Yup, you read that title correctly. The wave has come and lifted my little SF novel up and over the rocks into the deeper water where the big boys surf. No more Boogie Boarding for this book. At least that’s the hope – fingers crossed.
Sales of Starstrikers have indeed increased by some 460% this month. What started last month as a trickle of sales amounting to 1 per day, has exploded into an average of 10 per day this month. My friend Nate offered to buy me a Coke when I reached 100 sales. I accepted and celebrated with a family cheers. That was a week ago. Today, the book sailed past 200 for the month and there are still two more days left in March.
The biggest question for me is why? The book has sat on the Kindle virtual shelves for nearly two years and suddenly last month people started noticing it. Then this month many, many people started buying it. Why? Near as I can tell it has to do with getting on Kindle lists. If you can get a few sales, enough to trigger your appearance on a list, then momentum seems to build and the higher you get on the list, the more books you sell.
As I write this here are the lists Starstrikers is on:
#17 in | Kindle Store > Kindle Books > Science Fiction > Adventure |
#26 in | Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction > Space Opera |
#33 in | Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction > Adventure |
The overall rank is: #2,053
I’ve been on and off the first page of the first two lists for several days now, which is making the book visible to that many more people. Also, the book is priced at less than a buck. At Amazon’s current payment system, 200 books means I netted about $70.00. Nothing too incredible but for this author, it’s the most I’ve ever earned on any one piece of fiction.
Will the book have legs? Will I sell more than 200 next month? Will it surge higher and higher or drop off to unknown land again? Only time will tell.
Bye the way, Kindle sales of Null_Pointer, my mystery novel have peeked at 6 for the month. So apparently, not every SF nerd is a computer geek.