Category: Marketing

Numbers for Q4 and 2011 overall

It’s that time again, kids! Time for a huge post with way too many numbers. Love me some numbers. You should see the spreadsheets I’m working with, here – if you think these posts have a lot of confusing numbers, know this is a tiny fraction of the data. If you want it all, I’ll gladly share it, just ask. I figure for most people, these summaries are more than sufficient.

Briefly, first, before we get into the hard numbers: eBook downloads were way, way up for Q4 of 2011. This is largely due to traffic from getfreeebooks.com, which linked to Cheating, Death on October 16th, to Unspecified on November 9th, to Dragons’ Truth on November 29th, and to The First Untrue Trilogy on December 23rd. Total eBook downloads (across all titles) were up more than 100%, quarter-over-quarter. Podiobooks downloads continued their decline; my numbers there only seem to hold steady or increase while I’m actively releasing new content, but mostly they’ve just been declining for the last two years. For Q4 I had roughly $29 in eBook sales, and Podiobooks lumped Q3 and Q4 donations together – my cut was $9.74 for the 6-month period (which equates to $12.99 in donations). I also sold a full set of the Untrue Tales series in paper for $50.

Now, so they’re in the same format as the other quarters of 2011, here are all the eBook and Podiobook download numbers for/through Q4 of 2011, as usual giving the total of eBook downloads, the total of Podiobook downloads, and the more-accurate (re: # of people who dl’d a full book) total downloads of the final episodes of each Podiobook, as: eBook/total-PB/final-PB

  • Lost and Not Found: 494 / 1,376 / 97
  • Dragons’ Truth: 2,123 / 1,527 / 155
  • Forget What You Can’t Remember: 729 / 5,828 / 140
  • The First Untrue Trilogy: 1,034 (eBook only)
  • The Second Untrue Trilogy: 557 (eBook only)
  • Untrue Tales… Book One: 1 / 3,032 / 198
  • Untrue Tales… Book Two: N/A / 4,015 / 264
  • Untrue Tales… Book Three: N/A / 1,656 / 144
  • Untrue Tales… Book Four: N/A / 1,301 / 113
  • Untrue Tales… Book Five: N/A / 1,140 / 113
  • Untrue Tales… Book Six: N/A / 1,076 / 102
  • Cheating, Death: 1,567 / 5,834 / 356
  • Lost and Not Found – Director’s Cut: 260 / 345 / 29
  • More Lost Memories (full): 335 / 702 / 39
  • More Lost Memories (ind. stories, eBook only): 3
  • Time, emiT, and Time Again (full): 277 / 761 / 48
  • Time, emiT, and Time Again (ind. stories, eBook only): 6
  • Last Christmas: 3
  • Unspecified: 1,537
  • Total Q4: 7,390 / 28,593 / 1,798
  • Total 2011: 17,502 / 151,233 / 9,784
  • Total all-time: 33,195 / 543,595 / 35,237


re: Podiobooks downloads: It looks like about 200 people started the Untrue Tales series, I lost a good chunk in Book Two, more in Book Three, but the 100 people who made it to Book Four stuck with it to the end – which matches what I’ve previously observed. Downloads of my short story collections and the Lost and Not Found – Director’s Cut were off by about 50% quarter-over-quarter, to fewer than 50 people finishing each title during the entire quarter. Everything else is just less than flat, part of a gradual overall decline.

re: eBooks: Only about half of the people who downloaded The First Untrue Trilogy downloaded the second, which has remained roughly true since I released the eBooks (60% over the life of the eBooks). (This is unfortunate, as I believe books 5 & 6 are some of my best writing to date, and that the second trilogy is much better than the first.) Unspecified was released at the beginning of Q4, and has been downloaded more in Q4 than all but 2 of my titles, which is saying a lot, since it’s a poetry book. The only titles which did better where my YA novel and my zombie novel, and Unspecified was only 30 downloads (>2%) behind Cheating, Death. All free eBook downloads were up for the quarter, probably owing to the free-ebook-seeking traffic linked in as mentioned above, but eBook purchases for the period were down again. It looks like I only sold 21 eBooks across all titles and all platforms during Q4, 2011. Continue reading Numbers for Q4 and 2011 overall

Unspecified – Goodreads giveaway

Just a quick post to let you know that 1) the Kickstarter fundraiser did complete successfully, 2) the proof copy met expectations and everything is underway to get the print and eBook editions out by the first week of October, and 3) I’ve posted a giveaway for 5 copies of the paperback edition of Unspecified at Goodreads:

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Unspecified by Yoshira Marbel

Unspecified

by Yoshira Marbel

Giveaway ends October 07, 2011.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter to win

If you’re interested in reading Unspecified, but can’t afford a few dollars to get a copy & don’t want to wait for the free eBook, this is a good opportunity for you. Also, I’m looking for a few book bloggers who might be interested in reading and reviewing this poetry collection, so if you are one or if you know one, please let me know and I’ll send you a copy of the book in your preferred format (print, or any of half a dozen eBook formats), ASAP.

