Either Amazon is underreporting sales of my books (which I think, more and more, is a real possibility), or Facebook don't do nothin' for ya when you're trying to get people interested in your work. I've had a dedicated page up for "The Lyons' Den" for over a month, and even set up a Facebook ad...but though the page has 140+ likes and has (supposedly) been seen by tens of thousands of people...I'm being told there were no sales of books.
I don't know what's happening with Kindle; that system is still down and has been for more than 2 months. But even my sales reports on "Bobby Carapisi-The Complete Novel" are showing nothing, and I self-published that at a low price. Plus I've had that one's page and ad up on Facebook for two weeks. It's gotten 60+ likes...and it's gone dead in Kindle sales...according to Amazon.
I makes me leery of companies like Amazon and their whole setup. There's no way to verify their reports, short of hiring a lawyer and a raft of CPAs to dig through their sales figures. But I've long suspected they fudge their numbers, just like Hollywood producers do. Reminds me of the infamous story about "Coming to America", an Eddie Murphy comedy that cost $35 million to make, grossed $325 million worldwide, and was still $30 million in the red.
I know I'll never make a huge amount of cash off my writing; it's too niche-oriented to gain a wide audience. And none of the publishers I went through are doing anything in the way of publicity for the books, so that doesn't help. I paid for LD's ad myself. Not much -- just a $61.00 budget for 2 months, of which $25.00 has been used (I get charged by the click, if I understand it right).
But man...if this is future of publishing...
I don't know what's happening with Kindle; that system is still down and has been for more than 2 months. But even my sales reports on "Bobby Carapisi-The Complete Novel" are showing nothing, and I self-published that at a low price. Plus I've had that one's page and ad up on Facebook for two weeks. It's gotten 60+ likes...and it's gone dead in Kindle sales...according to Amazon.
I makes me leery of companies like Amazon and their whole setup. There's no way to verify their reports, short of hiring a lawyer and a raft of CPAs to dig through their sales figures. But I've long suspected they fudge their numbers, just like Hollywood producers do. Reminds me of the infamous story about "Coming to America", an Eddie Murphy comedy that cost $35 million to make, grossed $325 million worldwide, and was still $30 million in the red.
I know I'll never make a huge amount of cash off my writing; it's too niche-oriented to gain a wide audience. And none of the publishers I went through are doing anything in the way of publicity for the books, so that doesn't help. I paid for LD's ad myself. Not much -- just a $61.00 budget for 2 months, of which $25.00 has been used (I get charged by the click, if I understand it right).
But man...if this is future of publishing...
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