Sales slump

[JRTomlin]

For two days in a row my sales have dropped about 80% from the norm. May ranking is also worse but not as much as I would expect that that kind the bottom dropping out of my sales. 🤔

[LilyBLily]

I had a very good day followed by two very bad days, so I sympathize. Ugh. One never knows. I think it was Brian Meeks who said something like, "One day your sales will be huge. It won't mean anything."

[JRTomlin]

This was not like any 'bad days' I have ever seen before and I've been at this for a decade so I've seen my share of bad days. I have not had sales that low since about 2010. Panic over current events? God knows the news has been bad enough that it might cause panic. I honestly don't know, but that looks different than anything I've seen. Hopefully, tomorrow things go back to 'normal' whatever that is.

[Maggie Ann]

This was not like any 'bad days' I have ever seen before and I've been at this for a decade so I've seen my share of bad days. I have not had sales that low since about 2010. Panic over current events? God knows the news has been bad enough that it might cause panic. I honestly don't know, but that looks different than anything I've seen. Hopefully, tomorrow things go back to 'normal' whatever that is.

You'd think that given the current state of affairs, people would want to be diving into a book especially if it's free.

[Luke Everhart]

This was not like any 'bad days' I have ever seen before and I've been at this for a decade so I've seen my share of bad days. I have not had sales that low since about 2010. Panic over current events? God knows the news has been bad enough that it might cause panic. I honestly don't know, but that looks different than anything I've seen. Hopefully, tomorrow things go back to 'normal' whatever that is.

I doubt it's from panic. I just think a huge portion of the country is riveted by coverage and discussion of the protests and riots. It's a great national preoccupation right now.

[TimothyEllis]

I just think a huge portion of the country is riveted by coverage and discussion of the protests and riots. It's a great national preoccupation right now.

Yeah. Every time the disaster junkies get a good fix, reading goes down.

[PJ Post]

I just think a huge portion of the country is riveted by coverage and discussion of the protests and riots. It's a great national preoccupation right now.

Yeah. Every time the disaster junkies get a good fix, reading goes down.

That's not what this is.

[Gerri Attrick]

Yeah, sales slump here today - no apparent reason except I'm approaching the 60-day cliff mark. :(
 

[JRTomlin]

I just think a huge portion of the country is riveted by coverage and discussion of the protests and riots. It's a great national preoccupation right now.

Yeah. Every time the disaster junkies get a good fix, reading goes down.

That's not what this is.

One of those rare occasions when I have to agree with PJ.

[LilyBLily]

Meanwhile, the stock market is up again. Not fully where it was at its crazy high, but getting closer. Does that mean anything?

I assume Amazon has swallowed our sales whole and will never make them right. I always assume the worst from Amazon and then occasionally I am pleasantly surprised.

[JRTomlin]

I suspect that book-buying behaviour and the stock market aren't much related. Whether book-buying behaviour is related to mass protests the like of which we haven't seen in decades is a question I can't answer.

As for Amazon, I have no reason to believe that it is Amazon stealing money from our sales, but that is simply my opinion.

[notthatamanda]

Meanwhile, the stock market is up again. Not fully where it was at its crazy high, but getting closer. Does that mean anything?

I assume Amazon has swallowed our sales whole and will never make them right. I always assume the worst from Amazon and then occasionally I am pleasantly surprised.

It means traders are making money. Forgive me if I don't celebrate for them.

[Desomond X. Torres]

Situations like this REALLY makes me long for the days of Author Rank. If we were having a slow day (and yeah, I'm in that club bigly) a glance at Aurthor Rank would show that if it's steady (plus or minus 10 percent), it's just a bad day at the store overall. If OTOH it's cratered then I would set up extra promo efforts.

I'm attributing it to the Free KU for 2 months Amazon did in March has gone it's course. A lot of ppl who took a shot at it inflated sales. Those 2 months are pretty well used up now, so a number of custs have left the KU sphere.

