{"id":9498,"date":"2017-01-06T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-01-06T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thewritelife.com\/?p=9498"},"modified":"2022-10-28T13:48:27","modified_gmt":"2022-10-28T17:48:27","slug":"dealing-with-low-book-sales","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thewritelife.com\/?p=9498","title":{"rendered":"How To Deal When You Experience Low Book Sales"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Today, we\u2019re taking a look at the numbers again. I finally got my Q3 sales report; that’s for the months of July, August and September.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

To be honest, my book sales numbers are pretty terrible this quarter. I\u2019m really embarrassed by them, to the point where I considered not even providing specific numbers in this post.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But that is not what we agreed to, and it would not be in line with the frank, no-holds-barred look at publishing for the debut author that I promised you.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

So here goes. Please have mercy on me.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the three months of Q3, I sold 40 copies of my novel.<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"low<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Thank you, Buffy. My thoughts exactly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What the heck happened?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

These months were decidedly my most sluggish ones, which resulted in some low book sales.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In July, I had no promotion activities planned, as I was still na\u00efve enough to think I could make a go of sales from online outreach alone. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nope. <\/span>Don\u2019t do that.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was also still in the throes of drafting the novella that I am now giving away for free to build my email list<\/a>, so I did not even have the strongest weapon in my online arsenal yet.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Goodness, July feels like a lifetime ago\u2014I can\u2019t believe I was so inactive for an entire month. It\u2019s been a sharp learning curve this year!<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In August, I at least got myself to the Writer\u2019s Digest Conference, but that offered little in the way of sales opportunities.<\/span> Perhaps another writers’ conference<\/a> might have offered more help? (The Write Life has a list of best writer conferences<\/a>.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thankfully, by September I had wised up quite a bit. I organized a panel of writers for my local comic con, and was able to negotiate free vendor tables for all the participating writers in trade. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

So I got some extra book sales out of it, and a lot of new email subscribers.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I also met some great authors, which led to more opportunities in later months.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also at the end of September, I finally released my free novella to create a sales funnel for my email list. <\/span>Since then, I\u2019ve had 205 novella downloads and 321 new email subscribers.<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

On top of a pretty measly sales effort on my part, I had completely lost the momentum from my launch at this point, and my publisher did not offer any marketing<\/a> support at this stage.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What I’m doing now to address low book sales<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Because of the delay in these reports, I am happy to be able to say that I have learned a lot in time since the months reflected in this report.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A few other good things have happened that have helped improve my situation, too, like <\/span>winning a big award<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

All the same, this quarterly report was a real kick in the pants to keep working at getting better. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Events have served me well, and I have a number lined up for 2017, but there are only so many places I can be.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For long-term growth, I need a stronger online sales funnel.<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

So I\u2019ve got some big plans in the works to reach some goals. Among them:<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n