So, huge news since last week's update on my self-publishing experiment!
I decided to alter the categories in which Eden appears on Amazon's Kindle page. Since its launch, the novel had been under the Crime, Thriller & Mystery section in Action & Adventure and Suspense categories ( Amazon only lets you pick two categories these days ). Being in these two categories meant that the novel was effectively competing with every other thriller novel in the world, reducing its chances of getting noticed. Even so, the book had reached the 2,500 spot in the rankings and was continuing to climb. I didn't want to risk upsetting this trend but felt it was worth a try to position the book in categories that would help it to stand out more. Furthermore, a couple of the book's reviews mentioned a few typos, so I wanted to hunt them out, correct them and re-upload the perfected novel anyway, so it seemed like the right time to do it.
In the end, based on the placement of other novels of a similar type, I switched Eden across to the Science Fiction category - Post-Apocalyptic and Dystopian respectively. I then went to bed with my fingers crossed for good news.
I awoke to the news that Eden had shot up into the 1,400 position!! I couldn't believe it, but overnight the book had risen much higher in the charts, and also hit the Science Fiction Top 100! At the time of writing this post, Eden is holding steady at 1,270 in Kindle Paid and is #3 in the Post-Apocalyptic category and #7 in the Dystopian category.
I knew that choosing an accurate category was important, but this has led to a re-doubling of sales, with Eden now selling around 70 copies per day. Fingers crossed now that a few of the blog reviews I've been waiting for will appear. Eden's currently got five reviews, all 5-star, so hoping to build upon that over the coming week
In other news, I'm half way through a first draft of a futuristic thriller which I'm keeping under wraps at the moment, and about to start a first draft of a new crime novel for my literary agent Luigi Bonomi. Keeping busy, but finding myself unable to refrain from checking how Eden's doing at least once an hour!!
2 comments:
Interesting point you make here about categories, Dean. Shows how we can miss the obvious with realising.
Great to hear it's doing so well.
Thanks Adrian! It really seemed to make a difference to the sales, so much so that I'm now switching one category back to the overall Action & Adventure chart, because I'll now be in the top 100 and visible to more people as Sci-Fi commands a smaller readership... Fingers crossed!
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