Thursday, June 23, 2011

Jolted: Measuring Success using Amazon, NovelRank, and Bookscan

If you're an author you've probably checked your Amazon rankings once or twice. Or every three seconds. And, perhaps you've stared at the rankings like you're trying to read your future in pig entrails. The great thing about the "modern" era is now there are even more ways to track things. Most of the time they're just charts that you stare at and learn nothing (and perhaps a little depressing) but I was recently able to track a "success" story to do with the my novel Jolted.

On May 17th or so the novel was chosen for  2011-2012 Florida Sunshine State Young Reader’s Award master list. This was great news. But because Amazon recently allowed authors (through their Author Central program) to see their Bookscan details, I was able to track the actual sales of the book from that day forward (I'm only concentrating on the paperback):
As you can see from the map, the darker the colour, the more sales. So obviously sales of the paperback had really taken off in Florida (and in one tiny corner of Louisiana...for some reason). The chart below shows the sudden increase in sales in bookstores in the U.S.:




For those of us who are chart obsessed (and really who isn't) Amazon also provides another chart to stare at (for hours at a time sometimes). This chart shows the uptick in sales through Amazon. So obviously the sales in the "ground" stores were also being reflected at the "virtual" store that is Amazon.








The final chart that I'll inundate you with is from Novelrank which also tracks sales on Amazon. It essentially gives you the same information, but with a slightly different appearance. Novelrank also can keep track of the # of copies sold per month (though this is a guesstimate on their part).


Perhaps I should end this with a chart of my geekiness (no, I better not...that would be jumping the shark). The sales in this time period might only amount to a thousand copies (so I won't go out and buy a new car), but I do find it interesting that I now have the ability to track all of this information. I won't know the actual sales until I get my royalty statements about six months from now. How to use the information is perhaps the tougher part of this exercise. It's not like I can fly down to Florida (or Louisiana) and start pitching my book (though I am beginning to get requests for Skype visits in Florida). Right now I'm filing it under the title: Interesting to know.


Plus, Jolted has been out for nearly 4 years now. It's nice to see it suddenly get zapped back to life (sorry, I couldn't resist).


Art 

Sunday, June 12, 2011

The Hunchback Assignments Wins Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire 2011


I'm extremely pleased to announce that The Hunchback Assignments has won Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire 2011: Roman jeunesse étranger (The Grand Prize of the Imagination, Youth foreign). This is the most prestigious fantastical fiction award in France and it is proof that my novel's translator, Marie Cambolieu, is brilliant. The official award website is here if you want to see the other categories. The book is called Les agents de M. Socrate, Tome 1 : La confrérie de l'horloge in France and is released by Le Masque (loosely translated as The Agents of Mr. Socrates: The Brotherhood of the Clock). The award was presented at a festival in Saint-Malo, France. I nearly was able to attend in person, but had to stay home to watch the NHL Playoffs (I'm kidding, of course, great effort was made to fly me out there but the scheduling didn't work out). Instead I sent a short video of my acceptance speech:

The other award nominees in the same category were:

Roman jeunesse étranger

Le Sortilège de pierre de Cornelia Funke (Gallimard jeunesse)
Voraces de Oisin McGann (Mango jeunesse)
Alcatraz (Série) de Brandon Sanderson (Mango jeunesse)
Léviathan de Scott Westerfeld (Pocket jeunesse)

Autres titres retenus en première sélection :

Les Portes de John Connolly (L'Archipel)
Entremonde de Neil Gaiman et Michael Reaves (Au Diable Vauvert)
Un endroit où se cacher de Joyce Carol Oates (Albin Michel jeunesse)
Jenna Fox, pour toujours de Mary E. Pearson (Des Grandes Personnes

Frankly, I didn't expect for my book to win. There are some very heavy hitters on that list (and I'm especially intrigued by Oisin McGann's Voraces. Irish steampunk!). But I'll take the prize and run (actually I don't know if there is a prize--the honour is enough). The book has been selling briskly in France, so this should help it sprint to the finish line.
If you'd like to see a few photos of the event just click here.
As you can tell, I'm very excited about this award. Last night, at dinner club, we raised a glass of French wine in honour of Grand Prix de l'imaginaire (and had Beef Wellington, which also fit the theme since Modo used the name Wellington as a code name).

Au revoir,







Tuesday, June 07, 2011

Odd Questions Students Have Asked


I do a great number of school readings. And when I get to the end of my presentation I say, "Now it's time for the dreaded Q&A. You ask the questions and I'll attempt to answer, though I don't do mathematical questions." Often I get asked, "Where do you get your ideas?" "From a factory in Pennsylvania." Or "Which book that you wrote is your favourite?" "Dust...because it made the most money for me."

But here are a few of the questions that I didn't expect:

"Do you own a tractor?" From an Aussie student on Skype (I was wearing a John Deere t-shirt at the time).

"Does your wife think you're funny?" No.

"Are you in the military?" Huh?

"Did you have any friends in high school?" Sometimes.

"Do you wear briefs or boxers?" Hmmm, I think this student may have received a talking to after I was gone.

"Are you evil?" This was in a "bible belt" area school. I had just read the first chapter of DUST. "Uh, do you mean do I write horror scary type stuff?"
"No...are you evil?" I actually had no answer. Other than a demonic chuckle...

Art

Wednesday, June 01, 2011

Amazing Ebook Update (warning GRAPH-ic material)

Well, I have all my ebooks up online now. Here are the fancy covers (with clickable links, of course):

And here's my updated report across all platforms:

February: 12 copies
March Sales: 43 copies
April Sales: 377 copies
May Sales: 273 copies


That's a drop of over 100 copies since last month. Here's the handy dandy graph (the different colours match different books...DUST is the blue book):

The drop for sales between April and May is even bigger than it appears because 70 of those copies in May (of Draugr--more on this later) were free copies given away as a promotion. Many epublishers reported a drop in sales last month, partially due to Amazon having a massive giveaway of free ebooks and, about mid-month, Amazon changed their format for "tagging" books. Well, actually they deleted the way books are tagged, so this affected which bestseller lists my books appeared on. One assumes the tags will return with a revamped tagging system in the future.

All in all I'm happy with the sales. April was a bit of an anomaly because DUST had several mentions in influential kindle websites and that really affected sales. I still hope that the book will, over time find traction on its own (and my other books, of course). Plus I think the YA/Kids market is still a year away from reaching its true potential. I am pleased that I now have an account with Barnes and Noble, so my books can be bought and read on the Nook (love the app for my iPad). The Nook market isn't as big as Kindle, but it's the second largest of all the markets. Plus they have a really easy interface for keeping track of your books and sales.


Free Horror!
Also, for the month of June, I am giving DRAUGR away for free. So if you go to iBooks or Smashwords you can download it for nada. I can't lower the price past .99 cents on B&N nor Amazon (though Amazon may drop the price to zero once its "robots" recognize the book is on sale in other places). It should soon be free on Kobo, too. This is my way of introducing readers to the series (and hope that they pick up the second and third book). Plus, if you've never downloaded an ebook before, there's no risk in downloading a free one.

Update over. Art out.