The one year anniversary of publishing my debut novel, KILLER INSTINCTS, came and went earlier this month without me even realizing it. However, I wanted to take a moment and reflect on the last twelve months, and provide a few observations.
- In 12 1/2 months I've sold a little over 600 copies - roughly an average of 2 a day. However, 60% of those sales occurred in the last three weeks of April, after BookGorilla caught on to my free Ebook promotion of the title and passed it along to their subscribers, resulting in almost 12,000 free copies going out the door in 3 days. In May sales dropped VERY quickly down to 50 copies sold that month, and I'm estimating about two dozen sales for June. In the months leading up to April, the best I've ever managed was 30 sales in one month, and that was right around the time I started with Amazon Select and doing free promotions. So, essentially the only way this title has been able to stay active has been through the use of promotion "bumps" in visibility, which have to be constantly repeated to get any continuous sales figures. Doing some vague napkin math, I've had to give away about two dozen copies of KI for every sale.
- On the more positive side, the book has gotten some really solid reviews. The lone two-star Amazon review is so insubstantial as to really give no more than a "Meh...", and I'm fully aware that the book isn't going to appeal to everyone. Beyond that, even the 3-star reviews are generally positive and expressed enjoyment, with a few quibbles here or there. In general, people seem to like the writing, enjoy the action sequences, and dig the characters, even when the whole plot seems a little "unrealistic". I'll take that as a win overall. I've also had strong support for a sequel, something I hope to begin working on at the end of 2013.
- I think there's an interesting balance between niche and visibility. KILLER INSTINCTS is clearly a "vigilante revenge" novel and falls into the "thriller" category, as well as "crime". When I do a search in All Departments for "vigilante revenge", KI shows up as the 19th result (which isn't actually that bad...). In contrast, when I do an All Departments search for "British Commandos", Operation Arrowhead shows up as #3. Although KI has a much broader marketing base as a crime thriller than COA has as a niche WW2 action novel, COA began to outsell KI by a very wide margin within a few weeks of its release, even in the US (where sales were about 1/3rd of my total sales, the majority being in the UK). It makes me suspect that it can actually help your sales to aim for a small niche market where the competition is scarce, rather than aiming to be a small fish in a very big pond. Operation Bedlam, a title that's been out less than 3 months, and has never had a single free promotion day, has twice the sales KI managed over 12 1/2 months...
- It helps to have friends. When the novel came out, I'd already had a strong support base from people on Twitter and Facebook, as well as other bloggers and writers, both amateur and professional. Guys like James Reasoner, Brian Drake, Mark Allen, and Stan Mitchell - writers who have their own fan bases who both read their books and their blogs - helped spread the word and provide me with some great reviews. On the other hand, Operation Arrowhead was very quickly outselling KI without any of that exposure, so great reviews by guys who see substantial blog traffic don't always equate directly to sales figures, except perhaps as a temporary "bump".
- Ultimately, I see KILLER INSTINCTS as a sort of art-house project of mine, something that gets critical acclaim, but without any real financial success. I think it is a "better" book than either of my Commando novels, but clearly it is not carrying a proportionate degree of financial success. If time "on the shelf", as well as the number and quality of reviews was a direct indicator of sales, KI should be blowing both my Commando novels out of the water, while the opposite is true - heck, my short story "The Train to Calais" vastly outsells KILLER INSTINCTS these days. If $0.99 titles had the same royalty percentages as $3.99 titles, I'd make more off that one short story than I do from KI in every month save April.
And so, that's where we are. I am certainly glad I wrote KILLER INSTINCTS - I felt it was a story I had to tell, and the characters and "world" it created not only influence the Commando novels, but will influence many other stories to come. However, its mediocre success compared to my other works did cool my enthusiasm for writing a sequel, which is why I have a number of projects I want to write first, before I return to work alongside William Lynch again.
