Forum: Author Hangout

I currently restrict myself to Bookapy, mostly because I've seen the horror stories you guys have posted regarding Amazon and other sites. That's fine, because I'm not writing and trying to turn out pay copy to keep the taxman away or to pay off a mortgage.

Two questions for the other guys that put stuff for sale. There's one of us on here - specifically, Aroslav/Wazygoose/Devon - that I consider a total professional at being an author. Anyone that gets invited to a porn convention because of his novels has to fit into that category, right? So, where do you see yourself? Professional, semi-professional, prostitute (you write for cash), amateur that's making some extra bucks, hobbyist?

That follows to the second question. What kind of numbers are you talking about? I just released my third epic length novel in the series (because I'm a wordy bastard), so three 400,000+ word books out there. As of tonight, first book sold 201 copies (it was already fully released on here before I put it for sale), second book is at 589 copies, and third book is at 210 copies sold after two days. Thus, I've sold 1,000 copies of my books, and at 931,000 downloads on SOL for those three books. How does that compare to what you're doing?

I not asking this to stir the pot, I'm actually curious to see how everyone else does. We're not competing against each other - the only person we compete against is our self, because we're hopefully striving to be better.

Like CB, I'm mostly a hobbyist with ambition. However, rather than tackling the more popular genres likely to get me more attention, I've always focused on 'old-fashioned' styles of writing (3rd person Omni with long, complex sentences). What's more, I pick stories that are challenging (i.e. read 'impossible to write'), so that pretty much limits just how successful I'm ever likely to be.

As far as sales, I used to average about 50 sales per book. That's hardly great, but it mostly covers my expenses and pays for an meal or two out a month. My sales lately, especially since I let a relative redesign my website and it's been utterly nonfunctional (i.e. non-updatable) ever since.

The key to building readers, especially when you have a limited potential clientele, is to continually seek out new readers. With a total of 23 existing books, one new customer equals anywhere from 5 to 20 new sales. As a result, I publish via a variety of distributors (Amazon, Smashwords, Draft2Digital).

I also discovered early that, with my selective clientele, I discovered that my readers are price insensitive (an economics term), meaning that if I drop my prices, I won't gain more than a couple of new readers. Thus I tend to charge more than other 'independent authors'.

In your case, I suggest that you stick with Bookapy. You'll earn my per copy and it's much easier to manage. The popular favorite likes to play fast-and-loose with their profit reporting, so it's anyone's guess how much you're actually earning, and most other sites either don't have a sales outlet or don't have many readers.

I see myself as a writer, but then, I write across a number of genres and my stories with graphic sex scenes make up 24 out of 117 stories and 4 guides. Because I publish some in anthologies I now have 50 books and 4 guides on sale, they total just under 4.5 million words.

In the past I used a number of sites to publish on, but I now restrict myself to Lulu and Bookapy. I'm also cutting back on what is sold through Lulu as they don't seem to be getting the sales I do on Bookapy, and overall sales have dropped there. Over the last decades or so the total sales are over 14,000 copies. That does NOT include the free downloads on SoL etc.

I've recently retired all the print book versions on Lulu due to lack of buyer interest and issues with the way their website operates now it's been optimized for use on a phone only with now PC variant. I've also cut back on their Global Distribution option due to changes in their agreements with Amazon and Apple meaning I have to pay Amazon and Apple for their clients to get some of my books which I made available for free.

As far as SOL stories, I am a hobbyist. I have no intention of ever making a cent off them.

I've had a couple past careers as a writer: as a professional, writing work-for-hire middle grade and YA novels; and as amateur for extra cash, writing poetry. (Well, also as a technical writer for software companies, which probably would count as prostitute in the categories above, but I don't think this work's relevant to the discussion.) For both of those, I'd have to dig up records to find out how many books were sold — as a pro, I only paid attention (at least when I was earning royalties) to whether I earned out my advance and, if I did, how much was the royalty check. And as an amateur poet, I only pay attention to how many six-packs of cider my royalties can pay for.

(Speaking of which, the cider I'm drinking now is shite: it has strawberry juice for flavoring, and tastes like neither strawberry nor apple. I regret wasting my poetry money on it.)

I suppose I am a hobbyist as I don't intend selling my stories.
I have been posting my stuff on Sol for over 10 years: 32 stories ranging from multi book series to single chapter vignettes -- I'm not really sure what a vignette is but I like the sound and sight of the word (I'm making a bet with myself here).Total downloads as at 1030 BST 3/7/2021 is 494484.

If you do the maths you will realise why I do not contemplate ever putting my stories up for sale.

Won my bet