Funny tho: 25-30% of our sales are out of the UK and they're holding pretty steady. In fact, they've gone up as a bigger share (over 40 when the day's slow). Which makes me think that there's something funny going on in the USA recently. Hmmmm.... whatever could it be?

[JRTomlin]

Situations like this REALLY makes me long for the days of Author Rank. If we were having a slow day (and yeah, I'm in that club bigly) a glance at Aurthor Rank would show that if it's steady (plus or minus 10 percent), it's just a bad day at the store overall. If OTOH it's cratered then I would set up extra promo efforts.

I'm attributing it to the Free KU for 2 months Amazon did in March has gone it's course. A lot of ppl who took a shot at it inflated sales. Those 2 months are pretty well used up now, so a number of custs have left the KU sphere.

Funny tho: 25-30% of our sales are out of the UK and they're holding pretty steady. In fact, they've gone up as a bigger share (over 40 when the day's slow). Which makes me think that there's something funny going on in the USA recently. Hmmmm.... whatever could it be?

Only a tiny portion of my income comes from KU since I am wide in almost all my novels. I do have three in, but they never get huge borrows. So for me, changes in KU are not causing the drop although drop is not quite the right word for plunging off a cliff.

There is no doubt that sales react to world events, although I am still not convinced that is what happened.

[Desomond X. Torres]

Situations like this REALLY makes me long for the days of Author Rank. If we were having a slow day (and yeah, I'm in that club bigly) a glance at Aurthor Rank would show that if it's steady (plus or minus 10 percent), it's just a bad day at the store overall. If OTOH it's cratered then I would set up extra promo efforts.

I'm attributing it to the Free KU for 2 months Amazon did in March has gone it's course. A lot of ppl who took a shot at it inflated sales. Those 2 months are pretty well used up now, so a number of custs have left the KU sphere.

Funny tho: 25-30% of our sales are out of the UK and they're holding pretty steady. In fact, they've gone up as a bigger share (over 40 when the day's slow). Which makes me think that there's something funny going on in the USA recently. Hmmmm.... whatever could it be?

Only a tiny portion of my income comes from KU since I am wide in almost all my novels. I do have three in, but they never get huge borrows. So for me, changes in KU are not causing the drop although drop is not quite the right word for plunging off a cliff.

There is no doubt that sales react to world events, although I am still not convinced that is what happened.

Is your decline across the other platforms as well?

[JRTomlin]

Yes, my sales are down across all platforms although it's most noticeable on Amazon. The sales are up today but still only partway to what I would consider normal. At least it is out of 'watch me have a heart attack' range.

[Indiecognito]

Yes, my sales are down across all platforms although it's most noticeable on Amazon. The sales are up today but still only partway to what I would consider normal. At least it is out of 'watch me have a heart attack' range.

Mine have been a little on the low side. I was attributing it to a ton of news and warm weather + relaxed restrictions which allow people to do things they haven't been able to in some time. At least, that's what I'm hoping it is...

[LilyBLily]

My sales are down but my reads are up. I only count Amazon because my sales on other platforms are negligible to nonexistent.

[JRTomlin]

Mine have gone up somewhat from their lowest point but are still low. My sales for the first 10 days of June are approximately 1/2 of sales for the firs 10 days of May. The lockdown here is only somewhat eased, but that may not be typical for the whole country.

[Desomond X. Torres]

I think you touched on something there: the lockdowns are easing, and people are doing other stuff rather than read for the next while as they adjust/adapt to the new reality. We're running at half of May's numbers as well (just checked).

So, having said that, I have to admit that it's been too long since we sent a newsletter out (I'm switching from Mailchimp to Mailerlite and am having a tough time w/ the new platform).

I don't know if anyone else is having a REALLY hard time writing, but that's the case w/us.

[JRTomlin]

I just checked what my June 2019 sales were since I didn't remember offhand, and this June's sales are set to be 30% lower than last year's. Summer is never great for me because apparently many people don't consider what I write good beach reads, but this is definitely worse than usual and it is well past a day or two variations.

