Category: Nonfiction Books

General publishing announcements

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Book Promotion Methods and Effectiveness

Lots of people claim to have “the secret” to promoting books. After all, your book is awesome, isn’t it? The problem must be that you aren’t promoting it. You can attend workshops, courses, and buy books that all proclaim The Secret.

For SSH Mastery, I’m responsible for all of the promotion. I’ve followed the usual advice: I have a blog, I have Twitter, I have a fan page on Facebook, and so on. You can stalk me through any method you choose. I also have real-time access to sales data from Amazon, Smashwords, and Barnes & Noble.

For this example I’m going to use Amazon data, because Amazon provides very nice graphs through Author Central. If you’re an author and you are not on Author Central, get on it NOW. (Then check it only once a month or so.)

Here’s the graph for Kindle sales of SSH Mastery, since its release.

from Author Central

Note that Amazon’s sales ranking algorithms are rather mushy. More than once, according to Author Central, this book has cracked the #10,000 limit. Most of the time, Amazon retroactively changes that. The peaks shown are generally within a day or two of when the sale took place, however. While this is undesirable, it’s better detail than the quarterly or biannual resolution you get from a publisher.

So, what have I done to promote SSH Mastery? I’ve blogged it. I blog every time it gets a mention in the press. The blog goes into Twitter and Facebook. I also comment on the book via Twitter.

I also thank people when they say they buy the book or when they review. Even when they don’t like the book. (This book has received all five-star reviews, but more on that later.) Being known as a nice guy, or at least a polite one, or at least “not a screaming jackass,” has publicity value all its own.

So, how does all this impact book sales?

There’s been four reviews or “general public statements about the book that might not be exactly a review” that I know of:

Peter Hansteen, 22 Jan 2012
Justin Sherrill, 2 Feb 2012
Alexander Leidinger, 3 Feb 2012
Richard Bejtlich, 6 Mar 2012

(Wow. I forgot to blog Bejtlich’s review. He is my biggest fan and a staunch advocate of my work, and I completely failed to blog his review. I done him wrong. I’m a doofus.)

There’s also been good reviews posted on all of the ebook sites. I don’t appreciate them any less, but those reviews only help when people go to the retailer’s site. That means that they already know the book exists.

Compare those dates to the spikes on the graph. Keep in mind the mushiness of the Amazon ranking algorithm. You’ll see that the spikes roughly match up with the reviews. (If I had taken snapshots of this graph on the actual day and the day after the review, the spikes would be much more apparent, but I didn’t think of that until today. Yep, I’m a doofus.)

There’s another small spike around 20 February that I have no explanation for. I don’t know why it’s there, but I’m glad to see it.

The initial high sales came from the folks who follow me via my blog, Facebook, Twitter, or some other promotional medium. I was thrilled to see fans buying my work, and of course I appreciate every sale. But that surge didn’t last long, and it’s not enough to sustain a career.

But reviews expose the book to entirely new audiences. Reviewers are force multipliers. Nurture them.

In my case, the reviews are all positive. If I really wanted to do an experiment to test the “reviews are the only effective publicity” hypothesis, I’d write a lousy book and see how those reviews impacted sales. But my authorial pride outweighs my scientific curiosity.

So, the most effective promotion tool? Reviews.

Other than that: Shut up and write. No, quit jabbering and babbling. Shut up and write. Those words you’re going to use on a comment on this blog post? Put that energy into making your book awesome.

Shut up and write.

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SSH Mastery print now on Amazon

You can now buy the print SSH Mastery from Amazon. The print version isn’t yet linked to the ebook version, but that will happen within 1-3 days.

To my surprise, Amazon has not discounted the book. I don’t know why. I spoke with their author support desk, and was told that some books get discounted and some do not, according to some internal algorithm that only Amazon knows. All of my other books get discounted before publication. I assume that SSH Mastery will be discounted as well, but I have no idea when. (Yes, Amazon has an author support desk. From clicking “Call me” to resolution and hanging up the phone, total time 2 minutes 29 seconds. I am impressed.)

