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One Week of Kitemaster

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Kitemaster & Other Stories has been on sale at Amazon and B&N for just over a week now, so I figured it was time for a quick sales check-in. In that first week, I sold:

Amazon: 45
B&N: 11

Not bad. 56 sales means I’ve earned back roughly 75% of the $200 I invested up front for the cover art. It’s significantly lower than the first week numbers for Goblin Tales [Amazon | B&N] though, which sold 66 copies at those two sites in the first 24 hours.

Why the lower sales for Kitemaster? I’m guessing it’s a combination of three things:

  1. Kitemaster is priced at $3.99, while Goblin Tales is $2.99. (Kitemaster also has a little more content.) I don’t know how much of a difference that extra buck makes. Keep in mind that each sale of Kitemaster also earns a bit more in royalties, so it might balance out.
  2. Goblin Tales had a direct connection to my goblin series, meaning those fans were probably more likely to buy it. Kitemaster lacks that link to my better-known work.
  3. With Goblin Tales, I did a few guest blog posts and generally promoted a little harder. While I did some promotion for Kitemaster, I didn’t do quite as much.

Sales on Kitemaster dropped off quickly after that first day, much more than Goblin Tales, but again it’s hard to say why. I didn’t see any significant boost in sales of Goblin Tales from the release of Kitemaster, either.

With only two books and several potential variables, there aren’t many conclusions I can draw here. The $3.99 price point seems to work, in that it looks like I’ll eventually turn a profit on the project. I do think you need to take a long-tail view on this sort of thing. The sales aren’t huge, but Goblin Tales continues to sell a handful of copies each week. Here’s hoping that trend keeps going.

My thanks, as always, to everyone who picked up the book, and especially those of you who posted reviews or mentioned it online. Very much appreciated!

iBooks and Kobo still haven’t gotten Kitemaster added to their stores. I’ll add those links to my bookstore as soon as I have them.

In the meantime, for anyone who can’t use the online stores due to regional restrictions, you can order the .epub file of Kitemaster directly from me through PayPal. Once I receive your order, I’ll try to e-mail the file (DRM-free) to you within 24 hours. If I’m at a con or something like that, it might take a little longer.