[Indiecognito]

My summers tend to be slow. But I'm wondering if the same thing will happen this month as last, when a whole ton of sales appeared on my dash on May 27th. I haven't checked in but I'm assuming this happened to others, as well?

[LilyBLily]

I would love it if a ton of sales mysteriously appeared on my dashboard. Not holding out much hope of that. However, since the dearth of sales is across the board and I write in multiple genres and have a nonfiction book that routinely sells a few copies here and there, this situation strikes me as suspicious and unnatural. Not that there's anything I can do about it if sales are happening but Amazon simply is not reporting them. 

[Indiecognito]

Lily, did you have a big hunk of sales come in late May, or is it an anomaly? It's happened to me before, but this time it was hundreds of paperbacks all showing at once (not expanded distribution, but Amazon sales). It was whacky but welcome.

[notthatamanda]

I went looking because it sounded familiar:

https://writersanctum.com/index.php?topic=3690.msg72679#msg72679

[LilyBLily]

There was a spike in overall sales that was due to my Facebook ads. Looking more closely at my dashboard, my nonfiction book continues to have its occasional sales in June after all. So, I don't know. All ebooks. I recently raised my ad spend on Amazon, which makes this situation rather frustrating because clearly the budget is not being used; I can see that from the billing info.


 

[Indiecognito]

I went looking because it sounded familiar:

https://writersanctum.com/index.php?topic=3690.msg72679#msg72679

Thank you! That was the day.

[Indiecognito]

There was a spike in overall sales that was due to my Facebook ads. Looking more closely at my dashboard, my nonfiction book continues to have its occasional sales in June after all. So, I don't know. All ebooks. I recently raised my ad spend on Amazon, which makes this situation rather frustrating because clearly the budget is not being used; I can see that from the billing info.


 

I'm finding my ads super-wonky over the last couple of weeks, for various reasons. I've been tweaking keywords and budget and hopefully things will recalibrate. But I've been wondering if Amazon is up to something experimental...which is seldom good.

[JRTomlin]

There is absolutely no doubt that this month will be my lowest sales month in about five years. 😲

[Indiecognito]

There is absolutely no doubt that this month will be my lowest sales month in about five years. 😲

There’s something strange about this. I’m really curious to know if you see a flood of books sold around the 27th. I feel like there’s a glitch in the Matrix for you or something. :(

[JRTomlin]

I know someone asked about my sales wide and I don't think I ever answered. My sales wide are down approximately 50% in June from May. *scratches head*

However yesterday for the first time this month my daily sales went back up to what I would consider a normal level, so maybe the sky isn't totally falling.

[ashleycapes]

I'm switching aggregators so my wide sales are ruinous but my KU titles are done on June compared to May (significantly) despite similar levels of promo.

I guess it's (rightly) just a bad time for me to be pushing ebooks, especially in the US.

[MaxDaemon]

I haven't got enough history to really say, but I've had a stellar June so far.

[JRTomlin]

Glad to hear someone has had a good month. I just had a decent promotion on Apple which brought my sales up there and spend quite a bit of money on a promotion on Amazon on which I broke even. *sigh*

[notthatamanda]

What kind of Amazon promotion, if you don't mind me asking?

[JRTomlin]

It wasn't an Amazon promotion, just a Bookbub ad pointed at Amazon. It did well on CTR and what by industry standards is a good conversion rate. (CPM $9.84, clicks 482, CTR 2.37. I calculate it had about a 4% conversion rate) I still only did somewhat better than breaking even. Truthfully, I think the point of the whole exercise was to make me feel better by having something selling. I know that is silly but we are human after all.

How it happened, one of my novels is temporarily price reduced on Apple  for an Apple run promotion, which I did not expect Amazon to match, but they did so I thought, 'Well hell, I'll throw a few hundred dollars at BB ads to advertise the Amazon price reduction." I had been turned down for a BB promo so used part of the money I would have used for that. So I ended up about $20 to the good. At least I didn't lose money on it and that cannot always be said for BB ads.