Unspecified – Kickstarter fundraiser

I meant to post about it here sooner, say, a week and a half ago when I started the fundraiser, or last Thursday & Friday when I was having a bit of an emotional breakdown (visible here and there, depending on whether you’re my friend on Facebook or Google+, or happened to see me in person) which related directly to the experience of running a Kickstarter fundraiser… the emotionality of which led directly to my not posting anything about it over the weekend. Then something began to come together (more on what, below) which led me to not post or say much about the whole project until today. Anyway, here we go:

The new poetry collection, Unspecified by Yoshira Marbel, which I’ve been posting about for the last couple of weeks, is currently trying to raise funds to cover the costs of creating a print edition of the book. I posted a little bit about the costs involved in that (setup, proofs, initial printing, shipping to me, shipping to South Africa, ISBNs, et cetera) and in running the Kickstarter project itself (shipping rewards to backers, Kickstarter takes 5%, Amazon takes a few % to process payments), but I guessed I’d need $330. I decided to run a shorter Kickstarter fundraiser than average, since statistically most pledges come in the first few days and on the last day, only about two weeks long, ending at 9PM MST, Friday September 16th, 2011.

As of last night, we reached our funding goal. (This is presuming no one removes their pledge in the next two days.) There are still two days for you and your friends and family and pets to pledge to the project, knowing confidently that the book will have a print edition which should be delivered to me by the first week of October and then forwarded on to you post-haste. Knowing that Yoshira’s dream is coming true and her poetry and message will be reaching people who never would have had a chance to have contact with it otherwise, and that as a backer, you are contributing to that dream fulfillment (and you’ll have your name in the book’s Special Thanks section in acknowledgement of that).

Continue reading Unspecified – Kickstarter fundraiser

‘Unspecified’ book cover, et cetera

This is, tentatively, the book cover for Unspecified. (See my last post for more information on this heart-wrenching poetry collection and the paintings I’m trying to sell to raise funds for a print edition.)

Click to see it a little bigger. That, of course, is the full wraparound cover. This is the front cover by itself:

Continue reading ‘Unspecified’ book cover, et cetera

Some poetry from ‘Unspecified’

As I hope you already know, I’m working with South African poet Yoshira Marbel to publish a collection of her work, entitled Unspecified. (I blogged about it here.) We’re getting nearer to being finished with the production of the book itself; I think we’ve got the order of the poems in place, the pages laid out, eBook formatting set up, front and end matter written, and I’m nearly done with the cover design. (I’ll post the cover soon.) It looks like the print edition (if/when we can raise sufficient funds to print it) will come in at 66 or 68 pages. (68 pages if I need to include an extra Special Thanks section with a long list of Kickstarter backers.) As I posted before, If I can find a buyer in the next couple of days for either of the paintings we’re using for fundraising, we won’t have to do a full-on Kickstarter fundraiser, which would be a load off my mind, and we could send the book to the printer next week instead of a month from now.

To give you some idea of what sort of poetry you’ll find in the collection (what you’ll be helping share with the world through your purchase of the art or, later, the book itself), I’m going to share a poem or three from it, along with the (current version of the) description I’ve written for the book.

Released Pain

Tiny slit
Sweet release
Blood droplets
Hypnotize me
A fountain of blood
Dancing on the crystal water
Floating away
Darkness has destroyed the pain
End is near
Now free
Blood has released me

I picked that poem to start because it speaks to one of the recurring motifs of the collection, something also addressed by one of the paintings we’re hoping you’ll buy, ‘without you’.

We’re asking just $239 (plus tax & shipping) for this original work of art, and the buyer will also receive a copy of the finished paperback book. It’s mostly acrylic on canvas, though technically, because of the real razor blades which are cutting into (and affixed securely to) the canvas, it’s really “mixed media” artwork. The purchase price of this piece would nearly cover all the costs of publishing a print edition of Unspecified; close enough that I’d be able to send it to my printer immediately.

Continue reading Some poetry from ‘Unspecified’