Will number of downloads translate into books sold?
Yesterday morning I posted that starting with the first of the year, I’m giving away the ebook of Republic for free. The million dollar question is, will books downloaded translate into a ratio with books sold?
Of course, it’s not an academic question. The evidence out there, with Baen publishing being the big example, is that giving away ebooks translates into longer term sales for the author. What’s been particularly interesting about this is that I never expected the response the post has received so far.
866 Diggs thus far, and the link is at the top of the Lifestyle section of Digg. Nice. The blog entry got something in excess of 40,000 hits, and the ebook had more than ten thousand downloads by the time the server crashed last night. Chris Anderson over at The Long Tail has blogged about it (which is pretty cool) as have a few others. I’ve since moved the ebooks to Mediafire to relieve some of the bandwidth pressure on my server, which is currently maxed out at 99%.
Thus far, Amazon sales rank hasn’t budged from it’s normal, which averages anywhere from 60,000 to 130,000 (lower is better). As of this moment, it’s listed as #59,615 in books (out of roughly 3 million titles), and #36 on the Alternate History list. Awesome, when you consider that this range includes writers like David Webber (#30), S.M. Stirling (#34), Newt Gingrich (#38), and Harry Turtledove (#41). On the other hand, not that great, when that sales ranking actually translates into roughly 2 copies sold today, or $14 in revenue.
Of course, the real test is not today, but next week, next month, and the next year. Will people who downloaded the book for free then turn around and buy it? Will they recommend it to friends? Will they help me actually earn a living as a writer?
We shall see. That is the experiment, isn’t it?
Anyway, if you are reading Republic and enjoying it, you’ll be happy to hear that I’m well into the sequel, and still hope to have that completed this year.
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Delays, and more delays
posted 08/11/2008
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posted 04/16/2008
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That said, I most definitely will buy the sequel. And if I can find a less worthy book to exit my collection (which I bet I can), I will buy your book. Excellent stuff, man, excellent. And if you want a quote from a completely random guy, I'm going to put something like this in my blog. "Republic is one of those novels that has you hooked from the start. It's an extrapolation on the fears we face today as citizens of the United States, and the fact that it feels treasonous just to read it indicates how fitting this book is for the modern time. Sheehan-Miles' stark novel connects the dots between 9/11 and Totaltarianism, and does so in a human manner that is both approachable and frightening." Thanks! Jarrod
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