January 30, 2011 · 9:14 am

People Are Actually Buying My Book On Smashwords

I put the book up on Smashwords on Thursday and people have actually been buying the book. Looking at the stats section of Smashwords for my books is interesting. For DESPAIR! five people have downloaded it and four have actually shelled out the $2.99 to buy it. My friend Omar, who writes the blog Lingua Franca: http://epiac1216.wordpress.com/ did me the honor of the very first sale and I wish there was some way I could have given him a signed copy.

Smashwords, without a doubt, is not a site with a million hits a day like Amazon or Barnes & Noble, so I’m quite happy that the book has been selling at all. When you publish on Smashwords they have what they call the “Premium Catalog.” They review the submissions and if they meet all the formatting requirements and a few other things then a book or story is released to Amazon, B&N and other book sellers. Right now my submissions are under review. If they make the cut and appear on Amazon then I think I will actually start making sales that will be a nice supplement to my income.

I find this all quite exciting. So much so that I’m working on my next submission. If I can get it up to the proper length, 10,000 words minimum, I might just try and submit it myself to Amazon’s “Singles” section which is reserved for short works of between 10 and 30,000 words.

3 Comments

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3 responses to “People Are Actually Buying My Book On Smashwords”

  1. Simone Benedict
    January 30, 2011 at 10:42 am

    Congratulations! Thank you for sharing your success and best of luck to you for more sales.

    Thanks for stopping by my blog and taking the time to leave a comment. I’ve bookmarked your blog and will check it out when I get to the info plaza’s wifi. The USB modem I use at the house can do little more than emails.

  2. Omar Upegui R.
    January 30, 2011 at 12:04 pm

    Hi Richard:

    I deeply feel it’s a matter of a short period of time, till you find your book Despair being sold at both Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

    e-books sales are on the rise and the mainstream book reader is coughing out their money in this new market. Amazon Inc. is very aware of this, and this is why they came out with the Kindle e-book reader and the Kindle apps for the PC and mobile phones.

    A new publishing industry is developing before our very own eyes, even as we speak.

    Regards,

    Omar.-

    Omar, this was released on the 27th of Jan.

    Amazon.com announced fourth-quarter financial results today, saying it hit two milestones: It had its first $10 billion quarter, and its Kindle book sales had overtaken paperback books as the most popular format on the giant bookseller’s site. Since the beginning of the year, it has sold 115 Kindle books for every 100 paperbacks sold (not including free books). During the busy holiday quarter, net income jumped eight percent to $416 million on a 36 percent increase in sales, compared with the previous year’s period. Revenues totaled $12.95 billion, which fell short of the $12.99 billion analysts were expecting, according to Thomson Reuters.

  3. shoreacres
    January 30, 2011 at 1:37 pm

    Hmmmm…. If “Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man” could make it, why not “Portrait of the Artist as a Panamanian Ex-Pat Penpusher”? 😉

    Truly – it’s going to be fun watching you develop this. Fun, and instructive. If you can have fun, too, it’s even better. I suspect you’re having a whole bunch of fun!