Ah, I thought I’d hit the sophomore slump when Jackrabbit came out, but in retrospect that was more of a freshman slump. Now that I’ve gotten Powwows out the door, do I appreciate what a sophomore slump for a self-published author really looks like.
I read somewhere that of all of your friends and relatives that buy your book, maybe 25% will actually read it. I was appalled when I first read that; now it seems wildly optimistic. Of course, I realize that in thee Covid-confusing times that people can have trouble focusing on naught but the essentials. And of course, there’s a helluva lot of entertainment out there vying for peoples’ attention. But on the other hand . . .COME ON! I crafted this tale to be an easy-to-read piece of entertainment that would make people chuckle about witchcraft murders. Is reading it too much to ask?
Actually, at this point, I don’t even give a flip if people actually read it; I just want them to review it. Once again, I’ve been struggling to get people to post reviews on Amazon and Goodreads (but especially Amazon). For self-published books, the rule of thumb I’ve been going by is that you want 10 or 12 reviews available before you start promoting your work. The idea is that why go to the effort of promoting a work, only to have potential buyers see it with only a handful of reviews (half of which are by people that have the same last name as you)?
Of course, I’ve bitched about this before. This time, however, I thought I’d be clever: In an effort to get people to post reviews, a gave away yea number of PDF versions (it’s an eBook-only format) to people with the idea that in return for the free copy, they would post reviews for the sumbitch. Perhaps my mistake there was not including a time frame, as nary a single one has followed through on their commitment. Frustrating; and I’m not sure how to deal with it. Nagging via email and Facebook seems to have limited effect, and I don’t want to come off as pushy (although it may already be too late for that). On the other hand, since there is no physical book that can be rediscovered on the nightstand, I suspect that it can easily be forgotten in these modern, busy, fractured-attention-span times.
Then there’s the issue of sales, which is almost to depressing to delve into at this point. Of course, as I learned with Jackrabbit, one should not go into a self-publishing project expecting to make a lot of money (unless they want to spend every waking hour promoting it on social media).
Now, Powwows was meant to be a loss leader. I set the sale price at ninety-nine cents in order to interest people in the full-length novel Fester, coming out–I hope–at the end of June. The idea was that I would lose a little money on Powwows in order to set the stage for the big soaking I’d take when Fester comes out. However, given the sales figures so far, I’m beginning to question the wisdom of this approach.
Face it, we live in a very materialistic society. I may have groused before (but am too lazy to look it up) about how much Americans equate value with price. I know I’ve discussed this with Ken Huey, the most excellent cover artist I’ve used for both books. As a professional artist, he’s struggled to figure out how to price his work, which, of course, is of inestimable value. So, with that in mind, I’ve got half a mind to jack the price of Powwows up to a whopping $1.99. At this point, I don’t have much to lose other than pocket change, so I may as well put this theory to the test. The only real danger is that the sample size will be too small to draw an accurate statistical conclusion about the relationship between price and sales.
So be it. As with my other works, I primarily write to amuse myself. Of in this case, to vent a little. If you’ve actually read this (hi, Aunt Gail!), I appreciate it. And if you’ve been hedging on whether or not to buy a copy of Powwows, go ahead and do it while the price is still low.
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