Ebook update

As many of you know, I epublished my first novel two weeks ago, and three short stories a few months before that.  How has it been going?

First, let me point out that I have another guest post out as part of the Genesis Earth blog tour, this one on my friend Gamila’s blog.  Gamila reviews YA and LDS fiction, and is a big proponent of clean reads.  For my post, I wrote about the place of LDS writers in science fiction and fantasy and the unique things we have to offer these genres.  Fun stuff; you should check it out.

So now that that’s out of the way, how do the numbers look for my epublishing venture?  Not bad, actually.  In two weeks, I’ve sold twenty copies of Genesis Earth and gotten two five star reviews on Amazon, only one of which was from someone I know.  Not bad–I’m looking to get at least $50 from Amazon come September, which should be very nice.

The short stories have not sold nearly as well, however.  Part of it probably has to do with the fact that I’m not a super stellar short story writer, but another part probably has to do with the lack of promotion.  The review of “From the Ice Incarnate” by Red Adept Reviews did lead to a few extra sales for all my stories, but only about half a dozen or so.  Nothing spectacular.

Part of it also has to do with the sampling system, I think.  With ebooks, you can download a free sample (usually the first 10% of the text) and decide whether you want to buy it or not.  For Genesis Earth, that amounts to the first three chapters and then some; for the short stories, maybe a couple of paragraphs and that’s it.

So what’s the takeaway?  I think that novels work out much better as ebooks than short stories.  For one, you can justify charging more for them (I haven’t seen anyone selling short stories for more than $.99), and thus get the higher royalty rate. For another, they work much better with the sampling system; readers are much more likely to get hooked on the first 10% of a novel than the first 10% of a short story.  And lastly, I’d say that you need to figure out some kind of way to promote yourself and get your work out there.  Still working on that.

All in all, not too bad.  But here’s the really cool part (and I mean really cool): at my current cost of living, I estimate that I need to sell only 15 ebooks per day to break even financially.  At a consistent average of 25 books per day, I could justify quitting my “day job” (150% of all monthly expenses).

How is that exciting?  Well, get this: starting out the gate with very little platform or exposure, I’m averaging a little over 1 ebook sale per day.  If I could boost that up to 3 sales per day for 5 books, I’d be breaking even.  At 5 sales per day for 5 $2.99 books (~800 total ebook sales per month), I’ll be making a living.

See why I’m excited?

My goal now is to get up to 5 full length novels / novellas out before the end of the year.  Believe it or not, that’s very achievable.

First, I’ll be epublishing Bringing Stella Home sometime this summer, hopefully in time for worldcon.  Shortly thereafter, I hope to publish Sholplan as a $.99 novella.

My current WIP is the third draft of Desert Stars, and I bet I can have that ready before Christmas.  While I’ll put the whole thing out as its own novel, I like Emma’s idea of splitting it into two books as well.  I’ll probably title them Dome and Desert and Sand and Stars, and make the first one available for free just to get more exposure.

And at some point in between all that, I’ll finish compiling all my travel journals from the 2008 BYU Jordan study abroad and put that out as its own work.  That one should be fun, and a good way to experiment with in-text photos and illustrations.

That’s my plan.  The more I put my work out there, the better my chances at making it big.  And even if I don’t, if I have enough titles out and they all sell more or less consistently, I can still leverage that to make a full-time living.  And that’s my dream.

So yeah, I’m extremely excited.