For those who are interested in the numbers behind the print version:

  • If you buy from OpenBSD, I make zero. The proceeds go to support OpenBSD/OpenSSH development. I am perfectly content with this.
  • If you buy from Amazon, I make about the same as I would if you bought the ebook.
  • If you buy from my CreateSpace store, I make about twice as much money as an Amazon purchase. But there’s no Amazon Prime, no free shipping when combined with other purchase, and no discount, ever.

    Some thoughts on the CreateSpace store, while I’m at it:

    CreateSpace gives me the store automatically, for free, so I link to it; otherwise, I wouldn’t bother setting it up. Purchases from here are “giving the author extra money because you want to.” And to my surprise, someone actually bought one there, so: thank you, anonymous buyer. (Note that Amazon/CreateSpace also makes more money when you buy from the CS estore.)

    In the event that people actually start buying from the CreateSpace estore, I’d probably set up a PayPal tip jar, so that those folks who want to give me extra money can do so and still get free shipping and/or discounts. It’s a step that I’ve avoided, but if people actually want overpay me for work I honestly own, who am I to argue?

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    SSH Mastery Print Here

    Today, I received a good proof of SSH Mastery. All of the errors I know of are fixed.

    I’ve ordered 200 books for the OpenBSD Project. Those books should be manufactured this weekend and delivered next week. (For the record, the OpenBSD guys have been a pleasure to deal with.)

    Amazon should have the books available in ten days or so, Barnes & Noble and other Ingram-connected bookstores a while afterwards.

    If you absolutely must have the print book now, you can order it through my CreateSpace store. Of all the ways the book is available, I make the greatest profit on books sold through the CS store. (It also charges list price, so I’m not going to push it on people. Only order from there if you want to give me extra money.)

    If you want to pay full price, you can order it from OpenBSD. I give them the books at cost, and the rest benefits OpenBSD and OpenSSH.

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    Print pre-order for “SSH Mastery” now available

    The OpenBSD folks have made pre-orders available for SSH Mastery.

    I’m giving the books to the OpenBSD Project at cost, and they’re selling them at list as a fund-raiser. I make nothing on books ordered through OpenBSD, but the money will go to further OpenBSD, OpenSSH, PF, and who knows what else. I’m going to imagine that the money will support the annual developer barbeque, as buying beer is more fun than buying hardware.

    I will make a decent profit on books sold through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and brick-and-mortar stores. (Yes, I can get books into brick-and-mortar stores, with a bit of luck, a smidgeon of effort, and just a few ounces of blackmail.) I figure it’ll even out; the general public will order from Amazon.

    When will the books arrive? Once the proofs are approved, I’ll order the OpenBSD books before I approve sale through Amazon. I don’t know when that is yet, but believe me, I want this book out there.

    So, if I make nothing on this, why do it? It’s a good way to support a widely-used project that has written software that makes my job easier. So order yours now!

    Plus, I write about open-source software projects, preferably BSD-based ones. This means that I have to maintain good relationships with those projects. Not only am I a geek, I work at home. My usual social interactions consist of ignoring the threatening emails from the boss, the pet rats asking for treats, and the nagging phone calls from the social worker asking if I’ve taken my meds today. As you might guess, maintaining good relationships is not my strong point. If you have trouble keeping friends, try bribery. I hear it works a treat.

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    “SSH Mastery” print status

    Thursday, I received the first print proofs of SSH Mastery.

    Initial impressions: the print version looks good. The photo doesn’t do the nice glossy cover and bright colors justice, but:

    After careful inspection, though, I found a few errors. The interior images are not as sharp as I would like. Some of these I can’t really help: printouts of screenshots look like crap. But I’m more concerned about pixellation in diagrams and images.

    Plus, there’s an extraneous colon on the back cover.

    If I want this book to be taken seriously, it needs to look like a real book. So I’m getting the layout corrected and running another round of proofs. I suspect I’ll get the new proofs late next week. If those are OK, I will be able to open orders.

    I’ve been working with Austin from the OpenBSD group to get their ordering up soon.

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    January “SSH Mastery” sales, by the numbers

    I’ve promised several authors to share the results of my self-publishing experiment with SSH Mastery. I don’t have complete data yet, but I do have sales numbers for January from Amazon, B&N, and Smashwords.

