasons?

 

[boboratory]

Telcontar,

For me, #3 was purely about establishing Brick Cave Media as an independent entity.

(one of) The benefit of Smashwords is the consolidated reporting across multiple stores. Regarding reporting time, I don't know that there is any difference between when Kobo would report to Smashwords versus when Kobo would report to me directly (except for perhaps some formatting time for Smashwords). Kobo, unlike the other stores, does not seem to have a web based publisher access system, so in that respect, Smashwords can act as a surrogate in that process. I am hoping that changes with the Rakuten acquisition.

Smashwords really wants to be identified as the distributor of works in their service, which is appropriate given that that's what they are doing, but I am running up against the limitations in their service (file size, formatting), that made me decide to diversify and not be dependent on just the one distributor.

I still keep all of out titles on Smashwords, and distribute to some stores (like Sony). If I can grow Brick Cave to a point where there is someone to manage store distribution, I'll have Smashwords for the sake of Smashwords itself, but be using all the other stores direct.

As the publisher, the extra time to handle this business is part of what I'm supposed to be doing for my authors- as an author, you have to decide if that time is worth the investment, or if paying a (small) percentage to Smashwords and letting them handle it for you is the better way to go...

 

[Benjamin Clayborne]

(one of) The benefit of Smashwords is the consolidated reporting across multiple stores. Regarding reporting time, I don't know that there is any difference between when Kobo would report to Smashwords versus when Kobo would report to me directly (except for perhaps some formatting time for Smashwords). Kobo, unlike the other stores, does not seem to have a web based publisher access system, so in that respect, Smashwords can act as a surrogate in that process. I am hoping that changes with the Rakuten acquisition.

Smashwords really wants to be identified as the distributor of works in their service, which is appropriate given that that's what they are doing, but I am running up against the limitations in their service (file size, formatting), that made me decide to diversify and not be dependent on just the one distributor.

This is all great info. Is there a good guide to getting set up with Smashwords? If it makes things easier for me to publish across multiple stores, I'm all for it, I just want to know in advance the major pitfalls and concerns that people using Smashwords have had. Right now I've got two short stories for sale on Amazon for Kindle, and I want them to be available elsewhere, too, I just don't know what's the best approach--spend time learning the ins and outs of each store, or trust that Smashwords will handle it all for me.

 

[Telcontar]

@Bob: Thanks for answering my questions. All makes sense - I imagine I'll stick with the ease and central-control of Smashwords for now.

@Ben: I've now put up two things on Smashwords, and feel pretty comfortable with it. The process was not quite as quick and painless as Amazon, but still not protracted enough to worry about. I've been assembling a few blog posts on it over at Rant, Ramble & Rave, and I imagine I'll put up a larger guide eventually. If you want go ahead and check out the Smashwords tag at my blog.

 

[Benjamin Clayborne]

I made a Smashwords account just now, but there's a colossal amount of info to absorb -- all the FAQs, guides, etc. that are linked to just from the official Smashwords pages. I'll get there eventually, once I'm fortified with some rum.

 

[MichaelSullivan]

Thanks for sharing!