editorial

Book Sales Are Nothing to Write Home About: What is going on?

Irene Watson

What IS going on?  Every day I get at least two emails from authors expressing concern that their books aren't selling. They've done everything right:  marketing, publicity, social media, blogging, website, signings, promotion, promotion, and more promotion but it just isn't happening.  It's very discouraging.  Some blame it on economy and others blame it on availability of cheap (99 cent) or free e-books.

The economy may have something to do with it - I don't know.  In a recent discussion with author Theodore Jerome Cohen on this topic he said:

It’s difficult to say. But if ePublishing is the future, and it’s so easy to bring a book to, say, Kindle, the market will be flooded…with junk! Without good reviews, the ‘indie’ book market will flounder as readers abandon it and move to the more established writers, where there is some pedigree.  Not a good thought, is it?! I certainly don’t want to put out the effort and money in the future if the response to my latest book, House of Cards, which has only seen moderate sales, is what I have to look forward to. My earlier novel, Death by Wall Street, had a much bigger jump in sales right out of the gate just a year ago. Importantly, its release was heralded by reviews on Amazon.com from Reader Views, Pacific Book Review, and Feathered Quill. Now, these three reviews have been removed by Amazon management, and no such professional reviews, though available, have been allowed on Amazon.com for House of Cards. Which doesn’t make sense, because if my books don’t sell, neither Amazon nor I make money.

I can't disagree with Ted, but I'm also wondering if sales are down due to the fact that we are just inundated with books right now.  For example, in 2010 near 3,100,000 (yes, that's three million) titles were published.

In 2005 the total was 282,500. Comparing that to 2010 it's eleven times more over a period of five years. It will be interesting to see how many titles have been published this year because it almost tripled from 2009 to 2010.  Will we see four or five times more for 2011? It's very possible. Could it mean if we published in 2011 we are in the mix with 6 to 9 million other "new" titles?  If that's the case, it's not much wonder sales are low.  We end up being a tiny pebble on a huge beach and it's only by luck that we get picked up because someone notices us. (The stats are available from Bowker.)

Not long ago I saw a book on Amazon.com that was ranked over 8 million so that means they have cataloged over that many books for sale.  But, not all books are on Amazon.com.  There are many online sites that offer e-books not available on the major sellers' sites because they haven't been converted for Kindle or Nook. So, taking all that into account it's possible there could easily be 10 million or more books on the market right now.

So, what is the alternative? How do we get noticed? Is it really worthwhile publishing a book when there are no readers for it? I sure would like to hear your comments here.

PS - Update - Removal of Reviews by Amazon
Well, this is getting from worse to worser.  (Yes, that's a word!)  To my knowledge, as of this writing, there are 15 review sites that were victims of Amazon.com's purge of reviews and reviewers.  I know that individual reviewers have also been removed/banned but it's hard to know exactly how many.

The "worser" part is that Amazon.com has ceased sending response emails to queries by authors,  reviewers, and publishers except in one instance.  Norm Goldman, Book Pleasures, was the latest victim and one of the authors he did a review for contacted Amazon by phone.  He was told Norm removed the review and "They explained that any reviewer can remove a review within the first 3 months and it was done right at the 3 month mark." What?  That's a new angle.  I wonder how much these outsourced people get paid to make up stories.

I've contacted all the banned reviewers and suggested we band
together to take this to a higher level, e.g. press release to media.  Seven have responded saying they want to pursue this further, two declined to be involved, and I haven't heard from the others. I suspect they aren't interested. One of the reviewers is posting blog posts all the over the Internet and one has contacted the FTC.  One even suggested we create a petition.

And, we ask you to keep making noise...we want your voices heard.  Please continue to send emails to Amazon and contact FTC and your politicians.  And, if you'd like to get on board with us please let me know.  We can use all the help we can get because, as reviewers, we are busy reviewing books and maintaining our sites as support for authors.  We need help.  (Back story.)

PSS - Update - Books for Soldiers
Donations:
3363 Books
252 music CDs
15 T-shirts
16 movie DVDs
1 playing cards, 1 puzzle
2 envelopes full of drawings from children
53 pounds of candy
$10 donation to buy candy
$100 donation toward shipping

So far we've donated 121 boxes of books to the VFW for shipping to soldiers in Afghanistan and 21 boxes to individual soldiers or troops/chaplains requesting books through Books for Soldiers.  

And, yes, we are still accepting books! So if you have books to send, go here for the information.

featured this week

Fiction - Novel, Rehabilitation, Teen/Young Adult

Facing Demons

Ashley Sanders

Trafford Publishing (2011)
ISBN 9781426951701
Reviewed by Avni Gupta (age 17) for Reader Views (10/11)

Synopsis

Dedicated to “those who deserve a second chance,” Facing Demons, by author Ashley Sanders, is the often frightening, but also inspirational tale of how four teenagers tackle their self-destructive lives when they meet in a rehabilitation program. Each character in “Facing Demons” tells his or her story in first-person, which provides an emotional experience for readers and a deeper insight into the individual characters’ minds. When Rebecca, Jason, Felicity, and Matthew come together for rehabilitation, it allows them to find camaraderie and strength in knowing others have experienced troubles like them, and their fellowship provides them support in their recovery. Together, their journeys will lead them to conflict and adventure, danger and romance, but ultimately, hope for a second chance.

