the pricing experiment: day 4

It's not going well.

That is to say, I'm not getting the results I'd hoped for. My rankings are tanking big time (I apologize for the unfortunate rhyme). Sales have dropped by about half. Interestingly, Ordinary World still seems to be holding its own. Faking It, however, is not.

Indeed, this was a huge risk, raising what is, relatively speaking, quite a price hike even though it's only 50 cents. Percentage-wise, it's a high markup. Add that to the fact that most people slashed their e-book prices, some down to free, for Read an Ebook Week, while I actually raised 'em. Points for me being gutsy, yes?

Groan.

Have decided to wait until the end of the week, then I will lower the price to $1.19 and see if I fare any better. The downside is that for some reason, when you lower your price, Amazon takes the book offline for 24 hours. (Why don't they do that when you raise the price?) So I'll have to lose a whole day of activity, and lord knows how that will affect my rankings.

Alas, this is what business is all about. If you want to make an omlet, you've got to break some eggs. There are important lessons to be learned here. I just hope I can reclaim my former rankings.

pricing experiment: the first 24 hours

Well, it happened. After 44 consecutive days on the Kindle Top 100 Bestseller list, Faking It fell to #107. Ordinary World, on the other hand, jumped from #337 to 292. Go figure. There's nothing worse than a broken streak. I have no idea whether this is the result of the price change, or if it was on its way down already (it kept threatening to, fluctuating between the upper 80s and lower 90s), but I sure hope it wasn't the former. And it's not like sales have tanked so horribly that they're down to nothing (#107 ain't bad, and it's still #1 in special categories!), but still...

Of course, I'm tempted to restore the original price. Another option I'm considering is to keep OW at $1.49 and reduce FI to $1.19. I may just have to give it a few more days.

I remember a musician saying this about becoming famous (namely, topping the charts): The work you do (mental and physical) trying to get there is nothing compared to the work you do trying to stay there. I get it.

The activity at Smashwords, however, is exciting and encouraging. In fact, Smashwords has been so overloaded with traffic that people are having trouble getting in. Keep trying, though! I'll keep you posted throughout the week.

and now back to our regularly scheduled blog... sort of

With the blog tour over, I can get back to my regular posts on my blog. However, this is the time when things get tough. The semester is well underway, and no sooner do I finish grading one set of papers does another come in (66 in all, an average of 6-7 pages apiece), plus homeworks and conferences and keeping up with the course schedule, etc. Oy, I'm getting dizzy just writing about it.

In other words, my streak of posting every day has come to an end. I'm gonna try to keep up two to three per week, however.

The hardest part is not writing. Of course, the composing continues in my head, but I'm itching to get it down on the page. The problem with me is that I'm not a multi-tasker, never have been. I can only concentrate on one thing at a time. Unfortunately, teaching sucks a lot of energy out of me by the end of the day -- mental and physical -- so that I often wind up on my couch at dinnertime, in pajamas, planted in front of the TV where I watch Law & Order re-runs so that I don't have to think too hard. After that I just change screens and catch up on Facebook and Twitter.

I'm looking forward to Spring Break (a week from tomorrow, Hurrah!) so that I may turn my attention to my poor manuscript, neglected since Christmas. I'm hoping the same spark of energy that my writing partner in crime and I had three months ago will return with a vengeance, and I'll be productive as ever, enough so to start querying agents. After all, I want to capitalize on my Kindle success of the last two months.

And speaking of...
Faking It and Ordinary World sold a combined 21,000 Kindle downloads for the month of February, approximately 38,000 for the last two months combined. I still can't wrap my brain around the enormity of this accomplishment, and I can't seem to re-trace the steps to success in order to repeat it or pass it on to others. At any rate, I'm beyond thrilled; and even though both books are sliding in the rankings (although Faking It is still in the Top 100, been there for 40 days now), I can't complain. I somehow managed to achieve the thing I could only dream about eight months ago.

For now, I'll close with a heartfelt thanks to everyone who supported me on this blog tour. I loved reading and responding to your comments. Thank you to all of my hosts, readers, new followers, contest winners, and especially those who bought my books as a result. Most of all, a very special thank you to Jodi Webb and WOW (Women on Writing) for putting it all together, keeping in touch, and just being plain ol' fabulous. Can't wait for the next one.

blog tour kickoff!!

The Super Bowl isn't the only kickoff in February. My blog tour kicks off today on WOW -- Women on Writing blog. I am indebted to Jodi for putting this whole tour together for me. Jodi, I predict sweet things all around for the month of February!

Also, thank you everyone for your kind birthday wishes last week, and for all your support this past month. Faking It and Ordinary World had their most successful run ever, totaling over 10,000 Kindle downloads combined in one week and remaining on the Kindle Top 100 Best Sellers list (Faking It is currently holding at #10, while Ordinary World fell to #58). Both are still on the Top 10 Contemporary Romance Best Seller's list in the Kindle Store.

Tomorrow I will post my dates and blog appearances, but you can go to WOW (either link above) for a glance at the schedule.

Yay yay yay! Go Me! Go Jodi! Go WOW! Go writers! Go readers!

good news

On the eve of turning 40, the gods have blessed me with book sales.

As of this moment, Faking It is ranked #19 on the Kindle Store bestseller list, with Ordinary World following at #133. (I'm even beating out Dan Brown at #22!!)

Keep a few things in mind (and my ego in check): The Kindle Store rankings fluctuate quite a bit. Also, they don't necessarily reflect the rest of the market (i.e the New York Times Best Seller list). You'll see that most of the titles on the Kindle list are either free or priced at a buck, so you can see where the attraction really is.

But still.

I'd like to think that my price gets them to the door, and the writing keeps them inside.

And yet, I can't help but have an uneasy feeling about this. Booksellers and agents are voicing opposition to the low pricing, and claim that devaluing our books (beyond just price) is killing publishing. And I agree with them to a point, actually. Not necessarily that it's killing publishing, but it's certainly upsetting the industry, and I'm a part of that now.

But hey, I'm a bookseller too. And I can't help but think about how much fatter the check would be even if I at least doubled my price. But would as many copies have sold? They didn't the first time around (although I didn't have the patience to find out if the readers would've come around anyway). I've got readers now. And reviews. Good ones, too. That's what I really wanted all along.

But I worry if traditonal publishers will reject me now because I'm not playing their game and am part of the devaluing. I took advantage of the capitalist system, that's all. I persisted. It's the number one advice I get from agents, editors, and other writers. Persist.

Anyhoo... I'm getting off track here.

It's a neato birthday present, is all I'm sayin'. And it feels good.