It’s been fifteen days since launching the print version of Jefferson’s Road: The Spirit of Resistance on Createspace, and letting everyone know about it via Facebook and email. In that time, I’ve sold 6 e-books and 11 print books. Granted, I sold 2 print books in late February, when the book went live (bringing the total to 13 so far). Thus, I’ve earned a little more than $60 for two and a half weeks of sales in print, compared to $95 for all the e-books I’ve sold in the last nine months.
Reflections: there definitely is more income from print than e-books. I have to wonder whether or not I still have the price set too high. $13.99 for the print version, and $2.99 for the e-version. I am considering dropping the price on the e-version to $.99, which is what a lot of authors seem to be doing with success (à la Hocking and Konrath, etc.), but my heart wants to wait until Patriots and Tyrants comes out. At that point, I think I’ll price Patriots and Tyrants at the current rates for Spirit of Resistance, and then drop Spirit of Resistance’s price down to the lowest possible, which is $.99 for the e-book, and $11.99 for the print version (which happens to be my coupon price). It’ll be interesting to see what happens to the book once I drop the price.
Another thought: I must work harder to get the word out. Now, I’ve sent in the press release to the Webster Post, and that hasn’t come out yet. That will let 10K readers in the local community know about the book. And I have to send a copy to Bob Lonsberry over at WHAM 1180 (contact courtesy of my friend Blanca). I don’t know whether or not I’ll hear anything from the D&C, but the press release I sent them is still out there.
Nor have I done anything with the blog chain info that Joy sent me yet. I still have to look into that as a way of getting the word out.
So, I’m not done. Not by a long shot. And I’ve yet to get more books out there selling, which I’m still working on. I’ve produced more than 10K words in the last three days, and that’s trying to finish two novels at once. The only bummer is that I won’t be applying anything with The Elixir of Life to my self-publication efforts, because that is going straight over to Ellechor Publishing House just as soon as I finish with the edits (which comes after I finish the manuscript, of course!).
In the meantime, I have a host of back novels that I started and never finished (with the exception of one), and I can pull these out, dust them off, and see if I can’t breathe some new life into them. Think I’ll post a poll and get feed back from anyone on which novel they’d like to read…