    Some caveats here:

  • This includes only “SSH Mastery.” I have removed my fiction from the totals. (Fiction sales are considerably lower, but growing.)
  • February’s initial results are much lower than January’s. January’s sales are obviously to my “hard-core fans” and people close to the community.
  • My expenses aren’t yet totaled, as the print version isn’t available yet. I expect them to come in at roughly $3000. The majority of this expense is the class I took to learn how to self-pub properly, which is a one-time expenditure. A business person would argue that this expense doesn’t count, as it should be spread across multiple books. But as an author running a test project, I have to count this expense somewhere, so it’s attached to this book. Also, these expenses are only cash out of pocket; they assume my time is free.
  • On a related note, an accountant would probably find my reasoning naive. I already have two careers (writer and engineer), I’m not going to add a third.
  • I’m not going to regularly report sales numbers to the general public. I will say when I break even.

    • Before I published, I expected to make most of my sales through Amazon, then Barnes & Noble, and then Smashwords last. I had no idea of how many sales I would make, but I figured they’d be in that order. Let’s see how this compared to reality.

  • Amazon Kindle: 123 books sold (92 US, 12 UK, 14 DE, 2 FR, 1 IT, 2 ES), for a total of $810.27 USD at today’s exchange rates. (Amazon reports European royalties in euros or pounds.)
  • Barnes & Noble: 4 books sold, for $25.96 USD.
  • Smashwords: 76 books sold, for $607.65
  • Total: 202 books sold, for a total of $1443.88

    • Some interesting things here:

    I’m shocked at how low Barnes & Noble sales are. The book was available on B&N a couple days after Smashwords and Amazon, mainly because getting the book through B&N’s internal systems took longer. Apparently my readers don’t use the Nook.

    Smashwords sales as a proportion of total sales is much higher than I expected.

    Averaging the royalty per book is also interesting.

    Amazon: $6.58/sale
    Smashwords: $7.99/sale
    B&N: $6.49/sale

    You’ll hear lots of commentary about how Amazon offers a 70% royalty on ebooks. This has all sorts of exceptions and exclusions, where you’ll only get a 35% royalty. My effective average royalty at Amazon is about 65%, so that’s not bad.

    Barnes & Noble, at just under 65%, offers the worst net royalty.

    Smashwords: I love you. Just saying. My core audience really wants the book as PDF, and Smashwords offers PDF, epub, mobi, and all the other big ebook formats with one purchase. And they pay me the highest per-sale royalty. I still haven’t gotten the book through Meatgrinder into the other channels they feed, such as iBooks and Kobo. Once that happens, I expect to see their percentage rise. I wouldn’t be surprised if they overtake Amazon.

    The real lesson is: sell your work through all available channels. You can’t tell who will buy what from where.

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    New review of SSH Mastery, and print pre-order status

    There’s a new review of SSH Mastery over at DragonFlyBSD Digest. I’m delighted that Justin liked the book. (Mind you, I’m appalled that he’s actually reading and paying attention to the minutia I occasionally post here. But I’m delighted he liked the book.)

    On the pre-order front: Austin Hook just ordered 200 copies of SSH Mastery for the OpenBSD Project. He will be listing the book for pre-order “soon.” I’ve given them the greatest discount possible, and they’ll be selling the book for list price. Proceeds will go to support OpenBSD/OpenSSH development. I will fill Austin’s order at the first opportunity.

    When is that? When the book exists in finished form. I reviewed the print layout today, made some corrections, and sent them back to the layout person. If she doesn’t kill me outright, I’ll be able to order proofs in a few days. If the proofs show an error, I do another cycle. (Print pages look nothing like on-screen pages.) Once I approve the proofs, I can order books.

    A normal publisher (whatever that means) would have a scheduled print time. They’d push out the release date, and delay the book if necessary to fit that window. That gives them a known release date. Me, I’m not going to set a sufficiently-padded arbitrary date when I can get them sooner.

    And for those of you who wonder when I’m going to quit pushing my wares and post techie stuff again, I’ll have a post on DNSSEC deployment next week.