Not Lost in a Book
Slate   May 5, 2024

“…At least among one audience, books are dying...the exact audience whose departure from reading might actually presage a catastrophe for the publishing industry—and for the entire concept of pleasure reading as a common pursuit….Sales of ‘middle-grade’ books—the classification covering ages 8 through 12—[is] the only sector of the industry that’s underperforming compared to 2019.…kids in third and fourth grade are beginning to stop reading for fun….at age 8, 57 percent of kids say they read books for fun most days; at age 9, only 35 percent do….the very age when, according to publishing lore, lifetime readers are made….any number of causes for middle-graders’ lost love of reading [screen time, schools teaching reading to test, librarians worry for book bans, publishers chasing bestsellers, etc]…adds up to an environment where kids are less passionate about reading and, even if they somehow do get excited, they’re less likely to discover the book that will keep them excited….”

https://slate.com/culture/2024/05/kids-reading-fun-books-decline-by-nine-crisis.html

Quote from: Lorri Moulton on May 01, 2024, 10:54:41 AM

I send everyone to my website and store, but I also have retailer links at both places.  I make it clear I don't mind if they buy from retailers. I want them to do what's best for them. 

I'll get paid (eventually) either way, but having a site and/or store gives us a chance to showcase the books a bit before they go to retailers.  I hope they've decided to get the ebook by the time they click that retailer  button.

Totally agree, I've always liked how you can completely control the presentation of the books on your own website. No doubt, I'll be trying this approach again sometime (Einstein's definition of insanity...)

It isn't necessarily insane. We deal with a lot of variables in self-publishing, most of which we don't have accurate stats on. Einstein was assuming someone was doing the same thing over and over with no difference in circumstances. But our circumstances are fluid.

I send everyone to my website and store, but I also have retailer links at both places.  I make it clear I don't mind if they buy from retailers. I want them to do what's best for them. 

I'll get paid (eventually) either way, but having a site and/or store gives us a chance to showcase the books a bit before they go to retailers.  I hope they've decided to get the ebook by the time they click that retailer  button.

If you search by my name (first and last, not just last), you can find my books.  If you search by my last name only, I only have one book on page 1.  If you search by title, they'll come up.  If you search by like anything else, you will probably never see any of my books.

That is why the idea of selling direct is more and more appealing.  If the only way that someone can find my books is via my website or any social media pages I might have, why should Amazon get a cut?

I wonder how many other people have this experience? It's been a long time since I did a general genre search and found myself--but then again, I'm not looking for myself so I might not even have noticed.

This month, over 61% of my sales are from AMS ads, if the records are to be believed. But the other ones must be coming from somewhere. I'm not seeing much effect from Substack yet, and it's been ages since I saw much from FB. My own website furnished only a few clicks to Amazon. Even if they all became sales, that doesn't sound like all of the sales are accounted for. Organic visibility of some kind is all I can think.

Well, we the vanished can take some comfort in Herman Melville's comment to his worried father-in-law:  "...independent of my pocket, it is my earnest desire to write those sort of books which are said to ‘fail’...”