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featured this week

Nonfiction - Memoirs, Journey, Inspiration

Caged: Memoirs of a Cage-Fighting Poet

Cameron Conaway

Threed Press (2011)
ISBN 9780615521770
Reviewed by Joseph Yurt for Reader Views (10/11)

Synopsis

Accomplished MMA fighter and award-winning writer Cameron Conaway presents in Caged the true story of a young man who overcomes a family background and his own inner torment by learning to channel his frustrations into the physical world of mixed martial arts fighting and the cerebral world of poetry and writing. It teaches the value of personal reflection, how life's most painful moments can lead to a deeper understanding and appreciation of human nature, and just what is possible when optimism and determination combine to overcome tough odds. Caged shows how the pursuit of two seemingly disparate passions helped a struggling boy blossom into a simple man. The result is a literary and lyrical philosophical journey into the heart and mind of a modern-day warrior.

Read review of Caged
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Spotlight - reader views literary awards winner

First Place in Self-Help

An Alphabet of Good Health in a Sick World by Martha M. Grout, MD, MD(H) & Mary Budinger

New Medicine Press (2010)
ISBN 9781932842548

Dr. Martha Grout obtained her A.B. degree from Radcliffe college (now merged with Harvard University) in 1966 and her M.D. degree from Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania in 1971. For the next 25 years she served as an Emergency Physician in New York, Florida, and Arizona. She traveled the world to study with masters of medicine. She is Board Certified in Medical Acupuncture. In 1997, she moved to Arizona and obtained the Homeopathic Physician's license.

Mary Budinger graduated from the University of Arizona in 1976 with a BA in Mass Communications. She worked on the Tomorrow Show with Tom Snyder at NBC in Los Angeles and then spent a decade as a reporter in broadcast news in northern California and Denver, Colorado. She received a Rocky Mountain Emmy award for live reporting. Mary Budinger now focuses her efforts on complementary and alternative medicine. Her articles have been published inTownsend Letter and Explore! For the Professional and Health Consciousand Public Health Alert.

Synopsis: An Alphabet of Good Health in a Sick World allows readers to discover that illness is really your friend, your body's cry for help. There is a new paradigm emerging called green medicine and consumers are demanding more of it. Green medicine has a strong respect for the body's own healing abilities. Green medicine also recognizes that what we put into our environment, we also put into ourselves. It is paramount today to acknowledge the impact of food, chemicals, and electrosmog (wireless technology, electrical fields). If your doctor has little to say about them, then he's working with obsolete information. The new paradigm of medicine sees food as medicine, chemicals as more important than germs, and electromagnetic frequencies as a double edged sword.

Read review of An Alphabet of Good Health in a Sick World
Visit author's website

Enter Literary Awards Program
List of 2010 Literary Awards Winners

Spotlight - reader views literary awards winner

Second Place in Self-Help

Reflective Empowerment: Empower Yourself by Philip Guy Rochford

Outskirts Press (2010)
ISBN 9781432758486

Philip Guy Rochford has authored five motivational books, and co-authored two others. He specializes in Executive Coaching based on his extensive corporate experience of over 40 years. He was Chairman of a commercial bank, a petroleum marketing company, and an airline. For 15 years he was a director of Neal and Massy Holdings Limited, one of the largest business conglomerates in the Caribbean. He is a business economist, chartered accountant, chartered secretary, and chartered banker. He is a Certified Mediator, a Reiki Master, TM Sidha, and Feng Shui practitioner.Philip has five children and seven grandchildren. His wife, Edlin Dianne, is herself an author, and they live in Trinidad and Tobago.

Synopsis: Everything you think, say, and do make an impact on your life. You therefore have the power to make your life what you want it to be. Reflective Empowerment provides a simple, but powerful, program to design the life you want. It is a one-year program that builds one brick of empowerment, on another brick of empowerment, until your full brilliance of empowerment is unleashed. Reflective Empowerment offers a sustained, easy, approach to taking control of your life and doing the things that are necessary to empower you to be the best that you can be.

Read review of Reflective Empowerment
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List of 2010 Literary Awards Winners

This week's video

Shelby & Shauna Kitt and the Dimensional Holes

P. H. C. Marchesi

Out-of-this-world Books (2011)
ISBN 9780615475448
Reviewed by Ben Weldon (age 13) for Reader Views (4/11)

Synopsis

Who would want to have tea with mushrooms, when it’s a hundred degrees and humid out? As Shelby and Shauna Kitt find out, quite a few people. These are, of course, people from Miriax, a planet in a different dimension where nothing and no one is anything like what the thirteen year-old brother and sister twins expect. On Miriax, lilac tea is served with explosive mushrooms, agitex leaves cure motion sickness, stick insects patrol the jungle, and library books carefully choose their readers, refusing to leave the shelf for anyone else. And, if you’re not careful, the walls spit on you. Shelby and Shauna's lives change drastically when planet Miriax recruits them to seal a dimensional hole that allows Klodians - nasty aliens - to travel to Earth. In order to succeed in their mission, Shelby and Shauna discover skills they never thought they possessed, make friends they never expected to have, and face enemies they never imagined existed.

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