What book sales teach us

Well, the up side: Love or Lust is selling; yay for me.

In fact, this is the first lesson: contrary to logic, it is easier to sell a $3.99/£2.62 book than it is to give it away. DriveThru and Smashwords report no one has taken a free copy. According to Amazon the paid copies are just traipsing along at a steady clip. I won’t ask. I mean, really folks, I appreciate that people are paying for it but I’m not starving – my day job pays terribly, but it does pay.

Next lesson: approximately 1/3 of Americans don’t know what a sample is for. How do I come to this statistic? Well, it’s the best guess I can make when a full 1/3 of my US sales were very quickly returned, if the person started reading and changed their mind … you know, like in the span that the sample would have covered.

Corollary lesson: Brits don’t have that problem. The sales there are coming slower, but are catching the Americans up and they seem happy with the purchase.

Kobo can’t tell time. 36hrs is, last I checked, greater than 24hr. Greater in this context means more, large. It does not mean better. I’m still pending there, but I don’t know why.

This has been an … educational experience.